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MAGA: I hope you liberals can see now that DEI was always the problem. And I know what you're going to say, no that doesn't make me racist, facts don't care abo–
LIBERAL: Oh definitely.
MAGA: wait what?
L: I agree with you. DEI is 100% the problem.
M: Explain...?
L: See, here we were, the majority, all ready to get behind our candidate and really do some wonderful things in this great nation, all united behind one single cause. But then, out of nowhere, diversity struck. MAGA, the Tea Party, christofascists, the KKK, even literal actual Nazis, all under the banner of "Republicans". I don't think we need all that Diversity. We're going to get rid of it.
M: wait what do you mean get rid of—
L: But how did all that diversity gain power, when the majority was against it, you ask? I'm glad you asked. The electoral college. This DEI policy has gone on too long. It allows a bunch of red states with tiny populations to think they deserve equity in terms of voting for president. Obviously that Equity needs to stop.
M: but that would mean Kamala—
L: And it gets even worse. Because not only do red state minorities think they get to have equal voting power for president, they also think they get to be included in the Senate! Imagine, a tiny red state that's mostly dirt like Wyoming or Montana thinking their ideas about the law are as important as a gigantic world economy like California. Clearly, we don't need Inclusion either. The majority left can just write your laws for you.
M: no I don't want—
L: I'm so glad we're finally on the same page! Finally, after all these years of divisive rhetoric, we can band together and work to rid ourselves of the scourge of the Republican party, the electoral college, and tiny red states in the Senate. DEI was ALWAYS the problem. Down with DEI! Down with DEI!
M: BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT DEI MEANS
L: well what did you think DEI meant?
M: I THOUGHT IT MEANT BLACK PEOPLE
L: There it is.
@Lana@beige.party DEI was explicitly about preventing this kind of racist patronage. It EXPLICITLY helps to keep mediocrities from undermining group effectiveness with their prejudice
I understand the desire to co-opt their terminology. But Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is not a term they made. Renaming it desegregation or whatever is just such a sad step backwards
I understand that leftists do not own the media, but realize that accepting the premise of "DEI bad and leads to a lack of merit" is poison
@ariaflame @cykonot @Lana whoa. The point went flying over someone's head...
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame i understood, thanks.
So what you're saying is, you knew that I, a woman, knew the point I was making via very obvious satire, but you, a man, still felt the need to explain my idea back to me. Gee if only there were a word for that.
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame maybe you don't care to understand my point.
Sparky, "your point" is my point, explained back to me as if I was too stupid to understand my own point.
That's the point.
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame I can make my own points and comments. I'm sorry if you feel that they lack merit.
I'm sure that if i used gender to ironically disparage people, no one would point out the harm.
/s, for those who need it.
I'm very aware that white women have been the primary beneficiaries of DEI policies. I am also aware of ongoing efforts to resegregate the workplace. I don't think snarkily pretending i lack reading comprehension when i merely commented on language is nice.
No, I did not think my own points lack merit. That's why I went to the trouble of making them via the very obvious use of satire.
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame I don't know how i could take that away from you.
Have confidence.
@Lana@beige.party @OldAndCranky@sfba.social @ariaflame@masto.ai you misread me again, by the way. I did not say you think your own comments lack merit. That would be odd.
Edit: if misreading me was a joke, I'm not sure what the punchline would be? I did not misunderstand you initially, purposely or otherwise. Which i explained.
I'm not going to correct your communication. But I'll note that you switched to a serious mode to accuse me of mansplaining, only to purposely misrepresent me. Unless, ofc, you misunderstood.
Good day
@Lana @cykonot @ariaflame i'm starting to think this person just can't understand satire or parody. Some folks can't.
@OldAndCranky @Lana @cykonot True, not all forms of humour work for everyone.
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame i think some women wouldn't like it if I called the incompetent loyalists recieving Trump's patronage "girls who couldn't cut it" and implied they were getting benefits on that basis.
DEI was most often used by Republicans to disparage people of color. They are branching out now, but if you look at earlier usage in their propaganda i think you'd see my point. They called a black Mayor the "DEI" mayor. i think they started using it inclusively more after the planes
@Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame when they were attacking black women heading academic institutions, the DEI was the color. At that time, they weren't purging white women.
@cykonot That usage of DEI as a code word for black or brown people is exactly what the original sarcastic post was about. @Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame
@EricFielding @Lana @OldAndCranky @ariaflame i still understand that. I'm not the language police. What point are you people making?
I also think that using woke sarcastically can be uncouth. But maybe i have a different perspective on some things.
The only reason i commented, was that a great many people on this network were using DEI in that manner. In other circles, that usage wasn't so prominent. So i commented on a popular post.
This social network has a very particular tone.
Ironically, focusing on verbiage is something the OSS (CIA predecessor) recommends as a way of sabotaging and derailing meetings & organizations (page 28, item 5).
https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf
Again, I'm not trying to be the word police. But on that day, DEI was primarily being used to mock & denegrate. Having seen what happened to "woke," I decided to add another perspective.
I understand sarcasm. I was not trying to "cancel" anyone. I wanted visibility. I didn't (try to) hijack the thread.
The post was already somewhat viral. Maybe pointing out potential impacts of joking in that way was rude, but the original poster didn't even say that. Whether or not she understood what i meant is something only she knows. She certainly didn't want to engage with it, other than to accuse me of missing her point and being sexist. Which i don't think was a joke or sarcasm.
I'm generally the one joking & being scolded on this site. I like to think I take input well, but maybe we all can be better
I know i was being a buzzkill. I just thought the value of people on this site seeing my comment outweighed this potential blowback. Considering the fact that they only accused me of being unable to detect sarcasm 3 days later, I don't think I actually bothered them. She changed arguments repeatedly, all while trying to paint me as having poor reading comprehension.
Most people argue to win. But the only thing she seemed after was painting me negatively. Engaging further did not feel productive
I'm not really the type to argue, frankly.
The best points stand on their own.
I didn't impune her in my first comment, but feeling rebuked doesn't surprise me. That said, i think she took a very unfair and disingenuous tack. I never asked her to validate my views, though she claimed my point on language was the same as lampooning republican hypocrisy while amplifying their warped definitions.
Her post wasn't bad, really. I just wanted visibility. Hopefully i won't miss much, after blocking
I think it was incredibly... Something... To say that a person of color highlighting how language has been weaponised against them is "mansplaining." Apparently, one mustn't mention something so very off-color in the presence of a White Woman.
I worked towards that further up, but was derailed. Nevertheless, a disorienting accusation. While trying to paint me as a buffoon! And flip-flopping between angles and tones.
Maybe experiencing this around Black issues on mastodon shouldn't surprise me.
@Lana @cykonot @OldAndCranky Oh, are they a mansplainer? That explains a lot.
@Lana It wasn't the electoral college, not this time at least.
I'm all for getting rid of it, also all for dethroning your king,
but you need a better understanding of what happened, or it'll just happen again.
No, I don't know what it is. I suspect it's capitalism and the accompanying need to be better off than at least someone else, but i'm not sure. Ask people smarter than me.
@Schneems
hard to count...didn’t turn up to the polls because “my vote doesn’t matter” #BlueStates #RedStates and #nationalpopularvote 
and #rankedchoicevoting
We know 89 million registered citizens didn't vote on Nov 2024
Harris 74.8 million __ Trump 77.2 million
@sonic81
#electoralcollege getting rid of it
Big waste 
campaigning #swingstates
@iam_sysop
#FoxNews ONLY news you get, those areas
AND #Sinclairbroadcastgroup #rightwing newspapers radio
@sonic81 @Lana The electoral college and the Senate were both antidemocratic hacks to sweeten the deal for slave states to join the union without having to give voting rights to their whole human population.
It was always about protecting the power of white rich men and that's all it's ever really done.
@gooba42 @sonic81 @Lana The Senate exists as it does because the Union was formed from independent states, who insisted on retaining equal representation in some form. That's what the Senate does. The House represents the People proportionately, regardless of state. (Well, in theory. It's gotten more unequal over time.)
It was the 3/5 compromise that served the interests of slave states, but that's separate from the above.
@gooba42 @sonic81 @Lana No. This is popular myth, but it's just not true.
The US almost didn't happen. It was dodgy from the start, and for 13 years was a loose confederation of independent countries. This is why we use the term 'state', which means 'sovereign polity' (instead of province or some other term). Our Constitution is filled with compromises, and this one -- which is actually CALLED 'the Connecticut COMPROMISE' -- is one of them.
/cont2
@gooba42 @sonic81 @Lana /2 Our Constitution GUARANTEES States original sovereignty. Functionally, that means equal representation at the federal level. The US Senate is thus REQUIRED BY LAW as an essential aspect of US government, without which the US WOULD NOT EXIST.
I know this is difficult to understand, and I know that people LOVE to claim that early America was just nothing but hateful racists, but the reality is much more complicated.
###
@sonic81 @Lana The EC is however a large and growing problem here, because it enforces increasing electoral disparity. Mainly because the House (our lower federal chamber) has only 435 seats, ostensibly representing 340M people across 50 supposedly equal states, but each gets at least 1 Rep. That's led to increasingly severe distortion in federal representation that does indeed empower the GOP more than Democrats, for no other reason.
And it's much worse in the US Senate.
@sonic81 @Lana I guess it has something to do with a vast amount of people swimming in a pool of Desinformation 24/7 because freedom of speech and press cover basest shameless lying.
I'm not saying I know how to fix this problem or that it's easy to fix, maybe it's not even possible to fix it without giving up on basic freedoms. But that doesn't make it go away.
@hllizi @sonic81 @Lana Look at the BBC and germany's public broadcasting. There is much to improve on both, undoubtedly, but the general idea is having media that is independent from quotas and money. Everyone pays a little, regardless wether you watch it, no commercials allowed & certainly no expensive gifts.
Right wingers and fascists hate nothing more, proven by how relentless they want to get rid of it.
The best sign that the idea is sound. Not everything needs to make profit, certain things should be independent from capitalism.
@markotway right? Notice how after all that nonsense and bargaining and gaslighting, what it actually comes down to is he's mad that black people and women have jobs.
@Lana @markotway
Oh. My. God.
I'm speechless...
@Lana @markotway Yes, exactly, that’s what this whole mess is all about — we don’t need the so-called complicated analysis, or soul introspection, or whatever — it all comes down to the simple, stupid, and tragic fact that a bunch of shallow people would rather ruin their country than vote for a woman, a brown woman, to be President.
@Lana @markotway
Wow, that convo is an amazing example. I wonder if the folks disparaging DEI have ever actually had to *hire someone, anyone* or *manage people* using DEI protocols? It's not about quotas. JFC.
Honestly, these days it seems it's probably more "Latino and non-hetero people."
Except maybe in the dark South?
@Lana
I love this kind of verbal sparing with the low IQ folks. Logic is not their strong suit.
@Lana Therrrrrrrrrrrrre it is
@Lana This needs to be redone as some sort of Calvin and Hobbs or something! Brilliant!
@Lana If the 48 states that give ALL their electors to the winner would instead split their electors according to actual state vote results (i.e, win 60% of vote get 60% of electors, aka “common sense”) as they are 
free to do (ask Maine and Nebraska) then voila!!! the Electoral College works correctly. No Constitutional Amendment needed. Congress not needed. Hillary woulda won in ‘16. But whatever, lets not fix the real problem and just bitch and moan about abolishing it for another 150 years.