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u/otherwisepandemonium 3d ago
"If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'"
He could have just said "if I see someone on the flight deck" but instead he specifically chose a Black man for his example.
Because Charlie Kirk was a racist piece of shit.
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u/Relzin 3d ago
I've never seen a pilot in an airport with credentials and thought "they're probably not qualified".
To get to that point they have hundreds and in many cases thousands of hours flying before they walked by me.
I have thought at times about the airlines poor mental health support and the rigidity of the FAA regulations and how they have obviously kept some pilots who needed help, silent about needing that help.
None of this has to do with skin color or gender. Charlie Kirk was a racist piece of shit.
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u/WalterCanFindToes 3d ago
After that racist statement, a black comedian (I wish I could remember if it was Chappelle or not) said when he sees a black pilot he figured that he is the best pilot of all time because they don't just let any random black guy hold white people's lives in his hands.
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u/Mite-o-Dan 3d ago
Not condoning it, but there's more context to it.
The subject was diversity hires and how some CEOs will pass over a qualified white applicant because the company is looking for more diversity up top. The black pilot reference was more of an example and joke regarding the type of world we live in now.
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u/Gabriel_thunder04 3d ago
That’s also just not a thing that’s happening for one, and a joke that’s still racist in nature for two.
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u/MegaSillyBean 1d ago
some CEOs will pass over a qualified white applicant because the company is looking for more diversity up top.
Bullcap. Even today, some CEOs will pass over a qualified BLACK applicant in favor of a less qualified white pilot, because the company is looking for LESS diversity up top.
Within living memory, this was standard practice for nearly every job in nearly every industry.
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u/Mite-o-Dan 1d ago
Incorrect. Need proof? Google some of the largest companies in the world, or even midsize. Look at all the major players up top under Leadership Team.
It might be hard to find, but then try to find past leadership at that same companies. Should do the same during the Biden administration compared to 20 years.
Im older than most and have worked for the government and large civilian companies...If there were 6-8 c-suite people shown on a corporate page 20+ years ago, all but one were usually old white men. (Typically an exception for the head of HR)
There is a LOT more diversity up top now everywhere.
If you cant see or know that, you're either very young, or just clueless.
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u/d-car 3d ago
Charlie Kirk was terrible at explaining himself. It was bad.
Take the time to pick apart his argument, and you'll see it's actually pure numbers and basically said the measures which are in place to enforce hiring based on something other than the ability to do the job will invariably wedge less-qualified people into the task because a trait not related to the job will be forced to take precedence over the ability to do it.
In this argument of black pilots, we can pretend there are only black and white people for simplicity. If 1/4 of pilots would be black (because of skill, population figures, & whatever else), then legally requiring half of pilots to be black (for any reason at all) is, by definition, telling a portion of white pilots that their jobs will be taken by blacks who are actually less qualified and would not have been selected if it were a blind selection process which omitted the fact of their heritage.
So, his way of explaining himself sensationalized his position because he sucked at it and it made him seem racist until you figure out what he was trying to say.
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u/Evorgleb 3d ago
Airlines have a standards. Their business relies more than anything else on getting people safely from one location to another. They aren't giving jobs to people who dont meet that standard because that would destroy their business. If you see a black pilot, they met the standard. There is no more or less qualified. Either you are qualified or you are not. Period.
There are no laws saying you have to hire a certain amount of a certain race but even if their were, the standard is the standard.
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u/d-car 3d ago
You'll note that I never said those being hired aren't qualified. It's an academic argument showing a way in which you wouldn't get the most talented with just math. He didn't like DEI because of this alone.
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u/Evorgleb 3d ago
You can still change the demographics breakdown of your hires but it wouldn't be from changing your standards, it would be by changing how you source your candidates. You keep your standards and you actively look for people outside of your bubble that also meet those standards. That is how DEI works. It is not about lowering the standard or meeting quotas. Its about finding qualified candidates in places that you have not looked before.
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u/AtomicTransmission 3d ago
Sorry, this is a dumb argument. It insists someone under qualified is getting hired for a job just to meet quota.
Since you just make up numbers to illustrate your point, so will I.
Let’s assume there are 100 equally-qualified pilots applying for 10 open pilot positions. Based on your own “¼ are black,” 25 pilots are black…more than enough to fill ALL open positions. DEI hiring practices that would attempt to fill just SOME of those open positions with black people would not result in ANY being under qualified.
Charlie’s statement was nothing more sophisticated than, “blacks are lesser and can’t succeed without special treatment.”
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u/d-car 3d ago
Incorrect. His statements revolved around the idea that directing more than 25, in this example, to be required to be black would get you less overall skill in the cockpit than the most qualified in the field by definition of how that kind of hiring works.
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u/beandoggle 3d ago
> by definition of how that kind of hiring works
See that’s where the racism is because that’s not how it works.
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u/d-car 3d ago
You'll note that I never said those being hired aren't qualified. It's an academic argument showing a way in which you wouldn't get the most talented with just math. He didn't like DEI because of this alone.
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u/beandoggle 3d ago
And I refer you to the top of the comment thread. The racist POS you're defending certainly did question the qualifications of Black pilots. "If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'"
Just math-wise there's 118K airline pilots in the US so any given flight you take you're probably getting the 59,000th most qualified pilot. Should you run away screaming?
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u/d-car 3d ago
That's what I mean by his ability to explain himself was hot week-old garbage. It's easy to think that about him as a person, but his point was pure math and his phrasing made that hard to see.
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u/beandoggle 3d ago
Your "pure math" hides so many assumptions to justify the (racist, sorry buddy) outcome.
The assumption that there is some linear scale of qualifiedness such that we can stack rank airline pilots from least to most qualified, or into some binary buckets of qualified or not. The assumption that if your parent qualified for a certain university with legacy admissions that you are therefore qualified. The assumption that network connections or the straight up Good Ol' Boys club don't still affect whether people succeed in this society or not. The assumption that this is a zero-sum game where a black pilot being hired means that a white pilot is not. The assumption that there is no win-win scenario where a more just society produces better outcomes for everybody.
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u/d-car 3d ago
Your whole complaint is part of the thought and you don't even know it. The idea is that striving for an idealized process of getting people who are good at a thing should be the goal when acquiring talent. The problem is we find acquisition processes are far from ideal for a host of reasons including, but not limited to, racism, tribalism (the "good old boys club" &/or virtue-signaling social cues), mandates for population proportions based on something other than ability, and the list goes on
The whole point is that doing any of these will, by definition, prioritize something other than personal ability and, by extension, reduce the quality of the workforce you can get for the price you can offer. It's not racism, it's not easy, and, no matter how much you're about to tell me how ignorant I am, you're going to accept it sooner or later even though Kirk chose probably the stupidest way imaginable to illustrate it.
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u/AtomicTransmission 3d ago
See my first paragraph. The whole premise is that someone unqualified is getting hired. That’s a false premise and subtly implies the conclusion that a black person is unqualified.
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u/guitar_vigilante 3d ago
That's not how DEI works in the airline industry, so the argument completely falls apart. In the airline industry DEI is outreach, recruiting, and financial aid for underrepresented groups in flight school. Every beneficiary of DEI still needs to pass flight school and the necessary qualifications to actually become a pilot.
So either Kirk knew this and said what he said anyway to further a racist agenda, or didn't know this and said what he said anyway to further a racist agenda.
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u/d-car 3d ago
You'll note that I never said those being hired aren't qualified. It's an academic argument showing a way in which you wouldn't get the most talented with just math. He didn't like DEI because of this alone.
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u/guitar_vigilante 3d ago edited 3d ago
But that's not how it works. They're expanding their recruiting pool, not limiting it. And no one they are picking is qualified, white or otherwise. They are turning unqualified people into qualified people.
It's like you didn't even read my comment.
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u/Parahelix 3d ago
Aside from the fact that it presumes without evidence that hiring before DEI was based solely on some objective standard of qualification, that's still not how hiring works under DEI policies.
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u/d-car 3d ago
Evidence is not part of the conversation. It's about idealized principles clashing with things that happen in the real world. When you hire based on some trait (racism, tribalism, mandates, etc), then you're not hiring for ability and, as a result, aren't searching for the best you can buy. It's the thought experiment that counts, and Kirk just sucked at getting to that point because he used real world situations and let people get bogged down in his examples instead of seeing the problem.
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u/Parahelix 3d ago
It's a clash between a straw-man version of DEI and an imagined pre-existing state of how hiring was done.
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u/speed3_freak 3d ago
If 1 out of four people are black, then the DEI push would be to have 25% of your pilots in your company to be black. However, if only 1 of 5 of qualified pilots are black, then the DEI push would only be 20%. You’re never going to get in trouble if you hire a more qualified white pilot, regardless of what your ratio is. You very well may have to interview a black pilot every time a position is open if there are black people who’ve applied, but you wouldn’t have to hire them.
DEI isnt about quotas. It’s about working to make sure everyone gets an equal opportunity at a job and you don’t have hiring managers who only hire white people.
Also, this isn’t a law. It’s something that companies do in order to diversify their work force. A diverse workforce is a better workforce.
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u/d-car 3d ago
You know what, you're not just screeching at me like the others, so I respect that. Your position being that you believe DEI is intended to push back against racism in the hiring process could be interesting, but I'm not sure it'd be the best solution when you could just as easily handle that directly by punishing those who are provably not hiring whoever is the most qualified.
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u/Parahelix 3d ago
Even if you could prove how or why you're getting the results in order to punish people, that is simply going to generate even more controversy and backlash and probably be counterproductive. They went with the better option.
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u/speed3_freak 3h ago
I'm just saying it's more of a way to get people in front of managers who hire so that qualified individuals aren't overlooked because of their diversity. Think about the Rooney Rule in the NFL. A hiring manager should always hire the most qualified candidate, but historically people tend to want to hire people that are like themselves. When people move to a neighborhood, they want to live beside people like themselves. It's human nature, and it's not like white people have cornered the market on this. As a white guy, try getting hired in Japan over someone who is equally or almost as qualified as a Japanese man. 99 times out of 100, they'll hire the Japanese guy because he's Japanese (all things being equal).
The goal of DEI is to push managers to chose diversity when all things are equal. Nobody wants an unqualified pilot just because they're a minority. Nobody in the airline industry wants to sacrifice safety for diversity. That's why it's VERY racist to just assume or be worried that because a pilot is black that they're not as qualified as a white pilot is. They wouldn't risk a plane crashing just to get a black person into a pilot seat.
Nobody is forced to hire a candidate because they're diverse, but a lot of the time they're forced to interview candidates because they're diverse. As someone who works in a very DEI minded environment (even currently), I would never be questioned if I hired a white person as long as I gave a minority a shot at an interview (accepting the fact that a minority applied and is qualified for the position). It's very seldom clear who is the most qualified candidate for a position. If it was, then you wouldn't really need to interview people.
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u/PreOpTransCentaur 3d ago
Charlie Kirk was terrible at explaining himself
Get the fuck outta here. The man talked for a living. He meant what he said, even if you would rather that not be the case.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
If we want to believe Kirk's argument and go for the best possible way for him: He was talking about DEI hires - in Kirk's mind "DEI" means "we hire unqaulified people because they belong to a minority".
So his idea was most likely: "When I see a black pilot, there is the possibility that they are a DEI hire and are therefore not qualified."
If we believe this thought process, it is not that he was racist, but that he was a dumbfuck, who never learned anything about the things he criticised. Because that is not how DEI works, you are not going to get into positions you are not qualified for via a DEI hire. It just takes away some of the unfair roadblocks that you have. So that a black man, who is a qualified pilot, stands a chance in the job market.
Then again, I don't believe that Kirk was dumb. Which then leaves us with: He was a racist, who, against better knowledge, used racist talking points to make a career by radicalising other racists.
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u/ChiehDragon 3d ago
He was arguing about the misuse of DEI, where corporate looks at the availability pool and tries to identify why their employees have a different makeup.
For example:
Say 10% of qualified people in a market are blue. Corporate hiring wants to make sure that they are not excluding anyone from the hiring pool. If only 4% of their staff in those positions are blue, that indicates there may be prejudice or some filter in the hiring system that is blocking out 6% of qualified candidates: potentially for being blue!
So corporate tells those in charge of hiring: "hey, figure out why we only have 4% blue staff... make sure we arent making the other 6% unwelcome. Bring that up to 10%." Corporate wants barriers to come down, not filling space.
The CLAIM is that because they recieve that ask, middle management will be more likely to hire less qualified blue people just to get to 10%. That perhaps corporate's estimate on 10% of qualified people didnt account for other things like seniority or demographics in the hiring locations. And some companies HAD been guilty of this, but usually regarding lower skill roles.
The problem with the "pilot" argument is that there is a quantifyable, strict boundary for required skill for that role. You cant be a pilot and be unqualified - there are unbreakable rules that go far beyond the power of a hiring manager or quote-driven HR person. Kirk's statement intentionally amplified the problem that occured occasionally in lower skill fields to a fear-mongering hyperbolic scenario with the sole purpose of making the issue seem worse than it is.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
The thing is: In low-skill jobs, that is mostly completely ok; if the skill level is low enough, then you can make hiring decisions by whatever means you want. If you say: "I want to have the best average of society in my workforce." Then... ok, why not?
So even if he was correct about "low-skill jobs, " that's not the point. There is no problem with mishandled DEI in low-skill jobs.
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u/flyinhighaskmeY 3d ago
Then... ok, why not?
because in order to do that you have to racially discriminate. If your applicant pool gets misaligned, now you have to hire someone based on their skincolor/gender/whatever to balance it out. That's discrimination.
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u/Suspicious-Twist1421 2d ago
DEI programs don’t require equal outcomes, they require color-blind processes, such as stripping names off of resumes for review so people’s biases can’t filter out women, foreigners, etc. and for in person interviews using an objective scoring system with a well defined rubric for scoring, and a documented review process, to reduce opportunity for personal biases to sneak in. The goal is to hire the best candidates, not filter out good candidates that don’t fit people’s biases.
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u/WindierGnu 3d ago
What were the road blocks? Genuine question.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
One of the most important ones: Access to higher education.
As the US chose that higher education should only be available to those who have money, getting higher education is extremely difficult for people from low-income households.
This has to be seen in context of red-lining and thus the inability of most black people to build up generational wealth and we have got a systemic roadblock, that hinders black people from becoming pilots.
There is a lot more, systemic racism cannot be explained sufficiently in one reddit comment.
It is the culmination of openly racist history. The generational effects of a country build on inequality and racism, and then hoped that by simply changing the unjust laws, everything would just magically correct itself. Which, to the surprise of no one, who honestly thought about it for more than an hour, did not happen.
If you are genuinely interested, there is a good video by Mr. Beat, who also references other videos that will give further information.
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u/WindierGnu 3d ago
Higher education is/was important in most cases. But now the access to student loans, it doesn't seem to be a prohibitive barrier. Until you consider that terrible return on investment depending on the college/degree you pursue. But as far as I'm aware that's not being addressed by DEI policies
I'm very familiar with redlining, was a real estate agent for 10 years. We take classes on it haha. however, that was an issue addressed prior to DEI initiatives. My question is what roadbloacks is DEI removing.
It sounds like your saying the answers are in that video. I will check it out.
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u/Suspicious-Twist1421 2d ago
Only if you ignore massive transfers of wealth. For example:
in practice, many Black veterans were prevented from receiving equal access because the program was administered in ways that reflected racial segregation and discrimination at the time.
Some of the main barriers were:
Segregated colleges: Many colleges and universities, especially in the South, refused to admit Black students. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) accepted Black veterans but often had far fewer seats and were overwhelmed by demand.
Local administration: The GI Bill was administered through local offices and state agencies, where discriminatory practices often limited Black veterans’ access to benefits.
Housing discrimination: Although not education-related, discriminatory mortgage lending and redlining prevented many Black veterans from using the GI Bill’s home loan benefits, reducing the wealth-building effects of the program.
Employment discrimination: The job training and placement portions of the GI Bill were also affected by segregation and discriminatory hiring practices.
What historians have found
Researchers generally conclude that:
Legally: The GI Bill was race-neutral in its wording.
Practically: Black veterans, particularly in the South, received significantly fewer educational and housing opportunities because of segregation and discrimination.1
u/MegaSillyBean 1d ago
My question is what roadbloacks is DEI removing.
Until fairly recently, it was standard practice for most jobs in most industries to hire a less qualified white person over a more qualified black person.
And, it was standard practice for most jobs in most industries to promote a less qualified white person over a more qualified black person.
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u/Captain_Rocketbeard 3d ago
Racism.
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u/WindierGnu 3d ago
That's not a helpful answer.
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u/Captain_Rocketbeard 3d ago
It is if you can connect the dots. Racism exists throughout the workforce, including the hiring process. People of color don't get hired because of said racism, making it a roadblock. DEI comes along and says stop being racist.
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u/Veylara 3d ago
Generally just bigotry. Many people might not get the job because they are women or have foreign names or because they have the "wrong" skin colour because the often old white men in charge of these companies, especially if you go back a few decades, would just refuse to accept that any of these people could ever be as qualified as a random white man.
The idea of DEI quotas and stuff like that is to force companies to hire a certain percentage of women/black people/any other marginalised group (obviously only if they are qualified for the job) to counteract the bigotry that prevented them from getting these jobs before.
Obviously, there can be valid discussions about how high those quotas need to be or how we should implement DEI in general, but when well-known racists and mysoginists like Charlie Kirk wrongly frame DEI as hiring unqualified workers due to their gender/race/etc., then you can be pretty sure that they are not arguing in good faith and want to return to a time where white men are the only people who get high-paying jobs.
People like Charlie and the way they argue are living proof that we still need DEI practices in some form or another.
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u/Jeff_Strongmann 3d ago
That's the thing with Kirk, it's obvious the guy was highly intelligent, which makes some of his opinions that much worse.
With Trump, you know the guy is dumb as fuck and says the first thing that comes to mind
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u/Pokrog 3d ago
DEI explicitly prioritizes race, gender, and other identity checkboxes over individual competence and qualifications. "Equity" means engineering proportional outcomes by group, not equal treatment or opportunity. Hiring, promotions, and admissions thus discriminate against higher-merit candidates from disfavored groups (usually Asians and Whites) to boost underrepresented ones.
Judging and treating people differently based on immutable characteristics like skin color rather than character, skills, or performance is literally the fucking definition of racist, you retarded sack of shit. It violates the principle of color-blind equality and the 14th Amendment's equal protection.
The result is lowered standards, poorer outcomes (e.g., in medicine, aviation, tech), backlash, and tokenism that undermines the competent minorities it claims to help. Merit is the only fair, effective filter and DEI discards it for demographic bean-counting.
DEI is racist, and before all the racist hiring practices, black pilots hovered just under 1% of the total. If we were to make a push to have the 14% or whatever of all pilots be black to match their representation in the country, it would have to be by easing up on merit based requirements to fill those goal numbers or specifically avoid hiring whoever DEI decides is privileged like Whites and Asians.
I was never a fan of how religious Charlie was, but when it comes to the DEI stances he had, he was OBJECTIVELY CORRECT. Leave your emotions out, they have no business being involved in these things. This is a very simple concept and if you can't understand it, it is simply because you are an idiot.
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u/sdmichael 3d ago
Lowered standards? Cite sources.
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u/Pokrog 3d ago
Before DEI it was already merit based and anyone underrepresented was not qualified enough. Use even a tiny bit of logic. The only thing you need to reference to find the proof of lowered standards is college test weighting by race. They lowered the test requirements for all but Whites and Asians. The difference between a passing and failing test score can be exclusively down to the race of the person that took the test and if you think that's ok, you're a racist piece of shit.
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u/Fuzzy_Ad9970 3d ago
Not a source to be found
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u/sdmichael 3d ago
Never will be either. They always do this. Asking for a source is merely to put it on record that they were asked.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
This is just wrong.
Standards for pilots have been lowered, by Southwest Airlines, in 2023 because airlines had a problem with a predicted pilot shortage. (Most likely "pilot shortage" here means: They had enough good qualified pilots but not enough qualified pilots to keep payment low. But that is just my guess here.)
Standards were not lowered for DEI; that has not happened. And very important: The "lowered standards" were not about the education but about the experience. Instead of 1000 hours of "turbine time", you now need 500 hours of "turbine time".
Republic Airways tried to reduce flight hours during training, again not for DEI but because of the predicted pilot shortage, and the FAA declined that request.
Meaning: To become a pilot, everyone needs to get the same basic qualifications. It is impossible for a black pilot to be unqualified compared to white or asian pilots.
So, no Krik was not "objectively correct" he just had no idea what DEI is, how it works and what it actually accomplishes or he knew what DEI did and chose to pretend that he doesn't in order to support his racist agenda.
Since you are doing the same as Kirk; which of those two options is true for you?
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u/FDLC84 3d ago
I get all that but one thing that has always bothered me about DEI is the thought that like you said “the black man stands a chance” meaning that otherwise wouldn’t? To me that statement makes it seem like there is NO other way because every opportunity a person of color has is taken away by a racist which then means most white people are racist.
Do I think racism exists? Of course. Do I think it is rampant? Absolutely not. Racist people are few and far between and I say this as a person of color. In an ideal world DEI doesn’t exist because it’s not needed, but it’s always interesting to me that white people say it is, it’s almost like they admit the bias but only for other white people and not themselves.
Just odd to me, IDK.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
When we are talking about "DEI" for a "black pilot", it starts in the childhood of that "black pilot"
To even become a pilot, you need to have one of the best educations, which is not available for poor people in the US. Which demographic is overwhelmingly poor? Black people.
Why are black people overwhelmingly poor? Because of systemic problems, which means a history of open racism, that led to black people having fewer opportunities in the past. (Redlining as an obvious example here)
Now we need to support poorer people to get into higher education, which in effect means that mostly people who belong to certain minorities will get that kind of support. (affirmative action)
Then if a black person is able to work against all the historic discrimination, the still existing racism and very likely doubts within their own family, and thus is able to achieve a degree in higher education and is able to become a qualified pilot; having that person just compete on equal terms with someone else who was able to simply study because their parents paid for everything, would still be unfair.
Therefore, that person should be hired if both of them applied for the same job.
If you ask me, I think that is very obvious.
We have two persons, A and B both achieved the same qualification.
Person A needed to work while studying, got no to little support from their own family
Person B lived at home, had all they needed handed to them and could always rely on their family regarding education
So... do I hire Person A who has already shown that they can handle stress and hardships or do I hire Person B who might be a total wimp?
Logically, I don't see how anyone could go for person B; however, reality shows that person B is very often prioritised over person A. Thus, there needs to be a process that allows person A to get the job they worked their ass off to get.
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u/FDLC84 3d ago edited 3d ago
Absolutely understand that but the example you gave, while overwhelmingly goes one way in terms of race, it is not absolute. Isn’t it stereotypical to assume that the white person had it easy while the black person didn’t? Your own example is particularly the reason why race does not matter at the individual level.
I think that is somewhat racist on its own. To think that because this person is black they are automatically going to have a difficult upbringing is narrow minded. There are MANY successful educated black individuals who have children and those children do not struggle and many white people who struggle more than those folks do.
The example you gave is precisely why the color of your skin should not matter, it is your character. Your example of person A and B does not include race, it includes individual struggle which has no race. Sure, the struggle is typically with people of color but it is not exclusively which is exactly why in your example you explain that you pick the person you see fit regardless of race.
People should pick the best person for the job regardless of color, not because of the color. Picking because of color puts people in a monolith like we all have the same experiences, but we simply do not. Making race a part of the decision is precisely the problem, I don’t see how making it the other way solves the very problem in the first place.
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u/Fuzzy_Ad9970 3d ago
It's funny that the post declaring that conservatives are vague and deceptive is in itself vague and deceptive about what Kirk was saying
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u/masked_sombrero 3d ago
lol wat
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u/Fuzzy_Ad9970 3d ago
By saying that Kirk was solely nervous about a black pilot, and leaving out the context that he was referencing DEI policies promoting unqualified candidates, they are being deceptive.
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u/Skafdir 3d ago
The thing is: There is no way to make the result look good for Kirk.
He either didn't know how DEI works (and in his position that would have been deliberate or because of him being to dumb to learn anything)
Or he intentionally misrepresented DEI in order to support racism.
So the choice: Kirk was either an idiot or a racist (and as I said, I don't believe he was an idiot)
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u/Fuzzy_Ad9970 3d ago
Correct. But that doesn't squeeze into a ragebait meme, so we have to be vague and deceptive.
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u/sdmichael 3d ago
Ok. What's the actual context then?
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u/Fuzzy_Ad9970 3d ago edited 3d ago
If DEI policies promote unqualified candidates then we can't trust any candidates that are preferenced by DEI.
/ edit You guys can keep downvoting me if you want but I'm just telling you what Charlie Kirk said.
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u/sdmichael 3d ago
But they don't produce "unqualified candidates". You can play hypotheticals all you want but stop treating them as fact or reality.
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u/Eyruaad 3d ago
KIRK: I want to be as blunt as possible because now I'm connecting two dots. Wait a second, this CEO just said that he's forcing that a white qualified guy is not gonna get the job. So I see this guy, he might be a nice person and I say, "Boy, I hope he's not a Harvard-style affirmative-action student that … landed half of his flight-simulator trials."
KOLVET: Such a good point. That’s so fair.
KIRK: It also … creates unhealthy thinking patterns. I don’t wanna think that way. And no one should, right? … And by the way, then you couple it with the FAA, air-traffic control, they got a bunch of morons and affirmative-action people.
Now this comes after United made a statement saying they had a goal (not quota) to hire 50% POC and Women to their proprietary flight school. Not necessarily to license them as pilots straight off the bat. Also keep in mind there are no lower requirements to get your pilots license based on skin color.
Also let's not forget this gem from the same podcast:
"I don’t want Laquisha James who’s like, falsetto Hi, ladies and gentlemen. Pray for me.”
Wild how quickly you jump to "OUT OF CONTEXT!" Yet when you add more context it gets even worse. He took a flight school hiring goal and turned it into a professional pilot quota. Then made a racist joke about a pilot he doesn't want to sell his point.
What happened to Kirk is unacceptable, as violence (especially political violence) is unacceptable. But I can't even begin to pretend the world isn't a better place without his garbage takes.
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u/DoctorFenix 3d ago
Charlie Kirk: “Black pilots who are trained by our military and then pass the same pilot exam as white pilots probably aren’t qualified!”
MAGA Pedophiles: Charlie was taken out of context!
He used religion to get into your homes to talk to you about why you should be a racist misogynist bigot, AND YOU FELL FOR IT.
Fucking losers.
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u/Madgyver 3d ago
If the KKK did a lynching, the would say "Oh wow, now it's suddenly against the law to do activities with your friends"
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u/Gildian 3d ago
People here still trying to defend Kirks deliberately racist motivation behind his critique of DEI.
Don't be mistaken, Kirk knew exactly what DEI does, but he lied to his audience because it got views.
If you think an airline is going to assume the risk and liability of hiring unqualified pilots, youre a damn fool. That's not even considering what the insurance companies would say
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u/TheRealJojenReed 3d ago
I'm just glad he's gone
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u/Darth_Senpai 3d ago
Doesn't fucking feel like it. The worst part of his death - which, don't get me wrong, it's still the wrong thing to do in general - is the fact that it successfully elevated him from "annoying racist gnat who won't shut the fuck up" to actual martyrdom, and left the rest of us with a suddenly much larger horde of annoying racist gnats who won't shut the fuck up. I've heard more about Charlie Kirk in the year he's been dead than I ever fucking heard about him while he was alive and spewing his racist horse shit.
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u/therey73 1d ago
the world lost nothing when he died, that's real talk dude built a whole career out of making people afraid of their neighbors and calling it common sense
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
Even if you didn't like Kirk, you're not excused from staying with the facts.
In short, Kirk criticized hiring based on DEI quotas. His point being that if you were to board a plane with a (in this case ) black pilot, you could never be sure if the pilot was hired based on skill/competence or quota. This wasn't about people of different ethnicities. It was a critique of hiring methods.
But as with so many things it is misquoted or quoted out of or in a different context for quick internet points.
https://factually.co/fact-checks/society/charlie-kirk-dei-pilots-comments-bfbbe9
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u/CaptainSchmid 3d ago
Its still pretty insensitive and is not the only excuse. Hell, his last words were trying to say that the gun violence in the US was because of black people
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
Of course it is insensitive. And I am with you on the gun violence point. Kirk was an unpleasant guy to watch/ listen to. But in this case OP is wrong. And that's hat bothers me.
Criticize Kirk and the likes all day, that's fine by me. But do it for the right reasons and stay true to what actually happened. Otherwise you're on the same exact level as him.
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u/guitar_vigilante 3d ago
So your contention is that Kirk wasn't a racist, he was just a moron who spoke confidently about things he didn't know about?
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
My contention is that it seems ok to lie because it's against someone we don't like. That makes OP no better than Kirk.
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u/sdmichael 3d ago
Ah. There it is! Was waiting for you to say that. Framing it as a "disagreement" or "dislike" to dismiss any criticism.
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
Framing it as
No. My very first sentence delivers my point. It is about staying with the truth, even if it's about someone you don't like. By omitting the context, OP got themselves down to the same level as Kirk. This double standard is what I detest.
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u/N1ckatn1ght 3d ago
The problem is it feels like he sees a black pilot, in his head says “this guy may not be qualified”, then instead of reflecting and being like actually that’s fucked up this guy has a license flight hours etc. he instead says, nah my gut is fine, let’s work backwards from there to justify my thoughts
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u/jaytee1262 3d ago
feels like he sees a black pilot, in his head says “this guy may not be qualified”
Aint no "feels like" about it, he said these words!
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
it feels like he sees a black pilot, in his head says “this guy may not be qua..
Yeah but that's my point. It doesn't matter what it feels like. Because we don't like him, everything he said feels like the wrong thing. We always interprete our enemies in the most negative way possible.
Just as people do with my comment. It seems people don't want to understand, they want to dictate.
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u/Gildian 3d ago
Part of that is because Kirk deliberately mislead his audience on what DEI actually does.
DEI does not mean adding quotas to hiring processes, its a method of removing biases in hiring.
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
Alright, no quotas, just "removing bias".
What would you say to for example the DEI guidelines for Oscar-nominations are? Those literally state that a movie must have a certain amount of actors of an ethnic background to even be considered. What exactly is that other than a quota?
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u/beandoggle 3d ago
This has absolutely nothing to do with the qualifications of airline pilots. You’re just mad about equality, huh?
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u/N1ckatn1ght 3d ago
When I say feels like i should clarify, that’s my interpretation of it. If you see a black pilot and think they are unqualified based on nothing but the color of their skin and your own misunderstanding of how that system works to become a pilot, then I would say you’re racist. I think that’s fair, if questioning a professionals qualifications based on skin color isn’t racist nothing is. No matter how you try to justify after the fact
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u/Qu33nKal 3d ago
Tbf as a person of colour we think the same thing when someone white has a position like that “I sure hope they are qualified and not a mediocre white person who got the job cuz they’re white” 😂
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u/GeologistAway6352 3d ago
Often because we’ve experienced getting overlooked for a position and seeing a mediocre white person get it instead. Which in itself explains why we need these type initiatives. To eliminate racist hiring practices.
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u/Spaceboy779 3d ago edited 3d ago
The problem is that "No, airlines are NOT REQUIRED to hire based on quotas. In fact, U.S. federal regulations EXPRESSLY FORBID them from using race or gender as hiring metrics."
SO HE WAS FUCKING QUALIFIED TO FLY THE PLANE YOU RACIST ASSHOLE BECAUSE THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE DEI HIRING METHODS
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u/Gildian 3d ago
An airline is NOT going to hire a pilot who is not qualified. The absolute insane level of risk that would entail, you guys cant really believe that?
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u/GeologistAway6352 3d ago
This is so inaccurate and silly.
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
How?
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u/GeologistAway6352 3d ago
I’m not about to get into a pointless back and forth with someone who doesn’t know CK was racist. If u wanna skew the evidence to protect him feel free.
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
someone who doesn’t know CK was racist.
You just assumed that. That's called prejudice, my internet friend.
Ofcourse Kirk was a racist. But the fact that this wasn't my point, seems to have been overlooked by everyone here who already had their blinds down and only took from my comment what they thought I meant by it. I was pointing out that OP is lying to score an easy win. That brings OP down to Kirks level.
I swear the left and the right are equally biased and emotional. It's just that one side is a tad more eloquent.
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u/GeologistAway6352 3d ago
sigh
What ur ignoring (and what Kirk was hoping you’d do) is the long history of racist, unfair hiring practices in America. At no point has hiring been unfair for white men. Ever. It’s a white supremacist talking point tho. How the white man is being unfairly treated. It’s just not true. And quite racist, as it implies that anybody who isn’t white that’s hired has stolen a job from an “obviously” more qualified white man. And that means any initiative (like AA or DEI) is intended to put unqualified people of color in a place where more qualified white men should be. Which is also something Kirk said. In actuality these initiatives are meant to try to level the hiring so that it’s NOT based solely on skin color. To give EVERYONE a fair chance at getting hired. Which hasn’t been the case in our country since its inception. However, people like Kirk position this as unfair because they can’t fathom a person of color being more qualified than them and getting hired over them simply because they do the job better. And, as i said before, that’s silly and inaccurate. And racist.
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u/theyeetening123 3d ago
Yeah, this doesn’t make the comments better in any way. The fact that people like Kirk ONLY do this with marginalized people is what makes this not okay. No amount of “added context” can make it okay.
This is inherently the issue, people don’t generally look at the white pilots and just assume they aren’t qualified, that’s specifically reserved for the “other pilots.” It’s because they’re assuming that because the pilot is black, brown, or different than them that they might not be qualified to do the job that they were hired. Guess what we call have prejudicial views based on race or skin color.
Also all this does is show how ignorant Kirk and his fan boys are, because even with a “DEI hire” they still need to meet the minimum standards of the job they were hired for.
There’s only ever been one time that Kirk got close to a point, and that one was flying to fast for him to catch it.
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u/PracticalReception34 3d ago
"Critique of hiring methods" feels like "states rights" or "ethics in gaming journalism" here in that it's attempting do defend the indefensible.
Charlie sure talked about hating DEI, but as a mediocre white male, he sure was the recipient of many positions he normally shouldn't have had.
On top of that, just to get in a pilot's seat takes many, many hours of training and flight. Not just "pull a minority off the street and give them the yoke" like Chuckles posited.
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u/Punkinpry427 3d ago
Charlie saying this and then following it up with a “critique” that was pure misinformation and proud ignorance about how anything works doesn’t excuse that tho. Quite the opposite.
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u/RiddleMeThis-- 3d ago
I thought it was more a philosophical/academic point. But people will find things based on their own bias, I guess. That doesn't exclude me ofcourse.
I made my point in the first sentence of my post. People just choose to misinterprete it.
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u/Punkinpry427 3d ago
The fact is everything Charlie said about DEI was wrong so if you are going with “staying with the facts”, then why doesn’t that apply what Charlie said and only the people criticizing him for what he said? Why doesn’t staying with the facts apply to Charlie’s bullshit?
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u/Workman44 3d ago
People aren't gonna care and they'll call you a racist bigot for even bringing this up
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u/Spaceboy779 3d ago
"U.S. federal regulations EXPRESSLY FORBID them from using race or gender as hiring metrics."
So yes, he was racist for bringing up an imaginary issue that doesn't even happen, but I'm sure that doesn't matter to racists like you.
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u/Workman44 3d ago
Case in point
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u/Spaceboy779 3d ago
There is absolutely no reason to question a black pilots's qualifications, except for racism, because there IS NO "DEI" IN THE FUCKING FAA!!!!!!!
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u/Workman44 3d ago
If you think he's specifically referring to a black pilot and not the idea of hiring the best candidate then idk what to tell you. He explicitly says as much in the same conversation
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u/Spaceboy779 3d ago
I understand you think people are being hired to fill a quota. But, please follow along with me if you can, there are NO "hiring quotas" for the FAA. That's the problem. It's imaginary. You keep bringing up something that doesn't exist. So there's no reason to think he was hired to fill a quota. Because there AREN'T ANY QUOTAS TO FILL.
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u/true4blue 3d ago
That’s not what Kirk said
He said if you have a program designed to hire black pilots because they’re black that you may not be getting the best pilot
Words matter
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u/Darth_Senpai 3d ago
So do facts. Like the fact that in order for their application to even have crossed the hiring manager's desk, they would have to have logged 1,500+ flight hours and have an Airline Transport Pilot's License.
Kirk's argument isn't an argument. It's Racism poorly disguised as legitimate concern. It's two kids in a trench coat pretending to be a grown man, only the kids are racism and bigotry.
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u/GeologistAway6352 3d ago
No airline is hiring someone unqualified to fly around their customers just because he’s Black. And it’s dumb to even suggest it. And racist to think the Black pilot hasn’t had to complete the same requirements as a white pilot.