I can't and I wasn't trying too... If you read my whole post you should have seen that I only agreed that the notion of hiring only for the sake diversity is bad. I also commented that I didn't feel that's what was happening in this case or in the majority of cases. I even said that I think there is a lot benefits that comes with diversity, and not just in terms of gender and race but age and background as well.
I didn't mean to imply that you have to find the absolute best person for the role. Sure, you might hire someone and they do a great job but one of the other candidates would have been even better in hindsight... I got no issue with that. It's only if someone obviously unsuitable gets hired for external reasons (for example knowing someone or to tick a box) that I'm opposed to.
I partially agree with that, but think these arguments and discussions are needed to be had if we want to get to a world with true equality, not only after we get there.
I wasn't coming to you, and if your response is basically "shut up about this because I don't want to hear it" then maybe stick your fingers in your ears because I'm going to have my opinions and thoughts whether you want to hear it or not.
First of all, though I quoted you, this wasn't addressed only for you. There are a lot of people, both in this thread/message board and in the world at large that espouse these same type of statements. While your post was the catalyst for my reply, it wasn't meant only for you.
Secondly, if you can see the fallacy of the whole "simply hired for diversity's sake" argument, why would you even entertain using it? The people who generally use that argument are those who, quite frankly, you wouldn't want as your allies. No one should ever think that hiring with diversity in mind means that you don't care about the qualifications of the diverse hire. Of course you're going to go after quality people, whether they're white, black, Latino, Asian, female or LGBT. You're not going to just pick up some random person on the street and hire them just because they tick a box in the diversity chart. That's the implication when you make that argument. You're saying the person is being hired SOLELY on their minority status, not in ANY WAY based on any other metric, including their qualifications.
Now again, I'm not saying this is you specifically, but anyone who uses this argument is implying this. And again, no one would bat an eye if this hire was instead a straight white male. So why use this argument?
Thirdly, again, if you can't come up with a way of empirically proving no one else could do this particular job, why say this person was the "Best person for the job"? It's just a silly platitude that doesn't really mean anything in practice.
Fourthly, context matters. The real world has much inequality within it. You and I can have practically the same upbringing, as far as wealth, education and many other metrics. But if you're white, and I'm black, we can both go out for the same job interview and most likely you'd get the job. Or you wouldn't be pulled over by a random cop but I would. Or your neighbors would fully accept you while I'd get the cops called on me for attempting to get into my home/car late at night. I can come up with a ton of other situations where, everything else being equal, life is anything but.
My whole point is that there ISN'T true equality in the real world, so let's stop pretending that there is. It's a nice dream, but we're no where near it. If we lived in a real meritocracy of a society, then those statements would hold water. But they are empty in our actual society, and only really benefit one group of people.
I'll let you guess which one.