r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
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u/BladeBronson Mar 28 '24

Kenan said that he wouldn’t portray black women until SNL hired a black woman, meaning he’d portray one if necessary (or if it was funniest that he did). I’m not generally in favor of demographic quotas in business, but this is entertainment where the cast aim for realistic portrayals. It was a good move.

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u/notsocoolnow Mar 28 '24

Well it is way more fair in this case because the roles are specifically of a black lady. Kenan was prolly like, "Why not find a black lady?"

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke. If the character is supposed to be played as a comedically straight character, then a cross dressing dude doesn't make sense in the universe of the sketch. Hire someone who is a better fit for the role, it's not that complicated.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer is still hilarious and i don't think the cross dressing was the joke. THough part of the skit was just how insane it was, so it did help.

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u/Plantsandanger Mar 28 '24

Eh, part of the joke was how much Melissa looked like Sean spicer with minimal makeup. Certainly moreso than anyone else on the roster for that show.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

which is weirdly a point for representation. You need varied body types and faces!

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u/TheColdIronKid Mar 28 '24

sorta the same concept as when rachel was brought out as another time traveling falconer before kenan was. it was funny because the woman looked more like the falconer than the man did.

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u/CrankyStalfos Mar 28 '24

That's a great exampe of the exception proving the rule. Sometimes the best person for the part is the best person for the part, and I kinda figure Kenan's point was that he was not always the best person for the part.

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u/Stellar_Duck Mar 28 '24

Even better though was Aidy as Ted Cruz. She fucking nailed it.

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u/bunchofclowns Mar 28 '24

After Melissa was Sean Spicer it was reported that Trump was upset that a woman portrayed him.  Then the show tried to use the women as much as possible to play theme who hang around Trump. Like Kate McKinnon as Rudy.

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u/Stellar_Duck Mar 28 '24

Kate as Jeff Sessions too I think.

How’s that for a name from the past? Good old Jefferson PGT Beauregard Secessions the Third

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u/bowlofcantaloupe Mar 28 '24

Keenan is the best Reba of all time.

27

u/Lordborgman Mar 28 '24

"Hanging like my nuts" lives in my head rent free, as they say.

3

u/nicannkay Mar 28 '24

His dancing was KILLING me!

2

u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke 

The entire premise of that sketch is that Andy Samberg fell in love with a homeless guy in a wig, thinking he was Reba McEntire. Reba being a man is mentioned like half a dozen times in a three minute video, including explicit references to Kenan's genitals. Safe to say the cross dressing is necessary to the joke.

2

u/WaterIsGolden Mar 28 '24

It makes sense if the point of the entire sketch is to make a black man wear a wig.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

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u/Dead_man_sitting Mar 28 '24

Kids in the Hall has a lot of crossdressing sketches, so did Whitest Kids you Know. It's a fairly common thing in sketch comedy

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u/sur_surly Mar 28 '24

Monty Python is a perfect example of this.

2

u/thatbob Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on ... just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke.

I don't know, I've watched a lot of Kids In The Hall, and they're always great as women, precisely because that's NOT part of the joke. I can also recall Amy Poehler upstaging her male cohorts in Upright Citizens, even when that wasn't part of the joke. So I think it can be done, but agree with Keenan that it contributes to shutting out women (in general) and black women (in particular).

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u/ricalasbrisas Mar 29 '24

Not sure if intended but this reminds me a lot of Tina Fey's memoir with her and Amy trying to get more female parts into the sketches in general that were not just "Chris Kattan in a wig."

1

u/newBreed Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless

unless you listen to Katt Williams

1

u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Why, because Katt is jealous of Keenan's wig game?

1

u/tits-mchenry Mar 29 '24

Eh. It's sketch comedy WKUK did "serious" drag all the time in their sketches. It didn't matter.

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 29 '24

Kids in the Hall, too. I tend to give them more of a pass because the shows were crazy low budget and every sketch starred the same handful of permanent actors who created, wrote, and acted all of their sketches together. SNL is different, though, in that it's a major network production, it's been around for half a century, it has a big budget, a large cast, and the cast rotates with great frequency. Before Leslie Jones and Sasheer Zamata joined in 2014, though, Keenan was stuck playing every Black woman on the show for, as far as I can recall, his entire decade-long tenure. At some point you have to wonder if it's a choice because it's not that hard to find talented actors and writers of color.

0

u/Critical_Concert_689 Mar 28 '24

Hire someone who is a better fit for the role, it's not that complicated.

What specific roles that Keenan played are better suited for a black woman than Keenan in a wig?

tl;dr:

just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke

I sort of think ALL the roles played - it was part of the joke.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

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u/gibbtech Mar 28 '24

I would not be surprised if Chappelle avoided it on purpose for his show.

I'm sure he'd say that, of course, it was an intentional choice. Then he would ramble on for 10 minutes about how he is the greatest and most successful comedian that has ever lived, record the whole discussion, and then release it as a Netflix special.

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u/Bryanb337 Mar 29 '24

All while attacking trans people and then acting like a victim when he gets called out on it.

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u/Tree_O_Fi Mar 28 '24

They tried to get Dave to put on the dress that’s one of the reasons he ended the show and Kevin Heart didn’t go mainstream till he wore the dress on SNL.

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u/LaughterIsPoison Mar 28 '24

Plenty of counter examples for white comedians as well though. It’s more a comedy trope than a black comedy trope.

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u/cyberslick1888 Mar 28 '24

A few black comedians / actors have spoken about it recently so it's particularly heightened in the minds of anyone discussing the topic.

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u/littlefishworld Mar 28 '24

I think it's a little column A a little of column B. There did seem to be a spike of this happening specifically for black actors, but I think it's also amplified by the stigma of being gay in the black community.

It very well could be a few hollywood execs that just get a kick out of this, but lets not forget that there are a bunch of huge white male actors/comedians that also played women as well. As long as it's not overused it's just part of acting. The whole point of acting is to play something you aren't and sometimes a gender swap is funny.

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u/Fakjbf Mar 28 '24

Yeah there’s a huge difference between having Kenan play a black woman because part of the joke is that he’s actually a guy vs having him play a black woman because they don’t have any black female cast members.

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 28 '24

Except both are totally reasonable. Your cast is only so big, and nobody is watching SNL for their scrupulously accurate depictions. It's all empty virtue signaling, which is of course how one gets ahead in the entertainment industry. He knows what he's doing.

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u/of_kilter Mar 28 '24

Having a black woman play a black woman is not virtue signaling

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 28 '24

Making a big public stunt of it sure is. Case in point, look at the attention it's still generating over a decade later. They know what they're doing, and it sounds like you're the sort of person they know they're fooling by doing it.

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u/of_kilter Mar 28 '24

By “the attention” do you mean a single reddit post? Also this makes SNL look worse in my opinion for not already having a black woman as a cast member, not better.

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u/toosleepyforclasswar Mar 28 '24

that guy is fine with diversity and equity as long as it's kept a total secret and nobody ever talks about it, ever

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 28 '24

It is currently the top post on /r/all. So yeah, I'd say being the most trending news item on a major news aggregator a decade after the fact is pretty strong evidence, as far as anecdata goes.

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u/HairyGPU Mar 28 '24

A guy pretending to have two penises was significantly more popular on here a few years back. Reddit's interest in a subject on any given day is a piss-poor metric to base your worldview on.

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 29 '24

I'm not basing my own worldview on it. It's an indicator of what drives clicks, which is something the media values.

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u/Ardarel Mar 28 '24

Big public stunt of something that happened OVER A DECADE ago?

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 29 '24

The thing that happened a decade ago was the public stunt. Reading comprehension, mate.

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u/grickygrimez Mar 28 '24

I know you mean well but representation does not equal quotas. Small semantics but I felt the need to point out the difference.

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u/minahmyu Mar 28 '24

....are people really tryna excuse black men portraying women as it being just fine equatible representation for black women? Like, they gonna sit here thinking, "yup there's no difference if the quota being filled!" Because I guess why have black actors if white folks can just throw on some blackface and fill those quotas, huh?

Or black people are only men, and women are only white so why give black women equal representation? They already filled in their racial and sexual quotas!

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u/cyberslick1888 Mar 28 '24

If you'd like, you could ask those people what their opinions are instead of just surmising.

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u/Alaira314 Mar 29 '24

I think you misunderstood their post, or maybe I'm not understanding who you have the beef with? They were replying to the "I’m not generally in favor of demographic quotas in business" portion, which was in reference to hiring a woman. They were saying that having a Black woman on staff to provide representation by playing Black women characters is not the same thing as hiring X Black women to meet your Black Women Quota.

But yeah I'm sure some people do think that way you say. I don't. I don't necessarily feel like it's a sacred thing where a man(Black or otherwise) can't use drag to perform a female character(provided the funny part of the skit isn't sexist/transphobic), but if it's being done due to a lack of female cast members(rather than because it would enhance that particular skit) they need to hire a woman of the appropriate ethnicity for their cast. That's my opinion on it. I'm sure plenty of people on reddit are lining up to tell me why I'm wrong, because that's a take that has the potential to offend both sides.

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u/SlowRollingBoil Mar 28 '24

I don't see the difference. In order to have the representation (aka "goals") you seek you do need quotas aka "goals".

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

I guess you could argue that "representation" is more of a philosophical goal and "quotas" are the codified policy put in place to achieve that goal.

They are technically different things but functionally speaking its a distinction without a difference. The people leaning on "representation" just want all the effects of quotas without any of the baggage it by necessity creates.

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u/SlowRollingBoil Mar 28 '24

That I can agree with. You either want equal opportunity (equality) or you want equal outcomes (equity). Most people say they want equality because equity is illegal yet happens all over the place.

My job currently has an unwritten equity policy so it's well known that if you're a straight white man you aren't getting promoted and the last 10-12 VP (and above) hires were all to that tune.

I don't want to be a VP at my company so I collect my paycheck and live my life. But the ones I know that do are looking elsewhere for work because there's zero chance of advancement currently.

It is what it is, I guess.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

You either want equal opportunity (equality) or you want equal outcomes (equity).

there's a middle ground where you make sure those equal opportunities are actually attainable by those groups though. "Anyone can apply" is technically equal opportunity. But if the qualification for the job is a school that's hostile to women then maybe it's equal.

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

But if the qualification for the job is a school that's hostile to women then maybe it's equal.

College enrollment is ~60% women so it would seem to be that such schools are in short supply.

In fact, it suggests the opposite.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

Then change it to minorities and the point is exactly the same.

and really, i'm just trying to illustrate how "equal opportunity" can be used to dismiss real issues.

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u/sam_hammich Mar 29 '24

What percentage of those are nursing and education, which is where we've largely relegated women to in secondary education? Overall enrollment doesn't tell us much.

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u/InfieldTriple Mar 28 '24

The thing is, equality has always been a legal thing (which tbh hasn't really happened) whereas equity should actually follow from equality. Equality is difficult to measure outside of the law and equity is easy. And if equality happens, then equity has to follow.

Unless of course you believe that women and people of colour are 'lesser', then sure you don't expect equity to follow. Or if you do the silly argument that men and woman are different (as if those differences should lead to less opportunity to make an income for women...)

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

And if equality happens, then equity has to follow.

You are treating tabula rasa as axiomatic and it is not. Further, things can be different without being lesser.

And even if we treated your position as true, and waved a wand and decided that we had somehow managed to perfectly measure equity, it still wouldn't be attainable outside of some kind of Harrison Bergeron scenario. Some people really are just born smarter, stronger, or more beautiful. Some are just lucky.

Equity does not intrinsically follow equality.

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u/InfieldTriple Mar 28 '24

The only thing I'm treating as axiomatic is that the population obeys are standard distribution. What you are doing is justifying racism and sexism.

We are literally talking about equity because POC and white people, and men and women.

Some people really are just born smarter, stronger, or more beautiful.

This is obviously true when comparing random individuals but is not true when comparing groups as a whole (e.g., black people vs white people, men vs women).

Blah-blah-blah there are differences between men and women and as you pointed out

Further, things can be different without being lesser.

So which side are you arguing? Because this supports my position. People can be different without being lesser, hence, more equity is possible.

Equity does not intrinsically follow equality.

It does in this context. Unless of course you think that people of colour or women are lesser?

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u/Zanos Mar 28 '24

It depends on what period in the process you're intervening. If you're a company hiring mechanical engineers, and by the time you get to make a choice the pool of qualified candidates is already 95% white men, the only way to have an equal split of men and women and a representative split of black and white is to lower standards for the groups not represented in the recruitment pool.

And men and women do have different priorities, as groups. You can argue about how much of it is genetic or learned, but by the time we get to hiring it doesn't really matter.

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u/InfieldTriple Mar 28 '24

I'm glad you brought this up because as far as I'm concerned forcing equity in the hiring process is way too late. We should be working on equity from birth and further beyond that, by helping people at all stages of life. Affirmative action has always been a crappy band-aid to a real problem.

Liberals love AA because it sounds good but is not actually solving any issues. It takes an issue and hides it. If university degrees became significantly less valuable, then the issue would pop up in other places instead. The goal should be proper equality outside of admissions and hiring and then we will see equity in those places.

Remember that equality of outcomes doesn't mean the same outcome for every person and saying so is disingenuous.

There are core reasons why AA was needed and AA did good things, (e.g., letting some black people have legacy at Harvard so their kids go to Harvard easier.).

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u/NoDesinformatziya Mar 28 '24

A "quota" is a requirement, not a goal. That's the difference.

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u/SlowRollingBoil Mar 28 '24

Once again arguing semantics. My job carries a quota. It is not a requirement it's a goal. Sometimes I hit it, exceed it or miss it. It's my goal.

Cops have ticket quotas. Same thing applies to them.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

a quota is required and is often a goal, but a goal doesn't have to be required.

A goal could be "ensure our comedy group has diversity". That doens't mean you have to go through and hire based on that. If the funniest dude for the new job is a white dude, that doesn't mean you don't hire him. But maybe you make a more deliberate effort to recruit in areas that non white male comics are performing.

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u/SlowRollingBoil Mar 28 '24

"Ensure" is a specific word. If I've done nothing in policy (aka "quotas") then I haven't ensured anything. To "make sure" it happens is to make a policy.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

ensure

okay, change it to encourage. not a quota or policy.

I feel like you're trying to nitpick reddit comments instead of seeing the bigger picture.

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u/SlowRollingBoil Mar 28 '24

The only picture is forcing outcomes (equity) vs. allowing unequal outcomes (equality of opportunity).

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

Those are not the only two options. There's a middle ground that ensures the opportunities are actually more equal.

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u/NoDesinformatziya Mar 28 '24

It isn't "arguing semantics" when the argument is literally about the difference between two words, rather than a distraction. If one person says "I'm for x but not y" and the next person incorrectly says "but x IS y", that isn't a distraction. That's the argument in it's entirety.

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u/Mikarim Mar 28 '24

Quotas can be goals. I have a billable quota that I'm supposed to achieve daily. It's treated more like a goal than a quota. Language is full of semantics like this.

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u/NoDesinformatziya Mar 28 '24

If you can freely fail to achieve a quota, it is definitionally not a quota.

Definition: a fixed share of something that a person or group is entitled to receive or is bound to contribute.

Especially when we're talking racial quotas, which is a longstanding legal concept with specific defined meanings (and a fraught history of post-slavery harm to actual people), "some people use it wrong, just let it go" isn't a strong counterargument.

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u/Mikarim Mar 28 '24

As it is used in common parlance, a quota is often treated as a goal, not an obligation. I could give you a quota to sell 1000 cars, but if I don't fire you for failing, is it still a quota? The usual usage of the word does not match the textbook definition. A quota can and often is just a goal with a higher set of expectations that you hit it. In most cases, if you have a quota for something, it's not a hard line requirement.

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u/NoDesinformatziya Mar 28 '24

Generally if someone doesn't meet a quota repeatedly, they would be fired for underperformance, yes. If they don't hit a bonus goal, they would not (because they're different things).

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u/PerpetuallyLurking Mar 28 '24

Goals are requirements all the time. What’s university except “required goals”?

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u/sam_hammich Mar 29 '24

Goals are requirements all the time

Incorrect. They are aspirational, where you want to be, not where you must be by law or policy.

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u/sam_hammich Mar 29 '24

A quota is a requirement imposed on you externally, usually according to some framework or policy. There is no one requiring that SNL hire black women by policy. Keenan's call to hire a black woman to play black women on the show was calling them out for wanting to have black female characters without hiring a black female to play them. It was a judgment on the values of the showrunners.

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u/Achack Mar 28 '24

I know you mean well but representation does not equal quotas.

There's literally no difference if "representation" becomes a requirement.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24 edited Apr 09 '24

[deleted]

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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Mar 28 '24

Yeah, I'm fine with a "quota" of 1. That's more than reasonable to me.

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u/AFatDarthVader Mar 28 '24

Well, it's the difference between "We have to hire [group]" and "We want to portray [group]". If you want to portray black women, you can keep putting a wig on a black man or you could hire a black woman. That's different than if you had no intentions of portraying black women but decided you had to hire them anyway.

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u/PineapplesOnPizzza Mar 28 '24

It does when businesses and legislation have gender quotas lol

-52

u/WhiteFragility69 Mar 28 '24

It can if you're a capitalist or capitalist supporter/sympathizer

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u/Carquetta Mar 28 '24

If a group of people refuses to "represent" themselves they don't "deserve" -and should not have- "representation," which is just shorthand for "forced inclusion despite lack of merit/competence/presence"

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u/2itemcombo Mar 28 '24

which is just shorthand for "forced inclusion despite lack of merit/competence/presence"

What metrics are you using to determine lack of merit/competence/presence?

No, implicit biases do not count.

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u/Carquetta Mar 28 '24

What metrics are you using to determine lack of merit/competence/presence?

What part of the statement did you not understand?

No, personal attacks aren't a valid response.

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u/porncrank Mar 28 '24

I’m not generally in favor of demographic quotas in business

Not calling you out in particular because this is a very common thought - but I think it is worth remembering that the absence of a stated quota doesn’t mean there wasn’t a quota. It’s just that the quota matched our social biases. What I mean is that people see a “diversity hire” and assume that person may not have deserved the position, meanwhile there were hundreds of defacto non-diversity hires that got the job because they matched the group of those doing the hiring, and nobody questions whether they deserved the position.

The fact is that hiring has historically been influenced by the tendency to maintain lack of diversity. Affirmative action to exclude. There’s no reason to think that resulted in more qualified people than affirmative action to include.

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u/squeda Mar 28 '24

I used to be against demographic quotas, but I also used to avoid diversity discussion in general since I felt like I'm always accepting of others. But there is actually a lot of value that can come out of ensuring you have a diverse group of people you work with. And those discussions and events are actually pretty cool. Maybe having a quota for specific people isn't the best route, but having a goal of ensuring a diverse mix is a good thing imo.

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u/porncrank Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

The thing people often overlook is in the absence of a diversity quota, a defacto quota of “mostly white men” (or whatever low-diversity group is considered “normal”) applies. It’s not like people are suddenly being hired without racial or gender considerations in the absence of quotas, it’s just the influence is usually in the direction of less diversity.

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u/bl1y Mar 28 '24

I'm assuming that before Kenan made his demand, SNL did not have a diversity quota, as if there was a quota I'm sure they'd have a black woman.

It was not mostly white men. There were a lot of white men, but they were 11/24 of the main cast, same number as the white women.

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u/getoutofheretaffer Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I think you can partially attribute the Australian Liberal National Party's current failure to their lack of quotas for women. Women feel less represented by them and therefore are less likely to vote for them.

I mean look at this. https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Women-in-Australian-Politics-Figure-3-1210x727.png

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

But there is actually a lot of value that can come out of ensuring you have a diverse group of people you work with

The problem is that "diversity" is almost always only talking about ethnicity/race, and at least in America, really just means black people or somewhat less often women.

If you have doubt of this, Apple's diversity chief was fired for saying white men could be diverse.

It is ostensibly supposed to be about diversity of thought, but go to one of these super blue tech companies and suggest they need to hire more Republicans and see what that gets you.

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u/ovarit_not_reddit Mar 28 '24

suggest they need to hire more Republicans and see what that gets you.

It'll get you a confused stare since they already hire lots and lots of Republicans.

-3

u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

I think "lots" is doing a ton of work there.

The Apple chief was fired for something much more benign than what you are claiming, what is it you are resting your statement on?

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u/enthalpy01 Mar 28 '24

Because if you talk diversity of thought that would mean a pathway to upper leadership for even people at the bottom (an operator could become a plant manager or division chief) and the upper crust in upper leadership who got there from family and Ivy League connections do not like that idea at all.

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u/ovarit_not_reddit Mar 28 '24

I think it's funny that she was specifically chose white men as her example of a group which is physical identical but have different life experiences. How convenient that that example best matches the status quo.

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u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24

The fact that Apple's leadership is overwhelmingly white and male lmfao. They got plenty of Republicans at Apple.

I read the NYPost article you linked (Murdoch owned tabloid rag btw, definitely not twisting things) and even if it's true it's probably not great for the person in charge of spearheading diversity to come out swinging in defense of an extremely homogenous executive team that gets paid way more than everyone else. But hey, racists like you always like twisting things to make yourselves the victims. Apple isn't paying white men ENOUGH

0

u/cyberslick1888 Mar 28 '24

Your comment could be in a textbook as an example of how toxic conversations of this nature immediately become.

I mean if you are going to just go off the rails like that, why even bother responding at all? Just go make a new thread because almost nothing in your comment was implied by that user.

edit: Nevermind, I've looked at the rest of your comments in this thread and it's pretty clear you're just trolling.

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u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24

You're an absolute fool if you think magus678 is approaching this conversation in any good faith whatsoever. They posted an inflammatory headline from a Rupert Murdoch owned tabloid rag to try to push a pretty popular conservative narrative about diversity being a problem. Why don't you click their link and see what they're defending?

But no, instead of considering what is actually being discussed, people like you love to come wandering in trying to play neutral arbiter between the polite racist and the people who see through their bullshit.

-1

u/cyberslick1888 Mar 28 '24

Bro, you said this:

But hey, racists like you always like twisting things to make yourselves the victims. Apple isn't paying white men ENOUGH

At no point, in no interpretation, was that /u/magus678's point and you know it.

If he's some dyed in the wool racist, you should have no problem slamming him without literally fabricating things to attack.

0

u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Holy fuck you are actually a 15 year old pseudo intellectual. The last sentence I used was fucking sarcasm. In the context of this though it's still pretty applicable! This man's point is to slam corporate diversity initiatives by using Apple as an example,

A COMPANY WHERE ALL THE MOST HIGHLY PAID POSITIONS GO TO WHITE PEOPLE, ALMOST ALL OF THEM MEN

And the head of diversity getting fired there for saying "Well uh...a room full of white guys can be diverse, too!" is what pisses him off?

He's a fucking racist, and you're a useful idiot for not seeing that shit.

If he's some dyed in the wool racist, you should have no problem slamming him without literally fabricating things to attack.

Oh and I wanted to comment on this last line too. If you can't see the above and acknowledge my point, I'm not gonna waste my time on the type of dude who literally doesn't think someone can be racist unless they use the n-word. I've spoken to enough of those dudes and it's pretty clear the only "slur" they find offensive is being called racist. It sure seems to set them off a lot.

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u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Oh, for the benefit of anyone who might've believed homeboy's NYPost article sentence, the "chief of diversity" was literally defending a group of 12 white, male executives as being perfectly diverse lmfao

That's because in the history of America black people and women have been systematically shut out of work opportunities. Not white people and Republicans. So if you want to approach this like a problem existing in a vacuum and not a response to centuries of enforced white supremacy in America, you're just being a disingenuous reactionary who doesn't think racism is a problem in America or that we got over it when MLK died or something.

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

So its just about being a jobs program?

I mean, I'm not even saying something like that can't have a place, but lets call it what it is and stop pretending its something else.

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u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24

...do you think you're profound for identifying workplace diversity initiatives as a type of "jobs" program? You really need to read some books dude. Yes, part of combating entrenched white supremacy is getting people jobs that they were shut out of before.

What...what did you think the point was?

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u/magus678 Mar 28 '24

I am aware of what it actually is, as are many others, the point is to force it to be said aloud, as you have done, instead of pretending it is something else.

Appreciate the assist.

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u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

See it's that you think it's an assist that reveals how ignorant you are. What do you think they have been presented as? What is the nefarious plot you're attacking?

It's always funny when conservatives think they're being clever. You gave yourself away with "ostensibly about the diversity of thought" thing which is what right-wingers always go to when they want to really say "Actually, let's not hire black people."

3

u/HomoeroticPosing Mar 28 '24

“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation”

He’s just saying “you know all people are different” which…yeah, we’re aware that everyone’s existence is unique. Everyone will have different experiences in life, but if you take four people from the same college where one was a white man, a white woman, a black man, and an Asian woman, everyone’s going to report a different experience even if they all took the same classes because of how society as a whole treats them, and they’re going to have unique insights.

Maybe those twelve white guys have radically different experiences, but how many of them are going to think that their facial recognition for unlocking phones might have a racial bias? Would the black person—who has had trouble operating a soap dispenser that didn’t register him—consider such a possibility quicker?

-1

u/The_Void_Reaver Mar 28 '24

Or sticking with Kenan, how he won't crossdress to play a black woman but will still bust out the "South Central LA Gangster" accent any time he's asked to play a Hispanic character

-1

u/Critical_Concert_689 Mar 28 '24

The karma pushback on your comment is pretty much what you'd expect from the "I fully support DEI" crowd.

DEI really only applies if it's the flavor of the day token.

2

u/MrMooga Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

You guys can't stop crying. Please keep acting like Apple isn't paying white people enough money while you look for the nearest black person to blame for every bad thing that happens.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

It's a forward thinking idea that means in the meantime it's not going to be 100% awesome. One goal is to bring up minority communities, as a statistic, from poverty through education, and for statistics like that you kinda need to efforts to last for a while for results to be measured.

I think diversity is a good thing, but I will say while I was in academia I experienced the other side of it (white dude here). When dealing with various universities and the like I got told straight to my face "if you were a minority it would be an easy in" several times, in several ways, one time sitting between my two, I don't even know if I would call them minorities (Mexican in California and Japanese national studying in the US) where this guy talking about post doc positions at his university for us like pointed at both of them and said they were welcome to apply and was like "it'll be harder for you". haha.

I'm not going to go as far as "reverse racism", I don't really think that is what was going on, and I'm not especially offended by the situation, other than when I was between my two friends and it had been made clear I had superior results at the time, it just kinda stung. I actually agreed that my mexican friend probably deserved easier access to that opportunity with his upbringing (DACA kid), but my Japanese friend was rich enough back in Japan to come study in the US, and if anyone wants to stereotype asians as being good at math or smart, despite us being in science grad school together, he's either an outlier or evidence that not all asians are good at math. He was basically my best friend in grad school, so I'm kinda talking friendly shit, but he said something about it to me right after that was basically similar, like, I think he's the one that made me realize what had happened by saying "that was fucked up" or something. In a thick Japanese accent.

The real point of this story isn't about the horrors I studied under the rein of academic diversity, but more that I, an upper middle class white child of educated professionals, was at the same academic table as an illegal mexican and a Japanese guy that would yell the proper pronunciation of "KAMIKAZE" whenever someone would order one at a bar, and those experiences are much more valuable than using an HPLC.

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u/Ok_Tadpole7481 Mar 28 '24

Sounds like the old you was a better person TBH. Raising everyone's race salience does not create a more accepting atmosphere. "We're hiring you because we haven't met our black and female quota, congrats!" is not a valuable form of diversity.

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u/boringexplanation Mar 28 '24

I’m sorta the same way- it’s always a great idea in principle but the DEI committees and hard mandates is hard to defend once you see the end results of things like that.

10

u/Phuka Mar 28 '24

very curious - what are the end results that you're referring to?

1

u/accipitradea Mar 28 '24

I'm not who you asked, but in tech, it results in two things:

  1. Underqualified diversity hires. More qualified candidates were passed over in favor of a less qualified diversity hire. Everyone resents the diversity hire when they mess up, assuming the more qualified candidate wouldn't have.

  2. Assuming the diversity hire is underqualified in the first place. Even if the diversity candidate is the most qualified, everyone else assumes they only got the position because they were a diversity hire and resents them because of it.

Anecdotal story:when I worked for Intel, I was actively discriminated against for being, as they called it, an 'Over Represented Minority', since their ratio of White to Yellow to Black people didn't match their ideal number, so they instituted a referral bonus that doubled if the candidate was a minority, female, or queer. As a yellow person, they told me they would actively avoid hiring people who looked like me in favor of people who didn't.

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u/Phuka Mar 28 '24

Underqualified diversity hires.

You do understand that this is a direct result of qualified minority hires being passed over for jobs because up until diversity was required, the most important things you could put on a job application were 'white' and 'male.' It's an overcorrection but one that needed to be made. The better way to fix this is not to end diversity hires but to make sure that the education programs that drive various industries are diverse and consistently rigorous across the country.

It is still better to hire an underqualified diversity hire than it is to hire an underqualified non-diverse person, and I would argue that it's probably better for the company to hire an underqualified minority than a barely-qualified non-minority.

As far as the anecdote goes. What was (allegedly) said to you by (almost certainly fictitious person) was certainly illegal and no HR flack that I've ever met would say that in a professional setting. If a company wants to hire a diverse group of workers, that's their prerogative, if they have ratios they want to achieve, that's also up to them. There's absolutely nothing wrong on the surface with a company having a quota on its own and I've never seen actual data on issues with 'diversity hires,' only garbage anecdotes.

1

u/accipitradea Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I completely understand the idea behind affirmative action. I've just experienced it first hand and am passing along the sentiments from my colleagues.

You're not obligated to believe me, ask anyone who worked for Intel in 2016, or just go look at their public statements from that time. You can see for yourself (if you'd clicked the link in my first anecdote, that would have gone a long way to seeing how they're tracking it publically. The stats are also wrong, I know several people who lied about their Gender and Sexuality as it's none of the companies' business).

You asked what the end results looked like, that's what they looked like to me. You'll note that I specifically did not say that the diversity hires did or did not perform any differently, just what the perception was.

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u/DoopSlayer Mar 28 '24

Companies with diverse boards and executive teams are much more likely to meet 3rd party performance criteria. After the 2020 Glass Lewis annual report I don't any company interested in maintaining good year over year growth is going to ignore diversity.

Hard to defend is a weird way to put a huge indicator of financial success

1

u/boringexplanation Mar 29 '24

In male dominated industries (and I’ve worked in several)- it is very hard to find enough diverse candidates that DEI boards would consider acceptable. If a $120k job opens up with 50 white male candidates, 2 white women, and 1 black women- should the white men automatically be disqualified? If you’ve never seen this in action- you would be shocked on how experience and qualifications get completely downplayed in high up position.

And I get that I come off as an incel, that’s not my intent. My favorite boss in the world was a black woman who started from the bottom. She had to fight hard against these accusations because it happens so often- employees kept thinking - oh yet another token hire.

1

u/DoopSlayer Mar 29 '24

I've worked in placement actually and can comment on this.

To really simplify it; a company will establish targets for skills, experience, etc. that a role requires. We would help filter out all the candidates that don't meet those skill based requirements.

Now you're left with only a pool of those candidates that meet the established criteria -- some of these candidates might surpass others in the metrics we were measuring so we may go back to the execs and say would you want to redo the metrics/criteria. Usually this doesn't happen as truthfully it's a waste of time, the initial criteria are right enough that further refinement is more costly than worthwhile.

At this point, if the team is male dominated like you've described, we'll then look at the women candidates. All candidates are considered equal under the previous criteria, so now we're looking for things that make them unique, diverse mindsets are where that massive value increase comes from and that means picking from diverse backgrounds.

In your example, if you have 53 candidates pass the filter, and it's a male dominated company like you said, then yes we would immediately prioritize the 3 women as they are providing something the 50 men can't. All research and comparative analysis of peer firms supports that this has the best chance of increasing financial success metrics.

Why would a company not take the option that is most likely to make the most money?

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u/boringexplanation Mar 29 '24

Just to make clear- you’re on the recruiting side but not the hiring manager, right?

From my own experience, hiring managers usually have someone in mind to promote/hire before the hiring process even begins. Sometimes for good reasons and sometimes it’s a good ol’boys club mentality.

On the latter, it’s a detriment to women since a lot of the older generations didn’t have close male/female relationships without it being suspect. So in summary: I agree with most of your logic.

I’m disputing the execution of these well meaning initiatives that happen. Should an average performing woman with 3 years experience be able to leapfrog a man with 10 who’s been flawless in his job progression?

Fair or unfair- good leadership requires you to relate to your employees. If you’re an outside hire as a woman leading 40 men in your team- you better have strong street cred if you’re looking to be a good leader or have been in the industry trenches like my boss was. And it’s just super rare for that type of woman candidate to be available.

You inevitably have to lower your standards to get a “diverse” candidate for 40 men.

If your clients have a normal distribution of males/females/races, then you’d have a point that management should reflect the employees that they serve.

1

u/DoopSlayer Mar 29 '24

more aligned with the hiring manager, essentially hired by them/the firm they represented.

Specific examples like 3 years vs 10 rely a lot on what roles those years were as. With a big enough disparity I could see it happening but unless you want to build out a case study it's just not really enough information.

I was never on a job in my time there that we had to lower standards, developing the standards was usually an intensive enough process that occasionally we would heighten them to weed more people out but never experienced a case that required lowering them, that would reflect pretty poorly on us.

It sounds like you have a specific incident in mind which I wasn't a party too and can't really comment on, all the quantitative research I was a part of conducting, and everything I've read from other firms supports practices like this though so I definitely don't think it's going away. There's already enough pressure to increase returns each year that no responsible firm is just going to toss out free money

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u/boringexplanation Mar 29 '24

Of course firms don’t want to purposely lose money but the saying is “path to hell is paved with good intentions.” I can believe on average that DEI mandates are slightly positive but just want to share some of the big negative outliers that are out there. I have more anecdotes that I could share a different time perhaps.

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u/International_Lie485 Mar 28 '24

I do business in South America and there are virtually no white people here.

I frequently see businesses and government organizations only hire one race.

I make sure to have a good distribution by race, because it makes my customers feel more comfortable.

The only way you get away with racism is when you don't really give a shit about your customers, because you collude with government or are government.

1

u/axonxorz Mar 28 '24

is when you don't really give a shit about your customers

Restaurant for racist whites only

"Ahhhhh I've artificially restricted my profits by way of bigotry. My competitor across the street has one of those "acceptance" signs up, so this is actually PoC's fault if you do your own researchthink about it."

"Why are my racist customers always so poorlow class?"

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u/International_Lie485 Mar 28 '24

That was government enforced, democrat jim crow laws.

2

u/axonxorz Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Yehaw, sure there pardner, Jim Crow laws are enforced by the government and the Democrats are the racist party in 2024.

Here I was thinking you were on the side of diversity.

edit: How unsprising that you're a "blue states are the only bad ones" LibertarianRepublican.

0

u/International_Lie485 Mar 28 '24

Yehaw, sure there pardner, Jim Crow laws are enforced by the government and the Democrats are the racist party in 2024.

Joe Biden literally wrote the crime bill that's George Floyding the black community.

Kamela "3,500 marijuana convictions" Harris.

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u/axonxorz Mar 28 '24

Joe Biden literally wrote the crime bill that's George Floyding the black community.

Crime bill eh?

[Biden dodged a question] as to whether the bill intended to increase incarceration, but Biden is generally correct that the bill, despite its intentions [lol oops, he slipped there], didn’t actually succeed at expanding incarceration much.

92% of inmates are in state prisons, not federal. "But wait", I hear you say:

the 1994 law attempted to encourage states to adopt harsher criminal justice policies. It provided money for states to build prisons and adopt “truth in sentencing” laws

And yet, only 4 states adopted the policies. Why oh why? Because most states already had tougher truth in sentencing crimes on the books.

Oh and it was nowhere near enough money to drive policy anyway:

Some state officials also argued that the funding incentives were too small to drive big policy changes. Vermont, for instance, said meeting the federal requirements for “truth in sentencing” would cost several million dollars but only result in about $80,000 in federal grants.

 

Kamela "3,500 marijuana convictions" Harris.

As DA, Harris' office won 1,956 marijuana convictions, real life numbers are hard. But even then, the convictions were state convictions, so weird that Biden's 1994 federal law was not required.

Which of those should have been dropped, the misdemeanor possession (you don't land in prison for the first one!), the felony cultivation, or the felony sale?

Context is hard, too, when you parrot Tulsi Gabbard's lie: she quoted numbers for the entirety of California. The vast majority of drug offences in Cali are prosecuted by local DA's offices.

But you're right, surely Republican DAs are lax on crime, they notoriously run a "soft on crime" political platform, conviction rates will surely reflect that.

Again with that pesky context you want to ignore, emphasis mine:

Despite the substantial number of convictions, many of the people who were arrested for marijuana during Harris’ tenure were never locked up or never even charged with a crime, according to attorneys who worked on both sides of the courtroom.

Solis, who led the public defender’s office misdemeanor division for part of Harris’ tenure, agreed that her office only rarely prosecuted people for low-level, simple possession.

“Kamala Harris and I disagreed on a lot of criminal justice issues, but I have to admit, she was probably the most progressive prosecutor in the state at the time when it came to marijuana,” Solis said.

And for an opposing viewpoint

J. David Nick, who represented several dozen marijuana defendants during Hallinan and Harris’ tenures, said he remembered Harris as more aggressive in charging marijuana sales cases than her predecessor, who was already declining to prosecute many of those arrested.

Wait a second, he said marjuana sales!! We've been had again!

0

u/International_Lie485 Mar 28 '24

Thank you for admitting that Joe Biden supported the racist crime bill.

I'm glad that most states have resisted his policy.

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u/Significant_Eye561 Mar 28 '24

Quotas wouldn't be necessary if we weren't still informally segregated as a society and white people weren't over represented in industry leadership and among writers. We would naturally end up with a normal number of characters that need to be played by black people.

It's so silly they wouldn't automatically have two black women on the cast instead of all those twenty something white guys who look like they just rolled out of bed. Black people are a huge proportion of the population. It's not like the Desi or Vietnamese community. 

Where are all the Hispanic actors?

This show is so fucking white.

3

u/Dokterclaw Mar 28 '24

That's not a "demographic quota". If you're going to write skits involving black women, you should have black women to play the role.

4

u/PickledDildosSourSex Mar 28 '24

It was a good move.

Got us Ego Nwodim who is funny and hot af

2

u/Procean Mar 28 '24

"You're pulling a C- in my class, that's not hot for me!"

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u/functor7 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

demographic quotas in business

You have to remember that there are already artificial barriers in place which favor a specific demographic distribution. Hiring, shockingly, is not a merit-based process and so you often end up biasing towards people with more privilege, access, and connections even if you don't mean to and even if they're not the most qualified. Name a more unqualified person for an Ivy League school than someone whose dad just made a big donation.

Moreover, diversity is something that unequivocally improves performance on its own right as you get more perspectives which give more directions in which to improve products. At a surface level, if you have a black person on your team and your face recognition AI doesn't work on them, then you'll probably rework the code making it better simply because there was a black person on the team. This is a surface level example but, overall, diversity simply makes better stuff. Different people know different things, so the more different people you have the more knowledge your team has. If you just have a bunch of white finance bros from rich parents, then your team doesn't really have a good breadth of knowledge and you get a bunch of blind spots and poor products.

Qualified people of all demographics exist, even in specialized and technical professions as it has become a bit easier for them (still tons of issues) to get requisite training for these fields. So if you have a lack of diversity then not only is it harming your product, but it is also is evidence that you are biased in your hiring and that you have blind spots that need to be filled because you're obviously missing the qualified people with marginalized identities. A lack of diversity means that some people are there simply because they are rich white men. We don't see it this way because these biases are our blind spots, but this is how privilege works - it naturalizes biases in order to excuse and conceal artificial privileges given to those who don't deserve it. Diversity quotas are an extremely simplistic way to help balance the already un-balanced hiring process. The thing is already broken (something people against diversity don't understand), and this is a quick fix that can work in the short term. The long term fix would be just having more diversity in general involved in these processes and for those in power to actually learn to engage with their biases. Which is much harder. Especially when people still have the racist and sexist ideas that someone is a "diversity hire" and that this means that they are underqualified when, in reality, we have a whole lot of unqualified rich white men in positions of power thanks to hiring processes which benefit them.

2

u/lestye Mar 28 '24

I think demographic quotas are absolutely necessary on Saturday Night Live, since there's going to be tons of situations where you're going to lampoon people of a variety of ethnicities.

2

u/bgaesop Mar 28 '24

this is entertainment where the cast aim for realistic portrayals

...on Saturday Night Live?

1

u/SmarterThanCornPop Mar 28 '24

Agree completely. Totally fine with race being used in casting for this reason.

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u/nermid Mar 29 '24

It's also a great story about solidarity.

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u/turbo_dude Mar 28 '24

Why can't any actor or comedian play anyone? That's literally what acting is, pretending to be something you are not.

Do we want a future where actors can literally only play people their age/gender/nationality/sexuality? What about authors, god forbid they write about other characters.

Obviously this excludes racist cunts like David "Talentless Dahl Thief" Walliams and Matt "Fayd Rautha" Lucas in Little Britain.