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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#241

Post by tptacek »

bra-ket wrote: post #208
KirinDave wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a San Francisco denizen says to you, "I stepped in human poop" you don't say, "Pics or it didn't happen." That's becuse it's a common occurrence. It's plausible it happened. The same is true of racism in Silicon Valley and the adjoint areas. Being less racist is actually the unusual condition that requires proof.

>Being less racist is actually the unusual condition that requires proof are you for real?

If you want to dispute something another commenter says, do so. The guidelines ask you specifically not to snark like this.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#242

Post by spamizbad »

throwmylifawy wrote: post #214

Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion mig…

If you know zero Black people and work with zero Black people it’s very easy to come to the conclusion that there is no racism against Black people. If there was you’d see it!

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#243

Post by tptacek »

cbthrow91 wrote: post #234
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't come across as dishonest at all, but your post did. > The article implies that a number of the Black people who left did so because the compliance division was relocated and they didn't want to relocate with it. It doesn't say how many people's decisions were influenced by annoying work crap that they interpreted as discrimination. And mentions the one white person was allowed to stay remote. Pretty dishone…

You are omitting the fact that the one white employee switched to working out of the NYC office. There's no mention of a black employee making the same request and it being denied, just the request to wfh being denied for both white and black employees. And then you are extrapolating two uncorroborated anecdotes of inappropriate comments as evidence of widespread discrimination.

According to the article, the white employee was not required to relocate to NYC, but rather was allowed to continue to work from their home in Philadelphia.

And, of course, the article has many more complaints than this one!

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#244

Post by BLKNSLVR »

xenadu02 wrote: post #160
RestlessMind wrote: post #33

From Coinbase's preemptive rebuttal[1]: "we hired an external consultant in August of this year who specializes in data science and diversity and inclusion to cull through all of our historic data related to diversity ... and conduct a high volume of interviews with employees representing all background, functions, and tenures to understand the employee experience. The independent investigation concluded that there w…

If you've never done this sort of thing before: there's a huge market for these "external consultants". Their unstated job (and reputations) are as whitewashing firms. You hire them to ensure there is "no evidence" of anything done wrong. The primary purpose is to create a credible defense in lawsuits but PR purposes are also common. Firms that find problems suddenly see their business dry up because most companies d…

Which all boils down to that old quote: "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Political parties have pet Think Tanks and Consulting Companies and various other organisations that only exist to massage the existing data into the desired narrative.

Look for the data points that indicate 'normal' and orbit that. When the inevitable questions about X% of the African-American workforce quit within Y time, just point to the stats that say 'normal'. Find some other outlier statistic to point out that random groupings happen, use this to try and dismiss this scenario as a one-off random event; coincidence.

Kids: learn your statistics! You'll be able to cheat your way into at least a couple of promotions throughout your career. (What I actually mean is: learn your statistics so you can spot when you're being cheated).

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#245

Post by pbrb »

polartx wrote: post #72
xoxoy wrote: post #53

this seems like it’s also a struggle between different teams at the same company. Customer Service teams are very often looked down upon as “less than” other teams like engineering, and this article states that a disproportionate number of the black employees were on that team.

Customer Service is often regarded in companies like insurance is regarded by most people—you gotta have it, in a perfect world you’d never need it, and very few people brag about how much they pay for it. That’s why Customer Service isn’t treated like the Rock Stars that Sales or Engineering is treated like in a company. It also tends to have the most natural turnover, and tends to be the lesser skilled positions in…

Man, when I was at an early stage online brokerage back in the day, customer service was pure gold. These people were mostly ex-traders who knew the ins-and-outs of complex options trades, and were legit viewed as rock stars.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#246

Post by userbinator »

throwmylifawy wrote: post #214

Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion mig…

Don't assume the other comments here are from non-blacks either...

Edit: so apparently the blacks I know, and who would agree with a lot of the comments here, don't exist...

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#247

Post by bra-ket »

throwmylifawy wrote: post #214

Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion mig…

The frustration is understandable, but BLM movement discredited any and all accusations of racism, as they've been blatantly lying for months via massive propaganda campaign, making martyrs out of criminals while staging violent protests against non-existent 'police brutality'.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#248

Post by generalizations »

throwmylifawy wrote: post #214

Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion mig…

It seems like what you're saying is entirely possible. However, where I disagree is that you seem to expect us to simply "face the truth" that the discrimination exists; you're deploring the existence of alternate possibilities!

> Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion might just not be good enough for the job and then just blame discrimination rather than facing the truth (pure gaslighting). [emphasis mine]

Let's consider the possibility, but please don't expect us to just accept it's true. And please don't expect us not to consider other possible alternatives.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#249

Post by slg »

2-tpg wrote: post #196
slg wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I have said elsewhere in this thread, these harmless explanations for something that can be perceived as discriminatory are perfectly reasonable when there are only a few isolated incidents. However their believability has an inverse relationship to the number of accusations. When there is a clear pattern of behavior, as their is in this instance, it gets harder and harder to argue it is anything other than discri…

It does not work that way (logically). Listing a 100 weak, baseless arguments is a debating tactic to confuse your opponents, not allowing them to address and debunk specifics (and if they still manage: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"). It also creates the appearance of smoke. More likely: There is a activist political trend now, that has picked up a lot of steam. In that political view, society is racist,…

>It does not work that way (logically).

Maybe it doesn't work like that in high school debate clubs, but it works like that in the law. Look up concepts like circumstantial evidence and disparate impact.

We can infer someone is guilty of a crime from a collection of evidence suggesting they are guilty even without direct evidence.

We can also punish someone for discrimination simply for exhibiting a pattern of discrimination regardless of intent to discriminate.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#250

Post by blub »

throwmylifawy wrote: post #214

Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion mig…

When accusations of racism are being thrown around carelessly and people are having their reputations destroyed and lives turned upside down because of a single thing they (allegedly) said, the potential future targets of these accusations realize that the stakes just became much higher for them. So why would they support and enable those that might come for their own heads next?

It's rational to be antagonistic in such a situation.

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