Diversity isn't specifically about race.

Sure, but whenever someone says "diversity" they definitely do not mean the diversity of thought. They mean diversity in immutable attributes (sex, gender, race, nationality, etc.)

The original point of increasing diversity was to improve decision-making by not having basically an opinion bubble where everyone thinks the same way. So, companies tried to have non-traditional hires which would think differently than the existing employees. It only warped to what we know as "diversity" today later.

Yup, this is it.

Diversity in the sense that people from various walks of life provide diverse(!) opinions is a very good thing. Getting stuck in thought bubbles is a very easy mistake to get into.

"Diversity" in the sense that people explicitly of a given race or sex be placed in a given seat to satisfy some "diversity" quota is not a show of diversity, it's just plain old discrimination.

That's an old argument that doesn't hold water. Sure if you misconstrue everything the worst way, you can convince yourself.

To pursue minority candidates who are qualified, is in no way discrimination. Unless you assume they are less deserving intrinsically, then it's fair to include them in a search.

Why would those candidates be excluded? Because white guys might suffer? That's a bankrupt argument at the core.

Fairness, the the privileged, looks like discrimination every time.

It's not about purposefully excluding anyone based on immutable traits, it's about not giving anyone preference based on immutable traits. The point is hiring people who are competent and can work together, "pursuing minority candidates" doesn't achieve that. I wouldn't want to be a "diversity hire" myself either, that's a bad position to be in, since everyone makes you feel that you are only here due to the policy, not because you have qualified in the proper way.

You are saying that seeking out competence will naturally lead to hiring people with varied demographics.

The comment you are replying to is saying that having demographic quotas is bad.

There's an implied disagreement about what is (what companies are actually in practice doing), but I don't see any disagreement about what should be.

> "Diversity" at least in the political sense is a racist concept, you can't be "diverse" without explicitly considering someone's race.

The idea that anything that considers race is racist is either naive or foolish. We currently exist in a society that was built on white supremacy at its core. People of color are still actively being harmed by it, and white people are still benefiting from it to this day. To ignore that history and it's current and lasting effects is complacency in a racist system.

Consider this: if all were truly equal, companies of sufficient size would be diverse by default, being essentially a truly randomized subset of a diverse population. DEI initiatives would be a noop. Why is that not the case?