The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[jazzdude]

I'll preface my post with this: having traveled around the world and enjoying most of my travels and cultures I've visited, there's no where else I'd rather call home besides the USA. But just because we're the best doesn't mean we don't have flaws, or shouldn't strive to become better. And we need to do that as Americans, not as Republicans or Democrats throwing spears at each other, otherwise, our enemies will use that divide to weaken us or tear us apart. The great power struggle doesn't just exist militarily, but also politically and economically between nations.

I like to ask in these conversations if it's also important that the racial makeup of players in the NBA should also be representative of society, why or why not?  

One is a private organization, and one is a public institution. That's the difference. And no, I don't think matching percentages in different populations should be the end goal for either organization.

The NBA went through its transition long ago dealing with race, to the point where the race of the player doesn't matter now, just their performance, because that's what sells tickets (an exciting game), and makes money. But they got past the hurdle of integration and quotas/caps long ago

The military strives to be a meritocracy, but there are still biases that exist that favor some groups and hinder others. For example, the army ran an e where they removed the official photo from the promotion package, and got a surprising result.

"From taking a careful look at the data we collected from that experiment, our study finds that when you remove the DA photo ... voters took less time to cast the votes on each individual file, and then the outcomes for minorities and women improved," Wojtaszek said.

The study showed that using official photos led to decisions from board members that appeared to reveal unconscious bias, Army officials say.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/06/25/inside-armys-decision-eliminate-photos-officer-promotion-boards.html/amp

I think it's right we get after any unfairness in the system based on things that shouldn't matter (race/ethnicity/gender) to allow the best to rise through the ranks and so everyone is treated fairly, especially if we want to be a meritocracy.

It's also easy to point at the recruiting pool and say there aren't enough qualified from X group, but issues could go earlier than that. Educational/academic opportunities, athletics, clubs, etc in K-12 schooling, that lead up to being eligible in the recruiting pool, especially on the officer side. That's not DoD's problem, but a societal issue that merits looking at from other parts of government (or our society, which should be reflected in government). In a sense, the military (especially the officer corps) may already be reflective of the country based on opportunities available, whether that's just educational/volunteer opportunities that combine into an attractive package (sts), or just familiarity with the military growing up and it being a realistic/attainable goal. It'll likely take a generation or two to fix, but that requires groundwork to be laid now to create a better future for our kids, and we likely won't see any benefit in our careers.

It's less about making percentages match up (though there are people that believe that), but ensuring that if people want to compete, they aren't having to overcome additional barriers based on the race/gender, because they shouldn't have to.

[Guardian]

It’s about the person concept. Not the color of their skin or what’s between the legs.

[Prozac]

On 11/5/2020 at 11:36 AM, torqued said:

Say you have a room of 100 pilot candidates that exactly represents the demographics of the USA. They all have different resumes and the resumes don't specify race or gender.

What would your selection process be if you needed to choose 20 of them to fly aircraft in combat?

 

This is a valid question and a tough one. At best “affirmative action” is a deeply flawed short term bandaid applied to an issue that requires a far broader and more nuanced response in the long run (see Jazzdude’s post above). I think it’s sort of a necessary evil in the current environment. Others will disagree and have some valid reasons for doing so. To answer your question directly I’ll be (admittedly) somewhat hypocritical in my response: If I am picking the people that I will have to fly in difficult conditions with, you’re goddamn right I’m going to pick the most capable regardless of race, sex, etc. If, however, I am a policy maker responsible for the long term health of a military service, I’m likely going to apply some artificial selection criteria to help ensure some level of diversity for all of the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Like I said, it’s a flawed and temporary solution. But sometimes a flawed solution is better than no solution. 

[herkbier]

4 minutes ago, Prozac said:

To answer your question directly I’ll be (admittedly) somewhat hypocritical in my response: If I am picking the people that I will have to fly in difficult conditions with, you’re goddamn right I’m going to pick the most capable regardless of race, sex, etc. If, however, I am a policy maker responsible for the long term health of a military service, I’m likely going to apply some artificial selection criteria to help ensure some level of diversity for all of the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Like I said, it’s a flawed and temporary solution. But sometimes a flawed solution is better than no solution. 

And that.. is bullshit. The men and women who volunteer to risk their lives and commit acts of violence on our behalf deserve the best available, most capable Americans on their side without any biological qualifiers. 
 

If policy makers or the American public thinks our current force make up isn’t diverse enough, then they need to find ways to develop the under represented and under preforming communities so 18-22 years from now those kids grow up to be the best available and most capable Americans willing to serve. 
 

The wrong answer is any sort of lowering of standards or preferential treatment for under represented groups. 

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, herkbier said:

And that.. is bullshit. The men and women who volunteer to risk their lives and commit acts of violence on our behalf deserve the best available, most capable Americans on their side without any biological qualifiers. 
 

If policy makers or the American public thinks our current force make up isn’t diverse enough, then they need to find ways to develop the under represented and under preforming communities so 18-22 years from now those kids grow up to be the best available and most capable Americans willing to serve. 
 

The wrong answer is any sort of lowering of standards or preferential treatment for under represented groups. 

Perfectly reasonable response. I think you’re wrong and you’re thinking tactics not strategy, but I absolutely understand where you’re coming from. I think I would enjoy a conversation over a beer or six with you on the topic. 🍺 🍺 🍺 

[jazzdude]

It’s about the person concept. Not the color of their skin or what’s between the legs.

Completely agree.

But if someone in a position of authority IS considering those factors when they shouldn't be, whether consciously or unconsciously, wouldn't it be appropriate for leadership to recognize it is happening, step in, and put a stop to it? Otherwise you disenfranchise a segment of the population, reduce the pool of people willing to volunteer for service, and limit the pool of talent and experiences our nation has to draw from.

Let's remove race and sex from the issue for a moment. How many gripes about the promotion system, school selection, strats, etc are there on these message boards? I'm pretty sure 69% of this board is just complaining about injustices "the man" levied on the line pilot hacking the mission. How many commanders still track masters degrees on their strat matrix? Or the perception (or reality) of favorite golden childs being selected as mid level Captains and being groomed as a future GO, and given opportunities to accelerate their career and check all the boxes? Most guys I've known flying the line build up a resentment towards the system that says it rewards hard work and excellence in primary duty, only to see someone who may not have been hacking the mission get rewarded for organizing the Sq holiday party and the AFAF/CFC drive. We've all probably had a bad commander or supervisor that played favorites, or emphasized the extracurriculars outside of the mission, or at the very least had the perception of doing so by some out on the line. Maybe you could decide to play the game and do the extracurricular stuff to get recognition and opportunities. Or not, the ball is in your court to decide; you own that choice and the consequences of that choice.

It sucks, people get mad and punch out of the Air Force, and if their experience was bad enough, probably would warn others away (like their kids, friends, kids of friends, etc). This hurts the Air Force twice- first for the loss of an experienced aviator, and then again in the future with it's ability to recruit. Military service is becoming much more of a family tradition, with people joining because of the positive experiences of family or close friends, especially in the officer corps.

Now throw in an immutable fact about yourself that you can't change (race or sex, though I guess you could change the latter but that opens a whole other can of worms...), and that POS commander could derail your career, especially at critical points in your career, just because they "don't like your face." That individual doesn't have the choice to play the game to do what is valued by their (crappy) leader; that choice to be in the game or not was taken from them based on something they can't change. It hurts the individual, who then may go back into their community and discourages service, reducing the pool of talent our nation has to pull from.

I think most of us want the best that the country has to offer fighting to defend our freedom, regardless of race/sex/whatever. The problem isn't just a military problem, but a societal one that also impacts the military. Quotas aren't the answer, but doing nothing just ignores the issue and may exacerbate it as time goes on.

[herkbier]

3 hours ago, Prozac said:

Perfectly reasonable response. I think you’re wrong and you’re thinking tactics not strategy, but I absolutely understand where you’re coming from. I think I would enjoy a conversation over a beer or six with you on the topic. 🍺 🍺 🍺 

Fair enough I guess, I’ve got the first round. 

[ViperMan]

12 hours ago, Guardian said:

Great point. We need more representation from minorities and majorities in the NBA. They don’t represent the community they play in.

I also agree. And would like to pile on with we need more women in prison. Men are systematically discriminated against by the justice system, and the prison population doesn't represent the broader society. Therefore, we need more women in prison.

Edited November 7, 2020 by ViperMan

[Guardian]

I’d like to see more women in the oil fields. And I’m tired of being the one getting up at night to go check out the random noises in the house. That’s not equality!

[Grabby]

3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

Completely agree.

But if someone in a position of authority IS considering those factors when they shouldn't be, whether consciously or unconsciously, wouldn't it be appropriate for leadership to recognize it is happening, step in, and put a stop to it? Otherwise you disenfranchise a segment of the population, reduce the pool of people willing to volunteer for service, and limit the pool of talent and experiences our nation has to draw from.

Let's remove race and sex from the issue for a moment. How many gripes about the promotion system, school selection, strats, etc are there on these message boards? I'm pretty sure 69% of this board is just complaining about injustices "the man" levied on the line pilot hacking the mission. How many commanders still track masters degrees on their strat matrix? Or the perception (or reality) of favorite golden childs being selected as mid level Captains and being groomed as a future GO, and given opportunities to accelerate their career and check all the boxes? Most guys I've known flying the line build up a resentment towards the system that says it rewards hard work and excellence in primary duty, only to see someone who may not have been hacking the mission get rewarded for organizing the Sq holiday party and the AFAF/CFC drive. We've all probably had a bad commander or supervisor that played favorites, or emphasized the extracurriculars outside of the mission, or at the very least had the perception of doing so by some out on the line. Maybe you could decide to play the game and do the extracurricular stuff to get recognition and opportunities. Or not, the ball is in your court to decide; you own that choice and the consequences of that choice.

It sucks, people get mad and punch out of the Air Force, and if their experience was bad enough, probably would warn others away (like their kids, friends, kids of friends, etc). This hurts the Air Force twice- first for the loss of an experienced aviator, and then again in the future with it's ability to recruit. Military service is becoming much more of a family tradition, with people joining because of the positive experiences of family or close friends, especially in the officer corps.

Now throw in an immutable fact about yourself that you can't change (race or sex, though I guess you could change the latter but that opens a whole other can of worms...), and that POS commander could derail your career, especially at critical points in your career, just because they "don't like your face." That individual doesn't have the choice to play the game to do what is valued by their (crappy) leader; that choice to be in the game or not was taken from them based on something they can't change. It hurts the individual, who then may go back into their community and discourages service, reducing the pool of talent our nation has to pull from.

I think most of us want the best that the country has to offer fighting to defend our freedom, regardless of race/sex/whatever. The problem isn't just a military problem, but a societal one that also impacts the military. Quotas aren't the answer, but doing nothing just ignores the issue and may exacerbate it as time goes on.

Funny, I read your entire post and agreed with almost everything about it, until the last paragraph.  Then I realized you were indicating minorities and women are not given a fair shake in today's military.  I can't think of a single example of a minority or woman being squashed by a superior due to their race/sex in the 21st century.  I have seen them given preferential treatment though.  

If you don't desire quotas, but support quotas in the interim to fix a perceived problem, can you very simply state what that perceived problem is?  

Edited November 7, 2020 by Grabby

[jazzdude]

Funny, I read your entire post and agreed with almost everything about it, until the last paragraph.  Then I realized you were indicating minorities and women are not given a fair shake in today's military.  I can't think of a single example of a minority or woman being squashed by a superior due to their race/sex in the 21st century.  I have seen them given preferential treatment though.  
If you don't desire quotas, but support quotas in the interim to fix a perceived problem, can you very simply state what that perceived problem is?  

I will give you that there's probably not a lot of overt racism/sexism anymore.

I don't support quotas for the long run, and I'm not sure that quotas in the near term are necessarily the right answer either (if anything it should be a tool of absolute last resort except maybe in recruiting efforts/goals, and I don't think we're anywhere near needing to be that heavy handed for promotions or retention).

Hate to quote my earlier post, but going to do it anyways...

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/06/25/inside-armys-decision-eliminate-photos-officer-promotion-boards.html/amp

"From taking a careful look at the data we collected from that experiment, our study finds that when you remove the DA photo ... voters took less time to cast the votes on each individual file, and then the outcomes for minorities and women improved," Wojtaszek said.

The study showed that using official photos led to decisions from board members that appeared to reveal unconscious bias, Army officials say.

Those are the kind of fixes we should be after, not necessarily mandating quotas, which would likely lead to resentment on both sides of that quota.

But the military does like to promote a certain appearance, whether we like to admit it openly or not. Why else would every package to be an exec, or aide de camp, etc, or any job that generally can fast track your career, all require a photo in the application package? Naysayers will say it's because we don't want any fatties, but if they meet height/weight standards, why do you need a picture? Especially when requiring a picture introduces biases into a decision based solely on what a person looks like and not what their abilities are? Fix the weight standard if you're worried about overweight airmen in uniform.

As an analogy, musical orchestras used to be dominated by white men. Everyone would audition, and the "best" would get selected, which happened to be white men. When they started moving to blind auditions (person auditioning is not seen by the reviewers, isn't identified by anything but a number, and doesn't talk during the audition) to prove they were being fair, the number of women and minorities making the cut significantly increased. Now it's a pretty standard practice to do blind auditions in order to hire the best musicians, and remove any racial/gender biases based on what the musician looks like.

Then there are some easy kills, like fixing our dress and appearance AFI to allow hairstyles that accommodate people of different ethnicities. It also spelled out what was considered faddish, narrowing the definition since airmen provided feedback on getting counseled based on the whims of a someone who outranked them thinking their appearance was "faddish." Or extended shaving waivers, etc. But all that took way longer to fix than codifying pilots pushing up their flight suit sleeves (which arguably, who cares? We were going to push our sleeves up regardless).

There's also been a trend to accommodate where we can. Uniforms/equipment sized for women so they can be comfortable. Researching solutions for a female piddle pack so they aren't tactically dehydrating themselves for flight. Stuff that makes their lives easier so they can focus on hacking the mission without having to compensate for things that don't fit, improving their performance. Hell, we just recently updated what anthro standards are going to be used for future aircraft to accommodate a wider set of the American population, and now accounts for typical female ranges for anthro measurements. How long have women been flying jets to when that standard was updated? That opens the door for a bigger pool to draw from to find and train the best aircrew, and no longer eliminates a large portion of women from pilot duties based on being an average sized woman.

If I were king for a day:
- Fix mentorship across the board. Knowing the game is half the battle, and it can be difficult to either reach out to someone for career guidance, or to get honest feedback, especially if there's a perceived (or real) cultural barrier. Can't just be pencil whipped like OPR midterm feedbacks (only had 3 in my 14 years so far). At the very minimum, you should have access to direct feedback from not only your rater, but your additional rater as well, who should serve as a check/balance against what your rater's assessment of your performance is.
- Reassess how we hire into certain jobs, and be on guard for biases (based on race/gender) creeping into the decision making process, especially any time interviews are conducted. Get rid of photos in hiring packages full stop.
- Consider masking names, gender, race, ethnicity on PRFs.
- Continue with community outreach, and encourage recruiting in communities that are less represented in the military. This has to be supported by other government functions to provide education which paves the way for other opportunities. The other piece is public messaging -the military isn't a career of last resort, but can a meaningful and fulfilling experience and/or career.

The goal is to remove barriers for people across the board, not to give any particular group an extra advantage in the name of diversity. Though some barriers may only exist for particular groups. And I think the AF has been on a good path on that end in recent months.

[ViperMan]

Is it just me, or does choosing people based on race, sex, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic quite literally tokenize them?

[FLEA]

3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

 

 

I will give you that there's probably not a lot of overt racism/sexism anymore.

I don't support quotas for the long run, and I'm not sure that quotas in the near term are necessarily the right answer either (if anything it should be a tool of absolute last resort except maybe in recruiting efforts/goals, and I don't think we're anywhere near needing to be that heavy handed for promotions or retention).

Hate to quote my earlier post, but going to do it anyways...




Those are the kind of fixes we should be after, not necessarily mandating quotas, which would likely lead to resentment on both sides of that quota.

But the military does like to promote a certain appearance, whether we like to admit it openly or not. Why else would every package to be an exec, or aide de camp, etc, or any job that generally can fast track your career, all require a photo in the application package? Naysayers will say it's because we don't want any fatties, but if they meet height/weight standards, why do you need a picture? Especially when requiring a picture introduces biases into a decision based solely on what a person looks like and not what their abilities are? Fix the weight standard if you're worried about overweight airmen in uniform.

As an analogy, musical orchestras used to be dominated by white men. Everyone would audition, and the "best" would get selected, which happened to be white men. When they started moving to blind auditions (person auditioning is not seen by the reviewers, isn't identified by anything but a number, and doesn't talk during the audition) to prove they were being fair, the number of women and minorities making the cut significantly increased. Now it's a pretty standard practice to do blind auditions in order to hire the best musicians, and remove any racial/gender biases based on what the musician looks like.

Then there are some easy kills, like fixing our dress and appearance AFI to allow hairstyles that accommodate people of different ethnicities. It also spelled out what was considered faddish, narrowing the definition since airmen provided feedback on getting counseled based on the whims of a someone who outranked them thinking their appearance was "faddish." Or extended shaving waivers, etc. But all that took way longer to fix than codifying pilots pushing up their flight suit sleeves (which arguably, who cares? We were going to push our sleeves up regardless).

There's also been a trend to accommodate where we can. Uniforms/equipment sized for women so they can be comfortable. Researching solutions for a female piddle pack so they aren't tactically dehydrating themselves for flight. Stuff that makes their lives easier so they can focus on hacking the mission without having to compensate for things that don't fit, improving their performance. Hell, we just recently updated what anthro standards are going to be used for future aircraft to accommodate a wider set of the American population, and now accounts for typical female ranges for anthro measurements. How long have women been flying jets to when that standard was updated? That opens the door for a bigger pool to draw from to find and train the best aircrew, and no longer eliminates a large portion of women from pilot duties based on being an average sized woman.

If I were king for a day:
- Fix mentorship across the board. Knowing the game is half the battle, and it can be difficult to either reach out to someone for career guidance, or to get honest feedback, especially if there's a perceived (or real) cultural barrier. Can't just be pencil whipped like OPR midterm feedbacks (only had 3 in my 14 years so far). At the very minimum, you should have access to direct feedback from not only your rater, but your additional rater as well, who should serve as a check/balance against what your rater's assessment of your performance is.
- Reassess how we hire into certain jobs, and be on guard for biases (based on race/gender) creeping into the decision making process, especially any time interviews are conducted. Get rid of photos in hiring packages full stop.
- Consider masking names, gender, race, ethnicity on PRFs.
- Continue with community outreach, and encourage recruiting in communities that are less represented in the military. This has to be supported by other government functions to provide education which paves the way for other opportunities. The other piece is public messaging -the military isn't a career of last resort, but can a meaningful and fulfilling experience and/or career.

The goal is to remove barriers for people across the board, not to give any particular group an extra advantage in the name of diversity. Though some barriers may only exist for particular groups. And I think the AF has been on a good path on that end in recent months.

 

I definitely agree that names/gender/race need masked on PRFs and SURFs. There is 0 reason for a promotion board to need to know this data. 

I think most people are missing your point on board photos because the AF is the most progressive branch and did away with this in the 90s. (Still do it for certain awards and for-hire oppurtunities though) 

[gearhog]

15 hours ago, Prozac said:

This is a valid question and a tough one. At best “affirmative action” is a deeply flawed short term bandaid applied to an issue that requires a far broader and more nuanced response in the long run (see Jazzdude’s post above). I think it’s sort of a necessary evil in the current environment. Others will disagree and have some valid reasons for doing so. To answer your question directly I’ll be (admittedly) somewhat hypocritical in my response: If I am picking the people that I will have to fly in difficult conditions with, you’re goddamn right I’m going to pick the most capable regardless of race, sex, etc. If, however, I am a policy maker responsible for the long term health of a military service, I’m likely going to apply some artificial selection criteria to help ensure some level of diversity for all of the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Like I said, it’s a flawed and temporary solution. But sometimes a flawed solution is better than no solution. 

But you don't need to be hypocritical. You already have the correct answer, why would you also argue the case for a policy-maker with the incorrect answer?

If white males are over-represented because the selection criteria was biased for race/gender, creating more biases based on race/gender that originally created the problem clearly doesn't make sense.

The health of a military service is measured in performance, not identity. As the post above said, set a standard, create a selection process that removes the potential for decisions to be made with a conscious or subconscious bias with regard to race/gender, and I too believe minorities will fair far better, and do so more legitimately, that they do today or will after more diversity quotas.

 

[jazzdude]

Is it just me, or does choosing people based on race, sex, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic quite literally tokenize them?

Generally, yes. Part of the American culture is that if I work hard, I can get rewarded for that work and create more opportunities for myself.

Here's a 2016 look at the Air Force demographics as a whole, broken out by rank and component. First page shows breakdown of majority/minorites vs rank, second page shows men/women vs rank, followed by a more in depth breakdown of numbers.

https://diversity.defense.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=gxMVqhkaHh8%3D&portalid=51

The percentage of women tends to stay more or less constant across the ranks, so you'd infer that generally, women compete on an equal footing compared to men for promotion and retention, as the relative proportion stays pretty much the same. I'd posit based on that data that gender isn't as big of an issue for diversity, though maybe improvements could be made in the recruiting end.

However, looking at racial majority vs minority, as you increase in rank, the percentage of minorities goes down. Why? Is it that minorities just can't hack the mission and thus are promoted at lower percentages than their peers? Or is there something tipping the scale against them as they promote? Maybe there something that causes then to leave the service before the next promotion? It's all correlation, and the AF and DoD are after why it's happening.

Here's a long read, and I'll admit I only skimmed quickly through it, but looks like my guesses at how to attack the problem aren't too far off what DoD is planning to do:

https://diversity.defense.gov/Portals/51/Documents/Special%20Feature/MLDC_Final_Report.pdf

Again, I only did a quick skim, but I didn't see quotas mentioned as a solution

One thing the report does call out is that higher ranks tend to come from combat specialties, which tend to have more white men compared to other specialties, and discusses trying to remove those barriers (real or perceived) to entry in the combat specialties.

For the AF, this means pilots. The discussion tend to focus on the line flyer and hacking the mission, but the AF also needs to develop people to fill the staffs and to lead. And we need good people on both paths. This need creates conflict, as some just want to fly their whole careers, and some want to fly, then move onto other things while flying if they can (or not). That conflict gets more complex when you throw race/gender on top of it. Unless you want the staffs filled by support AFSCs that may not understand how we fight and how the decisions they make affect the warfighter (line pilot).

But again, the answer is not quotas, as it's heavy handed and creates conflict between groups that no one wants. But if we end up with quotas, it's because of a failure of leadership and management at all levels in the service.

[M2]

13 hours ago, ViperMan said:

Is it just me, or does choosing people based on race, sex, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic quite literally tokenize them?

Yes, "equality" is not giving any person an advantage over another.

It's about equal opportunities, not equal results.

Harry Callahan said it best...

[Prozac]

54 minutes ago, M2 said:

Yes, "equality" is not giving any person an advantage over another.

It's about equal opportunities, not equal results.

Harry Callahan said it best...

We agree. I don’t believe we’re yet at a point where equal opportunity truly exists though. The fixes for this can be complex, messy, and imperfect.

[Guardian]

So for those that think America is racist and needs to be fixed and that there needs to be more minorities or gender equality represented at the military and different jobs across this land, do you realize you are advocating for racism? Specifically systemic racism? A policy put in place and upheld with a strong arm, guns, and force to put down those without the correct color of skin or having the wrong setup between their legs.

That is a very left ideal and they claim it’s equality not racism. And they have begun to redefine racism as well to include what they think racism should be.

Very sad for our country. Land of equal opportunity is going away.

[Guardian]

[slackline]

So for those that think America is racist and needs to be fixed and that there needs to be more minorities or gender equality represented at the military and different jobs across this land, do you realize you are advocating for racism? Specifically systemic racism? A policy put in place and upheld with a strong arm, guns, and force to put down those without the correct color of skin or having the wrong setup between their legs.

That is a very left ideal and they claim it’s equality not racism. And they have begun to redefine racism as well to include what they think racism should be.

Very sad for our country. Land of equal opportunity is going away.

I'm done trying to reason with you, make whatever childish claims you want. You don't read too well if that's what you got from his post. Stop being stupid, please, for the AF's sake.

You continually cry about people not using reason, logic, data, etc., but it's crazy how the posts you complain about usually contain those exact things, then you never respond to any of it.

Go away. You don't bring anything to the conversation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guardian]

Projecting much? This from the same guy who was so worried that I knew you weren’t the one who deleted your post, that you sent me a private message about it. It’s pretty obvious I no longer care what you think or bring to the table since you are unwilling to consider or discuss others thoughts or questions without bashing them. Go back to your antifa meetings if you have nothing to contribute here.

[Guardian]

Notice you didn’t provide any rational discussion. You didn’t say anything to counter. You provide no facts. You just get mad and say go away. Effectively what the left is doing. Censoring. Not discussing. You may not be liberal but you absolutely seem to agree with the leftist ideals.

If you had a counter argument, it should be easy to state. You wasted more effort being emotional and upset.

[Guardian]

And all because I called you out for getting douche-y in the other chat board when you were condescending towards people because you couldn’t find something they were referring to on Twitter. You are having a very tough time accepting criticism and being able to cut out emotion and either respond with a counter claim or try to understand the others point. You revert to emotion. I have had trouble with this in the past. It is easy for me to see in others because I struggle with it. Let me know if you want to pm some more about it in an honest unemotional way

[Guardian]

Seriously. Take a stab at it. Tell us all how making government programs to push people ahead based on race and or gender isn’t systematic racism. That’s it. No emotion. Just use words, facts, and reason and tell us all how I am wrong.

[jazzdude]

Seriously. Take a stab at it. Tell us all how making government programs to push people ahead based on race and or gender isn’t systematic racism. That’s it. No emotion. Just use words, facts, and reason and tell us all how I am wrong.

A lot of the actual effort isn't pushing one group over another, but rather removing barriers/drag placed on particular groups that may have been put there unintentionally or have unintended effects. Whether it's outdated policies or standards, or reassessing requirements-things change, and the system we all live and work with has to change to stay current.

How about an analogy that contains what some would consider some heresy on this board?

Maybe advanced degrees should be unmasked from all promotion boards, at it helps paint a picture of how well rounded a person is.

The AF wants an educated force, and continued education is one way to encourage diversity in thought as well as develop skills. It's one of the 4 items on the promotion board instructions, especially for technical skills.

The downside is this came with several unintended consequences. People saw the correlation that having a master's improved your promotion chances, and started getting a check the box masters using TA, that didn't actually improve them in any appreciable manner. This meant the AF didn't really get someone who really learned anything in the addition education, and had to several thousands of dollars for pretty much every officer to check a box that became diluted.

Lots of pilots in this board complained that while they were hacking the mish on 12+ hour days, our FSS counterparts were getting plenty of time to do there master's coursework. We (pilots) complained that this de facto requirement was unfair, and that our skills and job specific training brought value to the AF when considering promotions.

Even though the AF values advanced education, it recognized that the negative effects of having it be considered in promotions, and that those negative effects outweighed any gains from considering education in promotion. So the masking the advanced degrees on promotion boards through O-5 was removed, and with it the perception that a master's degree was required for those grades. It removed a burden from many officers that didn't have any particular interest or need in continued education. It removed a barrier for officers that did not have the time (due to their primary jobs) or money (many worthwhile degrees come with a significant out of pocket expenses, even with TA) to complete a master's degree.

Masking the degrees did come with a price though. Now positions where an advanced degrees is relevant or needed (AF engineers, for example) gets masked from the promotions board. You can't refer to degrees on OPRs, either, so that gets lost completely. But the bad outweighed the good, and it was masked.

That kind of examination on requirements/standards is what a lot of the recent diversity push have been about: re-examining what we do, how we do it, and went we do it, and the effects of the rules we put in place, to try and create a fair environment for everyone in the service (fair as in race/gender do not influence outcomes, just your abilities).

Your line of argument, applied to this situation, would've doubled down on the keeping degrees unmasked for promotions. Unmasked degrees were the standard and advanced education is valued, and this is fair since everyone knew it was considered in promotions, has access to TA to pay for it, and since the big AF values it, your supervisor should give you time to work on it on duty; you just need to manage your time better and suck less, and quit complaining about how the system is unfair.