let’s be honest, what this is really about. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny. What do diversity programs do? Diversity programs promote acceptance of non-white non-straight non-cis people in the workforce and work to open the work force to those people. Yes it is so that work places become more accepting of those who are different from white straight cis men.
Which means people against diversity and inclusion are simply trying to promote a white straight cis male only in schools, higher education, and the white collar workers in the US, which means upper level income management positions. Notice these same people don’t seem to mind that the lower income labor positions are filled by the very people that the diversity inclusion programs are designed to lift up to better jobs and education. Weird that. Hugs. Scottie
Quotes from the linked article.
Under the Utah bill, universities and government would not be allowed to have offices dedicated to promoting diversity. They also could not require employees to submit statements of commitment to DEI.
The chamber’s six Democrats voted against it. Among them was Sen. Luz Escamilla, who cited statistics showing much lower college enrollment rates for Native American, Hispanic and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students compared to white students.
The board that oversees Iowa’s public universities in November directed schools to eliminate staff positions focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. In December, the board overseeing Wisconsin’s university system agreed to shift dozens of DEI positions to instead focus on “student success” and freeze hiring for DEI staff in exchange for lawmakers releasing state funding for pay raises and campus construction projects.
Like last year, this year’s bills have a heavy focus on higher education. But Republicans also are sponsoring bills seeking to limit DEI in K-12 schools, state government, state contracting and pension investments. Some bills also would bar financial institutions from discriminating against those who refuse to participate in DEI programs.
Utah’s legislature became the latest in the U.S. to pass a bill Friday prohibiting diversity training, hiring and inclusion programs at universities and in state government. The bill that cleared the state House and Senate by wide margins now heads to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican who has said he is likely to sign such a bill into law.
I can assure you, after this legislative session, it will not be happening in the state of Utah, these diversity statements that you have to sign to get hired,” Cox said in a Dec. 20 news conference. Such initiatives are “awful, bordering on evil,” he added.
Under the Utah bill, universities and government would not be allowed to have offices dedicated to promoting diversity. Last year, Republican-led Florida and Texas were first to enact broad-based laws banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education.
Utah’s legislature is the latest in the U.S. to pass a bill prohibiting diversity training, hiring and inclusion programs at universities and in state government. https://t.co/pFksk34jh3
I just hate this. Why is it “evil” to try to treat others like you would want to be treated? Why is it evil to try to open up our society to give others the same opportunities that were hoarded by white people since before the founding of this nation? The “Golden Rule” of the Christianity they claim to follow is right in line with this, yet they call it “evil.” I guess the only positive here is that they’ve stopped hiding their racism. Now we know just who the problem really is.
Two years ago right wing propagandists had to be crafty when pushing this agenda. They had to use terms like Critical Race Theory to make these programs seem evil. Now they don’t have to hide it anymore. They can openly challenge the ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion. They’ve convinced people that these ideas are the real racism. Their messaging has been extremely effective and now they are getting their laws passed. This is what fascism looks like.
CisHet white conservatives are terrified of losing their position of supremacy. They’ll do whatever they can to keep everyone else down to maintain the status quo.
And the foreign students, who pay the most money, will go elsewhere. I hope the Utah students who are left to make up that money enjoy their larger student loans…
The SLC Redevelopment Agency is a for profit business unit of City government. I have sat on the Advisory Panel for several years. DEI is mentioned in the charter and governing documents in mission statements and strategies. I don’t see this changing and there is very little that the legislature can do about it. The only way this city will grow and prosper is to make sure all of it grows and prospers. It means that investments in less well to do neighborhoods will create a path toward generational wealth, lift populations out of poverty and build a tax base.
I don’t understand how GOPers can’t understand that a rising tide raises all the ships in the harbor.
City government has been openly at odds with the LDS owned state legislature for decades. As the blue stain has grown, the faithful have become alarmed. They are losing their cherished Deseret to inbound migration and young people leaving the church. Only 42% of residents identify as LDS, the church would have you believe that number is over 70%. They lie to us but they also lie to themselves.
Millennials and Gen Z LDS seem to be following the same national pattern that other organized religions are facing. They are just doing it a bit later than their contemporaries. Much of this is due to family pressure and the complete isolation that happens when a young person leaves the church. Often they lose everything. That’s why we see more LDS youth breaking away in their mid 20s. Here’s a good piece from the SLC Trib. Enjoy.
They have also passed a bathroom bill for government buildings which will require trans people use the bathroom of the gender assigned at birth until “fully transitioned” and changed on ID.
How and who will police this is unknown. It sounds like a violation of people’s medical privacy on its face.
Yes, those diversity statements are evil. The nerve of being forced to act Christ-like. The horror of following the Golden Rule must be stomped out in the name of Murican Freedumb. Fucking Nazi trash.
Wow, the rush to the past is not slowing down even as Florida reaches the edge of the cliff. Anything that threatens right wing fundamentalist Christian world view must be banned, removed, buried along with the regressive indoctrination taught. What is the republican idea of real history? That slaves benefited by being slaves? Rapes and beatings were free for them, I guess? How did we get here, to this point?
The US was not always a backwards country. We started out with a radical idea, a representative democracy. Let the people have a say in how things are run. Other countries took this idea and made it great for the public. The future US kind of tried to pull it together, had a major set back with entrenched racism, which we are still dealing with today. Then a period of growth for some, oppression for others. Then the Enlightenment of the New Deal where again the people, the public welfare mattered. Yes we struggled as each generation challenged the generation before them to expand and grow, open up society so more people could share in it equally. Then we had a pivotal moment. A black man was voted in to the highest office in our country, the Presidency. The right / those that couldn’t accept equality lost their collective minds. And overnight racism became vogue again, became acceptable to be publicly voiced by some people. Leaders of political groups on the right, and religious leaders also on the right rallied their followers to push the idea that racism is not wrong as was held true for 40+ years and these people pushed back on the gains in equality of the blacks.
Well that worked so well for them that racism was extended back to mean anyone not white. Yes all brown people were deficient and inferior along with basically born bad, especially brown people at the southern border who wanted only to come to the US to work and share the “American dream”. Well that got a mob boss thug wannabe elected president who gave his followers permission to throw all decency away and revert back to the lowest common denominator they could be. Racism was joined by bigotry against anyone different, openly being crude, rude, and thuggish became OK for them. As long as it was towards others, not them. They demanded they and only them be given back the celebrated highest position in society / the country with everyone else being made lessor with many fewer rights. They want a return to a distant past before enlightenment, and with the added boost of recreating a fictitious history that never was, which is that the US was founded as a Christian country. With a racist bigoted moron leading the way, the right surged into office propelled by the idea of taking back the country to something worse for most people but great for a minority. The minority that was to be given a higher station loved it, and with the majority not paying much attention, managed to get into positions of authority over schools.
Now they used that authority to attack all areas with the full force of racism, bigotry, and forced religious indoctrination. Christianity only though, no other religion was acceptable. They removed books or media that had any member of society they disliked, they did the same for any ideas expressed they disagreed with. Freedom became only for them, white cis straight Christians, all others had no freedom. Parent’s rights were twisted to mean only the rights of white cis straight Christian racist bigots, and those rights included forcing every child to be indoctrinated with the right wing racist bigoted Christian teachings regardless of the child’s parents wishes. A complete authoritarian take over was what they tried.
It was noticed because like all bigots they were not quiet about the damage they were doing once they got the authority to do it. They aggressively rammed their backwards oppression on everyone. History has shown when they tried this same shit in the past, it was quickly stopped so they tried to create laws cementing their ideas in place. But the public which was still a progressive majority woke up, and started fighting back. They took back a lot of the school boards, they took back as many positions as came up for vote. The only ones they couldn’t fix were the ones not yet up for vote, like Governor and state officials. Which brings us to now, today in Florida where educational classes on subjects long thought important for the growth of students is being removed to further the forced indoctrination of right wing political racism, bigotry, and Christianity along with a made up fictional history. Hugs. Scottie
Two quotes from the article.
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
Students should be focused on learning the ‘truth,’ rather than be ‘radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms,’ said education commissioner
Published 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET|Updated 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET
Ron DeSantis: On a mission to reshape education.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “anti-woke” crusade has now removed sociology as a core class from all 12 of the state’s public universities.
The Board of Governors voted to make the change on Wednesday. A core sociology course was also removed earlier this month from all 28 Florida public colleges, meaning that Florida students will no longer be able to chose sociology to fulfill their core class requirements.
What the board refers to as a “factual history course” is replacing Principles of Sociology in the universities in what is widely seen as the start of a general rout of sociology classes.
When discussing sociology late last year, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said that “students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms.” He also said the subject had been “hijacked by left-wing activists.”
The Board of Education has promised the history curriculum will include an examination of the “horrors” of slavery, even though the same board pressed lower schools to teach that slaves — who lost their freedom, were beaten, raped and forced to labor for their masters — benefited from slavery because they learned work “skills”
Florida has one of the country’s largest public university systems, with more than 430,000 students.
The latest change is part of a sweeping reorganization of education in Florida from top to bottom. Under DeSantis’ sweeping book censorship, at least one district has banned dictionaries from their schools’ libraries because they contain the word “sex.”
The American Sociological Association called the decision to dump the core sociology class “outrageous,” and one informed by a “gross misunderstanding” of sociology as somehow “radical.”
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
"The decision to remove sociology from Florida's core curriculum is a tragic blow to students’ intellectual freedom. It will prevent generations of students from being introduced to subject matter that is uniquely suited to address complex challenges."https://t.co/JxhDw5B9Sg
— American Association of University Professors (@AAUP) January 25, 2024
Florida will no longer allow a sociology course to count toward students’ graduation requirements at state universities, replacing it with a class officials say will teach “factual history” in a decision critics say was fueled by political motivations. https://t.co/FyEhQt9CVv
Well, it’s done. Now all state colleges AND universities will be removing #sociology from the gen ed curriculum. Summer intro courses are now on hold anticipating tanking enrollments & grad student instructors are the first to be axed. Thanks #Florida. https://t.co/DmuIxOTXud
The American Sociological Association condemns the State University System of Florida board's decision to cut sociology from core course requirements as "a failure of Florida's commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness." https://t.co/DHRdeGt7CF
FOOLS…my sociology course in school required us to float theories in class, while using statistical databases to prove them. It was like two courses in one, and highly illuminating for dispelling old assumptions.
I refuse to believe in a book that SUPPOSEDLY has all the answers to life that was written by a bunch of people who didn’t know where the sun went at nigh…
I like the chapter in the “factual history” textbook where Jesus and George Washington free all the babies in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, lock up Hillary Clinton and then travel to Kentucky to comfort the citizens of Bowling Green in the wake of Al Sharpton’s horrific massacre.
The helicopter was in the shop so they needed an airstrip. There were some wooden teeth smashed into the air intake valve and the repair parts were still on order at the time of the attack. Everyone knows this is the reason helicopters didn’t get used again until after WW2.
Welcome to the white fundamentalist maga paradise, Florida. The purge is well on the way. Again the goal is to remove / wipe out all representation of LGBTQIA from public society. Also part of the goal is to return black / brown people to a lower stature and keep them there. To stop any integration or upward movement of the minority groups. These people demand a return to the time whenwhite males were automatically in charge, Christianity was the assumed only real religion and all things Christian were good, women were subservient to males and functioned to do for men in the home / public / bedroom, blacks knew their place and stayed there, and the LGBTQIA were not seen or heard of terrified of being found out. That is the world these people are fighting to have. Florida is well on the way. They have basically outlawed the teaching of acceptance or inclusion of any group not dedicated to white people or Christianity. They have removed any representation of LGBTQIA or racism from schools. They have rewritten history, legislated being cis, being straight until adult, legislated having a small groups of bigoted racist parents over ruling all other parents on what school age kids can do, read, see, say, and do medically. They call anything not right wing fundamentalist maga is indoctrination. Welcome to Florida, a state run by Christian Taliban with help from the moral police. Hugs. Scottie
The Florida Board of Governors voted to prohibit using state funding for public university programs or activities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center, on Wednesday.
The protest took place the day the Florida Board of Governors, the governing body of the State University System of Florida, voted to prohibit funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities at the state’s public universities. The vote comes several months after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law banning all of the state’s public higher education institutions from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
UNF, in Jacksonville, will close its Office of Diversity and Inclusion — and, with it, its interfaith, intercultural, women’s and LGBTQ centers — to comply with the new law, President Moaz Limayem said in a letter to the university community Wednesday night.
Limayem said the four university centers will be “phased out” immediately but added that registered student organizations that aim to promote diversity will remain active on the university’s campus and that no staffers will lose their jobs. He did not weigh in on student protests or on his views about the state policy.
“We want UNF to be a place where all people feel safe and welcome, and where there is no place for hate,” Limayem said. “This semester, we will begin seeking ways to reinforce UNF’s values in everything we do, and we will review and expand resources as necessary to ensure success for all members of our campus community.”
Cassandra Edwards, a spokesperson for the university system, said in an email Thursday that Florida “will remain focused on high-quality education for our students and not allow indoctrination.”
UNF student Lissie Morales was among the protesters, many of whom were waving rainbow Pride flags and shouting: “What do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
“The center provided me friends; it provided me education to learn more about my gender and sexual orientation,” Morales told NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville. “In regard to the turnout, it warms my heart to see people care about something as much as I do, especially when it comes to the LGBT center, because it was one of the reasons why I came to UNF in the first place.”
In 2022, UNF was among 40 institutions on Campus Pride’s list of best universities for LGBTQ students.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former Florida House Democrat who is a policy adviser at the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida, called the new state law “a rubber stamp for Ron DeSantis’s agenda of censorship and surveillance.”
“The Board of Governors had the opportunity to hit the brakes, but instead, shamefully followed their censorship agenda off a cliff in service to DeSantis’s failed political ambitions,” Smith said in a statement Wednesday.
A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The regulation comes as Florida continues to build on its reputation for enacting anti-LGBTQ laws and legislation aimed at limiting diversity initiatives.
Dozens of UNF students attend a rally in support of the school’s LGBTQ center. WTLV
Florida made national headlines when it enacted what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2022, which limited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools in kindergarten through third grade. DeSantis signed a bill last year that expanded the law to apply to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Last year, Florida lawmakers prompted outcry for blocking an Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools.
Since the start of the year, Florida lawmakers have introduced roughly a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills. They include a sweeping measure that would force Floridians to sign an affidavit when they apply for new driver’s licenses and state IDs to certify that the gender markers on their birth certificates will match their new IDs. Another bill would allow some published accusations of homophobia and transphobia to be considered “defamation per se.”
Student protests over Florida’s policies about LGBTQ issues have also become common. In November, students at a high school in Coconut Creek, about 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, staged a walkout after their principal and other school staffers were reprimanded for letting a transgender girl compete on the school’s girls volleyball team.
Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center. https://t.co/gt8e8q3kS4
Exactly! My whole youth was steeped in the straight world, I knew not one gay person and had zero history of the gay movement, yet I still turned out gay.
Same for the rest of us. This is how we can tell that the evangelicals are completely, utterly delusional; and why they’re a minority now in the US. Dems need to vote them out. If they refuse the evangelicals will begin their new Spanish Inquisition.
The War on Women’s Rights The War on LGBT Rights The War on Voting Rights The War on Oversight The War on Accountability The War on the Elderly The War on The Arts
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling cast, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.
They forget about that whole pesky “separation of church and state”. If the Roberts court is a “traditionalist” court, more states should be challenging the unconstitutional legislation passed in many States (esp the Federal Gov as this is setting up a State vs Federal legal battle), otherwise the Supreme Court will have to justify their reason for overturning Roe and much more. Not that it matters but it’s important for the public to understand.
The acceptance, tolerance, and anti-bullying programs have helped LGBTQIA kids be comfortable enough to come out, be themselves, live without hiding. This is the very thing the fundamentalist maga Christians are horrified about, what they are desperate to stop, the modern age of not having to hid being different. That is what the maga / white supremacist nationalist are all about, a hegemony society of all white cis straight people who think alike. That is why they love Russia so much, the people and country are basically the same, in color, ideas, religion, basically a US 1950s public / society. Is that the country you want to live in? It won’t work. The genie is out of the bottle and enjoying life. Modern young people know friends and family that are LGBTQIA, and they see they are normal people. Modern young people are not going to be frightened or scared about the made up boogieman of fearmongering about LGBTQIA. Some quick facts from the source article. Hugs. Scottie
Gen Z — which includes those born between 1997 and 2012 — is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history, and an estimated 40.8 million Gen Zers will be eligible to vote in 2024.
Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans, with 43% of them identifying as liberal, the survey found.
About 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, compared with 16% of millennials, 7% of Generation X (born 1965-1980), 4% of baby boomers (1946-1964) and 4% of the Silent Generation (1928-1945).
Generation Z adults are less likely than older generations to join an established religion, far more likely to identify as LGBTQ and generally are less likely to be Republican, a new survey shows. Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans, with 43% of them identifying as liberal, the survey found.
Gen Z adults are notably less likely to identify as white Christians (27%) compared to baby boomers (54%), and more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated (33%) than every generation except millennials. About 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, compared with 16% of millennials, 7% of Generation X (born 1965-1980), 4% of baby boomers (1946-1964) and 4% of the Silent Generation (1928-1945).
Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans. They also appear to be accelerating Americans' move away from Christianity and toward being unaffiliated with any religion. https://t.co/poMkmTN5WQpic.twitter.com/umQXeycoPc
My entire adult life I’ve believed that there are far more LGBTQ people than are willing to step forward, own it and live it. Don’t underestimate our determination to live our lives freely and openly on helping younger generations to break free of the old taboos. And organized religion, particularly Christianity, is doomed. The shine is off the apple 🍎 and everyone with clarity can see it’s rotten to the core.
Most people are at least a little bit bi. A younger generation is willing to admit that to themselves and to pollsters. The only thing new here is the honesty. There aren’t MORE lgbt people. There are just more people willing to say that they are mostly straight but might mess around with another dude from time to time. Of course this will be played in the MSM as if suddenly young people are turning gay which will lead to more “grooming” accusations.
I agree. It’s something I’ve always believed and I’m old. My personal life experiences have shown me that most people’s sexuality is somewhat fluid. Not a few self identified straight women I’ve known were more than interested in my sexualty. Life teaches a lot of unexpected lessons
I have a rather long list of straight men that have happily chosen to take a walk on the wild side with me. If I was a young man today, I might dare to declare myself as bi.
Mike Johnson thinks these numbers are a sign of increased depravity, when the opposite is the case. I’m thrilled to see younger people don’t live in the same terror so many in my generation suffered through.
Closet cases are always terrified by people who are living their lives without shame. I’ve met way too many of those in my life (especially in the corporate world).
I agree, however, I’d also say gen Z are probably more open to discovering whether they’re bi or ace or gender queer than were previous generations, who may never have explored what may be hidden even to them (us).
Sometimes I get a bit confused about the variations, but I’m glad people are able to live their best lives , enjoying their sexuality and FINALLY understanding that sex isn’t just about procreation. Sling the doors wide open, they’ve been closed for far too long.
I suspect we’d be seeing fewer toxic relationships if people were more open about what they wanted or needed, and more open to listening and understanding the wants and needs of others, whether that’s in bed or at work!
Oh, I get it. When my nephew decided to put his heels on to go to Home Depot with me, I was thrilled that he felt comfortable with that. And tried to deal with my own internalized homophobia while we were there.
This will tell you how old I am, my great granddaughter who’s 16 declared herself as a lesbian and dated a Trans girl for 6 months. That was a bit confusing to me
I have a grand niece that’s declared she’s a boy, so I guess I have a grand nephew now! My granddaughter claims to be bi. In both cases, I’m glad they’re exploring their options and I talked with them about the possibility they may shift again or not. They’re 13 and 14 and both claim they haven’t had any sex yet. I also told them that at some point, they’ll know for sure and not to worry. They’re both awesome kids.
I’m so glad they have acceptance and someone they can talk to who gets it. I have a great grandson who’s also 16 who’s gay and a grandson who is 16 who is bi. I love their generations fearlessness. They’re all great kids.
I don’t remember who said this several years ago, but he heard someone say, “I guess being a gay man isn’t too bad, but I wouldn’t want my brother to marry one.” To which the someone whose name I can’t remember responded, “Better your brother than your sister.”
I miss the comradery and concentration we had with gay bars, but I don’t miss the possibility of getting beaten in an alley when I leave one. Well, at least that possibility is reduced. 🙂
If voting were everything. Gerrymandering needs to be abolished so that everyone’s voice can be heard. Then comes term limits for the Supreme Court justices. And get rid of the Electoral College. So, there’s a few steps beyond voting. But voting blue is a good start.
Yes and no. If you live in a gerrymandered district, your vote might not count. If the point of view of the Supreme Court colors their judgement, then any policy can be changed. At the same time, all the issues cannot be solved at once and so voting is a great place to start…as long as you understand it’s just the beginning of a long, may years struggle.
That means getting them to want them to vote for your candidate. Every attempt at browbeating will backfire completely, the smart play is to inspire them to vote.
The GOP has no majority in any age group. And yet theyve gerrymandered themselves into power sine 2000. I blame Renquist & Alito setting the stage for corrupting SCOTUS
“All social progress is made, not by convincing conservatives that they’re wrong–this is impossible–but by waiting for them to die off. Then the next generation grows up wondering what all the fuss was about.”
I think people who are 100% straight or 100% gay over their lifetimes are relatively rare. I think of it as a dial: 0 – 100% straight, and everybody’s needle points to a different location. I also think — in both directions — that there are a lot of people whose experience is wholly one or the other who really should answer the question, “Well… I haven’t been tempted, yet, anyway.”
As we frequently tell the heteros, just because you can’t understand or fathom my sexuality doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Saying I don’t get how someone could not experience same sex and opposite attraction is no different than a straight bro saying he doesn’t get how guys can not be turned on by women.
A new rule proposed by the Biden Administration would protect LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system by requiring adoption agencies to place them in homes that affirm their sexual orientations and gender identities. Republicans, however, have come out in opposition to the change.
The right lives on hate, racism, and bigotry. They can not allow other religions, minorities, people different from them to have the same rights and opportunities. For some reason they feel that others having the same rights they have makes them less than, makes them lessor as people. They take no joy in the happiness and success of others. They hate the inclusion of anyone slightly different from them, and they react with temper tantrums. Look at the meanness towards and smug superiority they think they have over others. Instead of admiring the skill of the flight crew, the pilots and the plane stewards that saved lives, these people mock and slur others. Hugs. Scottie
They’re blaming airline safety issues on disabled people, Black people, women, and drag queens to gin up anti-diversity sentiment.
Secretary Pete Buttigieg/Rep. Lauren BoebertPhoto: Shutterstock
Conservatives are angry that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been, for at least a decade, trying to expand the diversity of its workforce, and they’re blaming gay Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
A terrifying video of a door blowing off Alaska Airlines flight 1282 went viral earlier this month. No one died, but the Boeing 737 Max 9 was forced to return to the airport and make an emergency landing. Some loose bolts around doors were found when other planes of the same type were later inspected.
She didn’t hesitate to launch homophobic attacks on the out Transportation Secretary and his husband, but now that she wants some of that cash for her district, she’s trying to play nice.
“The FAA is the latest victim of the radical [diversity, equity, and inclusion] agenda,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) wrote on social media this week. “Instead of prioritizing the most qualified candidates, the FAA will now look for individuals with ‘severe intellectual disabilities.’ How can anyone feel safe flying when the people responsible for their safety are being hired based on DEI rather than qualifications for the position?”
DEI stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” workplace policies that seek to hire and support candidates from diverse backgrounds. Right-wingers have increasingly targeted these policies as a “woke” form of “identity politics” while ignoring the workplace disparities that they seek to address.
The FAA is the latest victim of the radical DEI agenda.
Instead of prioritizing the most qualified candidates, the FAA will now look for individuals with 'severe intellectual disabilities.'
How can anyone feel safe flying when the people responsible for their safety are being…
Boebert was likely referring to a story that spread like wildfire on conservative media. The conservative New York Post ran a story about the FAA policy – which the Post stressed is “overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation” – with the headline, “FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with ‘severe intellectual’ and ‘psychiatric’ disabilities.”
The story noted that the FAA has a diversity statement on its site that says it recruits people with disabilities, including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”
X CEO Elon Musk shared the Post’s story and wrote: “Just had a conversation with some smart people could not believe this is happening.” He also shared a post that claimed that Black airline employees lower the “average IQ of US Air Force pilots.”
The problem with their explanation? The policy has been on the FAA since at least 2013, during the Obama administration, and the Trump administration didn’t do anything to remove it. The Post’s story didn’t mention the fact that the policy is from 2013 and instead just noted that the FAA’s website was updated in 2022, which isn’t a relevant fact to the story but may have been intended to imply that the policy was put in place during Buttigieg’s tenure.
“The FAA employs tens of thousands of people for a wide range of positions, from administrative roles to oversight and execution of critical safety functions,” the FAA said in a statement. The FAA has 45,000 employees. “Like many large employers, the agency proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that, of course, will vary by position.”
Snopes noted that the rightwing “media coverage provided no evidence linking any DEI initiative with the Alaska Airlines incident” and that the investigation into the Alaska Airlines flight is still ongoing.
But disabled and Black people aren’t the only group that conservatives are blaming for the incident. Hate influencer and former realtor Chaya Raichik – whose Libs of TikTok account has been massively influential in spreading anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and has led to hospitals getting bomb threats and queer and trans teachers getting death threats – decided it was women’s fault.
That’s because Southwest Airlines made an innocuous post about an all-women flight crew shortly after the Alaska Airlines incident.
“All female flight crew? Go off, queens!” the Southwest Airlines’s X post read. The post included a picture of six smiling women in a plane.
“They’re openly mocking us,” Raichik wrote, sharing the post. “They know what they’re doing.” The implication was that supporting women in the workplace was somehow inappropriate following the incident in the Alaska Airlines flight.
Her post was viewed around 300,000 times and widely shared on the platform. Southwest later deleted their post celebrating the women.
Later in the week, Raichik raged at United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby doing drag at a Halloween party in 2011. Kirby is married to a woman and has seven children with her, but being a stereotypically masculine, straight, cisgender white man wasn’t enough to protect him from the right’s grievances about diversity in the workforce.
“This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of United. He’s a drag queen and has been incorporating drag into United,” Raichik wrote. “This video should tell you everything you need to know.”
This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of @united. He’s a drag queen and has been incorporating drag into @united.
Anti-trans activist and fifth-place swimmer Riley Gaines responded to the video, writing, “It’s time to bring back shame.” She also wrote that people “fly United at your own risk,” not explaining exactly how she connected the video to flight safety.
Cisgender, heterosexual white men on the right have donned drag in the past without controversy, including Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) boyfriend, rightwing media personality Brian Glenn. Greene, who has protested drag queen shows in the past, laughed off claims that there was anything inappropriate about her boyfriend doing drag because it happened “years ago.” The same grace, though, apparently doesn’t apply to CEOs of airlines that support diversity in the workplace.
Buttigieg, for his part, assured travelers that he has confidence in the FAA’s ability to keep flights safe, noting that they grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 jets for further inspection following the Alaska Airlines incident. He explained that FAA staff is putting in extra hours to get to the root of the problem.
“I have confidence in any aircraft cleared by the FAA,” he told reporters last week. “The FAA’s doing a great job and [FAA Administrator] Mike Whitaker’s doing a great job.”
He added that, as a father, the images of the plane with the door blown out affected him.
“Anybody looking at those pictures has to be thinking about what you’d do in that situation,” he said, explaining that he was just on a flight with one of his children. “That is what’s on our mind.”
He is trying hard not to say the quiet part out loud. He really just wants a white Christian straight cis male run society. He is struggling with the changes in society that the majority of the people accept and wants to force his minority view on everyone by making it the law. He wants his small minority to rule the majority. He wants to roll back rights and equality. It is flat out bigotry, the same bigotry that led to slavery, Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation laws, and laws forcing a religion on other people’s children in hopes it will install in them the same hates against the LGBTQIA that they have. These laws are about stopping children learning tolerance and acceptance of people who are different, of people who are LGBTQIA. It is a way to let bullying go unchallenged and leaving the targeted LGBTQIA with no support or defenders. As it has been mentioned repeatedly, no color flag or book or movie ever turned anyone gay or trans. It is a shame that these people have managed to get into positions of power and think they have the rights to rule others lives, that they have the right to dictate how others must think or live. I wonder if the Christian flag will be one of the exemptions? Hugs. Scottie
Republican State Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) has filed a bill to ban all flags in schools that aren’t the official Tennessee or United States flag. Bulso said he drafted the bill after hearing concerns from constituents about pride flags being displayed in schools.
Bulso said the country used to have a “very strong consensus” on what the nation’s values are, and these are the values he believes most parents taught in schools.
“Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore. One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore. So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded,” he said.
The epitome of homophobia, transphobia is legislators working on tax payer dollars to pass a law to eliminate rainbow flags 🌈 in public schools when it isn’t a problem to begin with!!!! We are citizens too!
What does your argument have to do with flying a rainbow flag??? I know you are all about discrimination…but this is a different era from when you grew up grandpa. You were the bully in school who used to beat up gay students, all the time you were secretly closeted. We know you.
Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore. One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore.
I’m sure he laments that 175 years ago we could keep n*****s as slaves.
“So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.” Including slavery, women as their husbands’ property, and Native American genocide.
The values when the country was founded? No divorce for anyone without a great deal of trouble, Black people were slaves but counted as 3/5 of a person, and women couldn’t vote.
But I guess he’s not referring to the value of strict separation of church and state.
Scottie's Playtime 