Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces • Hacker News Board

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

#621

Post by Udik » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

NateEag wrote: post #570

Udik wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy, but then don't pretend that people calling Israel criminal are antisemitic. (Also, let's not pretend there aren't a lot of non Israeli Jews defending Israel whatever it does).

Yup, I don't do that. The author of the post under discussion made statements about Israel and about Jews. It's the blanket statements about Jewish people that I'd call anti-semitic.

> It's the blanket statements about Jewish people that I'd call anti-semitic.

I find those inappropriate too- I think he might have gotten carried too far in making his point. However, on one hand I think it's an understandable slip: after all, Israel calls itself the Jewish homeland and often tries to extend criticism it receives to all Jews (by calling it antisemitic). This with little objection from Jews elsewhere. On the other hand, "antisemitic" is a very strong accusation: are we sure there aren't middle grounds, such as calling something inappropriate or incorrect, without associating it straight away with one of the worst mass murders in history?

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

#622

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #385

koheripbal wrote: post #353

His bigotry goes beyond anti-semitism. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, as a whole, and their mistreatment of Black Americans both historically and today. He even targets progressive white people for their more unspoken racism. There is a very obvious tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts. Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to s…

1) Where's the lie? 2) It's funny how the Damore defenders shed their free speech hucksterism like yesterday's underwear.

Please don't take HN threads into all-out flamewar hell. We're trying to go the opposite way here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it looks like your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban that sort of account, regardless of which ideology you're battling for, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for. If you would please review the guidelines and use HN in the intended spirit from now on—curious, substantive conversation—we'd appreciate it. Note, for example, this one:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

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

#623

Post by noofen » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #499

adamrezich wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

I come from a family of poor farmers in the South. I've done some genealogical digging, and thus far I've found three 16-24 year old members of my family who died in the Confederate war. We never owned slaves; service was mandatory back then, either through law or social pressure.

Approximately ~600-700,000 people died in the Civil War. This country has made sacrifices for African Americans and racial equality, more than any other country on Earth. It will never be enough.

No matter how much they give, apologize, change the rules, white Americans will never shed their "original sin." Because of my white skin, I "continue to materially benefit" from "systemic racism," and yet, where are these benefits? I come from a place riddled with opiate addicts and alcoholism. Most of the younger people don't make it out, they have to score much higher than African Americans applying to the same colleges (as do Asians).

Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea. But, in the last 10 years or so, some people have realized that "racism" is perhaps the most powerful bludgeoning tool in the US. Now, MLK is outdated, the new movement is about racial revenge.

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

#624

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

tobesure wrote: post #445

pessimizer wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Where's the lie? 2) It's funny how the Damore defenders shed their free speech hucksterism like yesterday's underwear.

>It's funny how the Damore defenders shed their free speech hucksterism like yesterday's underwear. No, people are pointing out the racist double standard.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Would you please stop creating accounts to break HN's rules with? We're trying for a different kind of forum here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#625

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #561

noen wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Through my childhood I would agree with you. By the time I was in high school this was no longer the case. Had many black friends, and once we all pass puberty and got cars, the world changed. The first time I was with a black friend who got pulled over for no reason, and seeing the cop visibly change his demeanor when he saw me (white clean cut male) in the passenger seat, changed me. Talked with my friend after - t…

Walk into a trailer park in Appalachia and talk about white privilege. See what they think. Not that you've spent a minute of your life in one. Ever met a coder from that background? Didn't think so. Class is the issue, but putting it all on race let's the man off the hook, which is why this so called revolution is corporate sponsored.

Both are an issue. Trying to reframe all racial issues as only class issues is as dumb as trying to claim all class issues are racial in nature.

Few people who think about racism deny class has impact though. An intersectional analysis would suggest that a rich black, rich white, poor black, and poor white experience would all be different.

> Walk into a trailer park in Appalachia and talk about white privilege. See what they think.

Right, I can't tell if your argument here is that you don't think a poor Appalachian person would be up on the intersectional lingo, or you think that they can't critically analyze different kinds of privilege, or you think that they think that there's some kind of moral argument that poor white people can't also have advantages over black people and I'd feel bad talking to them about that? In any case, you're wrong.

Also you realize that Appalachia has a significant black population right, its 10% of Appalachia vs. 12% of the US population. Appalachia includes large swaths of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. (also it includes major metro areas in Pennsylvania, so trying to paint "Appalachia" as a rural-white-poor thing is dumb and misrepresentative of Appalachia).

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

#626

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #590

acituan wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acknowledgement of race or racial difference Acknowledgment of race is inherently an essentialist position; that there is an essence to being a certain race that sets it apart from other races. Doesn't matter if that position casts the purported essence in a positive or negative light, it is bigotry in one way or the other.

You can acknowledge that there is a social construct called "race" that some people believe is useful for predicting things about individuals without subscribing to those beliefs yourself . E.g., some people argue that white people are unfit for certain roles because they haven't endured the sufferings of people of color which is clearly expressing a belief that (1) race is real and (2) race is useful for predicting…

What the U.S. calls "races" would simply be considered subcultures in the rest of the world. (Bordering on ethnicities, but not really - they're way too integrated within mainstream culture to be true ethnic subdivisions.) You can acknowledge subcultures without clinging to the absurd notion (that is, absurd to much of the civilized world) that "race" is a legitimate term at all, even for a socially and culturally-bound construct.

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

#627

Post by sanity31415 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

jms55 wrote: post #390

sanity31415 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge Google has never challenge the accuracy of those claims, and such practices are commonplace in many tech companies in the name of "diversity".

Do you think purposely hiring X group is a bad practice? From what I understand, it's not enough to say "we'll hire X if they're better than Y". When you don't actually have any X at the moment, your company might not be very welcoming to X, and so they won't join. So you purposely go out of your way to hire extra X, to account for the lower acceptance rate. The common response is "that's not fair to Y, you should be…

I believe that people should be treated as individuals, not collectivized into groups based on immutable characteristics like ethnicity.

I believe that while "reverse-discrimination" has become commonplace in the name of diversity, it is unfair, divisive, counterproductive, and illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I'm not accusing you of making this argument, but the assumption that a particular ethnic group can't compete on a level playing field is deeply condescending towards those groups. It's "the soft bigotry of low expectations".

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

#628

Post by drewwwwww » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

toeget wrote: post #579

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…

One has to note that he also made homophobic comments (available at https://archive.is/dp0n7 ): If I were to pretend to be gay, that isn’t something that I can just wash off and tell those who know me and saw me, that I was just pretending, it was just an experiment. Sure you’re not a homosexual. Having had that thought, I realized that within my inner emotional core, not only do I not agree with homosexuality, I sti…

i mean, in context, that passage feels more like he is realizing the strength of his internalized homophobia but not justifying it.

but overall the existence of this blog is mystifying.

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

#629

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #567

tshaddox wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's clearly not the motivation behind it otherwise age and political diversity would be similarly prioritized.

I don't think anyone is claiming that their priorities couldn't be improved.

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

#630

Post by megous » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #372

Here's the thing I don't get. If a groups behavior doesn't match your expectations based on your perspective of their history but you dont have the benefit of their lived experiences, wouldn't that be a tell-tale sign to try to recognize you MUST not have an understanding of the topic or enough information to formulate an opinion?

Some people learn also by sharing their current thoughts and learning from how other people react. One way to gain perspective about your ideas is to communicate them.

I have no idea about the reasons why that Googler published a blog, maybe he's just self-obsessed idiot who doesn't give 3 fucks about other people's perspective, like one would think reading the reactions here.

But I don't see an issue in putting out random thoughts on a small personal blog with a comment section.