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#FFFFFF Diversity

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Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#41

Post by azima »

ivanca wrote: post #21
azima wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignor…

The "diversity problem" is never going to be fixed, because the goalpost is always something more. The population of non-hispanic black people in California is of 6.4%, if half of them are women (3.2%) it means that if a tech company has 100 employees the perfect amount of diversity would be 3 black women and 97 non-black-women, they may not even get to know about each other in a company of that size. But I'm pretty…

Well that's one of the issues, because people like yourself have a quota/percentage mentality, instead of a inclusion/diversification/look at how much we can learn from eachother mentality. And like another person said, tech companies dont only hire from california. Isn't it a bit silly that 20% of twitter's audience is black and probably the most active group, and their number of black employees is low, black executives is 0?

It's kind of ridiculous to not want to make the effort because the goalposts are always something more. And it's ignorant of the tech industry to "fix" diversity by only putting white women in roles or only asian men in roles to hit quotas.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#42

Post by tempodox »

Cripes, that this has to be a thing at all. It's bad enough that my skin color and sex might have had influence on my educational opportunities, but beyond that they have nothing to do with how good or bad I might be at my job.

Take any and all measures to remove the influence of bias from your hiring process (e.g., pass résumés without photos or names to decision makers). That's something we all can do right now.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#43

Post by azima »

lucozade wrote: post #33
azima wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignor…

Surely that depends on what problem you're trying to solve. If what you're trying to solve with a diversity programme is opening up the potential talent pool, it's entirely conceivable that focusing on white women and Asian men could be sufficient. If what you're trying to solve is a greater diversity of opinions and experiences to foster ideas, say, it's entirely conceivable that hiring white women and Asian men cou…

To your last paragraph, that completely ignores intersectionalism in thag there isnt just 1 type of woman. There are many types of women and diversity efforts should be approached with that in mind.

And sure if you want to hit diversity quotas, then hiring asian men and white women does that. BUT, it limits the advantages of diverse companies and hurts society overall which is kind of the whole point of diversity. For diversity of opinions, no asian men and white women wont be sufficient. I suggest you read about intersectionality.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#44

Post by azima »

dijit wrote: post #36
onion2k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point you've apparently missed is that current hiring practises among some companies can be discriminatory. There are hiring managers out there who won't hire a female developer because they're just outright sexist. Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority. All that said though, I don't believe there's any actual evidence that peopl…

the hiring process is completely opaque, so this can never be proven or disproven. ideally, we'd have a system where we have a balance sheet that gets tallied up- but interviewing is an important part in gauging competence and culture fit (yes, this is a real thing, I know some developers who don't wash and I would not call them culturally fitting), so it's not something that can be solved easily. We all, inherently…

Inclusion like in speaking at tech conferences for one...

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#45

Post by azima »

mpweiher wrote: post #37
onion2k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point you've apparently missed is that current hiring practises among some companies can be discriminatory. There are hiring managers out there who won't hire a female developer because they're just outright sexist. Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority. All that said though, I don't believe there's any actual evidence that peopl…

>Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority. Any evidence (other than anecdotal) for this claim? The only reason I have ever seen for quotas is that the overall distribution is skewed, and therefore it must be discrimination.

Companies primarily hire out of networks/referrals. If your company is full of white guys, and their friends are very likely to be white guys, you end up hiring white guys.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#46

Post by deong »

mpweiher wrote: post #37
onion2k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point you've apparently missed is that current hiring practises among some companies can be discriminatory. There are hiring managers out there who won't hire a female developer because they're just outright sexist. Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority. All that said though, I don't believe there's any actual evidence that peopl…

>Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority. Any evidence (other than anecdotal) for this claim? The only reason I have ever seen for quotas is that the overall distribution is skewed, and therefore it must be discrimination.

Common sense would tell you it does happen. It only takes one guy who'd rather hire a man than a woman and one qualified woman applying for that job.

I don't think it's a meaningfully large part of the explanation for the skewed distribution. I think there are deeper systemic issues for that. However, I don't think I've seen more than a handful of people say that quotas are in place because of discrimination either. From my experiences, I think my view here is by far the dominant one -- there is overt discrimination, but the bigger factor is more subtle. It's primary and secondary education, culture, socioeconomics, marketing and advertising to kids, in short, a bunch of stuff that serve to skew the pool of people even getting to the point of wanting tech jobs. Quotas aren't aimed at getting Klansmen to have to grit their teeth and hire a black guy. Quotas are an attempt to bootstrap the system -- maybe if we just dump a larger than normal population of minorities into our little world, it'll self-propagate through more minorities seeing this as a viable option, with the hope that a generation or two from now, you'll have the distribution you want naturally.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#47

Post by bshimmin »

The conversation between Kara Swisher and Parker Harris, quoted, is rather amazing in terms of the verbal gymnastics they resort to: "I have employees, that are, you know, other types of diversity coming to me..."

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#48

Post by azima »

rdancer wrote: post #31
ohhimark wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I find it strange how I can't remember a single person complaining about lack of diversity who wasn't complaining only about their specific type of diversity. Case in point: the author is, by her own admission, a black woman and complains about the part of her identity that is not well represented: her (black) skin. There's something almost funny in asking people to care for one's situation when the speaker…

Because in America, your opinions are only valid as far as your credentials. For example, if you have dark skin, your opinions on black Americans are valid, if you're autistic, your opinions on mentally ill Americans are valid, if you're a computer, your opinions on American computers are valid, etc. It may be a flawed system, but it's better than slavery and feudalism, and it somewhat works to keep people's minds of…

Not sure if sarcasm or not, but it's REALLY hard to understand wha ankther races experiences without listening and people who listen without being dismissive/judgemental are exceptionally rare.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#49

Post by azima »

omgtehlion wrote: post #16
azima wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no it isn't. she isn't competing with one person. she's bringing to attention that intersectionality exists and the tech industry isn't paying mind to it. quote from that link: "Oppression Olympics also tends to ignore Intersectionality"

quote from the same link: > ...except where the existence of multiple degrees of oppression can help an individual participant "win"

They're talking specifically about someone competing with another person. There's no competition in this post, it's strictly about inclusion.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#50

Post by azima »

ivanca wrote: post #10
azima wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no it isn't. she isn't competing with one person. she's bringing to attention that intersectionality exists and the tech industry isn't paying mind to it. quote from that link: "Oppression Olympics also tends to ignore Intersectionality"

"Intersectionality" in this case means excluding black males right? That seems a bit wrong.

I read your post wrong before. It doesn't mean excluding black males. My other comment still applies.
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