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Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#491

Post by adamrezich »

theossuary wrote: post #392
donatj wrote: post #55

What I have learned in recent years is how shockingly accepting of antisemitism people apparently are on both sides of aisle. Growing up in a prominently Jewish neighborhood in Minnesota I never really encountered it until maybe ten years ago. The fact that he was just shifted rather than fired in this political environment speaks volumes.

I'm trying to understand what he did that was so wrong? He (correctly imo) called out Israel for its violent tendencies. The only mistake he made that I can see is he conflated Israel with the Jewish people generally. But Israel has a massive propaganda campaign leading people to do exactly that (an attack on Israel the country is an attack on Jewish people in general). If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel,…

in a culture where all white people are guilty for slavery, this mindset makes sense to me

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#492

Post by ehsankia »

whimsicalism wrote: post #286
lgleason wrote: post #247

Live by the sword, die by the sword. That said, firing him, like they did with Damore would have been more consistent. Because everyone is under arbitration agreements that always benefit the company, vs the courts where you might have a shot at justice, they have no incentive to do that. As repugnant as his past anti-semitic rant was, people change and sometimes say and do stupid things. In a sane world this guy wou…

The people change defense obviously doesn't work for Damore, who was fired over his actions while employed at Google Lots of weird comments in this thread.

Yeah, I don't have a very strong opinion on Damore, but the two situations are clearly not the same. One was published 14 years ago and another was published in the same week where it blew up.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#493

Post by MikeUt »

JPKab wrote: post #457
germinalphrase wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe the acknowledgement of race or racial difference to be intrinsically bigoted?

Yes. Kids don't see skin color the way these ideologues do. They look at it like hair color. My twin brother and I were literally the only white kids on our school bus, attending mostly black public schools in a mostly black county in southeastern Virginia. We were never really aware of skin color as a thing, just "this kid let's us borrow his gameboy and is nice", vs. "this kid punches us in the back of the head on…

> Kids don't see skin color the way these ideologues do.

Infants show racial bias toward members of own race and against those of other races: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-infants-racial-bias-members.ht...

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#494

Post by libria »

duxup wrote: post #293

>will be reassigned to a STEM research role Not fired, just reassigned. I'm ok with that as a policy. Presumably he isn't ok with those old statements and can move on. At the same time the folks who need to post some general statements about a whole group of people, religion, or whatever ... As far as I can remember I've never felt a reason to talk about a whole category of people and "insatiable appetite for war and…

> Not fired, just reassigned.

I don't even get how that's gonna work. Inevitably, he'll work alongside/under/oversee Jewish colleagues. That'll be an awkward Hangouts meeting. "Oh hey there's the guy that thinks I'm violent, I wonder if he'll judge my work/team interaction impartially..."

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#495

Post by Udik »

bushbaba wrote: post #244
literallyWTF wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, Israel conflates being a Jew with the state of Israel. And as such, people associate Israel with Judaism. That’s not offensive if it’s by design. You can’t have your cake and eat it to. Israel is an apartheid state.

Apartheid not by any definition that’s accepted broadly. israel just formed a coalition government with the Arab Israelis.

The real apartheid in Israel is not against its Arab population (although by various means a good part of it doesn't even have citizenship). The real apartheid is what happens in the occupied territories, where Jews enjoy all the benefits and protection of their citizenship while Arabs are deprived of any rights.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#496

Post by Jabbles »

masterphilo wrote: post #332

I read the blog post and while the author's tone was a little bit harsh, I really doubt it can be called anti-semitic. I guess that's why they re-assigned him and he wasn't fired. You probably don't want a "head of diversity" to be controversial in that way.

Usually the argument I see online is that criticism of Israel isn't necessarily anti-semitic.

But this is just straight up criticism of Jews, based on the actions of Israel. He's saying that Jews in general should atone for their inherent bloodlust.

That's not "harsh", he's picked a bad thing that some members of a group did and tried to apply it to all members of that group. In other cases we would say that's sexist or racist, and here it's anti-semitic.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#497

Post by dgb23 »

raclage wrote: post #470
decremental wrote: post #405

In a sane world there would be no such position as "head of diversity."

Why, because bias and prejudice wouldn't exist in such a world?

Well that would be too much to ask I think, those are natural mechanisms and typically not harmful.

I think positions like these are needed because there are severe forms of discrimination, hate, exclusion based on ethnicity, gender and so on.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#498

Post by world_peace42 »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #487
world_peace42 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture is not about canceling people who say racist, misogynist, homophobic, etc things. It is about canceling (read: disenfranchising and taking revenge on) straight white males, who are at the bottom (top? intersection? whichever) of the intersectional hierarchy. Kamau Bobb is not a white male, therefore this does not apply. He is receiving the same treatment that any powerful person, regardless of skin col…

What? This event seems to match the collectively assigned definition fine. "Cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". The expression "cancel culture" has mostly negative connotations and is commonly used in deb…

That definition is neither empirical, nor is it collectively defined. It is selectively assigned and selectively enforced. And here we are, in a thread where the top level post provides an obvious example.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#499

Post by dragonwriter »

adamrezich wrote: post #491
theossuary wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to understand what he did that was so wrong? He (correctly imo) called out Israel for its violent tendencies. The only mistake he made that I can see is he conflated Israel with the Jewish people generally. But Israel has a massive propaganda campaign leading people to do exactly that (an attack on Israel the country is an attack on Jewish people in general). If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel,…

in a culture where all white people are guilty for slavery, this mindset makes sense to me

> in a culture where all white people are guilty for slavery, this mindset makes sense to me

Not all white people are guilty of slavery, and virtually no one thinks that they are.

Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living white Americans are direct beneficiaries of overt discrimination in public programs, not to mention systematic, coordinated private discrimination.

People who oppose acknowledging the latter point like to set up the former as a convenient strawman.

[0] which is not to say all are in a good absolute position, or even not structurally disadvantaged on balance; systematic racial discrimination isn’t the only structural bias in American society.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#500

Post by tshaddox »

JPKab wrote: post #468
honkycat wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I can think of plenty of reasons why google would want a head of diversity. - They may find diverse teams to perform better - or maybe highly qualified people prefer to work on diverse teams so it helps with recruitment - or their leadership value creating a more equitable society by giving people in under-represented groups the opportunity to work at google. If any of the above are true why should they not…

Companies are diverse as a side effect of hiring for competence. They aren't competent as a side effect of hiring with diversity as a goal. The statistically illiterate HR minions who preach the correlation between diversity and performance don't get this, because they aren't even educated enough to understand correlation/causation fallacy.

When you’re making products for a diverse group of people, perhaps having a diverse team is required for competence.
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