While the intent of DEI policies could've been good, the result was virtually the opposite of the intent:
- disabled people were kept completely out of discussion. The only time I've worked with a disabled developer was in a company that did not have any DEI
- lots of policies boil down to "what skin color are you", which is pure racism, except you're not allowed to point that out
- "it's okay to be anyone you want to be, unless you're a white straight man, we don't like those"
- lots of annoying surface-level events related to LGBT groups without addressing any actual issues these people face
- "affirmative action" aka "discrimination is good when we do it"
- laser focus on women's issues, and then surprised Pikachu face that men listen to Andrew Tate because nobody else tells them they're valuable
- language police and forcing phrases that would've belonged to a comedy sketch 10 years prior. Expressions like "what are your pronouns" and "uterus-bodied people" just don't resonate with the general public
- nail in the coffin: bully attitude. "Either you accept our viewpoint or we'll bully you into doing so". This completely shut down the societal discussion about equality. Democrats thoughts that the discussion about equality was done because the problem was solved, while in reality people were afraid of speaking up, and secretly voted for Trump
As a white straight male, the only inkling that I may have been discriminated against in the workplace my entire life has come 100% from right wing media outlets and conservative politics. I have never been on the receiving end of any decisions that I felt that I was unfairly judged based on the color of my skin. I'm a single data point of course, but it would surprise me if this was not more common. But of course reporting the absence of discrimination isn't really newsworthy. Maybe we the un-oppressed need to stop being so beige about it or something?
I've seen in larger companies there's a lot of career growth initiatives focused around the typical groups that DEI have been deemed oppressed. So if you're not in those groups you're left out.
Now whether it's right to have those or not to "balance" any sense of perceived structural inequity is a different question altogether. But I can totally see how a white straight male would feel discriminated against.
- disabled people were kept completely out of discussion. The only time I've worked with a disabled developer was in a company that did not have any DEI
- lots of policies boil down to "what skin color are you", which is pure racism, except you're not allowed to point that out
- "it's okay to be anyone you want to be, unless you're a white straight man, we don't like those"
- lots of annoying surface-level events related to LGBT groups without addressing any actual issues these people face
- "affirmative action" aka "discrimination is good when we do it"
- laser focus on women's issues, and then surprised Pikachu face that men listen to Andrew Tate because nobody else tells them they're valuable
- language police and forcing phrases that would've belonged to a comedy sketch 10 years prior. Expressions like "what are your pronouns" and "uterus-bodied people" just don't resonate with the general public
- nail in the coffin: bully attitude. "Either you accept our viewpoint or we'll bully you into doing so". This completely shut down the societal discussion about equality. Democrats thoughts that the discussion about equality was done because the problem was solved, while in reality people were afraid of speaking up, and secretly voted for Trump