Is this racist

[Whoiam]

I am seeing many posts about Charlie Kirk being racist. I also note that there are references to his stance on DEI.

I am interested, is this racist nowadays?

https://youtube.com/shorts/8HDYrISA1TY?si=m7vBABFnGn-6uqBy

YABU- yes
YANBU-no

60%? It was 81.7% in the 2021 census and that was only England and Wales. I hope your stats aren’t used in any quota based employment.

So very true.

It's not speaking ill of the dead. It's simply factual.

The thread is about Charlie Kirk and his comments on DEI. He is American and the context is the USA

As such I wouldn’t think demographic data from England and Wales is relevant.

I did more searching on the internet and looked at the ONS. Still seems that us British Indians do really well. We are well educated and get good jobs. My family don't at all feel we are victims in the UK. It doesn't bother me if people have inherent biases towards people like them. It's only natural and human behaviour.

DH and I both grew up with barely anything. We didn't have many material goods but we always good work ethnic.

I do support stuff that helps people gain a good education, gain skills. But I also support personal responsibility. DH and I had nothing growing up, we just worked hard, moved here and raised our beautiful children.

I do think it's a fair point to assess and loop at hardship in life, but I wouldn't hire on baseless ethnicity or diversity quotas.

Oh

And in the UK that isn't what happens.

But there are groups which start from a point of disadvantage - ethniticy, poverty and family breakdown are intertwined and aggravate each other. Breaking that cycle for promising young people is an investment in the next generation which will pay off in terms of tax revenues gained and benefit and health costs saved. Making that investment seems like common sense to me. The young person in question will still have to work hard and study hard and have the will to succeed, but they won't have to work twice as hard, study twice as hard and have to overcome more hurdles than someone brought up in a situation where there is no deprivatio

I think your focus on British Indians alone is a bit 'I'm alright Jack'. I'm white, middle class, university educated. I'm also a victim of serious DV and a single parent. My DC aren't disadvantaged, they've done well despite all of that (and despite major disabilities for my youngest). But the one I have fostered did come from a chaotic environment with abuse and no support. He's now working, has a partner, is securely housed. Without my support, he would have none of those things. I was there to give him a hand up and I could afford to do it, but it just shows that the safety net would not have been there for him. We shouldn't leave people like him adrift, we should be picking them up, training them up and helping them get the lives they deserve - to the benefit of everyone.

And also, first time round the gammons chose a white woman who even I could see was woefully under qualified for the job, over the brown guy who was actually not a bad PM, all things considered. Let’s not pretend he was any of the Conservative Member’s first choice.

He was mine. Made me feel very proud as a Hindu

People always have to lose out in an interview situation. There’s only one job. The point of DEI is to make sure the candidates are diverse so that when they get to the point where they are being considered for the job, it is only on merit. He is being assessed only for his suitability to do the job. You seem to think middle class white man will always win.

The only thing middle class white man did that the diverse candidates didn’t was be middle class white man.

And yet the quality of firefighting has not reduced. Seemingly it wasn’t necessary for fire fighters to have the physical attributes that had been in place for centuries. Given the changes in mechanisation, technology, automation, the physicality required was less.

Try driving a fire truck from the 80s v a modern fire truck. It’s like night and day.

Oh this is funny. Bless you, you reported my post pointing out what is blatantly obvious, and yet the post where you stated that “we all know deep down” that hiring practices which ensure diverse candidates are given a fair crack at the whip is very dangerous, is still there for all to see. But let me guess, you’re all about free speech and probably think people take offence at anything these days. 😆

I’ll try this once more. The fact that there is an over-representation of white men in employment, as far as you are concerned is purely because diverse candidates haven’t been good enough? You think Merit Man’s race plays absolutely no part in him getting the job? None at all?

You asserted we all know it leads to negative outcomes. If we all know that, how do we know it? There must be some data that backs it up. Or some examples?

No women? Are you sure about that? None? Ever?

the first female firefighter was in 1982. They clearly passed all the physical requirements as they stood in the 80’s and 90’s.

i would argue as well that with modern training methods, gyms, CrossFit, the fashion for muscles on women etc there are more women now able to pass stringent fitness tests than in the 80’s.

the main barrier to women in jobs such as firegfighting in the 80’s and 90’s
was lack of facilities. No female changing, no women’s bathrooms. The first female firefighter in London, also in 1982 states she didn’t even know if women could apply, so she applied under her initial rather than her name.

oh and all the evidence I can find suggests fitness tests were not harder in the 1980’s and 90’s, just not standardised. So if you have evidence to the contrary, please post.

Men kill 3 women per week. 1 in 4 women live with a partner who is physically abusing them. Men go on the rampage when their football team loses. Of the ones 1 million violent crimes committed in 2024, 80% of them were carried out by men.

Anger is an emotion, men seem to have trouble regulating that. Perhaps they should cry more.

Why do you care? No industry is going to represent demographics equally, why would you expect this?

Nobody expects pinpoint parity. But a gap smaller than the current yawning gulf would be nice - unless you genuinely believe that women and ethnic minories are that much less intelligent and capable of doing the top jobs.

There’s an interest gap. A lot of women don’t want to go into hard sciences and the wealthier a country is, the more we tend to choose interests that align with our personal interests. If you studied humanities, you’ve no right to complain, as you are part of the problem too.

If it was about one industry you’d have a point. It isn’t.

Nobody expects a complete demographic representation, but when one demographic is represented more than any other, in the vast majority of industries and more so when you get to management positions, it’s not unreasonable to ask why that could be. Those who claim it is entirely down to merit are suggesting anyone other than white men just aren’t as good, and yet nobody has given any proof that’s the case.

Men make up 15% of primary school teachers but 30% of primary school head teachers. That doesn’t strike you as a little strange? It doesn’t make you wonder why women aren’t rising to the top of that career to be over represented at that level? You think it’s because they just aren’t good enough?

11% of nurses are men. And yet at Band 8 (senior leadership) it rises to 17.5%.

18% of social workers are men, but 40% of social work managers are men.

Men are twice as likely to make it to management positions in female dominated industries than women are. You believe that is based purely on merit? It can’t have anything to do with the deck being stacked in their favour even a little bit? That’s it, men are just better than women? How depressing.

I care because when a workforce, a society is run by men, it doesn’t represent the needs of those it is supposed to be working for. Whether it is the design of products (e.g seatbelts designed to protect men and not women) medicine (clinical trials done only using white men) or government policies (austerity affecting women and minorities more) or thousands of other smaller decisions taken by white men that affect our daily lives, don’t you think it’s much better if the people who are in charge of things look even a bit like the people they are supposed to be representing?

If your “personal interests” are shaped by a society long before you are developed enough to be making choices, that’s a problem.

When every piece of media is skewed towards you making the choices handily set out by your stereotype is it any surprise you’d make those choices?

Girls are choosing, and passing stem subjects in larger numbers than ever. The % of women in stem careers has barely shifted, and again, very underrepresented in management. I guess women just aren’t that good at sciencing.

That, and, firefighting uniforms not being designed for women.

He was one of the least worst of all the Tory PMs we had in the last 14 years. Theresa May was the other but they both suffered the same “glass cliff” issue. They really didn’t stand a chance given the situation they were in. Neither of them were actually chosen by anyone to be the leader, although May did win an election. Or rather, she didn’t lose it. They both stepped up when nobody else would and that’s to be applauded.

I think Sunak 15 years ago would have been a decent PM, but he got sucked into the politics of the party over the years and was trying to balance keeping all sides happy, knowing how quick they all were to stab the leader in the back. I’d have liked him more had that not happened. I was proud to see him on the world stage, he presented and represented the U.K. very well.

Yep. I always find it interesting that in single sex girls schools the uptake of humanities vs. Science is much more balanced.

co-ed schools significantly more boys take up maths and science, girls stick to humanities and arts.

nothing to do with stereotypes and social pressure 🙄

even in the 90’s I was one of 3 girls in my physics gcse class, the only girl in my a’level class. And this was a massive state school. My friends at the much smaller, local all girl private had a much bigger uptake in maths and science.

i was also the only girl in my year 8 woodwork class. Every single girl took home ec, every boy took woodwork. Out of 300 kids in my year.

and yes, I got a shit ton of grief for it. Mainly from the teachers who didn’t appear to know what to do with a girl.

Men make up 15% of primary school teachers but 30% of primary school head teachers. That doesn’t strike you as a little strange? It doesn’t make you wonder why women aren’t rising to the top of that career to be over represented at that level? You think it’s because they just aren’t good enough?

It's not that women aren't good enough. It's partly that many women just don't want the role. I'm a female teacher and I'd rather gnaw off my own arm than be a head teacher, it's an utterly thankless, miserable, 24-7 kind of job. You barely spend any time in the classroom teaching, which is the part I actually like doing and I'm good at.

It's controversial to say it but some people simply want certain types of jobs more than others do, and that sometimes broadly aligns with demographic groups. That's one reason why quotas don't work if you only look at outcomes rather than opportunities.

I remember that we were pushed to consider STEM careers, speakers coming in and practically begging us to do science-related careers. Practically crying when we said we wanted to study things like sociology and psychology 😆

It just wasn’t going to happen. Why would
we enter a field we weren’t particularly interested in to make other people happy?

I think it’s no coincidence that numbers are more evenly split in developing countries. When you are poorer, personal interest is not as meaningful as a good paycheck.

In a developed country, you are more likely to ‘follow your bliss’ and do something you actually like doing.