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Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

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Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#151

Post by dylan604 »

catiopatio wrote: post #124
trenchgun wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prior to this, in the earlier internet age, you had to cut your teeth on IRC and forums. That was where technical people were in the computer tech space. > Do you know VIRULENTLY anti-black (or woman, or gay) these communities were? I can't begin to describe it. That is totally off-putting to someone who has the ability succeed but does not want to deal with the hate. Wow, thank you. Gives me a new perspective.

He’s completely, totally, and absolutely incorrect. I spent decades on IRC starting in the early 90s, and this is a politically-driven contemporary re-imagination of what existed at the time. We were open to all because we ourselves didn’t fit in elsewhere.

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#152

Post by jimbokun »

giantg2 wrote: post #42
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They should be putting their money where their mouth is and sponsoring scholarships/internships/apprenticeships. I worked at a BigCo that did all the usual DEI garbage and their only initiative that actually had results was the one where they spent a bunch of money sponsoring "women in stem" stuff at the high-school and college level.

My company at least used to bring high school students to the company for a women in STEM tour. I believe they stopped it. I have no idea if it worked or not. It certainly didn't work for the company since we weren't seeing any of them join after college. At least in the case of an intern we had, she went to some other company. Which in fairness, was the better choice. In the conversation we were having, the manager…

Yes, this is one of the funny things about DEI discussions to me.

In a work conversation, a coworker mentioned recruiting more women to work for us. I basically said we're never going to win against FAANG companies competing for the limited pool of women software engineers, and he didn't have a response to that.

Some companies may not be diverse because they don't want to hire from under represented categories, but because candidates from those categories have better offers.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#153

Post by stirfish »

catiopatio wrote: post #119
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Are you joking? We were absolutely not “virulently” anti- anyone on early IRC. We didn’t even have real names or photos. Nobody had any idea who was behind the keyboard, and that was okay.

If there's a text box anywhere, the first thing people will type into it is the n-word

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#154

Post by moomoo11 »

I’m Asian and grew up dirt poor. It’s annoying af when people think of me as some math genius or whatever with parents who are doctors (they’re not.. far from it). I had no choice but to do my best because as a kid I remember no running water and no electricity before we moved to the USA and lived in small apartment with bugs. My parents English is terrible and I saw them suffer here by not being able to afford visiting their family back home. My dad moved here and never went back, could only afford to send my mom a couple times and me once. I’m glad we are doing better today.

I find a lot of these DEI policies to be very generalizing and uncomfortable to be completely honest.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#155

Post by pjc50 »

catiopatio wrote: post #124
trenchgun wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prior to this, in the earlier internet age, you had to cut your teeth on IRC and forums. That was where technical people were in the computer tech space. > Do you know VIRULENTLY anti-black (or woman, or gay) these communities were? I can't begin to describe it. That is totally off-putting to someone who has the ability succeed but does not want to deal with the hate. Wow, thank you. Gives me a new perspective.

He’s completely, totally, and absolutely incorrect. I spent decades on IRC starting in the early 90s, and this is a politically-driven contemporary re-imagination of what existed at the time. We were open to all because we ourselves didn’t fit in elsewhere.

This is obviously going to depend on the space, but I suspect many of the white participants simply won't remember it because the bigotry was both casual and just euphemistic enough.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#156

Post by camgunz »

catiopatio wrote: post #119
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Are you joking? We were absolutely not “virulently” anti- anyone on early IRC. We didn’t even have real names or photos. Nobody had any idea who was behind the keyboard, and that was okay.

I can say with experience that there was an assumption that these groups were pretty much all white men and boys. Maybe not everywhere all the time, but enough. I wouldn't categorize it as virulent, but I would say that a lot of insensitive things were written about minorities, women, and LGBTQ people. It's like when you go back to watch Friends and cringe at all the anti-gay jokes. Is it virulent? I guess not. Is it fun to watch if you're gay? I doubt it.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#157

Post by kfajdsl »

aliqot wrote: post #112
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Growing up on IRC, I have very much the same experience as you but quite opposite as I experienced hardly any racism, and nobody knew my identity either. Nobody wanted to involve their personal lives or details until recently when identity and identifying became the thing.

I'm much much younger than John23832, but I definitely recognized a lot of the same in some of the gaming communities I was a part of in the mid to late 2010s. There wasn't quite as much racism (at least in the places I hung out), but there was plenty of sexism and homophobia. It wouldn't necessarily be explicit, but there were lots of offhand comments and jokes. That's how racism (and sexism, homophobia, ...) tends to present itself; it's a lot more subtle than people straight up going "I hate ${group}".

However, I will say that I first got properly exposed to tech/computing by doing FIRST robotics in high school (2017), and those competitions were very diverse. Everyone I met through FIRST (students and mentors) was very accepting of everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. My college experience (classes, competition team, internships, etc) has thankfully been more of the same.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#158

Post by jimbokun »

pessimizer wrote: post #148
monero-xmr wrote: post #25

It boils down to a core philosophical difference - do you want to emphasize equal access to opportunity, or do you want to emphasize equal outcomes? Some would argue it isn't an either-or thing, and we can do both at once, but I argue mandated equality of outcomes is insidious and causes social strife. If you are a minority and get hired, and the company has an explicit policy of hiring N% of minorities, then you wil…

This isn't a discussion about banning racial preferences in hiring, or about the real racism being affirmative action.

They are certainly closely related, though.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#159

Post by gadders »

tjpnz wrote: post #14

Tangential to the current discussion but why do I always sense a reluctance to include matters relating to social class in these programs? When I bring it up during D&I discussions I'll usually get blank stares, and in one instance there were crude comments made about needing to beef up building security first.

It's starting to get traction. For instance, this is a government-sponsored organisation in the UK trying to encourage it in banking: https://www.progresstogether.co.uk/our-purpose/

There are similar orgs for consulting and law. Not heard of any for the FAANG/start-up/tech world.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#160

Post by tyingq »

catiopatio wrote: post #119
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Are you joking? We were absolutely not “virulently” anti- anyone on early IRC. We didn’t even have real names or photos. Nobody had any idea who was behind the keyboard, and that was okay.

It's hard to characterize with absolutes. There were a lot of different networks and channels in IRC. It's true it was anonymous, but I'm also sure there were inappropriate jokes, perceptions, etc, shared in IRC.
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