GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#371

Post by i1568658 » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

Absentinsomniac wrote: post #182

mjbh7k wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been seeing this discussion a lot lately, particularly in the publishing world. 79% of editors are white and 78% are women [1], so the statement has validity at least when talking about the gatekeepers of what stories get to be told. Marlon James recently posted about his experiences with it [2] and many writers of color have since shared similar experiences. My take is that it's not "us vs them", but a need to…

OK, but like 63% of the U.S consists of whites. If it were an even distribution it would be disproportionate. Whites are somewhat over represented based on your numbers, but not as much as you seem to imply.

This is what really confused me. "33% is barely enough to change culture" To me that strikes the perfect balance. You don't get diversity by only pushing on one side.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#372

Post by kelukelugames » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #130

hitekker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me sad. I thought you were being over the top about the racism but then I saw the slides in the article: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56b3d2462e526543008... My first reaction is that the language of "us" vs "them", victims vs oppressors, reeks of hatred. Hatred undermines productive conversation, which undermines any attempt at building a good culture. I would have to listen to the whole presen…

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

Women of color have always complained about being left out by mainstream feminism. This is not new.

I don't understand it completely, but here is a related wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_feminism

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#373

Post by colmvp » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

samps wrote: post #352

malandrew wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

I'm honestly shocked at the lack of empathy on display in this comment thread. The technology world has a diversity problem—why not assume that this is a good-faith effort to address it, just expressed in words you don't like? Why instead flip directly into Internet Outrage Status? This kind of outpouring of rage, to be frank, is why Hacker News has such a bad reputation. Look around at the comments here: there are p…

Personally it irks me that tech has excellent representation of diversity in the forms of people of colour, specifically Asians from different a diverse set of backgrounds, yet they don't count in the tally of diversity.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#374

Post by cheez » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

obelisk_ wrote: post #232

jsksma2 wrote: post #220

Bring on the suits! While GH is busy distracting their world-class engineers with B.S. reverse-racism meetings, they will successfully free up their equity pool for more suit hires. That should suck the life out real quick... Goodbye revolutionary, forward-thinking work culture & hierarchy (meritocracy). You will be gravely missed. Good luck hiring sub-par engineers for the next 2 years and watching your data centers…

Well, what are the alternatives? Hosted: Bitbucket, GitLab Self-hosted: GitLab, Gogs None of these come close to GitHub in my experience.

I would suggest Atlassian. I've met both founders professionally and at least one of the duo is not weak enough to let this happen to his company. If even they capitulate, then you're fucked.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#375

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

mjbh7k wrote: post #157

GuiA wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget that killer quote from their internal presentation: "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" When diversity initiatives become an "us vs them" discourse, everyone loses. Except for the fat cats with full wallets at the top, who have no issue with the plebe infighting as long as it's between themselves (see the not so subtly placed "this is not about socio economic class").

I've been seeing this discussion a lot lately, particularly in the publishing world. 79% of editors are white and 78% are women [1], so the statement has validity at least when talking about the gatekeepers of what stories get to be told. Marlon James recently posted about his experiences with it [2] and many writers of color have since shared similar experiences. My take is that it's not "us vs them", but a need to…

I don't really understand this. I've published books. It isn't particularly difficult or expensive, any printer can do it. If any group feels their books are being overlooked, they can start a publishing company with little difficulty. If they are correct, their company will make a nice profit for them.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#376

Post by nwjtkjn » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

pkinsky wrote: post #297

ceejayoz wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "this is not work for white folks to lead", i.e. she doesn't want white allies Not wanting to be an ally unless you're allowed to be in charge is a pretty perfect illustration of why the slide exists.

It's a department at a company. You're not allowed to say that 'people of ethnicity X will never be given a leadership position'. That's blatant racism.

It's not just any department, but a department that specifically deals with diversity and race issues.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#377

Post by malandrew » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

samps wrote: post #352

malandrew wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

I'm honestly shocked at the lack of empathy on display in this comment thread. The technology world has a diversity problem—why not assume that this is a good-faith effort to address it, just expressed in words you don't like? Why instead flip directly into Internet Outrage Status? This kind of outpouring of rage, to be frank, is why Hacker News has such a bad reputation. Look around at the comments here: there are p…

Did you read that slide and the comments others have made addressing it? Even after going through some seriously generous contortions to assume good faith, it's racist and alarming.

I also don't think your comment extends good faith you are demanding to the comment and commenters which you're addressing.

    there are people complaining about the very notion that 
    there might be something wrong with how hiring and 
    promotion happens in technology.

I haven't gotten past the topmost comment thread on this HN post, but I have yet to read one comment here that makes this argument. Many here are addressing a particularly troublesome form of racism using a slide and other primary evidence as exemplary of this type of creeping racism. I haven't yet read a comment that argues that "(a) there is no problem", so the "consensus" you're asserting isn't there. I do agree that there is generally consensus about your second point " (b) GitHub's attempts to address it are unjust.", but maybe it's because GitHub's attempts just might be unjust?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#378

Post by beatpanda » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

iza wrote: post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

How is it 2016 and an audience mostly based in California still needs a remedial critical race theory class

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#379

Post by proc0 » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers.

Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this gross oversimplification of culture and biology into professional talks. If they're seeing some kind of pattern within their company that correlates with some ethnicity or culture, it's just a coincidence! Start hiring less asshole managers! Who cares what color they are?

American culture is such a bummer when it comes to how it shoves people into categories. We need to start learning how to simply NOT THINK about race, and NOT MENTION IT. There is simply no excuse at all to mention it. People CANNOT be categorized based on skin color at all, AT ALL. People cannot be categorized based on culture either. Virtually everyone is multi-ethnic and multi-racial at some level. To identify even yourself as belonging to a distinct "color" is just a fabrication of American culture that is an unfortunate outcome of the history in this country.

The only way forward is to forget about categorizing people, and just speak to their qualities -> not "white managers are assholes", instead "asshole managers are assholes".

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#380

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #327

dang wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those conclusions exceed that evidence. This subthread went haywire as a result, so we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049513 and marked it off-topic.

specialk's comment thread went haywire, not this one. yaakov34's comment is a reply to the GP and very much on the same topic. Can you reconsider?

I'm happy to be wrong about this but here's why I snipped the thread where I did: (1) "some of the biggest barriers to progress" does not at all "explicitly exclude"; (2) it's not at all "obvious" that she "sees white people as enemies and doesn't want them as allies"—that's projection, filling in a lot of blanks based on assumptions; (3) the bit about "white people dying off" is hauling in a big barrel of off-topic petrol from elsewhere, the last thing we need in a flamewar. If the comment had shown any care for sticking to the evidence and/or hadn't charged into flameland, I'd agree with you.

We all need to at least try to stick to evidence regardless of ideological position. When we don't, and/or when we pour fuel on the flames, we're partly responsible for what results (in this case a bizarre turn into personal attack).