I love how that joke is so fresh & funny that it’s been used in every third post for the last five years no matter how loosely relevant to the subject matter & still just slays every time.

 

It’s not a joke, I was just referring to gender not being an immutable trait, while things like skin color are.

 

Believe me, it would be much less work to close the thread. Enjoy your ban for constant insults, political posts, and arguing moderation in public- just a few more areas and you would have hit ALL the TOS violations 👏👍.

Thank you to everyone for the civil discussion.

 

Yes, I’m sure you did not say that to troll or be funny. And that’s not sarcasm, by the way. I’m just referring to something I definitely believe is true.

 

Ok, so upon what metric do we determine merit? Flight hours? We’ve all known guys w/ a career’s worth of flying under their belt that crush any delusions that experience alone makes you a superior aviator. Interview performance? That will definitely find you the most confident candidates- though confidence does not always equal competence. Design me a scale by which we can always choose the most deserving candidate & I’ll be the first to say I was wrong.

It’s an imaginary concept. If “merit” always equaled performance, Tom Brady would have played about three unremarkable minutes in the NFL. As humans, we’re just not as capable of knowing who’s going to rise to the top as we’d like to believe. We are sometimes able to recognize excellence, & can generally gauge competence from incompetence- which is important, & shouldn’t be ignored; but from there we have to make some difficult decisions. Questions about whether demographics should factor into those decisions are certainly germane. But can we at least please stop pretending “just hiring the guy who deserves it the most” is an actual thing we can really do?

 

We can stop pretending that you can measure merit, if you can stop pretending that race, ethnicity and gender taken alone are things that equate to merit.

 

Don’t try to put me into a box. I vote republican, I watch Fox News, I support the police, I do not support BLM or similar movements. I have put my life on the line for my former colleagues and watched them do the same for me, regardless of color. I judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. As such, it has been my experience that 99% of the men and women I have worked with in this industry are good people who do not harbor racist views.

That said, I will absolutely call out half truths and/or blatant hypocrisy. DEI represents a myriad underrepresented groups, not just race. Yet, there are multiple comments in this thread which focus on the colorful nature of DEI initiatives while simultaneously criticizing the existence of such policies. While these individuals may also take issue with other forms of favoritism, this thread has been most critical of DEI, and at least a couple of posters have equated DEI to “colorful packaging”. As such-I’m not playing the race card.

Please provide an example of someone who was advanced ahead of someone more qualified based on DEI principles. If by chance you are able to produce such evidence, please tell me how that would be any different than a guy who knows a guy that knows a Chief Pilot and gets his resume moved to the top of the stack? Happens all the time.

I think we all agree that all of the airlines are hiring at the low end of the experience spectrum. A quick glance through the new hire class photos at all of the legacies will easily reveal that DEI is but a myth. Airline pilots are still one of the least diverse groups of professionals. So if we are already hiring at the low end, and 90% or more of those people are not minorities, please show me evidence to support the idea that highly qualified individuals are being passed over due to DEI.

My argument is simple. This is fake news.

 

As I’ve never made that claim I’ll consider us agreed.

 

Do you think this is a civil discussion? (My underline for emphasis)

"I agree. If these guys are so against the companies hiring practices,why don’t they just quit and go somewhere else where things might end up being a shade lighter ,more to their liking.Maybe that’s what the company wants,get rid of these good old boys . They are not going to change their policies because some of you guys of the Caucasian persuasion don’t agree with it . Just quit already . Now I see why we don’t an industry leading contract.These guys are concerned about someone of color or a different ethnicity getting a job instead of the important issues. As a relatively new guy ,I didn’t expect this at UA.I thought you guys were above all of this,boy was I wrong. Needless to say I’m disappointed."

I just had a good reminder why I quit reading this forum and responding to (most of) the people on here. Aside from the horrible syntax, punctuation, and grammar, this person's attack reads like a high school sophomore's retaliation on social media. Wow. I guess their handle "OFFCOURSE" is appropriate.

Good luck, y'all.

- Octa

 

Octa,

Everyone’s a crusader when they’re speaking their truth & a snowflake when they’re on the wrong side of someone else’s. Civil, hardly. But for a thread called “DEI=Racism”, I’m shocked we’re in double-digit pages. (Though I think there’s been some active moderation- and I suspect fadec is under suspension.)