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2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

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Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#11

Are they asking management to pull out of having any operations in China and India?

Are they asking management to pull out of the USA? Which has conducted illegal wars, and pulled out of nuclear talks with Iran.

Right? It's really hypocritical for any American company to be talking about these kinds of things.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#12
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “don’t hire white men” is a much different policy than “please increase your funnel and hire more non white cis hereto men”. I would argue your previous employer more or less just misses the point of these things.

But that's the whole issue. Policy versus practice. I'm usually hard pressed to find people who disagree with the thought of "we should try to hire people other than white men in a white men dominated profession". The issue comes when the unspoken (OP's "off the record") enforcement of this is willful hate towards those people.

Of course there is an issue when people miss the point and do stupid shit. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying to improve representation in one of if not the most fast growing, wealth-providing career fields. I’m utterly baffled by this argument that a case of one company missing the point means IBM shouldn’t even try.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “don’t hire white men” is a much different policy than “please increase your funnel and hire more non white cis hereto men”. I would argue your previous employer more or less just misses the point of these things.

But that's the whole issue. Policy versus practice. I'm usually hard pressed to find people who disagree with the thought of "we should try to hire people other than white men in a white men dominated profession". The issue comes when the unspoken (OP's "off the record") enforcement of this is willful hate towards those people.

I disagree that the existing diversity in tech is best described as "white". Tech has a lot of diversity. It's that some groups, especially women, are still underrepresented.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#14

> (2) Expand our diversity recruitment programs specifically targeting women, people of color, and LGBT people with the goal of doubling recruitment of these groups in 2017 and steadily increasing the share of these groups as a proportion of new hiring in subsequent years. Initiatives like this worry me that we'll end up like my previous employer where we were off-the-record instructed not to hire a white male for ou…

This is actually structural racism in contrast to attesting it on society or some specific people.

Honestly, I think this letter is quite weak. To see Trump as a racist is a result of medial smear campaigns. He might have a foul mouth, but I have different definition of what constitutes a racist. You can have countless reasons to dislike Trump, but he is no racist. Maybe the signers of this letters are.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#15

> (2) Expand our diversity recruitment programs specifically targeting women, people of color, and LGBT people with the goal of doubling recruitment of these groups in 2017 and steadily increasing the share of these groups as a proportion of new hiring in subsequent years. Initiatives like this worry me that we'll end up like my previous employer where we were off-the-record instructed not to hire a white male for ou…

Unfortunately, this is a line of attack used by malicious actors: Summoning the specter of anti-white racism every time "diversity" is mentioned, with not much else to say. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but I am saying that we should try to keep in mind that failures like the one you describe are a natural consequence of Goodhart's Law, and we need to tackle them as problems, rather than just reaching for them as examples that (intentionally or not) imply that trying to diversify the hiring pool is in itself wrong-headed. For example: Note that I said hiring pool - not necessarily hires. Part of avoiding the problem you ran into is focusing on pragmatism and holism - it's OK to address the symptoms if we're applying the treatment justly, but we mustn't let our primary focus stray from addressing the disease.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#16

> (2) Expand our diversity recruitment programs specifically targeting women, people of color, and LGBT people with the goal of doubling recruitment of these groups in 2017 and steadily increasing the share of these groups as a proportion of new hiring in subsequent years. Initiatives like this worry me that we'll end up like my previous employer where we were off-the-record instructed not to hire a white male for ou…

I'm a former IBM'er and I remember a presentation 14 years ago in front of 500 people by a higher up with a PowerPoint slide that said "We are actively looking to promote women and minorities to management". I saw this in action as a few older co-workers, 40'ish, white and male, were continually passed over for promotions to management.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#17
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “don’t hire white men” is a much different policy than “please increase your funnel and hire more non white cis hereto men”. I would argue your previous employer more or less just misses the point of these things.

But that's the whole issue. Policy versus practice. I'm usually hard pressed to find people who disagree with the thought of "we should try to hire people other than white men in a white men dominated profession". The issue comes when the unspoken (OP's "off the record") enforcement of this is willful hate towards those people.

I do disagree with that. If white men happen to be there for some reason or another, it doesn't really matter. The likelihood that it is because of racism is minuscule.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#18

> (2) Expand our diversity recruitment programs specifically targeting women, people of color, and LGBT people with the goal of doubling recruitment of these groups in 2017 and steadily increasing the share of these groups as a proportion of new hiring in subsequent years. Initiatives like this worry me that we'll end up like my previous employer where we were off-the-record instructed not to hire a white male for ou…

Unfortunately, this is a line of attack used by malicious actors: Summoning the specter of anti-white racism every time "diversity" is mentioned, with not much else to say. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but I am saying that we should try to keep in mind that failures like the one you describe are a natural consequence of Goodhart's Law, and we need to tackle them as problems, rather than just reaching for them…

Edit: Shadowbanned.

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#19
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “don’t hire white men” is a much different policy than “please increase your funnel and hire more non white cis hereto men”. I would argue your previous employer more or less just misses the point of these things.

But that's the whole issue. Policy versus practice. I'm usually hard pressed to find people who disagree with the thought of "we should try to hire people other than white men in a white men dominated profession". The issue comes when the unspoken (OP's "off the record") enforcement of this is willful hate towards those people.

How about "we should try to hire more asian men in black women dominated fields"?

Re: 2,445 IBM Employees Openly Condemned IBM for Enabling Racist Regimes

#20

Are they asking management to pull out of having any operations in China and India?

Are they asking management to pull out of the USA? Which has conducted illegal wars, and pulled out of nuclear talks with Iran.

They aren't.

You forgot to answer the original question, though.

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