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2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

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Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the off the record instruction not just re-explaining what they are supposed to be doing? i.e. diversify who you are hiring. I can see that it is annoying but I don't get the hostility around this stuff. are there many thousands of white males not able to get a job... probably not (at least not due to this). How else are we meant to have more diverse teams if we don't hire diversely? Personally I would take a theo…

This reads like you don't see individuals, you just see representatives of racial and gender groups. That's the same vibe I get from racists and sexists. What is the fundamental difference between these essentialising, group-identity-based views?

> That's the same vibe I get from racists and sexists.

The vibe you're detecting is prejudice. They are exhibiting prejudice against individuals on the basis of immutable traits like gender and ethnicity.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equivalencies do exist. There’s a large push to have more men in fields such as nursing and child care.

I'm not to say there's no such push at all, but by no means I would call it large.

I mean I'm not even a nurse/not in childcare and I know about it, so it's certainly not fringe.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#53
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “don’t hire white men” is a much different policy than “please increase your funnel and hire more non white cis hereto men”. I would argue your previous employer more or less just misses the point of these things.

Sorry, I'm not getting how "hire less white men" is different from "hire more non-white men"?

The "Drink milk" campaign in my elementary school would be a good example. You should drink more milk, doesn't mean you should drink less water, or juice or whatever. It just means drink more milk.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is an issue when people miss the point and do stupid shit. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying to improve representation in one of if not the most fast growing, wealth-providing career fields. I’m utterly baffled by this argument that a case of one company missing the point means IBM shouldn’t even try.

IBM should try, everyone should try. But on the same side people just can't believe that the middle management and/or line level people responsible for some of these decisions are being malicious.

It's fine to call out malicious behavior I'm just confused by the argument that a stupid decision from company A means that company B shouldn't try to make a good decision. I'm even more confused by the concept that company A making a stupid decision means that every push to make a non-stupid decision must be suspected to be malicious.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the off the record instruction not just re-explaining what they are supposed to be doing? i.e. diversify who you are hiring. I can see that it is annoying but I don't get the hostility around this stuff. are there many thousands of white males not able to get a job... probably not (at least not due to this). How else are we meant to have more diverse teams if we don't hire diversely? Personally I would take a theo…

But I'm an individual. You're not denying an abstract concept of 'white men' jobs. You're denying me a job. Just like diverse candidates I also need a job. Just like diverse candidates I also need to house and feed my family. Just like diverse candidates I aspire to get promoted. I can't get my head around why people think it's ok to not let me try for an opportunity because I'm a white man. I can't understand how pe…

i'm not denying you a job.. you are less valuable to me as i have lots of your type of voice already.

And to be clear every issue you have diverse candidates have plus loads more. the only issue you might have that they don't, is that people may wrongly assume you don't know pain or the feeling of being powerless or trampled on... i know it shity to be a human sometime, regardless of race or gender.

I think there are probably enough jobs in tech for everyone though.. maybe that is naive but i only see shortages anywhere i look. if you don't get into google or IBM or whatever.. that's not unable to get a job, its just not getting that job.

And if there happens not to be enough work to go around where you are, i am really genuinely sorry - i don't mean to make light of the struggles, but it also means it was hard for that other person who did get the job.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero reason why in computer science and tech women and men should have so drastically different ratios. Even back in the day programming was seen as a women's job.

Zero reason?? More opportunity in other traditionally male jobs like doctors, nurse pay has increased, tech jobs require longer hours than they used to, the opening of various CS-parallel fields like UX/UI design that don't count as computer science, more economic freedom for top earning families to not require 2 incomes. There are literally dozens of reasons why women's interest in CS might decrease. * - https://www…

> more economic freedom for top earning families to not require 2 incomes

Isn't this not actually true? More families are unable to avoid needing two incomes.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not getting how "hire less white men" is different from "hire more non-white men"?

The "Drink milk" campaign in my elementary school would be a good example. You should drink more milk, doesn't mean you should drink less water, or juice or whatever. It just means drink more milk.

Assuming that you can drink an infinite amount of liquid, yes.

But in practice "drink more milk" means "drink less soda".

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what constitutes racism to you? Trump called White Supremacists 'fine people'. He has clearly played to the racists parts of his base on numerous occasions. If actions promoting racism isn't racism, then I don't know what is.

That is pure fake news. You may not be intending to lie, but you're spreading them. "To remove all doubt, the President continued with “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?”" https://www.scottadamssays.com/2019/04/30/the-fine-people-ho...

I have no particular desire to take another step into the garbage fire that is America and its politics, but calling something fake news does not make it so.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the off the record instruction not just re-explaining what they are supposed to be doing? i.e. diversify who you are hiring. I can see that it is annoying but I don't get the hostility around this stuff. are there many thousands of white males not able to get a job... probably not (at least not due to this). How else are we meant to have more diverse teams if we don't hire diversely? Personally I would take a theo…

This reads like you don't see individuals, you just see representatives of racial and gender groups. That's the same vibe I get from racists and sexists. What is the fundamental difference between these essentialising, group-identity-based views?

i get where you are coming from.. but the problem is the lack of a better option, this is not a perfect solution.

as i said elswhere in comments - i saw my dad being respected for an ability to do stuff with his computer (computers were not generally used in offices etc. at the time). my childs mind wanted to get some of that respect.. so i invested time learning and playing with computers.

I saw white dudes on tv doing everything - they were all the good guys (and even most of the bad guys) i grew up thinking i could do anything. i would love to be able to say the same for my daughter.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I'm an individual. You're not denying an abstract concept of 'white men' jobs. You're denying me a job. Just like diverse candidates I also need a job. Just like diverse candidates I also need to house and feed my family. Just like diverse candidates I aspire to get promoted. I can't get my head around why people think it's ok to not let me try for an opportunity because I'm a white man. I can't understand how pe…

i'm not denying you a job.. you are less valuable to me as i have lots of your type of voice already. And to be clear every issue you have diverse candidates have plus loads more. the only issue you might have that they don't, is that people may wrongly assume you don't know pain or the feeling of being powerless or trampled on... i know it shity to be a human sometime, regardless of race or gender. I think there are…

> you are less valuable to me as i have lots of your type of voice already

But you didn't wait to hear my voice. You didn't let me open my mouth. You turned me down on how I looked not what I had to say. You don't know anything about what life experience I have and what unique points of view I can bring you.

> And to be clear every issue you have diverse candidates have plus loads more.

Nobody is openly, legally and systematically denying them the opportunity to prove themselves capable of a job based on the color of their skin. If they're denied based on the color of their skin they can challenge that in the courts. I can't.

> I think there are probably enough jobs in tech for everyone though..

What if more companies start banning hiring white men? What if all the Google-tier companies do, so I can't get any job above a certain salary level?

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