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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

#281

Post by pocman »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #23
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…

>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.

>> a bunch of money sponsoring "women in stem"

IME, a bunch of them were sweetheart good deals and giveaways to BigCo's own daughters, cousins, sister-in-laws. And the money sloshes around amongst the wealthy inner crowd.

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

#282

Post by jablongo »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #183
tastyfreeze wrote: post #132

Hiring preferences for PoC is discriminating against all not PoC. It is in practice exactly what these initiatives claim to be fighting, bigotry.

Who is talking about hiring preferences? Why are you mischaracterizing diversity programs?

Literally the OP

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

#283

Post by Taurenking »

chuckhendo wrote: post #77
spangry wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumption was suggested by the OP, not me. Thanks for suggesting I'm racist, but I'm basically immune to such thought stopping non-arguments at this point. If disagreeing with making hiring decisions on the basis of skin colour is racist, then I suppose I'm racist.

OP never said he was hired due to the color of his skin though. Not once. Is it possible that's the case? Sure. But for all we know, he was hired on merit.

[dead]

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

#284

Post by busterarm »

John23832 wrote: post #121
aliqot wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about telling people your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, it's about WHAT IS SAID about your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. The beauty of the internet is anonymity (to a certain extent), but that doesn't mean that you can't see or hear things that exclude you.

2/3 of GNAA weren't even white people.

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

#285

Post by onion2k »

For example, I know I'm talented - I've got the projects, certs, and experience to back it up.

I think a lot of people who are relatively new to tech (less than 20 years experience) fail to realise that DEI measures were invented to tackle literal racism and misogeny in tech hiring. Companies would routinely screen out resumes from people whose names weren't white enough or who were a bit too feminine. You could have all the best projects, certs, and experience, but if you'd been in tech in the early 2000s you still wouldn't have got an interview at quite a lot of companies if your face didn't fit the perceived "this is what an engineer looks like ... oh looks it's a white dude!" mould.

People started to complain, and other people listened. DEI is the result. There's a strong argument that companies do it in a tone-deaf manner today, and maybe it's now so much better in hiring that DEI isn't needed any more (a very dubious claim in my opinion) but it's definitely better now even if you have to do a shitty monthly meeting, because in the bad old days you wouldn't have had the job in the first place.

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

#286

Post by Symmetry »

There are some behaviors that society wants people to avoid. In most cases where you want to stop a behavior you have to be careful to not make it seem normal, with "It's bad but common" being the second worst message you can send after "It's good and common" in terms of trying to get people to stop. A social psychologist will say this is due to the power of norms and talk about the famous Petrified Forest National Park experiment. An economist will talk about how we can see punishments for behaviors better than their commission in many disapproved behaviors and so making them seem common makes it seem like the odds of getting caught are lower.

But in any event in things like drug use, sexual harassment, or bribery we have pretty clear evidence of campaigns against these behaviors being counter productive with, e.g., D.A.R.E actually increasing drug use among high schoolers. So I'd just like anybody looking to conduct a DEI campaign to be careful of this effect.

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

#287

Post by drstewart »

grogenaut wrote: post #193
catiopatio wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bot…

Wow, solid resource:

http://bash.org/?121764

> why do you crackers steal everything from us?

http://bash.org/?51331

>(@virt) cracker barrel is the most hilarious name for a place where a bunch of white people go

http://bash.org/?86009

> It's sad when white people try to talk like black inner city people. It's doubly sad when those white people are European. :P

Incredibly virulent anti-whiteness. Thank you for posting this to open our eyes to this.

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

#288

Post by MockObject »

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…

> Do you know VIRULENTLY anti-black (or woman, or gay) these communities were? I can't begin to describe it.

That has not been my experience at all, whatsoever, and my involvement in tech communities, both online and in the flesh, dates back to the 1980s.

> There's also the fact that most (read: all) of the computing pioneers are white. I respect all of those people, but it does help to have someone to look up to.

I don't need people with whom I share superficial characteristics to look up to. I can look up to brilliant white men, men from all over the globe, or even women, believe it or not.

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

#289

Post by domain8543 »

moomoo11 wrote: post #176

I wish we would transcend to a point where we look up to people based on their achievements and separate their race from it. I’m Asian btw. I can relate to Lebron just as much as I can relate to Neil Armstrong or Satya or Matz or Woz or Marie Curie because they are all excellent at what they did/do. I want to be excellent like them. Because we all are humans.

Lebron's struggles as a black man in America are a huge part of his success story. Not just that he's excellent at what he does. Pretending that race doesn't exist does not actually work in practice. LeBron himself will tell you that.

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

#290

Post by gfodor »

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…

The key thing is there needs to be a falsifiable condition whereby we agree these programs have achieved their primary goal, and that the risk of scope creep, corruption, or other externalities like the ones the OP mentions has exceeded the potential further benefits, so they should be wound down. I'm not going to state my opinion here, but if such a condition is not identified in any way, we should assume these groups will do what it takes to perpetuate themselves far past their point of utility, like any bureaucracy that doesn't have a way to prove directly how they're contributing to the bottom line.
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