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Racism in Tech

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Re: Racism in Tech

#181

Post by throwawayday »

joebadmo wrote: post #115
product50 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived for 25 years in US. Never encountered racism ever - am from South Asian decent. That is saying something. Of course - there will be some people who will be racist. US, after all has 300M people and it defies probability that it will not have any racists. However, generalizing racists and saying racism exists based on these extreme edge case doesn't make logical sense.

Have you considered perhaps that you're the edge case? I've lived in the US my entire life. I'm East Asian. I've encountered racism. Given two persons of minority descent, one who claims to have first-hand experience of racism, and another who claims that racism is largely a myth, why would I believe the second over the first?

why would you believe the first over the second? It boils down to your outlook on life - if you're Eeyore, everything's a dark cloud.

Re: Racism in Tech

#182

Post by kstenerud »

JulianMiller520 wrote: post #159
kstenerud wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always telling when people downvote, yet have no rebuttal.

People don't like to argue with people they deem incapable of understanding the topic at hand. I hit your hyperbole and read no further because I deemed your take unintelligent and poorly argued. Hence #downvote

That's awfully rude. Which part was unintelligent and why? Which part was poorly argued and why?

Re: Racism in Tech

#183

Post by JulianMiller520 »

kstenerud wrote: post #182
JulianMiller520 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like to argue with people they deem incapable of understanding the topic at hand. I hit your hyperbole and read no further because I deemed your take unintelligent and poorly argued. Hence #downvote

That's awfully rude. Which part was unintelligent and why? Which part was poorly argued and why?

It honestly wasn't meant to be rude but I thought most other people would also stop reading and dismiss it and it wouldn't be productive if you took that to mean you'd argued a great point and stumped the community. Your assertions stomp all over sensitive issues on all sides of the issue, you use race-related language that could be considered inflammatory. If your point was about cultural sensitivity on both sides of the divide then perhaps you could have started by showing some in your post. Hope that helps to clarify.

Re: Racism in Tech

#184

Post by sharkman »

sharkman wrote: post #57

Even inside YC. I remember at the YC NYC meetup, the guy on stage in red sweater (forgot his name) was saying "I was so lucky to be born as white male in a middle class family"; I was like, WTH, so born as non-white or female is unlucky?!

wow, i got voted down by several people because I pointed out there's a racist in YC?

Re: Racism in Tech

#185

Post by dholowiski »

kiiski wrote: post #127
rdl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone not understanding NATO phonetic alphabet has no business working in a call center (or using a telephone, in general), even if English is not his or her native language.

Why not? I think you overestimate how common NATO phonetic alphabet is. I, for example, don't know it and I still can use a telephone without problems. (I'm Finnish)

When I worked on a helpdesk, a poster with the NATO alphabet was standard issue for every new employee, as well as a thorough explanation of when to say Zed and when to say Zee. But that was nothing compared to when we started supporting Australians. We had to start a Wiki for Australian to Canadian/US translation.

Re: Racism in Tech

#186

Post by burgerbrain »

davidw wrote: post #176
burgerbrain wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insistence on misrepresenting other peoples comments here is simply stunning.

The guy wrote what he wrote: "people who get bent out of shape about it [racism] are just as backwards as the few people who are still actually racist."

He has posted a clarification of his comment numerous times, but you refuse to acknowledge it.

Re: Racism in Tech

#187

Post by kstenerud »

JulianMiller520 wrote: post #183
kstenerud wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awfully rude. Which part was unintelligent and why? Which part was poorly argued and why?

It honestly wasn't meant to be rude but I thought most other people would also stop reading and dismiss it and it wouldn't be productive if you took that to mean you'd argued a great point and stumped the community. Your assertions stomp all over sensitive issues on all sides of the issue, you use race-related language that could be considered inflammatory. If your point was about cultural sensitivity on both sides o…

"Hope that helps to clarify."

Not really... I used some inflammatory language as an example of how paranoid thought would germinate as fear of an unknown brought someone to the extreme of the "what if". Kind of like how parents fears can grow into a near certainty that their child has been abducted by an axe murderer because he's an hour late coming home from school.

The rest of the post is about fitting in so that you don't trigger that fear response. In essence, comporting yourself in the same manner as is the standard in business in the area you find yourself in (i.e. no surprising behavior). I've made a habit of taking this approach, and it's worked quite well for me. I also know a number of others who refused to do this, and are now bitter over the rejection they suffered (sometimes to the level of violence, actually, which didn't help at all).

Re: Racism in Tech

#188

Post by zanek »

jaequery wrote: post #151

I am asian and when I try to play basketball ... black people make fun of me. What do I do? I accept the fact that I am asian and so it's okay for blacks to make fun of me when I play basketball. This is how society works. Sometimes, you just live with it. Stop the whining and the bitching.

This was a really stupid comment. Seems like youre implying playing basketball is innate ability attributed to being black, and that blacks being discriminated in tech is similar so they should stop complaining. In reality, this is a really immature perspective, as most people could probably work in the tech industry regardless of race. Poor parenting, poor education, socio-economics etc are the real factors. Being Asian has nothing to do with playing basketball poorly. Blacks can excel in tech with the proper upbringing and environment.

Re: Racism in Tech

#189

Post by zootar »

ericd wrote: post #132
zootar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think selection favors "those who are able to work well with others of all races"?

Because being a racist nowadays tends to cause one to be marginalized by others, and not be as successful. Today's business environment favors the person who can work well with anyone.

Today's business environment does not exert any evolutionary pressure on the human species.

Re: Racism in Tech

#190

Post by JabavuAdams »

bdunbar wrote: post #179
JabavuAdams wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The military is [1] _death_ on racisim, sexism, favoritism Officially, yes, but that's probably BS. This reminds me of two anecdotes about the IDF (not to make this about Israel -- it's just the data that I have): 1) One friend assured me that any soldier acting improperly would be disciplined immediately, as the IDF had very high standards, etc. etc. 2) Another friend used to tell me stories about his IDF stint an…

You are assuming a great deal, based on one line of text. You're convinced it's BS. Fine. My experience says that it's not. Actual expertise trumps ignorance and anecdotes, always. it's just the data that I have That's not data, those are stories that you were told.

I feel you're not speaking to my actual argument, so I want to try to clear something up:

> Actual expertise trumps ignorance and anecdotes, always.

You are not an expert in other peoples experiences, only your own. We have a case here where one guy says "this could never happen". Another guy says "I used to do that all the time". Only one of them can be right, even though we accept both of their experiences as true.

If the first guy simply said "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening, and therefore I doubt that it could happen", then they could both be right, and the evidence matches both of their beliefs.

The mistake is to go from "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening" to "It cannot/did not happen", especially when someone else says it did happen.

That's all I'm arguing. I am not doubting your experience.

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