That's it. Then let the talent speak.
However, let's assume a 'diversity hire' did take place in the negative scenario you imagine. Quota's, I imagine. It still wouldn't be racist as it wouldn't be based on racial superiority.
You can call it something else, if you like. But it wouldn't be racist. A 'mistake' perhaps.
There are many out there who beat their chest and say that 'the word racist is overused so as to become meaningless'.
You've just fallen into that hole.
EDIT: (it appears I've been blocked from replying here so to my children, lol:
@Shawabawa: "For as long as I've been conscious and with a dictionary (40 years), 'racism' has always been about a belief in the superiority and supremacy of one race over the other, and the actions that stem from that. Sure, your simple version is included also, but the fundamental (and meaningful) definition was always about supremacy. But really ... based on some of the comments here and the prevailing political climate in the US, let's call it quits. It really doesn't matter. The 'winners' write the history, as they say."
@seryoiupfurds: "Well, better than your first attempt. But the thrust of your comment is still that 'diversity hiring' is the norm. My experience says it's not - and certainly not in the way we apply DEI.")
> > I've interviewed candidates for DEI specific roles.
This means one of two things. Either they're interviewing for roles on the DEI team, or "I had a role to fill and was told I had to hire a [black, hispanic, female, non-white] person."
The first one doesn't really have anything to do with the comment they're replying to. The second one is blatantly illegal but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And the next sentence and its tone supports that interpretation.
Is there a third interpretation I'm missing?
In my experience it has been about trying to encourage a more diverse pool to select from, and a more diverse pool of choosers, and that's it. After that, it's selecting the best person.
And, to be clear, even if 'diversity hires' did take place in the way you seem to imagine it, it wouldn't be racist to hire based on diversity as it's not done from a basis of racial superiority.
How about 'choose your descriptor here' based on an actual understanding of the words. Is it 'woke' now to ask people actually understand the words they're using.
Considering you don't understand what the word 'racist' means, do you understand what 'DEI policies' are?
If you hire someone over someone else due to an immutable quality such as their skin colour, sexual orientation (which shouldn't even be a thing to discuss on a job interview), hair colour, sex, gender etc than that is discrimination, and in the case of race, racist. Just because the majority of racism happens in one way, does not mean it's not racism in the other way.
Unless the immutable quality somehow makes the person physically better for the job, such as males typically having better muscle/bone mass which gives them an advantage for physical work (e.g. oil rigs), or employing a black female actor to play a black female character.
If you hire based on someone's race, that would appear to be racist.
In my experience, the DEI office rejected the results of an interview panel after the interview-and-candidate-selection stage because the candidates selected by the interviewers and interviewing panel to receive offers were "insufficiently diverse". This resulted in Corporate closing the job requisition because they didn't feel like dealing with the hassle (and expense) of repeating the process. (This sucked because we fucking needed that hole to be filled... but there's no arguing with Corporate.)
This is an N=1 report, and I'm sure there are other companies that aren't so super-fucked, but at this particular company, this is how it went down.
This scenario doesn't meet the strict definition of "diversity hire", but it sure does feel like actions motivated by the same sort of reasoning.
What does that role provide outside of forced diversity i.e. racism. If it helps I am not a white male myself, but Mexican.
The reasonable interpretation then is that this isn't the right interpretation. The only other one I can think of is having prescribed immutable characteristics you're hiring for.
