Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#121

Post by msvan » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:36 PM UTC

I see many people here being skeptical about the arguments for diversity, and asking what the utility is for Twitter. But part of the question is about the utility for minorities as well. This debate is really about minorities being shut out of yet another high-paying industry because they [didn't have a computer growing up/couldn't get in to some brand-name college/didn't have a supportive childhood environment/other systemic inequalities]. By the time the white kid and the black kid get to the bar, the game is already rigged in favor of the white kid.

So maybe the bar is right, in that it selects the most high-performing asset to execute the requisite keystrokes in a cost-effective manner. But maybe the world we should strive for is not one where people spend their lives in anxiety honing their resumes, getting into the right schools, the right clubs, getting the right internships, and having the right connections through daddy. God forbid there are any complications in your life along the way, or if you were born in a place which set you up for failure from the get-go.

I think one great thing about tech is that you can learn it, if you're intelligent and you get shit done. Maybe all you need is somebody to give you a shot to set you off on a trajectory toward the moon.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#122

Post by xlm1717 » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

jonesb6 wrote: post #12

Anyone else get the strong feeling that articles like this are a detriment to equal rights movements? If you're misrepresenting facts and statistics people will eventually catch on and simply not trust you anymore, skewering any ability you have to raise awareness and make a difference..

I don't think that's why it's a detriment, but I think twitter took a step back in terms of diversity by losing this guy, which I think is a detriment.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#123

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:49 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #109

spacehome wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an ad hominem attack of the exact kind that (I'm guessing) jonesb6 would argue against. If you have some concrete non-racist criticism of jonesb6's post let's hear it. Ideas should be judged on their own merits not the skin color of the originator ... much like Twitter VPs.

Is it ad hominem if it's true? "articles like this are detrimental to equal rights movements" (phrased as a question, not as a statement, but that's a cheap rhetorical trick) is a position taken almost exclusively by the beneficiaries of racial and gender privilege. And jonesb6 did not address the substance of the article, but rather the tone . What it really boils down to is this: "As a beneficiary of privilege, it…

>As a beneficiary of privilege, it makes me uncomfortable when people point out that racism and sexism exist.

Such as the privilege of being the majority race in the local neighborhood even if you are a minority at the national level or the privilege off being the majority of the voting population.

What bothers me the most about conversations dealing with privilege is that the louder someone talks about others, the greater their denial and downplay of their own.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#124

Post by beat » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

spacehome wrote: post #119

beat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ad hominem if it's true? "articles like this are detrimental to equal rights movements" (phrased as a question, not as a statement, but that's a cheap rhetorical trick) is a position taken almost exclusively by the beneficiaries of racial and gender privilege. And jonesb6 did not address the substance of the article, but rather the tone . What it really boils down to is this: "As a beneficiary of privilege, it…

Yea, this is a much better criticism because this comment actually allows for the the conversation to move forward. For what it's worth (i.e. not much) I didn't get the same sense from jonesb6's comment that you did. It would have been nice if jonesb6 went into a little more detail about the supposed misrepresentations, but talking about misrepresentations of facts and statistics (should they actually exist) is a far…

Yeah, I can agree on the ad hominem part.

But for the rest, the complaining about misrepresentations felt like rationalization to support the tone argument (much like making it a question rather than a statement). It's a very common pattern. My bluntness was a vent of frustration with that style of argument. If he'd wanted to make a substantial criticism, he'd have pointed to specific examples of misleading or incorrect statistics. He did not.

More to the point, quibbling about the numbers doesn't change the fundamental truths of the original article - first, that black engineers are badly underrepresented at Twitter, and second, that Twitter's attempts to address the issue have been misguided and ineffective. If the core point doesn't change, then why the quibble?

Which brings us back to tone. Which in turn brings us back to privilege.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#125

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:52 PM UTC

mazerackham wrote: post #68

dreamdu5t wrote: post #31

Removing barriers to particular ethnicities in hiring? Great. Making it clear in marketing and outreach that all ethnicities are welcomed and encouraged? Great. Establishing a quota of X % of employees should be a certain race? Uh... okay. Should asians be turned down from a job because they've hit the asian quota and need more blacks? I didn't realize companies practiced affirmative action like this.

I'm Chinese, and I don't appreciate your attempt at pitting Asians against Blacks.

It isn't pitting any race at another. It is a real concern with quotas. One only needs to look at what an Asian needs to score on the SAT compared to what a Caucasian (no need to bring up other races) to see how it can become a problem.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#126

Post by tzs » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

mazerackham wrote: post #77

muuh-gnu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These experiences will have shaped the two men differently. You are implying that those negative experiences are a product of racism and not of simple statistics. Maybe, only maybe, people _dont have_ as many problems with white guys wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie as they have with black guys wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie, so they dont call the cops on the former and call the cops on…

So Eric Gardner probably deserved to get choked out because he sold cigarettes illegally on a street? And Michael Brown was probably a thug, so deserved to die?

It's Eric Garner, not Eric Gardner.

There was not any really good reason to try to arrest Garner at the point they tried to restrain him. Chokeholds are banned by that police department, so when they did try to arrest him they went about it in the wrong fashion.

The Garner case raises lots of questions, including whether or not he would have been treated the same way had he been white.

Brown, on the other hand, was walking down the middle of the street with goods he just stole moments ago. Police had good reason to stop him. A white kid doing the same would have been stopped.

Brown attacked the officer and tried to take his gun. A white kid doing the same would have been shot. And a white kid who fled after being shot, then turned around and continued approaching rather than obeying an order to get down would get shot more, just like Brown was.

The forensic evidence combined with the eyewitness accounts provides a pretty clear picture that Brown got what pretty much anyone would get in those circumstances, regardless of their race.

Lumping Garner in with Brown is very disrespectful to Garner and his family.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#127

Post by sktrdie » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

msvan wrote: post #121

I see many people here being skeptical about the arguments for diversity, and asking what the utility is for Twitter. But part of the question is about the utility for minorities as well. This debate is really about minorities being shut out of yet another high-paying industry because they [didn't have a computer growing up/couldn't get in to some brand-name college/didn't have a supportive childhood environment/othe…

The free-market shapes it to be this way. A company as big as Twitter is simply a result of such system. In fact the free market is the opposite of racist/sexist/whatever... it strives entirely on performing the best it can - ironically, even at the cost of the worker's mental health - thereby not giving a shit about who it hires as long as they can perform at the maximum capacity.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#128

Post by bduerst » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 10:08 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #114

muuh-gnu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These experiences will have shaped the two men differently. You are implying that those negative experiences are a product of racism and not of simple statistics. Maybe, only maybe, people _dont have_ as many problems with white guys wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie as they have with black guys wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie, so they dont call the cops on the former and call the cops on…

There's a basic fork in logic. Blacks are observably, measurably treated worse than whites by police and courts. There can only be two causes for this: 1. The system is unjust due to institutional racism. 2. Blacks are inherently more violent and criminal than whites. You seem to be arguing the latter.

Their entire argument is a cognitive dissonance with the facts.

Even with non-violent drug use, rates are similar across all races yet blacks are measurably discriminated against in searches, arrests, and sentencing.

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#129

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 10:10 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #105

steven2012 wrote: post #65

I've been working for over 20 years in tech at 10+ different companies around the Valley, and I can count on 1 hand the number of direct coworkers that were black, and on 2 hands the number of coworkers that I indirectly worked with that were black. I don't believe this is due to any sort of racism, but rather due to the education system in general. Trying to solve the diversity issue at the hiring end, when the numb…

This is exactly the same as saying that the reason women had little power in America before 1920 was because they couldn't vote. Which is true, but completely overlooks why women didn't have the right to vote. Women didn't have power because they were oppressed by men for centuries. Black people don't have "as good an education" because they've been systematically abandoned by the most powerful parts of society for c…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's only black engineer in leadership quits

#130

Post by beat » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 10:12 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #123

beat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ad hominem if it's true? "articles like this are detrimental to equal rights movements" (phrased as a question, not as a statement, but that's a cheap rhetorical trick) is a position taken almost exclusively by the beneficiaries of racial and gender privilege. And jonesb6 did not address the substance of the article, but rather the tone . What it really boils down to is this: "As a beneficiary of privilege, it…

>As a beneficiary of privilege, it makes me uncomfortable when people point out that racism and sexism exist. Such as the privilege of being the majority race in the local neighborhood even if you are a minority at the national level or the privilege off being the majority of the voting population. What bothers me the most about conversations dealing with privilege is that the louder someone talks about others, the g…

I saw a kind of disturbing statistic recently... white males are only 31% of the population, but they're 66% of police officers, and 95% of prosecutors. Not to mention 85% of elected officials.

That's a lot of concentration of power.