Composite comment: Your post on outperforming Nigerians in America shows that DEI is not necessary. Yet, you continue to make a case that Diversity in DEI is important in the United States.
My Response: Nigerians do not need DEI in America. So, lumping Nigerians into the game of DEI is truly bad to people who need DEI. I mean how do you compare the best graduating students of their classes which America likes to import to the average minorities? Ndubuisi does not need DEI but that does not mean some native minorities in America do not deserve DEI.
That speaker in the video does not get the real issue on DEI: while Nigerians do not need help because we’re privileged, the native minorities need it because they are deprived of many things.
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In Nigeria, education is funded from a central purse under the UBE fund which means every child has the same budget in the public school system. In America, that is not the story: it is funded mainly from the local real estate tax. That means where you are born determines your school, and if your school is broken, even if you are good, you will be stunted.
Nigerians in Nigeria did not have that institutionalized discrimination and that is why Ndubusi despite living in the village had the finest teachers in Nigeria, as great as Kings College’s. In America, that would be impossible as my village tax would not have funded those great teachers even when Kings College would have had more than enough.
Looking at it from that angle, I am saying the native minorities deserve support via affirmative action or D in diversity because they face many odds that many of us do not have. That you can afford a plane ticket to the US from Nigeria means you are already loaded. And until America funds its public school centrally, we need D in DEI! But no Nigerian in America deserves to benefit from DEI because we’re well more than averages.
Note: Quota system in Nigeria is NOT DEI. Quota system is bad and terrible because unlike America, everyone in Nigeria has “equal” opportunities at that foundational level; the UBE fund is distributed equally per student! I support DEI due to the institutionalized discrimination even as I abhor the quota system in Nigeria.
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Comment: But we don’t have equal opportunities in Nigeria! We are resilient people who have learned to make lemonade out of lemon
My Response: “But we don’t have equal opportunities in Nigeria!” – certainly to becoming a president. But at the basic phases of life, everyone has a largely equal public school system. The public schools in Lagos are not better than the ones in Umuahia because the funds are the same. In the US, that is not the case because of the funding structure.
My thesis is that at the basic education level, no child in Nigeria goes through any institutionalized discrimination. This is not to say there is no discrimination to becoming a president in Nigeria. But here, I am focusing on the workforce which is where this DEI thing takes place most. Because no child is discriminated against, there is indeed no reason for quota in Nigeria. The UBE is the same for all kids equally. The budget for educating every primary and secondary kid is the same. In America, in the public system, it is not the same and that is why DEI needs to adjust for that.
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The intent or purpose of DEI seems fluidic. Was DEI created to give access to smart people who were institutionally discriminated against or to bring disadvantaged people to the big tables? Both are not the same. The previous argument was about access to the qualified but discriminated, today’s argument seems to be about helping average people to be up there. Either way, that’s for Americans to figure out. There’s more than enough problems in Nigeria for me.
Quota System also came about as a result of the ‘disadvantaged’ people in the northern part of Nigeria, even when the said disadvantage was not caused by those from the southern part. So for decades, the supposed advantaged people have been dragging the supposed disadvantaged people to level up, but that ‘levelling up’ isn’t happening or shows any signs of happening; rather everyone ends up as victims.
Treating equals as unequals is injustice, same goes for treating unequals as equals. But people only pay much attention on the former and almost none on the latter. The lie begins with asserting that all humans are created equal, it is not true and will never be true. Forcing fairness in an unfair world will only give you some unpalatable surprises…