Originally Posted by
hummingbear
Which is a little like sitting in traffic & saying “If only everyone would just drive faster.” Yes, that would be great, but that simplistic thought does nothing to address the many reasons why that doesn’t just happen.
Honestly, you’re beginning to think that won’t happen? What you’re missing is that this is exactly what the other side has been saying all along. That categorizing each other is inherent to the human condition- we can’t ever stop doing it. Sometimes this instinct is useful; sometimes benign. And sometimes it can be very harmful. Since we can’t ever just blind ourselves to our instincts, the best we can do is to recognize the behaviors that stem from them & make efforts to change those where they do harm to others.
This is the basic premise of making efforts to diversifying systems. Does every well intentioned effort necessarily improve the situation? Of course not. Should they be subject to scrutiny & evaluation? 100%. It’s complicated & I don’t pretend to have the answer. But your suggestion that the solution to inequality is to just rely on our human instinct to treat each other with compassion is a logical paradox. Because if said instinct is truly stronger than our instinct to categorize & separate, then inequality would never have existed in the first place.
I disagree with your fundamental premise that we're hard wired to categorize people by race. Viewing people as members of racial groups is a learned behavior, taught to us through our parents, teachers, and media. If we all quit talking about race like it was a thing that mattered, the whole idea of racism would disappear on its own. Instead, we are constantly having race shoved in our faces 10 times a day, which ensures racism never dies, and actually further entrenches bigoted peoples racial views. Best thing we could ever do for diversity is never mention race again.