Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 898 posts

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

#421

Post by projectazorian »

dbrueck wrote: post #392
mostly_lurks wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might want to reflect for a minute on why you thought "but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone?" was an appropriate response to a black person talking about their experience of racism. I recognize you believed yourself to be mitigating the effect of your statement by prefacing it with "Not disputing your bad experiences," but I think you'll find that the net effe…

Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like, "because you're responding to a comment made by a black person, the only acceptable response is one of total agreement". I think you might want to reflect for a minute on the importance of nuance in a discussion, and the net effect of trying to police comments on others' behalf. I completely believe the commenter's experience, but I also witnessed the opposite a lot (and was deep…

> Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like, "because you're responding to a comment made by a black person, the only acceptable response is one of total agreement".

Not true. There is another acceptable response - not posting, taking some time to read and reflect, and moving along with your day.

You no doubt have any number of other things you could be doing, but you’re in here. Might be worth thinking about why that is.

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

#422

Post by zamalek »

dbrueck wrote: post #392
mostly_lurks wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might want to reflect for a minute on why you thought "but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone?" was an appropriate response to a black person talking about their experience of racism. I recognize you believed yourself to be mitigating the effect of your statement by prefacing it with "Not disputing your bad experiences," but I think you'll find that the net effe…

Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like, "because you're responding to a comment made by a black person, the only acceptable response is one of total agreement". I think you might want to reflect for a minute on the importance of nuance in a discussion, and the net effect of trying to police comments on others' behalf. I completely believe the commenter's experience, but I also witnessed the opposite a lot (and was deep…

> the only acceptable response is one of total agreement

That's not exactly it. The only informed response about a black person's experience on these platforms is a black person's. When people talk about "lived experience," the implication is that empathy is practically impossible. The best you can offer is sympathy.

> I've been on the receiving end of racist remarks offline

I am a white person who has been on the receiving end of racially-motivated police brutality. Even though it was racially-motivated I would not consider it a racist act. The fucker was merely angry at white people, that's different to racism. While there are places on the planet where white people experience racism (typically at the hands of other white people), I can almost guarantee that you have not - especially if you are American.

Don't wash the black community's suffering with white experiences.

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

#423

Post by dcow »

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.

In the 90s we did this.

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

#425

Post by slackfan »

hunter2_ wrote: post #379
slackfan wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>actively hiring under-qualified Oh it's absolutely been done. I have very strict color and gender-blind hiring standards, because I want to hire the actual best people for the job. My filtering of candidates has absolutely been overruled by (white) upper management, because they needed to make the department I was in more $diverse, for whatever that means. The punchline is that I'm not white. I've since moved on fro…

I think the idea is that even if blind hiring makes for the best possible employees on an individual basis in the short term, loosening that optimization in favor of diversity is a worthwhile pursuit because the company actually will thrive more when you look at long term collaboration (conversations and opinions that draw from a larger variety of life experiences can improve user advocacy, for example) and the possi…

Yes yes, that is the sales pitch.

In reality DEI in general doesn't give a shit about diversity of experience. There is zero investment into training programs to actually get people from non-traditional backgrounds into $company, because it's significantly less profitable in the short term. And when the training is set up, it is done in the most mealy-mouthed "equitable" way possible, where everybody gets a gold star, and then people act all surprised when the outcome is unproductive, virtually unfireable workers. And god help you if you are a "diverse" person who doesn't toe the DEI line, that is the fastest way to find yourself a pariah in an org.

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

#426

Post by anonymouskimmer »

foolinaround wrote: post #394
domain8543 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IMHO, LeBron's struggle was one of an poor kid growing up. I would even say that being black was an advantage, and gave him great genetics that he took to the next level with discipline.

> "I would even say that being black was an advantage, and gave him great genetics that he took to the next level with discipline."

Being Jewish was a great advantage to Einstein, and gave him great genetics that he took to the next level with discipline.

Being French was a great advantage to Joan of Arc, and gave her great genetics that she took to the next level with dedication.

LeBron may have great genetics. But if he does, it's because of his parents and luck, not his race per se. Otherwise everyone who is black would have a genetic advantage that they could take to the next level with discipline.

It is racist as hell to attribute to race what are personal qualities. Other than, perhaps, traits that only certain races possess, such as the ability to breath at high elevations without taking weeks to adapt to the conditions.

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

#427

Post by consumer451 »

Swizec wrote: post #216
version_five wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I’ll never forget a coworker explaining to me that in America she’s PoC, but back home she’s white. That really blew my mind.

> I’ll never forget a coworker explaining to me that in America she’s PoC, but back home she’s white. That really blew my mind.

I think that's a huge and extremely valuable lesson.

That's because there is no such thing as "white" ethnicity. It is a word used to categorize us vs other. This is not my theory, afaik it's a fact. A fact which seems to upset a lot people. Based on previous conversations, it appears to be the most controversial knowledge which I posses.

The generally accepted "white" ethnic groups have changed over time. Irish people were once not "white" in the USA. Neither were Slavic people. These two groups have the some of the lightest colored skin known to man.

No one is white. Some people pass for white.

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

#428

Post by duckmysick »

pjc50 wrote: post #155
catiopatio wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think there are IRC logs from the 90s, apart from bash.org, but we could check Usenet archives to see how inclusive (or not) it was back then.

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

#429

Post by parasense »

fsociety wrote: post #368
oceanplexian wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 like, not what you sounded like. We actually had real diversity and inclusion before these rent-seeking social media corporations and their fake DEI came in and ruined it. On IRC no one knew I was a 14 year old, or an 80 year old retiree, or male or femal…

This ignores the rampant racist/sexist comments often made on IRC/BBS, which were a reflection of society. Anyone who spent a good amount of time in these communities know it was a problem - hence why some very small invite-only communities were formed. So yes, the idealism is there. No one knows who you identify as in a text channel unless you let them. But it does not remove the fact that these communities could of…

> This ignores the rampant racist/sexist comments often made on IRC/BBS

Nice straw man argument you got there...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

But I'll take the bait...

> Anyone who spent a good amount of time in these communities know it was a problem...

Interesting.

I've been on IRC for decades, and while any online forum has the feature where trolls are capable of making awful remarks for the lulz, it's been my observation those are outliers, and NOT an actual problem for focused communities.

> So yes, the idealism is there. No one knows who you identify as in a text channel unless you let them.

hrm... yeah, there is a dichotomy there, but not the false kind, more of the ying/yang kind. The same feature that fosters diversity is the same feature that allows for trolls.

> But it does not remove the fact that these communities could often have bigoted pockets.

There is no reason to practice fatalism here, or characterise rare events as common place. This is probably a variation of another fallacy called reductio-absurdism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Ultimately IRC has admins, moderators, and the ability to mute other people. That is why good prevails over evil on IRC, and why IRC has remained the place for smart people to connect online for so so very long... longer than any other mode of chat communication.

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

#430

Post by dcow »

DrThunder wrote: post #417
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.

This is exactly the way normal anti-racism was up until recently. It's how MLK wanted it to be and it's pretty much how the US was treating it up until the last decade. Somehow we've switched in the last few years to the point where skin color and/or specific race is the MOST important attribute someone has. Diversity based on skin color is absolutely asinine. You can have a multitude of poc in one room but if their…

People are impatient. Changes that take a few generations to notice are too slow. Instant gains now now now. We learned identity politics worked for LGBTQIA so we deployed them for BIPOC as well. The ends justified the means. The ends are undefined.
Post reply on HN