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Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

reuters.com

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Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#231

Post by danaris »

dahfizz wrote: post #189
brayhite wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem being described is an identifiable group feels like they are unwelcome or an otherwise hindered group within the industry. They use the population ratio as a mere point of evidence to argue it’s not just anecdotal. Pointing out what groups _aren’t_ underrepresented is like saying “Yeah, we’ll, all lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter”.

Communication is hard, and having to dance around the topic to be PC makes communication much harder. Your parent was responding to this statement: > We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt. And their response - that tech is, in fact, diverse and meritocratic - is a fair response to that statement. I think what OP meant by their statement is that there is a diversity problem _pertaining specifically to peopl…

Saying "We do have plenty of representation of some minorities" is not a refutation of "we have a diversity problem in tech".

In fact, it is exactly these kinds of attitudes that directly contribute to perpetuating the diversity problem in tech.

And if you think you "have to dance around [a] topic to be PC", then chances are, what you're struggling with is either internalized bias (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc)—or the fact that you're just a bigot yourself who's upset that their bigotry is no longer socially acceptable.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#232

Post by kenjackson »

sokoloff wrote: post #32

> some people from underrepresented backgrounds have said they continue to feel unwelcome in the tech industry, and they also remain high in demand elsewhere as companies compete to increase diversity. This is dangerous territory to comment on perhaps, but it seems like many policies which seek to boost individual company population ratios to be significantly higher than the comparable tech-industry ratios are prone…

> Competing specifically for underrepresented group members with a metrics-driven goal to boost ratios at one specific company above the relevant benchmark? Not obviously good to me.

This depends on other factors. For example, are there high numbers of qualified underrepresented candidates that often get no job offers and are left to leave the industry? If so, this can help absorb those qualified candidates.

But if it is just simply shuffling the deck then I agree with your take.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#233

Post by pbhjpbhj »

enumjorge wrote: post #196
tomp wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt. We should be a bit more exact. We do not have a under representation problem in tech, but a mis representation problem. There’s a lot of minorities that are well-, even over-represented - e.g. Asians, Russian immigrants, autists, people without formal education, … I’m guessing it’s one of the most welcoming and meritocratic industries! But those aren’t the “right” m…

> I’m guessing it’s one of the most welcoming and meritocratic industries! And I’m guessing you’re not one of the affected minorities. Otherwise you might see that “the system works for this subset of people so it must be working for everyone” is a flawed and untrue argument, at least in tech. People pushing for more equal treatment of certain minorities didn’t happen out of the blue. There’s a long history of certai…

>Otherwise you might see that “the system works for this subset of people so it must be working for everyone” is a flawed and untrue argument, at least in tech. //

I interpreted their argument as "people who want to can get on in tech". Being non-discriminatory doesn't lead to representative demographics (unless everyone likes/wants the same things equally, which is clearly not true).

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#234

Post by alisonatwork »

mastazi wrote: post #17

I'm Italian and I speak Spanish and Portuguese relatively fluently. Using the term "Latinx" in my opinion is a form of cultural appropriation, because it imposes a way of using grammatical gender that is typical of the English language (think e.g. about the "singular they") upon neo-latin languages where the perception of grammatical gender is very different. In neo-latin languages such as Italian or Spanish, grammat…

"Latinx" is not cultural appropriation. On the contrary, it was coined by people of Latin American heritage who feel uncomfortable with the gender binary or who have an explicit non-binary gender identity. These people felt unrepresented by their own native language, so they tried to find a term they could use to describe themselves that would make them feel comfortable. There have been other attempts too, like "Latine", "Latin@" and so on. And Spanish is far from the only language where this is happening - native speakers of many gendered languages who are non-binary have been trying to find ways to assert their identity in their own language.

Personally, I don't use "Latinx" in normal, everyday conversation. "Latino" or (in English) "Latin American" works fine. But if I know I am speaking about a group of people where there are non-binary members who care about this, or if the topic is diversity/inclusion in particular, then I try to use Latinx. Why not? There's nothing appropriative about trying to use language that marginalized people have asked we use to better include them.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#235

Post by justin_oaks »

tasubotadas wrote: post #201
noutella wrote: post #47

How incredibly weird is it to witness American schizophrenia* when it comes to races (and gender) from a non-american perspective. "Black+", "Latinx+", "LGBTTQQIAAP". Putting people in smaller and smaller box in the name of equality and diversity. I am the only one to feel this is coming to an absurd point ? I'm not an alt-right fan, nor would I vote Republican if I could, I'm a leftist in what's considered a traditi…

>LGBTTQQIAAP I had to look up if this acronym was some kind of joke.

To save other people from looking it up: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/LGBTTQQIAAP

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#236

Post by bradlys »

dekhn wrote: post #166
danielrpa wrote: post #55

I happen to be very familiar with Google's diversity efforts and have many Black and Latinx friends and acquaintances in the company. Google is one of the most racially inclusive tech companies in the world. It really tries hard to fix historical disparities between races in ways that you don't see in most companies, ranging from very active promotion of minorities to programs dedicated to hiring them. The interview…

When I was an employee at Google and did interviews, I was told that for diversity reasons, I couldn't ask where an interviewee "was from" because that would bias my decision. I'm sorry, but other companies and fields don't prevent this question, and have far less bias (well, employee distributions that more closely map to underlying population distributions) in hiring. Most of what Google is doing is to reduce its l…

Just because other fields or companies do something doesn’t mean they’re not problematic. You might be living off of selection bias.

I know for a fact that people in my area discriminate based upon where people are from. If they know you’re from a certain area, they have a particular disdain for you from the get go. So, don’t rule it out as being a real thing.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#238

Post by staticman2 »

dahfizz wrote: post #203
sneak wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always been dangerous to express unpopular opinions. It may be less dangerous here and now than most places in history.

This is a retort I see online a lot, and it is not a good one. When people say how its dangerous to voice opinions nowadays, they aren't using medieval Europe as a reference point (where it was also very dangerous to voice unpopular opinions). The reference point people use is their own experiences online from ~10 years ago. People used to be able to say whatever they wanted online, and now doing so is dangerous. You…

I feel quite confident there are unpopular opinions from 10 years ago that would land you in trouble. "People used to say whatever they wanted" is hyperbole.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#239

Post by notatoad »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #195
noutella wrote: post #47

How incredibly weird is it to witness American schizophrenia* when it comes to races (and gender) from a non-american perspective. "Black+", "Latinx+", "LGBTTQQIAAP". Putting people in smaller and smaller box in the name of equality and diversity. I am the only one to feel this is coming to an absurd point ? I'm not an alt-right fan, nor would I vote Republican if I could, I'm a leftist in what's considered a traditi…

A fun exercise for you! Next time you hear about "diversity and inclusion ," sit back to consider what the company in question actually does to promote an atmosphere of inclusion . Is it a slack message about celebrating XYZ Group Week, in the midst of an atmosphere where dissent is persecuted?

i also like to try to unpack "diversity" when i hear it - do they mean diversity of skin colour, or a broader definition that includes people of various economic and social classes in addition to ethnicity.

"we only hire stanford grads, but some of them are black!" isn't really diversity.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#240

Post by bradlys »

marcinzm wrote: post #112
danielrpa wrote: post #55

I happen to be very familiar with Google's diversity efforts and have many Black and Latinx friends and acquaintances in the company. Google is one of the most racially inclusive tech companies in the world. It really tries hard to fix historical disparities between races in ways that you don't see in most companies, ranging from very active promotion of minorities to programs dedicated to hiring them. The interview…

I'm curious how the interview process at Google compares to other tech companies. I don't mean the text written afterwards but the actual interview process. My female friend interviewed at a number of large tech companies, not Google due to it's COVID hiring slowdown, and generally there was at least one interviewer that made comments I never, as a white man, have heard from an interviewer. Not outright sexist but th…

Sounds like something other female colleagues of mine have experienced. Very normal for them.

I will say - as a man - that I rarely heard this question when interviewing.

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