I was hoping to find a reply like this; glad someone could articulate it better than I could.

Overall, I believe that culturally-same role models is a stand-in for lazy parenting. Children whose parents constantly push their kids to be better, push harder will look towards successful people of any cultural background. Compare that with children with apathetic parents, who I surmise will only have the imagination to self-associate with those who "look" like them.

It also robs minority parents and communities of power. If ethnic “identity” means anything at all, it means socializing children into the values and norms of that community. But someone selected by American media to “represent” us doesn’t necessarily have any connection to a group’s culture or values. When kids are encouraged to look to such “representation” as role models, that undermines the ability of these communities to socialize their children as they want. It puts the white people who run schools and the media in charge of defining what it means to be Asian or Latino or whatever, displacing parents from that process.

It also reduces ethnic identity to something extremely shallow. I’m Bangladeshi because of what my parents taught me and the norms and attitudes I’ve absorbed from the community. Kamala Harris shares almost none of those things with me. But the media says she “represents” me because of her skin tone. It’s offensively reductionist.

> To the contrary, "representation" is used by white people to obtain the support of minority groups without giving them anything. I see white people pressuring my daughter to look up to Kamala Harris (because Harris "looks like her"). This is just manipulation. Harris will not meaningfully advance the distinct interests of south asian people, nor is she a good model of south asian culture or values.

It's also not hard to receive this behavior as completely fucking racist. Do whites presuppose that just because we have the same skin color, ethnic background, or similar physical features, that we will be aligned on political or philosophical points?

How has it become acceptable to participate in such blatantly racist behavior, while still somehow being able to publicly label one's self as "liberal" or "anti-racist?"

I think it's time we conduct an audit of all self-identifying liberals or DEI advocates to determine which ones are actually free from unconscious bias and implicit associations, and which have merely co-opted the movement to weaponize minorities as part of a political power struggle.

I used to think it was just ignorance: it’s not like they’re in a position to understand minorities’ experiences, or appreciate how different groups have different interests and disputes amongst themselves.

But more I’ve come to realize that they’re just racist. They don’t actually care what minorities want, e.g. the fact that the majority oppose considering race in jobs or college admissions, as long as they can find some academics or activists who agree with them to “represent” the group.

> It's also not hard to receive this behavior as completely fucking racist. Do whites presuppose that just because we have the same skin color, ethnic background, or similar physical features, that we will be aligned on political or philosophical points?

Yes. There are many white people who align on skin color. That's how the US Antebellum South, SA Apartheid and WW2 persecution of Jews worked.

Look how far afield those examples had to be drawn from!

It is "anti-racist" because "anti-racist" does not mean against racism. It is a specific ideological term within DEI.

So in other words, without DEI, white people are evil and with DEI, white people are evil. Are you sure "white people" are actually in control?

Yes, by white people who use DEI for power.

so no non-white person has ever profited from DEI? It's all just white people's fault?

Good point.

Not sure about where you live but where I am, people (especially direct family) were very proud that Pichai and Nadella were CEOs of famous companies, they pushed us to want to be more like them. I don't see why they wouldn't serve minority interests therefore. As to your white shareholders comment, I am not sure why white shareholders would be any different from other shareholders in that they want to all make money. Go to an Indian company's board and you'll see that they act exactly the same way.