Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

A lot of people keep saying that #Fediverse #moderatuon doesn't allow conservatives, but we actually have a lot of #conservatives here. The issue is that one of the main differences between the far right and the far left (for whatever that even means) is that people on the far right can't seem to even get through a few posts without saying something flagrantly racist or sexist or dropping a racial slur or calling a cisgender female boxer a man or claiming Kamala Harris is a "diversity hire" without any further explanation of why they would think that.

The numerous, broad, and generally unrelated groups that people refer to you as "the far left" don't tend to do things like that.

If these conservatives want to be part of the conversation, maybe they should learn to respect the conversation itself, rather than crying about #censorship every time someone says "no, you can't barrage the conversation with slurs and misinformation."

Show threadEpix_3Aug 10, 2024
@Raccoon
While I agree with most of what you're saying Biden has a track record of hiring people on the basis of race and gender rather than ability even vowing to do so multiple times
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈

@Epix_3
Except this isn't the same as what's being discussed.

Sure, an effort is being made to put women and black people forward, but these are from lists of qualified candidates, not just random people off the street. Calling someone a "diversity hire" is an old way of implying that they're ONLY here because they're black and/or female, which, when you say it about a highly qualified candidate, implies that black people or women can't be qualified in the first place.

Saying that people like Obama or Harris are only in the positions they're in because they're black discounts the fact that they both had years of experience that led up to them being qualified for those positions. These are people who have practiced law at a high level, who showed themselves capable of organizing communities to solve problems, who were elected to the Senate by the citizens of their states.

That's not a "diversity hire", that's a qualified individual who happens to be black.

Aug 10, 2024 at 4:39pmWeb
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

@Epix_3
So yeah, Biden is looking at his list of highly qualified people, this handful of people who meet all the criteria necessary to be acceptable picks, and he's making the choice of picking someone who isn't white or male, because so often that has been a major criteria.

And in politics, that IS relevant: the purpose of this whole system is to democratically represent the citizens of the United states, and half of them are not white, and half of them are not men. A government that is entirely made up of white men, who don't have first-hand experience with the issues being faced by black people and women, isn't representative of those people. It certainly doesn't help to build an air of legitimacy for all of us who aren't white men.

So yeah, this was a factor at some point. That's just a fact.

The part that makes it racist is acting like it's the primary factor: she wasn't on the short list because she was black, she was on the short list and happened to be black.

Show threadEpix_3Aug 10, 2024
@Raccoon
When an employer refuses to hire anyone other than a black woman it's very hard to argue they were the most qualified for the job. If they were as qualified or more so than others why would the Biden admin need to cull everyone except black women from the list of potential hires? This practice is discriminatory towards everyone except black women which includes groups such as every man, Asians, Pacific, Irish, indigenous, white or Hispanic, etc people.
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

@Epix_3
There's this idea being thrown down, that there is an objectively "most qualified" candidate for any job, especially one as broad and nebulous as an elected federal official, which doesn't really have much merit. There are probably hundreds of people who are fully qualified to be president, and have proven that over years of experience, who we never even consider. It's impossible to know which one of them would be the objectively "best" at the job, at some point the only way to narrow them down is to pick one and see what happens.

...so Biden decided, of the many qualified candidates, to pick a black woman.

But once again, Kamala Harris isn't in the position she's in JUST because she's a black woman, which is what using this as a line of attack effectively means... Which pretty directly implies that, of all the black people who have ever applied for that position, the only way one of them could even be qualified for it is through some sort of handout.

And that's racist.

Show threadEpix_3Aug 10, 2024
@Raccoon
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

@Epix_3
So you feel like you're talking to a wall when I say "attacking Kamala Harris by calling her a diversity hire is racist because she's clearly qualified" and you say "but Biden wanted a black woman and she's a black woman." because I'm not immediately flipping around and saying "oh yes, this news headline of Biden saying something 4 years ago out of context, and this other one of him responding to racist remarks by Donald Trump, is clearly indisputable evidence that the first black woman to be run as a major party candidate is clearly not qualified and only there because she is black."

Is that what this image means?

Show threadEpix_3Aug 10, 2024
@Raccoon
100% IDC if Kamala is qualified or not never did. I think it's fucked that the government is currently picking certain people for offices on the basis of skin color (racism at the institutional level). And if it was really about representing demographics why wouldn't he pick a Hispanic VP over an African one? Choosing your running mate based on skin color is racism.
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

@Epix_3
Well you have every right to have a problem with it, because yes, it is a mess, but do you have as much of a problem with people discriminating against black people and women? Because that's the reason they do stuff like this.

If there wasn't such intense discrimination against black people and women, there wouldn't be any argument for favoring them among the qualified candidates, because they would already have those positions in the first place on the basis of being qualified for them.

Think about this: how many white men get into positions of power on little more basis than they are born into the right family, have the right connection, or just look good on camera when they smile? Because not being qualified is literally the issue that people have had with Donald Trump for decades, long before he even actually ran for president as opposed to just talking about it.

I don't think Trump supporters have any basis to make arguments of qualification on.

Show threadEpix_3Aug 10, 2024
@Raccoon
If it was really about fixing the issue of discrimination why aren't they doing anything to fix the alleged systemic racism inst as of just making a black woman the vp to simply create the appearance of such? 99% of the racism these days is down to racist individuals and not the federal government by playing these dumb games all they're doing is taking the attention away from the real issue (the multibillionaire oligarchs who run/fund basically every political candidate). These little pitty parties or whatever about discrimination don't do anything to fix the root of the issue
Show threadRaccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Aug 10, 2024

@Epix_3
Look, let me put it this way, because you're always asking about what the actual rules are...

We can talk about the fact that he specifically wanted a black woman from his short list, we can talk about how much that maybe played in, and we can talk about the benefits and drawbacks and merits of that decision.

But that's not the argument I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically about the people using "DEI Hire" as a main attack against her, as if she has no other qualification.

She was vice president for 4 years, she was a senator for 4 years before that, and she had a long long career as a lawyer and elected legal representative at the state level before that. She was one of the top candidates in the Democrat primary when Biden was running for the nomination in 2020.

These are all things we can talk about that have nothing to do with her race, so if someone wants to call her a "diversity hire", as if that's the only thing worth talking about, I consider that racist.