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Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#21

Post by mhoad »

ck425 wrote: post #14
mhoad wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is an ungenerous reading of what you are saying or not but that sounded vaguely like racism is a fact of life and we should just deal with it. Am I misreading you on that? If not, what kind of approaches do you think would be more appropriate?

I think he's saying that discrimination in many forms is often - but not always - a side effect of evolutionary tribal tendencies and that if we don't take that into account when trying to reduce discrimination our efforts won't be successful. To me that sounds like realistic, if also extremely depressing, point. I'm optimistic though. We've been successfully living in larger and larger cultures throughout history an…

I want to be clear, I wasn't debating there was some truth to the idea that racism is that thing that you can tie to an evolutionary biological level around a fear of outsiders.

But I guess it is the second part that you touched on here as well. When you say take that into account.. how specifically?

Like when someone performs a racist act, how should we respond in a modern society?

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#22

Post by andreygrehov »

cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

Here is an interesting observation. If we take a look at how different nations are distributed across big cities, we can see that many neighborhoods are race specific. A lot of cities have chinese, jewish, russian, mexican, etc. neighborhoods, meaning that people _naturally_ want to live with _similar_ people. What's more important, it happens organically. It's not like some organization or government forces people to move there. There are no incentives, no financial benefits. Nothing. People are free to live anywhere they want, but they still create those communities and prefer to live among their own kind. From this specific observation, it seems like racism is more like a biological thing, the product of evolution.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#24

Post by jcims »

>Black people make up 13% of the US population, we are naturally in the minority. But in the tech workforce, we are missing. Among the top eight largest tech companies in the land, black people account for only 3.1% of the workforce

Just raw extrapolation, this would indicate that (13-3.1)/13 or 76% of black folks in technology are either unemployed or not working in tech. Is that the case?

If it is, then laying this problem at the feet of employers and the systems involved with hiring and retention seems fair.

If not, then there might be more work to be done to develop interest in the industry in the young and displaced folks that are looking for a career path IN ADDITION to continuing to ensure that the hiring and retention results in industry are reasonable given the pool of folks that are interested in the work.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#25

Post by 082349872349872 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #12

This seems like such a hard problem to really solve, since so much of what we consider racism, or at least borderline racism, has a significant basis in fundamental human thinking. I really feel for the guy, but it's hard to know where to start. I try really hard to ignore color, but I'm not immune to at least noticing . Then I try hard not to double-take. It's completely expected to meet Indians at the workplace, bu…

I heard an anecdote once about young parents who were mortified that their young child referred to the two Little Orphan Annie movies they had as "red Annie" and "black Annie."

Judging by "image search", it is possible the child had been innocently referring to hair colour, and the mortification was due to what "even came to mind" for the parents.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#26

Post by joshribakoff »

rootusrootus wrote: post #12

This seems like such a hard problem to really solve, since so much of what we consider racism, or at least borderline racism, has a significant basis in fundamental human thinking. I really feel for the guy, but it's hard to know where to start. I try really hard to ignore color, but I'm not immune to at least noticing . Then I try hard not to double-take. It's completely expected to meet Indians at the workplace, bu…

> I try really hard to ignore color

One thing I was taught in anti-bias trainings at big tech companies was that trying to "ignore" color helps perpetuate biases. It is important that if an under represented co-worker speaks up, you pay extra attention, explicitly ensure their idea is credited to them, be vocal when you agree even if you otherwise would not, help others to understand their contributions, etc. Biases will never go away, we all have negative thoughts pop into our head, you cannot "ignore race", but we can all take steps to improve things.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#27

Post by ed25519FUUU »

The author hits on something really important. Many people who entered the field 10+ years ago are people who had computers as children. If you’re 30+ right now, that means your family had some means, because computers were very expensive up until pretty recently.

Hopefully we’ll see the pipe really getting wide now, and many more people from many different backgrounds entering this excellent field.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#28

Post by jcims »

082349872349872 wrote: post #17
cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

In Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle a karass describes the sort of tribe people are looking for. Unfortunately melanin content is not a karass, but instead a granfalloon . "La francophonie" is another granfalloon. But you have hit upon an easy way to distinguish immigrants from expats: immigrants hang out with people who have similar interests, while expats hang out with each other.

>granfalloon

Or in current parlance, 'community'. An assigned identity based on shared property across the set.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#29

Post by cal5k »

catalogia wrote: post #20
dx87 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are tribal about anything they identify with, whether it's their race, local sports team, country of birth, etc. It's not okay to be racist, but it's also not something you can legislate away. You may as well try to outlaw getting angry at people, it'll be just as effective.

Anger is a choice, at least to a limited extent. Managing ones emotions is a skill that can be honed with practice, if you're willing to make the effort. I don't say this to nitpick your point. I just think it's worth saying since some people may not realize they have a choice.

It's not a choice at all. You don't choose to feel angry, but you can choose how you respond to it (often with great difficulty).

Similarly, I have never seen evidence to suggest that the strong desire to associate with people like you (on one of many dimensions) can be eliminated. You do, however, get to decide how to act on that desire - likely to perpetually imperfect results as is the case with anger. I've let anger get the best of me before, and I'm sure I've judged people based on stereotypes despite my best intentions not to.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#30

Post by cowboysauce »

cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

In the United States, there were periods of time where Irish and Italian people were discriminated against. Yet today, the idea that an Irish people is part of the out-group and wouldn't fit in a workplace is completely out-dated.

The Rwandan genocide was Hutus killing Tutsis, yet the distinction between the two was very arbitrary and in a lot of cases boiled down to "the Belgians liked your ancestors more so declared you to be Tutsis".

Nazi Germany was allied with Japan despite all their racial purity rhetoric and some Jews were designated as "honorary Aryans". White supremacists today will gladly talk about the portion of white people who are "race traitors" and deserve to die.

Humans might have a natural tendency to favor those in their "own group", but exactly what that means is completely arbitrary.

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