Same minority men here, chiming in again...
I thing we need to dig into this kind of perspective since i really beleive this does more arm to the diversity fight than help.
> She should not have said "65-year old", as that is blatant age discrimination. And she should not have brought in the terms "white guy", as it is racist stereotyping. It seems like that recruiter is really out of touch with what promoting diversity in the workplace is about.
I am glad we can agree on this
> That recruiter you were speaking of probably meant that they were looking to hire a diverse set of people, as opposed to primarily just 65-year old white guys (which she probably believes to be the majority demographic that you'll see in a stuffy corporate environment).
I am not sure what warrant this generous interpretation. All we have to go with is a a "Derogatory" sentence from someone not in the group (young vs old). She is supposed to be train to speak publicly on behalf of a big company. She is supposed to understand diversity a litle deeper than the average joe. I am not sure what she meant, but to me the "way" she spoke speaks also volume on our industry ageism. I don't think we would have heard this about either hispanics/blacks or women.
> However, despite this, you cannot deny that the majority of people working in the tech sector are white or asian and male. That's just a fact. I feel like you are demonizing diversification efforts in the work place just because of one experience you had.
OP is not denying anything, he did not even mentioned diversity efforts or anything of that sort. The article was about ageism, and his comment was related a story where is people supposed to be trained to look for diversity make "bad" comments on old people. He probably feels concern about it because he can see him self in the old guy in a couple of year, or simply the proximity with the guy in his story make him feel some sympathy for him.
"Straw Maning" "look at this old white guy suffering" into "you are denying the struggle of of all this other people" is bizarre and from my perspective show a lack of empathy. Then going on a lecture on diversity is not helping.
> I feel like you are demonizing diversification efforts in the work place just because of one experience you had.
He is not, he is showing a deficiency in our inclusiveness.
> That old white guy you worked with will not have a problem getting a job in the future, eventually, unless he has some sort of character flaw that renders him absolutely unemployable.
Doesn't this article prove otherwise ? You saying this is essentially denying ageism.
> Hell, he already has a job right now, though on contract basis.
Discrimination is more nuance than getting or not getting a job. It's about being pass for certain possition, it's about having to work harder for the same reward, or working the same for less reward. It's about like in this case someone having the capacities to be a fully employ but having to settle for contract work.
> You are acting like old white men are the victims here. They are victims, but only because of their age.
I am not sure the point of this is on a thread on ageism. there is so many thing wrong with this statement..
> I feel like you are demonizing diversification efforts in the work place just because of one experience you had.
Since we are sharing feelings. I feel like you trivializing other people experiences and trying to create a hierarchy of protected classes. We don't go around telling cancer patient about the pains of poverty or vice versa. We don't go around telling white women complaining about sexual harassment about black men being killed by the police or vice versa. We don't feel the need to compare and judge and contrast those experiences. We just accept them as the general suckiness and unfairness of life, offer help when we can, sympathy when we can't;
When we do so, we are alienating people without good reasons. People will naturally fell more empathy toward certain groups either by identification or by just shared experience, and that's okay. We don't need to lecture them just because they aren't focusing on the group we want to focus on.
Ageism is a problem, if you don't feel strongly about it that's okay, but please stop telling people who do , that they should be focusing on something else...