The Right to Have an Exclusionary Identity

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Is it immoral to have an exclusionary identity?

Let's start with the premise that woman and man are (at least primarily) self-labeling identities which people should have a right to choose for themselves.

We've now established that people may self-identify.

Now, can I have an identity that is gatekept, either by myself or someone else? Is that permissible?

At first glance it seems mean to be so exclusionary, but the fact that Suzie is allowed to gatekeep the group identity of "people who are friends of Suzie" and this is accepted as valid by our entire social consciousness, suggests that yes, people may have exclusionary identities that are gatekept, either by themselves or others.

This may be confusing because words are not anyone's personal property and although I may identify as a gorp, and I may define that to exclude others, I can't stop someone else from identifying as a gorp and having it mean something completely different. But if I define gorp as "member of a group of people Purple Knight believes are gods" then as far as this describes my identity, it is just as wrong to impose on me to force me to acknowledge someone else as a gorp, as it is to force Suzie to acknowledge someone she does not like as a member of the group of people Suzie considers to be friends.

In other words, I can identify as a bat, and you can't stop me, but as far as other bats, if their identity includes themselves and not me, this isn't wrong either. I can't force other bats to accept me as a bat, because when they define that identity, for them, it means what they want it to mean and not what I want it to mean, and they can, if they wish, define it to exclude me. I'm still a bat as far as I'm concerned, but I can't force them to call me a bat as far as they're concerned. If I could, that would be trampling their identity.

So far so good?

If so, a group of people born with vaginas may call themselves women and define it to exclude other women. I don't see this as any more wrong for them to gatekeep that identity as far as they're concerned than it is for Suzie to gatekeep the group "friends of Suzie" as far as Suzie is concerned.

This does not mean policy should be written to placate Suzie and disqualify people who are not her friends from competing against those who are to earn real rewards like scholarships. Policy should be fair to all and should not concern itself with what Suzie wants or who she acknowledges.

This only means that Suzie has a right to say who the friends of Suzie are. And if she wishes her friends to be only those who were born with vaginas, and she wishes to call that group "women" then she can. It's only as far as she's concerned and it has no bearing on anyone else's identity or how policy should treat them.

[brunumb]

In the meantime people can be happy because the hiring process became transparent and the kind of discrimination they said was rampant, is now gone.

Eventually, one form of discrimination will simply be replaced by another. We have had a society where LGBT people were discriminated against and now the tide has turned and the non-LGBT are being discriminated against. Cancel culture is the new police force. Your vision seems too idealistic to me and very much unattainable. We need a balance where all people are simply treated decently as human beings. Do no harm.

[LittleNipper]

You're not getting away with it if you got 30 Black candidates with better credentials and you hired the white guy because "personality" and "he fits with our company culture" - that will show for exactly what it is. And if everyone somehow gets away with it, make it illegal. The best qualified candidate gets the job, by law.

But if you've got 30 black candidates and you hire the one white guy because he had the best credentials, you know exactly what the reaction will be. You can't legislate to mitigate against human nature.

If that happens, we have to go from there. Why do the 30 Black candidates not have the credentials? Are they not getting access to education? Well then, provide it. Address each injustice. Make people point to it, not talk about "a million small things" and not mention one.

If we attain a society where you do X, you get Y, nobody will be allowed to complain anymore. This is against human nature but it's the next level of society and will make everyone better off. The problem is, we have a society of smell wolves deciding that the wolves with the best smells belong at the top, and it comes to hideous light when that also results in discrimination. And why would you listen to somebody saying oh, you didn't do X so you didn't get Y? I wouldn't, because I know the guy with Y did not do X. In fact, he dropped out of high school half the time.

So make the hiring process open. Force them to hire on a solid basis and declare their criteria as they open a position. Don't let people lie on applications. Don't let people put charismatic rubbish: Just their objective credentials. Will this stop discrimination? No. But this is not one of those infinite first steps - this is actually progress. You want less oppression? Point to it and it gets gone.

In the meantime people can be happy because the hiring process became transparent and the kind of discrimination they said was rampant, is now gone. If we do it one thing at a time, we can catch the cockroaches and kill them. I'm sick of living in a roach-infested house with racists and anti-racists alike trying to protect the roaches. We're living in this weird Hellish equilibrium of everyone intentionally safeguarding bad behaviour they know is there, where white people think they won't get hired without privilege, so they're trying to protect it, and Black people think that if they let me lift up the fridge and kill the #@&&@(*)& roaches, they will lose their special catchup goodies they get from everyone acknowledging the roaches exist, and that they will be the ones who die off.

I'm the only one who just wants to live in a clean house.

BUT! What happens if the white candidate attended a private Christian school where the Creation, Noah's Flood, and Moses crossing the Red Sea were presented along with mention of evolution and atheism was discussed; HOWEVER, the 30 Black candidates all went to regular public school where such discussions were not legally feasible? Now it seems you have a straw man because there are many black children who attend private Christian schools and many whites who attend secular public schools. BUT! What if it were shown that the greatest thinkers were coming from private Christian schools. Perhaps, what is necessary is to do what is best for the kids, and not consider what fits legal values for legality sake.

[Clownboat]

BUT! What happens if the white candidate attended a private Christian school where the Creation, Noah's Flood, and Moses crossing the Red Sea were presented along with mention of evolution and atheism was discussed; HOWEVER, the 30 Black candidates all went to regular public school where such discussions were not legally feasible?

It seems you went to public school as your sentence ended with a question mark, but I cannot find a way to answer your question due to how you asked it. Trying to slay us with irony perhaps?

Now it seems you have a straw man because there are many black children who attend private Christian schools and many whites who attend secular public schools.

More of the same. Where is the straw man?

BUT! What if it were shown that the greatest thinkers were coming from private Christian schools.

Here you forgot to end with a question mark, but it reads as if there should be one, so I'll attempt to answer your question.
Ready?...
Then we would be shown that the greatest thinkers were coming from private Christian schools.
I went to private Christian school K- 12, what is your point?

Perhaps, what is necessary is to do what is best for the kids, and not consider what fits legal values for legality sake.

Are you trying to claim that some group (or whatever is in your head) is not doing what is best for kids? This entire post is hard to follow.

[Purple Knight]

BUT! What happens if the white candidate attended a private Christian school where the Creation, Noah's Flood, and Moses crossing the Red Sea were presented along with mention of evolution and atheism was discussed; HOWEVER, the 30 Black candidates all went to regular public school where such discussions were not legally feasible? Now it seems you have a straw man because there are many black children who attend private Christian schools and many whites who attend secular public schools. BUT! What if it were shown that the greatest thinkers were coming from private Christian schools. Perhaps, what is necessary is to do what is best for the kids, and not consider what fits legal values for legality sake.

Then if this is known, and the hiring party wants a religiously educated candidate, because they think that's better, because in some ways it might be better, they can declare that they prefer it as they open the position.

I'm sick of these cockroaches. In this case, the cockroach is the company picking the white person, because they want the white person, and then saying, oh, we're so religious, and he went to a religious school so he's in. There are very easy squishes for every one of these cockroaches, but despite that, everyone has let them grow into unassailable boogeymen because we've hit this really horrible equilibrium where everyone knows they exist and everyone is protecting them.

Are you trying to claim that some group (or whatever is in your head) is not doing what is best for kids? This entire post is hard to follow.

Basically he's saying (at least, I think) that in this hypothetical situation where great thinkers are coming out of religious schools, an employer might genuinely want that, but at the same time, the fact that some employers might reasonably want that, might be used as an excuse by other employers to simply get the candidate of the race they please.

In essence, an employer will still select the candidate they want for discriminatory reasons, then look at what that candidate has, after the fact, and pretend they simply valued that thing very highly.

I said make them declare what they want as they open the position.

What might actually happen when the process is forced to light, is that we see what government should be using our kajillions of dollars to actually teach our children, and what's a waste of the kids' time and our money. What might also happen is that every last employer prioritises personality, personality, personality, and only realises how retarded they're being when public schools turn into finishing schools and none of the kids can read and write because employers don't care.

[Purple Knight]

This trans woman is correct: The person below is not trans.

She has an exclusionary identity. Because I did this, or have this objective characteristic, I am this, and you are not.

I agree with her right to gatekeep her identity from people who do not meet the objective qualifications for being that identity.

So... do cis women get the same?