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Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

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Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#91

Post by x220 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #87
x220 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a white male you haven't experienced any of that This is almost unbelievably blind.

See my edit, please.

>I was addressing the poster directly.

You don't directly know what the poster has gone through. Prefacing the statement with "as a white male" implies that you know what the poster has gone through because of his race. It is willfully blind. You can make convincing statements that white people in general in certain states at certain times face certain kinds of systemic discrimination. You cannot truthfully make the statement that the poster has not encountered serious discrimination, malice, or personal difficulties merely by knowing his race and sex.

>presumably hasn't experienced that, or they'd immediately understand

This is a Scotsman fallacy. I am certain I could find some people who have faced terrible racism that would agree with the poster's opinion.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#92

Post by shawnz »

tdfx wrote: post #79
shawnz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But obviously you haven't faced the specific set of challenges that only apply to non-white or non-male people. That is what the parent is suggesting, that it is helpful to have support groups containing people who have faced the same sorts of challenges as you. That doesn't mean that all non-white or non-male people universally have harder lives than all white/male people.

Of course not, but the clumsy racism of the grand-grandparent poster immediately invalidated all of the otherwise good points that were made and clearly turned off a wide swath of an otherwise reasonable and receptive audience. There's quite a few politicians that could learn a great lesson from this thread.

It's not the responsibility of nonwhite/nonmale people to package issues of racism in a pleasing way for white/male people. Implying as such is basically implying that white/male people are the gatekeepers of respect and consideration. maxxxxx asked a question and PhasmaFelis gave an answer which is consistent with the reality of the situation. It's not a pleasing answer because race issues are not a pleasing topic.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#93

Post by 1999 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #58
maxxxxx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a white male and in my department we have a lower percentage than a lot of the groups who have an ERG. Sometimes I toy with the idea of opening up an ERG for white males. I wonder how this would come across. I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender. This seems to me the opposite of diversity. In my view there should be groups around interests instead.

Usually it's about cultural or other shared affiliations. My dad was a big member of the "Emerald Society" at his employer, which was a group of Irish immigrants and mostly first-generation US born children. A great, non third-rail example of why this is relevant can be seen in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". There's a shared cultural, religious and other heritage and story that holds the characters together. A…

Also as a white guy, my ancestors have been in North America for quite a while, are mixed between and culturally disconnected from European identities since before the current NA countries were created, also since before some of the current European countries were created, and the ones that did exist back then have probably attacked us at one point or another. Even though I like them, adopting an European cultural identity would be fake and I absolutely hate fakeness. It is true that there are still lots of interesting groups to join, but none based on culture.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#94

Post by globe1337 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #2

Maybe I am jaded but reading the article sounds like the usual "blablabla" to me. In the end we should try to make work a smaller part of our lives so we have time to have real social lives of our own. With the current thinking of companies as profit maximizing machines everything we do at the workplace is just window-dressing to cover up that soullessness.

Yep. Ding ding ding.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#95

Post by maxxxxx »

40acres wrote: post #73
maxxxxx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a white male and in my department we have a lower percentage than a lot of the groups who have an ERG. Sometimes I toy with the idea of opening up an ERG for white males. I wonder how this would come across. I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender. This seems to me the opposite of diversity. In my view there should be groups around interests instead.

If you're serious about this a "white male" ERG is probably not politically correct (sorry). I'd probably just go with a "special interest group" not tied to race or gender. A gaming club, pickup sports club, something for dads.. I think Google has an ERG for older folks..

I am not serious a white ERG. My point is that race, gender or sexuality based groups are not "diverse". I also find it hypocritical that only some groups are allowed to have a race/heritage based ERG whereas others will be called racist if they do so.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#96

Post by maxxxxx »

tdfx wrote: post #79
shawnz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But obviously you haven't faced the specific set of challenges that only apply to non-white or non-male people. That is what the parent is suggesting, that it is helpful to have support groups containing people who have faced the same sorts of challenges as you. That doesn't mean that all non-white or non-male people universally have harder lives than all white/male people.

Of course not, but the clumsy racism of the grand-grandparent poster immediately invalidated all of the otherwise good points that were made and clearly turned off a wide swath of an otherwise reasonable and receptive audience. There's quite a few politicians that could learn a great lesson from this thread.

What racism?

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#97

Post by Raphmedia »

Raphmedia wrote: post #53
atom-morgan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sorts of groups get a lot of flak from folks who don't think these groups should exist or that companies should not focus on "diversity" Including myself (mixed race). I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird and when a company's idea of diversity is basically this, it's more offensive than racial slurs to be honest.

I doubt it's "we share a skin color, let's hang out" for anyone. It's more of a "we share the same challenges and hardships, let's compare notes" mentality.

Interesting how this comment went from very upvoted to downvoted. Must be a controversial topic. Anyone care to explain why the downvotes?

I try to avoid repeating mistakes and I don't have a lot of comments in the negative. Pointers would be awesome.

As per the site's rules:

    Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is learning, help them learn more.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#98

Post by JimboOmega »

maxxxxx wrote: post #54
atom-morgan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sorts of groups get a lot of flak from folks who don't think these groups should exist or that companies should not focus on "diversity" Including myself (mixed race). I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird and when a company's idea of diversity is basically this, it's more offensive than racial slurs to be honest.

I am a white male and in my department we have a lower percentage than a lot of the groups who have an ERG. Sometimes I toy with the idea of opening up an ERG for white males. I wonder how this would come across. I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender. This seems to me the opposite of diversity. In my view there should be groups around interests instead.

When I started my current job I was the only white person in engineering.

The reason that it makes no sense to have a "white male" group is that's the dominant culture generally. A lot of that culture, the "baseline American" culture, is of interest to people who aren't in that group, but the reverse is true way less frequently. Indian-Americans are going to know what Christmas is and might even participate in a gift exchange, but are white people going to observe Diwali?

I was the only LGBT person, and THAT experience is way more isolating.

Groups around interests are great, but you run the risk of creating groups that are popular/mainstream and still fail to include those who are not as mainstream in their interests.

The whole point is to help people who feel like they are different find their place, and a lot of potential interest groups can start to look like a white male club under a different label. For instance, consider a craft beer group, or an (American) Football group.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#99

Post by tdfx »

shawnz wrote: post #92
tdfx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, but the clumsy racism of the grand-grandparent poster immediately invalidated all of the otherwise good points that were made and clearly turned off a wide swath of an otherwise reasonable and receptive audience. There's quite a few politicians that could learn a great lesson from this thread.

It's not the responsibility of nonwhite/nonmale people to package issues of racism in a pleasing way for white/male people. Implying as such is basically implying that white/male people are the gatekeepers of respect and consideration. maxxxxx asked a question and PhasmaFelis gave an answer which is consistent with the reality of the situation. It's not a pleasing answer because race issues are not a pleasing topic.

No need to package them in a pleasing way, but factually is important. No special kind of respect or consideration is necessary -- just don't tell other people what experiences they have or have not had based on their skin color when you know nothing about them.

Re: Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work

#100

Post by jackvalentine »

maxxxxx wrote: post #95
40acres wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're serious about this a "white male" ERG is probably not politically correct (sorry). I'd probably just go with a "special interest group" not tied to race or gender. A gaming club, pickup sports club, something for dads.. I think Google has an ERG for older folks..

I am not serious a white ERG. My point is that race, gender or sexuality based groups are not "diverse". I also find it hypocritical that only some groups are allowed to have a race/heritage based ERG whereas others will be called racist if they do so.

I saw someone write something pretty good about this in relation to the idea a few years back and let me try and regurgitate it. I'll probably screw it up though so please use the principle of charity when reading.

-- Why are 'black pride' and 'white pride' not equal?

The 'white' cultures of the west usually made it through to their colonies fairly intact and recognizable. The French, the Irish (ignoring changing notions of what 'white' is), the Germans etc. So be proud! Be proud of your Irish heritage, your French heritage, your Croatian heritage.

Black people in America... African slaves came from all over Central and West Africa. Their culture was very quickly all melted together in America and the genealogy muddied and for the most part a modern descendant can't say empirically exactly where in Africa their ancestors came from, let alone have had the elements of culture from that place handed down to them reliably. So the only 'shared experience' of black people in America is... being black in America. Then combine in the historic issues of being a 'lesser' race in American history and "black power" or "black interest groups" and holidays like Kwanzaa are a response to that. ---

Anyway, they're not my thoughts but I've paraphrased them as best as I can remember. It makes sense to me at least as a starting point. What do you think?

The real spanner in the works for this line of thinking is 'asian' groups lumping together all the individual cultures of asia!

Ideally, one day we'll have lived alongside each other long enough that this is all a historic curiosity in the same way 'whiteness' has vastly broadened it's scope in the last 100 years.

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