> but creating townhall meetings and parading your black/brown employees around like show ponies is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling. It doesn't just undermine the self-esteem of a PoC, it undermines the self-esteem of white folks, too. Hiring or promoting people due to their skin color is just wrong, no matter what skin color that is. As a white dude, seeing my PoC teammates in the past celebrated not for…
> PoC > White folks I just want to mention that one of the worst aspects of all this is trying to sort people according to (here apparently a binary) label. There is not really such thing as either of these categories - it's stereotyping of the worst kind, and takes us back many generations
Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
311–320 of 898 posts
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#312No one is forcing you to attend these meetings, at the end of the day you are there to make money for the business and solve problems. Sooner or later there might be one or two people at these meetings and leadership will 'get' the message. Usually these meetings have anonymous surveys where folks can give feedback. On the other hand, the company believes it is worth something for you to know that they are attempting a diverse work place, otherwise they wouldn't have the meeting. I assume positive intent until proven otherwise.
If you want to figure out the 'spoon feeding' issue talk to your manager about why are you selected for tasks and why others are selected for tasks. I'd also change the 'spoon feeding' to something more positive. Spoon feeding has a negative vibe, like you are a helpless little crying baby just waiting for food. But, the reality is that you built a reputation to build software and deliver it on time. The business requires your expertise for certain tasks. The other part of spoon feeding is that there is 'food.' Who makes the baby's food? The CEO? The PM? Is it possible this baby could make their own food?
Essentially, you want to understand how are certain tasks doled out. You should ask if there are certain tasks that are promotion worthy and are those tasks fairly distributed? What tasks are 'beneath' your level i.e. did you spend a quarter working on a highly esoteric distributed problem that not a damn soul cares about, did you solve that nasty race condition that's been haunting the code base for years? This can be hard to get right because some problems are much harder to solve at certain companies than others. This conversation should reveal bias and/or general lack of competence within your manager. Then you will have to figure out how to manage your manager to get what you want out of the business.
There was one point at a startup where one engineer kept getting tasked 'big' issues and he delivered on them very well. I could have interpreted this as a fault of the company but I instead saw that he is a good engineer and can communicate and deliver on business items. On the other hand, he is also being spoon fed business objectives. Again, who is making all of this delicious food??? I had to grow in another way... I had to crawl into the kitchen, play with the ingredients, burn myself, and learn how to make my own food. From scratch mind you! I objectively look at the business without any hand holding and figure out where we could be more efficient, what we would change to save costs, risks/opportunities, and come up with a strategy to deliver. A good manager should give you hints about opportunities, but genuine curiosity can be a savior. I make the food now.
On a more personal note it is nice to have allies/friends. These days it is incredibly easy for someone to do something that could be considered culturally insensitive. Not every interpersonal issue needs to go to HR. Sometimes it's nice to talk to a trusted colleague something that only your religion/race/upbringing would understand.
Having worked at large enterprises and small enterprises I have witnessed and experienced a fair share of soft racism, weird random microaggressions/gaslighting, and people randomly being unpromotable/uncoachable/unhireable despite checking all of the boxes.
In conclusion I decided to focus on me, my work, my own personal growth as engineer, and protecting my mental health. These are concrete things I can measure and control.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#313Honest question for the crowd. Obviously DEI or affirmative action-esque initiatives are not perfect. But is there something better that could be done? Asking bc I went to a good school that had affirmative action. It was for years that I just assumed it was racist, even if it was helping poc. Then it dawned on me in my last year that it was also benefitting me . That if the govt hadn’t done something to intervene, I…
The problem you’re describing is extremely rare in tech. The industry is full of immigrants and people of color; I’ve personally never worked on a team with more than 30ish% white people, although I’ve interviewed for a few and I hear they’re more common in different specialties. But of course one of the key goals of diversity initiatives is to frame the discourse so people don’t think this way. How often do you hear…
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#314Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#315It 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…
references:
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2011/07/14/ii-mexican-a...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jews-getting-younger-on-ave...
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#316(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…
Not disputing your bad experiences, but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone? :) Speaking of 2 things being true at once, what's amazing about BBSs/USENET/IRC/etc. especially in the early years was that they had: - online discussions where a lot of things just didn't matter. Race, gender, etc. just didn't matter. You got judged on the merit of your ideas, not what you looked…
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#317I 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.
It's interesting to me seeing all asians and pacific islanders lumped together and excluded from most DEI efforts because HR departments think there's too many of you already and that you're too white-adjacent. Seems like blatant racism to me.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The fact that these are so low-ranking compared to the top quotes is instructive. Also, the third one is definitely an example of anti-Blackness, not anti-whiteness.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#319(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…
Not disputing your bad experiences, but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone? :) Speaking of 2 things being true at once, what's amazing about BBSs/USENET/IRC/etc. especially in the early years was that they had: - online discussions where a lot of things just didn't matter. Race, gender, etc. just didn't matter. You got judged on the merit of your ideas, not what you looked…
So the opportunity to make many different people feel excluded is better? I'm not sure what you're getting at?
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#320That arguably defeats the real purpose of why companies go along with DEI initiatives.
First of all, a big part of companies promoting DEI initiatives is to boost a company's ESG score amongst investors like Larry Fink of BlackRock that focus on it. There's billions and billions of dollars in investment money directed just because of some peoples' hard-on for ESG scores. Courting investors well enough can be the difference between a company's survival or not.
Second of all, it feels a lot like DEI initiatives are meant to serve as a shield/insurance against ever being called names like racist. Companies are just using DEI to playact as being good people. If they ever get embroiled in some dumb scandal that presents a real risk to their business, they can just point to their DEI initiatives and act like they're doing everything they possibly can to be anti-racist.
The DEI Industry (and yes, it's an industry) goes along with this because it's a grift that's financially beneficial to them.