Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

Wait, what is "neo-Marxism"? When he's not busy "waging moral war on Disney", Rufo is full of weird stuff like this --- "neo-Marxism" is a turn of phrase most famous for its use in Jordan Peterson's nonsensical coinage "postmodern neo-Marxism".

Marxism is distinguished as an ideology by totalizing class consciousness. That's the opposite of wokeness, which ratifies identity politics. In fact, "wokeness" is a fault line in modern leftist Twitter thinking, between the populist "dirtbag left" that eschews DEI-speak and the university left. Just how much work is the word "neo" doing in that name?

Most "DEI wokesters" are the farthest thing from Marxists. They're jealous and enthusiastic beneficiaries of the mortgage interest tax deduction.

"Collapsed mainline Protestantism"? Explain! Does being a Catholic draw me closer to or further away from "wokeism"? Because I have things to say about the intersection of DEI culture and Catholicism.

There are two parts to your question which I think are important to address: the importance of role modelling in general; and the importance of ethnicity/gender/sexual identity in particular.

First, role models are important because they show you what is possible for you to do. It's much easier to copy what someone has done before than it is to experiment yourself. For example, imagine the different types of work you can do to make money. Would you imagine that you can make money playing video games without seeing other people making money? Watching e-sports or streaming informs you that these are careers where some people are successful at earning a living. Role models are proofs of concept in ways to live your life. Without them, you would have to experiment yourself and make a bunch of mistakes on your way to living that kind of life.

Secondly, ethnicity/gender/sexual identity affect both your path and your destination. At least historically, people in the U.S. have been told that they can't do things because they are who they are, whether through explicit discrimination or by a prejudiced view of their capabilities. Seeing someone succeed in a role with a shared characteristic shows that the characteristic doesn't prevent you from achieving that role.

Furthermore, the way that these role models fulfill their role can be different than "normal". For one, their success may show that you don't need to hide aspects of yourself to protect yourself from others. Being gay is different from being out and known as gay. If it's easier to be out in some professions than others, then you may avoid being e.g. a teacher because the cost of remaining closeted may make it not worth doing. The role models aren't just for you to emulate, they are also comrades in social acceptance.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that these aspects are never the entirety of a person's identity. They are specific aspects which sometimes have zero impact, sometimes a great deal of impact, and very rarely total impact on a situation. The important of ethnicity/gender/sexual identity will vary based on the time and place. Ethnicity, gender and sexual identity are important parts of role models in the U.S. because those have been important parts of identity in the U.S. which have major influence on what people can do. Maybe their importance will wane with time, and other aspects of your identity will rise to prominence.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It was newsprint, so the color is not clear.

Maybe the dog was brown:

https://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1862.gif

Not that it matters much.

I agree with the quote from the Wikipedia article:

Sociologist Sherry Turkle elaborates: "You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words."

> Marxism is distinguished as an ideology by totalizing class consciousness. That's the opposite of wokeness, which ratifies identity politics.

It's an ideology that replaces Marxism's "totalizing class consciousness" with a "totalizing race consciousness."

> Just how much work is the word "neo" doing in that name?

A lot, and the "Marxism" is doing very little. It's a clumsy construction. But the meaning is clear in context.

> "Collapsed mainline Protestantism"? Explain!

It’s a religious revival, but without Jesus. They’re descendants of Puritans who don’t believe the theology anymore, but have the same religious zeal, sense of moral universalism, and faith that America's institutions belong to them. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbbxQqKXUIk (warning: offensive period language). I’ve had several experiences with woke whites where, when I pointed out that the minorities they purport to speak for disagreed with them about this or that, they responded with the same sentiment as Matt Damon in the final line of that clip.

I don’t know anything about Catholicism. I will say that there’s something about America where every religion takes on elements of Protestantism—especially the reliance on the conscious of lay people rather than doctrines announced by learned religious authorities.

I don't know about falsifiable, and I think you never reach a goal as broad as eradicating ethnocentric thinking, but one way to short circuit a lot of this nonsense is to somehow achieve a lot more intermarriage between disparate ethnic groups, as well as mire immigration.