I think there are two separate questions. The first is 'Is the concept behind affirmative action valid?' and the second is 'Is the implementation of affirmative action effective, fair and just?'
I believe there shouldn't even be a damn debate about the first question. This country has a massively problematic history with race relations and there are obviously still ripple effects in modern society, and we should take active measures to fix that. Minorities have been explicitly excluded from opportunities to gain wealth and status up until disturbingly recently, and many are still implicitly excluded from them to this day. Anybody who says that racism and the problems that come with it is a thing of the past is straight-up wrong. They are either not trying to understand the problems, or they are actively trying not to. Both of those are unacceptable to me.
The second question does merit some debate. Is it effective to simply say 'if we have two equal candidates we'll hire the minority'? How often does that really happen? Is it fair to do things like the NFL rewarding teams that hire a minority head coach? Is it just to implement quotas and percentages? I don't have answers to all of these questions. I have some opinions. But as a straight white cis dude, I feel like my voice doesn't need to be the loudest in the room in this one.
I spent some time in Germany and it's very much so not true there. I was waiting on line for something and my German friend got in a different line and he got his food a solid ten minutes before me. Afterwards he explained that he took the line against the wall so people could only budge in front of him from one direction. He told me "Germans cut. It's just the way it is."
Yup. I'm a warehouse manager. The logistics/ transportation/ warehousing industry is already stretched disturbingly thin. If we take away the people who run the places, the world will grind to a halt.
Seattle PD is and has always been terrible. For a city with as little violent crime as we are, you would think that we would have a semi-competant police force. We aren't Baltimore or Chicago or Memphis. We don't need a violent, antagonistic, adversarial police force. Yet decade after decade, Seattle PD shows themselves to be the worst of the worst of violent white nationalists.
SPD's training standards are embarrassingly low. SPD's staffing numbers are embarrassing low. Rookie cops make over $100k and the right-wing pundits say it's not enough, while first-year teachers make $55k and the right-wing pundits say it's too much. They blame the BLM riots and say that the city betrayed them, but the average person here had absolutely zero faith in them well before the riots. Most SPD officers don't actually live in Seattle.
Sorry if the second paragraph got a bit into unhinged-rant territory, but shit like this is infuriating. SPD is so clearly shit and needs to be purged.
I was at Warped Tour many years ago, talking with randos in the campground. I mentioned which bands I was there to see, and this guy gave me a huge smile and yelled 'You're old' in my face.
There's a big difference between being scripted and being fake. I'm not super into wrestling, but the fact that it's scripted makes some of it more impressive. It's full-contact daytime soaps.
There are also weird German rules about article endings. A band I like has a song called "Herz Eines Trache" which means Heart of a Dragon. I don't speak great German, so first time I heard it I wasted an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out what eine Strache is.
And Avalon Securities.