Hello,
On Saturday, 2 September 2017 09:51:36 CEST Nikos Roussos wrote:
I don't see any discrimination here, and in general in any initiative that tries to help minorities.
It is discrimination by its very definition, though. That is: making a distinction between groups of people. This program most definitely does that. It distinguishes between a population it identifies as disadvantaged minorities (cis/trans women, ethnic minorities in the US), and a population it identifies as advantaged members of the majority group (everybody else), and treats those populations differently. One population is permitted an internship, and the other is not.
That is discrimination. What you probably mean, however, is that this is acceptable discrimination to you. I don't think like that. Two wrongs don't make a right, and I like to stay as consistent as I can in my beliefs/opinions: I loathe unjust discrimination.
Orwell put it well in Animal Farm.
Treating these efforts as discrimination means that we ignore the fact that we live in a world where not all people have the same opportunities and that people of certain gender or color are privileged.
I personally find this brush a little too broad. Gender and ethnicity aren't excellent indicators of levels of privilege. Take an orphan white boy, or a black girl born/adopted into a rich family, and this all falls apart.
You are right, of course, that _on average_ black people and women get the shorter end of the stick in many cases. And that ought to get fixed as soon as possible. But that, to me, is not justification for collectivist discrimination.
I also disagree that treating (positive/affirmative/reverse) discrimination as discrimination per se means ignoring the state of the world. You can be _for_ equality, but _against_ certain methods that might lead to equality. And I am wholly against this type of discrimination.
I very much prefer alternative methods. I really admire a lot of the LGBT community, for instance, in how they approached their struggle for equality. Their focus on love is exemplary, and the inclusion of gay characters/people in popular media -- often as equals -- has done more for them than anything else ever could.
And none of that necessitated active discrimination.
There is a well known comic strip that illustrates that fairly well. http://comediscovervcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/equity-graphic.j pg
I know this graphic. I choose to interpret it as class inequality, not gender/ethnic inequality. Low privilege is not by any means inherent to your gender or ethnicity. It is a possible indicator at best, but never absolutely inherent. Low privilege is, however, inherent to low income. In which case, I agree that the lower classes require more assistance than the higher echelons -- at the cost of those higher echelons.
To assume that minorities per se require assistance, is to me the soft bigotry of low expectations, which I eschew immensely.
But all that aside, I really don't want to cause a huge kerfuffle. I'm here for free software, and I've said my bit on this tangent :-) I respect your opinion, I just disagree.
Yours sincerely,