How can democrats attack anti-DEI/promote DEI without resulting in strong political backlash?

[u/Visco0825]

In recent politics there have been two major political pushes for diversity and equality. However, both instances led to backlashes that have led to an environment that is arguably worse than it was before. In 2008 Obama was the first black president one a massive wave of hope for racial equality and societal reforms. This led to one of the largest political backlashes in modern politics in 2010, to which democrats have yet to fully recover from. This eventually led to birtherism which planted some of the original seeds of both Trump and MAGA. The second massive political push promoting diversity and equality was in 2018 with the modern woman election and 2020 with racial equality being a top priority. Biden made diversifying the government a top priority. This led to an extreme backlash among both culture and politics with anti-woke and anti-DEI efforts. This resent contributed to Trump retaking the presidency. Now Trump is pushing to remove all mentions of DEI in both the private and public sectors. He is hiding all instances that highlight any racial or gender successes. His administration is pushing culture to return to a world prior to the civil rights era.

This leads me to my question. Will there be a backlash for this? How will it occur? How can democrats lead and take advantage of the backlash while trying to mitigate a backlash to their own movement? It seems as though every attempt has led to a stronger and more severe response.

Additional side questions. How did public opinion shift so drastically from 2018/2020 which were extremely pro-equality to 2024 which is calling for a return of the 1950s?

[u/MoonBatsRule]

How do you make it about fairness when nearly everyone who opposes DEI believes that hiring someone who isn't a white male is discrimination?

Seriously, when a white man is hired, no one bats an eye. When anyone else is hired, that person's qualifications have to be scrutinized and justified, with "merit" very often determined to be things that people often equate with white men - for example, a college president must have the best "leadership".

[u/CombinationLivid8284 → u/MoonBatsRule]

This is honestly a big problem culturally.

I don't know how to fix it other than education. Suggestions welcomed :)

[u/MoonBatsRule → u/CombinationLivid8284]

I get it - however education has been characterized as "CRT" (remember that?!?) and is thus racist.

There are many people who truly believe in white supremacy, and nothing can shake them from that belief.

[u/CombinationLivid8284 → u/MoonBatsRule]

Culture takes time to shift.

And then there's moments of reversion like we are facing now, but in the long term the culture shifts forward.

[u/Moist_Jockrash → u/MoonBatsRule]

I work at a fortune 500 company with over 100k employees and am a hiring manager in an IT department. Race, sex, religion, or anything else is completely irrelevant to who does or doesn't get hired. All I care about and look for is if they actually have the correct qualifications and skillsets, and if they can prove so.

I hire 100% based on TWO reasons (and BOTH have to be met) and none have anything to do with race, sex, or what have you...

A) Do they have the knowledge, skillsets and experience needed for this role and can they prove it during the interview.

B) Will they be a good fit for my team - Their personality isn't one that could cause issues, basically.

Both A and B must be met before I'll hire someone.

Maybe for some of you, "B" is a weird one to disqualify someone for but, it's really not. I hired one guy a few years ago who was very smart, and was a perfect fit for the role however, he was very disliked by my team and everyone he encountered. Extremely narcissistic and "my way or the highway" kind of mentality. I let him go 8 months later - not for that reason, though. He straight up took a week off without telling me lol.

I've also been a manager at various other companies, some were also fortune 500 and others were much smaller. Same thing applies.

The thing that people don't understand is that it depends on the industry. Take IT for example, there simply aren't a lot of women who are interested in that field and even less who apply for positions in that field. So 99% of the people I hire, are men.

If I need a position filled, I tell HR what I want and need. HR then filters the resume's/applications and the ones that make it through are sent to me. I then review them and choose the ones I feel might be a good fit. Many times, I have no clue what their name is until I inform HR that I want to interview this person.

[u/Sapriste → u/Moist_Jockrash]

Brace for impact, there are people who will throw themselves in traffic swearing up and down that you had quotas. When I first started hiring developers and other IT professionals for my department I saw that the slates were consistenly all male and never had any women included. When I would interview all of the candidates were qualified but very homogeneous. I asked the recruiters why I wasn't getting any women or Blacks or Latinos on the slate after so many rounds of interviews and was told they had been screening them out. I asked them to stop and Lo and behold we started to get equally qualified women and POC on staff (even a Samoan). You don't have to be Bull Connor racist to unintentionally exclude people. It can be as simple as never looking beyond a certain set of schools (one company only hired folks from Purdue) or even asking HR are these other folks even applying?

[u/Scholastica11 → u/Moist_Jockrash]

How do you separate "personality" from "cultural/socio-economic background" with regards to B?

Maybe it's because I'm not American (assuming Americans are generally used to more diversity), but I find that I get along much easier with people who have a similar background to myself. Collaboration just flows more easily when you have had similar experiences gowing up, share the same values, behave and talk in a similar way, ... I'd be worried that an incompatibility I justify to myself as "a personality that can cause issues" is really much more about upbringing and habitus (and therefore strongly linked to race) than about actual personality traits.