#DEI Agenda

[lasseling]

New FTC Decision Could Force Businesses Across Country to Comply with DEI Agenda, Commissioner Warns

Lame-duck President Joe Biden’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has just issued a new decision that could force businesses across the country to comply with the Democrats’ radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

Donald Trump claims he has "nothing to do" with Project 2025, but he has a playbook of his own that would be devastating for LGBTQ+ Americans and other marginalized communities. The former president's reelection website features a section entitled Agenda 47, which hosts dozens of videos of Trump outlining his policies for if he returns to office. Several policies threaten the LGBTQ+ community, spanning across education, health care, and the military. In one video titled "President Trump's Plan to Protect Children From Left-Wing Gender Insanity," Trump promised to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level, and “cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” He also promised to ban transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity.

Trump stated that he "will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female — and they are assigned at birth.” He then claimed that being transgender was "invented" by the "radical left," though he did not use the term "transgender" once throughout Agenda 47. “No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender — a concept that was never heard of in all of human history — nobody’s ever heard of this, what’s happening today," Trump rambled. "It was all when the radical left invented it just a few years ago.”

[...] As for public education, Trump vowed to "cut federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children." He also promised to "create a new credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values."

While Donald Trump may claim to have “nothing to do” with Project 2025, it and Agenda 47 are practically like-for-like in many key policy areas. #Agenda47 #Project2025

[jackassdemocrats]

Another great Trump ad.

[ex-foster]

It's really wild to me that foster kids are completely excluded in theories of privilege, intersectional feminism or diversity and inclusion policies.

Even though the outcomes for former foster kids are absolutely horrific, it is often ignored... Unless foster kids are being used in the abortion debate.

[gamer2002]

[count-demonlord-of-decadence]

[archduchessofnowhere]

Then [Francesco II wrote] a series of expressions of family affection, with a thought for Maria Sofia at the top. Simple and straightforward words: "I do not think it is necessary for me to recommend the Queen my dearly beloved wife and companion in misfortune, because you, the only survivor of us three brothers of Gaeta, will remember how much we owe to her for having illustrated that era of ours".

More than many historical analyses, it was Francesco II who described in the few words of that writing the importance of the queen in the siege of Gaeta. It was she, with the courage she had shown at the time, who kept the idea and the memory of the Two Sicilies and the Bourbon sovereigns alive. That woman "companion of misfortunes" had been a support for the king, he acknowledged this and recommended her to his brother.

Di Fiore, Gigi (2018). L'ultimo re di Napoli. L'esilio di Francesco II di Borbone nell'Italia dei Savoia (Translation done by DeepL. Please keep in mind that in a machine translation nuances may/will be lost)

[sembulapeyalneerpol]

will we ever be from the chai tea discourse

[ethiack]

Am I Racist? Reviewed by a BLACK MAN

I have no political affiliation heres and un biased review.

[miaqc1]

I reput my "personal stance on things" online. I don't like to censor myself in the fear of being blocked on Tumblr/Ao3/SquidgeWorld etc. Besides I'm alway open to discussion. If something offend you, we can talk it out or well you can just block me. 😥

[unproduciblesmackdown]

take the "stop promoting conversion therapy for autistic people side of the coin" challenge

[rodaportal]

Westerners Fight Back Against Woke Ideology

Join the conversation as we explore the pushback against woke culture from Florida to Ireland to the UK. 🚫💭 Discover how citizens are standing up for traditional values, political dissent, and common-sense policies. 🗣️💪#ideology #woke #traditionalvalues

📺 Watch Now:

[gamer2002]

Political indoctrination of 8 years olds, on your taxes

[pumpkinpaix]

Regarding #EndOTWRacism’s summaries of 2023 OTW Board election candidate positions

Before I begin, let me say now that while I am a volunteer with the OTW, my views are personal and should not be taken as any kind of official statement from the org, its leadership, or other volunteers, especially not the candidates in question. My focus here is on the Asian candidates for obvious reasons, but this post is not meant as endorsement or disavowal of any of the candidates, whose bios and platforms can all be read here.

Do not take this as an excuse harass the mods running EOTWR. I cannot make myself clearer.

--

I am making this post to express my extreme disappointment with End OTW Racism’s post purporting to summarize the platforms of the candidates for the upcoming Board elections. It is no longer rebloggable, but can be read here.

The way that the candidates with Asian names were spoken of is deeply insulting when compared with how candidates with English-language names were discussed. Asian candidates had their platforms misrepresented, their expertise downplayed, and their lived experiences reduced down to “bringing an international presence” to the board, which was then further caveated with, “diversity alone is not going to solve the issue of racist harassment currently allowed in the OTW’s policies and enforcement practice”. While it is true that diversity alone is not a solution, it’s pretty offensive to essentially have “remember! Just because they aren’t white doesn’t mean you should vote for them!” tacked on to one of the Asian candidates’ platforms. 

End OTW Racism seems more concerned with whether or not candidates used the buzzwords they wanted to hear rather than with how racism is discussed holistically within the statements. While I can appreciate that EOTWR has a specific agenda, to say things like, “[s]he does not mention racism, racist harassment, or hiring a DEI consultant in her platform, so outside the outreach and support she mentions, there is not enough for us to conclude that these would be priorities for her” regarding Zixin Z.’s position, directly following the statement, “[s]he also mentions the need for outreach towards non-English-speaking fans and has a desire to provide support to volunteers from minority groups” is fucking laughable, especially after the initial mistake of stating that Zixin Z. only wanted to do more outreach to Chinese-speaking fans. Again, I understand that people make mistakes and that this mistake has since been corrected, but I hope it prompts some reflection on the sort of biases that would lead to such a mistake in the first place. It may have been completely innocuous, but in charged discussions about racism, please understand that it gives an impression that is difficult to shake. I do thank you for not trying to hide that this happened. 

Why is Anh P.’s lack of discussion on TOS/PAC a point against her, while Zixin Z.’s years of experience on PAC, her role as a mod on Weibo, and her background in nonprofits don’t even warrant a mention? For that matter, why did none of the Asian candidates’ skills or experience warrant mention? Qiao C. and Zixin Z. have both been volunteers with the organization for several years now, and Anh P. has years of moderation and volunteer experience elsewhere prior to her work with the OTW.

It is so fucking frustrating that despite each one of these candidates specifically talking about the need for diverse voices, they had their platforms essentially passed over because they didn’t use the right words, and it is particularly fucking aggravating to see that EOTWR will use Chinese issues as props when trying to press OTW leadership on the racism that occurs within the org, but then completely fail to connect the dots on why these candidates are running because the wrong language was used. Zixin Z. is one of the Weibo mods, for fuck’s sake. 

The entire post feels like an exercise in virtue signalling, from every time it was brought up that a candidate did not provide pronouns in their platform statements, despite every one of them having pronouns provided in their bios (why mention this detail at all? You could have simply used the pronouns), to what felt like willful obliviousness to the anti-racism stances in the Asian candidates’ platforms. It feels like the concern starts and ends with racism in Anglophone terms, on Anglophone terms.

I can respect the driving ideas behind EOTWR, even if I disagree with the way that EOTWR pursues their goals. I do believe that we want the same things in the end, and therefore chose not to interact with the many posts I have seen about the protest. However, I saw the summary post and could not let it pass without speaking.

For a protest group supposedly dedicated to ending racism in the OTW, this felt incredibly hypocritical, conscious bias or not. In my most charitable frame of mind, I can see this as misjudging and overcorrecting to ensure that there was no favoritism shown to the obvious non-white candidates lest EOTWR be accused of tokenizing– again, it is true, that diversity in and of itself is not a solution to racism. 

In my least charitable and most bitter frame of mind, I feel inclined to wonder if EOTWR, much like the OTW itself, is uncomfortable with the lack of influence they could exude over an international candidate. It would be much, much easier to push their agenda forward with more culturally familiar candidates, particularly white ones. Guilt and public scrutiny are powerful weapons and easy to wield against those with perceived privilege in our current atmosphere, often to the detriment of the actual discussion at hand in my experience. I know that’s cynical. It’s hard not to be. (For clarity's sake: I do not know the other candidates' races. This is a hypothetical.)

This isn’t a demand for an apology. I think we fetishize the capital-A Apology to the point where I find them sort of meaningless unless they are given freely. I don’t need EOTWR to agree with me, and I don’t really want to keep talking about it. Rather, I would prefer that EOTWR take action to do better as they continue in their campaign. What that action is is their decision. If they truly mean to stand against racism in the OTW, then I’d like them to demonstrate it.

--

DO NOT HARASS EOTWR MODS. I AM FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting on April 21!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on April 21 from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be April 20, though, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

DEI and organizational culture update

Organizational Culture Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then answered in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The full Community Guidelines can be found in the OTW Discord's #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with how the meeting will be run.

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team