Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by bigbillheck » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:12 PM UTC

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.

I was never on IRC much but I spent an awful lot of time on usenet and he's a lot more correct than you are.

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

#192

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

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.

Because the people hired in diversity programs and to run diversity programs are more extreme outliers in wealth relative to the groups they represent than the mean non-diverse candidate. Diversity outreach largely benefits the 1% of black people.

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

#193

Post by grogenaut » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

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.

Yet the n-bomb, gay and b*tch and other words as a universal slur and negative adjective were everywhere on irc. Casual rape references were constant, it was about as bad as Xbox voice chat. I have trouble going back and reading much of bash.org's top 100 due to the things you're claiming didn't exist. http://bash.org/?99060 http://bash.org/?5775 http://bash.org/?23601

Just because you didn't mean it or it didn't bother you doesn't mean it wasn't hostile to others.

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

#194

Post by HideousKojima » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #184

HideousKojima wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the UC university system has it right because they ban racial preferences for admitting students. The UC system only did so because they were mandated to by law (specifically a voter initiative), and they still try to use as many proxies for race as possible in order to try and be racist in their admissions policies.

> and they still try to use as money proxies for race But that's completely legitimate. If black people (for example) are systemically poorer than white people as a group, it makes sense to give them more help. It's favoring a wealthy black person over a poor white person, that's arguably problematic.

That was a typo due to autocorrect, I meant to write "as many."

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

#195

Post by michaelt » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #46

giantg2 wrote: post #8

"...it would be beneficial if DEI initiatives were confidential and kept "hush hush" within a company." "...is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling." It might be most beneficial for individuals if it's kept-low key. It's best for the company to scream it to the world. Or at least that's what the leaders think right now. Personally, I think any medium to large company that talks about DEI and isn't addressing t…

I've seen quite a few people angrily push back on statements like 'pipeline problem' and I don't understand why. Obviously there's more to it than that, but it's also that (with hard numbers to back it up).

> I've seen quite a few people angrily push back on statements like 'pipeline problem' and I don't understand why.

Well, some people think when a company says "pipeline problem" it's a PR-vetted way to announce they ain't going to do shit.

Whether you think that's true probably depends on how cynical you are.

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

#196

Post by tarotuser » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #45

tarotuser wrote: post #5

I've always found these telling when companies bandy around with "DEI great!"... All the while the C-levels are 'white male sausagefest' except for the DEI position, which is invariably a black woman. I like seeing real diversity at all levels of a company, and not the fake diversity pushed by DEI initiatives.

> All the while the C-levels are 'white male sausagefest' Aren’t those the wurst? It’s like they could at least include vegetables, like aubergine or something.

+1 for the funny joke!

But as a story of "DEI" in real practice vs a company who fakes it:

I worked as a system engineer for a gov contractor SaaS company with 4 C-levels. 2 were men, and 2 were women. The CEO was a second generation Italian. The CFO was a guy. The 2 women were in charge of the core part of the business: development lifecycle (design, dev, QA), and customer experience (helpdesk, consultants, sysads). The lady responsible for dev was also a developer and designer, and a damned sharp one at that. The lady responsible for customer experience was a systems engineer by trade. More than a few times I consulted with her about company direction for our infrastructure and growth plans.

There never really was public vocalizations in the company for DEI - it was about actually getting people from a wide background and putting them in power. And to that, our group reviewed potential hires, with all demographic details wiped. It was just the facts what they had done, to prevent us from focusing on demographics unchangable by us.

When BLM hit news hard, our CEO said bluntly in our monthly meeting "We're not able to hire most black candidates because police regularly harass their communities, give them an arrest record or a criminal record, and that prevents getting a public trust clearance. We are also powerless to change this by ourselves." I've *NEVER* heard spokespeople say even close to that, and here's our CEO pulling the curtains aside to look at the meat grinder.

Aside that terrible fact, the company did its best to hire diversely, promote from within, and put a diverse group of people in charge at leadership positions. Federal regulations GREATLY hamper good people with asinine decisions and local governmental harassment.

Sadly, this company a year prior got in bed with a venture (vulture) capitalist. They, after assuring "no real changes will happen (HAH!)", sold us like a Pokemon card to a terrible company. You could feel the grease off of this place. Felt like a used car lot combined with a county carnival/fair.

There were 8 C level positions in this 600 person company. For 7 of them it was "White male". The "DEI Officer" was a black woman. Doing this shows me you absolutely do not care about actual diversity, but only the thinnest veneer as not to be called out by other companies. (See? We have a token Black Woman on our C levels!) Like... You just "bought" a 200 person company with 2 scary sharp women as proven C level leadership... and threw them away as their newest acquisition.

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

#197

Post by tootie » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

I mean, you put it right in the first paragraph. This is just a version of Imposter Syndrome. Maybe being in a DEI initiative gives you an easy target to blame, but it's still just in your head. I think you have to understand what DEI is actually try to solve for and that's racial bias in hiring. As much the hiring of POC may have been foisted on HR, the opposite was likely due to inherent bias and legacy of cultural bias. Were you only hired because you're black. Were your white colleagues hired because they were white? And you're personally worried about what, exactly? What you think people think of you? Everybody worries about that in that a general sense. You're just worrying about is more specifically.

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

#198

Post by ndjsnsinsis » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

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…

I suppose if that's the goal, we should have a defined goal. I grew up in India and I think we have the problem of a runaway effect of this. I totally agree that it helps, there are remote tribal communities or disadvantaged communities in India (say based on caste that historically, and even currently, face stuff like untouchability) but there's got to be a goal at which point you stop. When I had to pick a college for undergrad in India, there are so many quotas put aside based on caste, tribals, sports, defence, rural/urban, language medium of schooling etc that college quotas available for general merit is roughly 50% (haven't kept up recently, but should be there abouts). Some people game the system to try and get paperwork to show you belong to such a section so that college enrollment, public sector jobs etc get a lot easier.

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

#199

Post by stcroixx » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #78

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…

On the other hand, if you only emphasize equal access of opportunity you will never reach equal outcomes. White men have centuries of cultural expectations, family wealth, and other advantages, and minorities have none of those advantages, and may be only a few decades (if that) removed from illiterate, impoverished inequality. Give those groups equal opportunity and it's unsurprising when an inequality of outcomes i…

Equal outcomes is an evil goal which can only be ultimately achieved through forced labor.

Much more humane to just provide equal opportunity to all and then let people decide for themselves what they want to do for a living.

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

#200

Post by voxic11 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

backzerman wrote: post #129

I'm seeing a lot of claims here that DEI initiatives are about actively hiring under-qualified under-represented candidates to change the demographics of the company. I've sat through a lot of DEI sessions at work (as have many of my friends), and I've yet to hear of anyone actually _hiring_ under-qualified candidates for the sake of a quota. The DEI sessions I've sat through have focused heavily on the I--inclusion.…

Well hiring under-qualified candidates purely for the sake of a quota (relating to a protected class) would be illegal in the United States. So its unlikely you will hear anyone explicitly saying that is what they intend to do.

https://www.aclusocal.org/en/inclusion-targets-whats-legal