> but creating townhall meetings and parading your black/brown employees around like show ponies is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling. It doesn't just undermine the self-esteem of a PoC, it undermines the self-esteem of white folks, too. Hiring or promoting people due to their skin color is just wrong, no matter what skin color that is. As a white dude, seeing my PoC teammates in the past celebrated not for…
> He has come up with some really ingenious solutions to tough problems that have allowed us to grow as a company....but we're celebrating him because he's black, not because he's a kickass engineer The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
271–280 of 898 posts
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever my company has had conversations about DEI initiatives, I always come back to the same argument: "talk is cheap, we can talk all day long about how we are diverse. How about we shut up, put our money where our mouth is, and actually hire some folks from diverse backgrounds". DEI is something that is easy to talk about but actually kinda hard to implement. Part of the problem is the makeup of the industry in…
> actually hire some folks from diverse backgrounds Because you’re trying to hire from a small pool of candidates (minority software developer or whatever) that EVERY OTHER tech company is trying to get in a desperate attempt to not look bad (because not having a sufficient number of minorities on staff is a sin). It’s simply a question of numbers. There’s only so many minorities, and only a fraction of them are suff…
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#273Earlier 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.
[flagged]
I believe they call this "the soft bigotry of low expectations"
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Prior to this, in the earlier internet age, you had to cut your teeth on IRC and forums. That was where technical people were in the computer tech space. > Do you know VIRULENTLY anti-black (or woman, or gay) these communities were? I can't begin to describe it. That is totally off-putting to someone who has the ability succeed but does not want to deal with the hate. Wow, thank you. Gives me a new perspective.
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.
Yes, totally, most of us were indeed social misfits. But many of us also instead of being empathic and understand what was the real issue there, simply perpetrate the same abuse to someone else who was in a weaker position.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. The old saying was "The beauty of the Internet is nobody knows if you're a dog." ... except they didn't mean dog, and we never said why it might matter what you are or what other people were assuming you were absent further information.
No, we literally meant dog. It was a joke. Why might it matter? Because the rest of the world was a lot more racist and sexist, but IRC wasn’t.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
to be fair "there are no girls on the internet" is technically somewhat misogynistic and was a popular meme of the era.
I've never heard this and there were plenty of girls on IRC
Oh wait:
> Welcome to the Internet, where the men are men, the women are men, and the kids are cops.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1546789
I picked this instance of course because it was said on HN, but it was a dead horse even in 2010.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#277Another is that DEI seems to simultaneously accept that race is a social construct while also using race as a key criterion for purposes of inclusion, which is absurd. For example, a Black Swede, growing up in Sweden her whole life, would be considered a candidate that improves diversity in the workplace. However, I'm not aware of Swedes being an oppressed people. In fact, growing up in Sweden your life is probably better than in America. The judgment is made purely on skin color and lineage.
Lastly, I also want to say that I know this is an ugly situation, because high paying jobs are often about connections, which have a strong correlation with ethnic background in the United States. In that view, it makes sense to have something like DEI shine a light on power structures within the workplace and make them more fair. So despite the above, I support DEI if it helps underprivileged people. After all racism still exists, and it's virulent. Many people harbor racist views and will lie through their teeth in order not to be canceled.
I just hope eventually racism is extinguished so we could move forward to a purely merit-based system.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#278Honest question for the crowd. Obviously DEI or affirmative action-esque initiatives are not perfect. But is there something better that could be done? Asking bc I went to a good school that had affirmative action. It was for years that I just assumed it was racist, even if it was helping poc. Then it dawned on me in my last year that it was also benefitting me . That if the govt hadn’t done something to intervene, I…
Your greater comfort with the differently skin coloured members of your social class came at the expense of the people who would have gotten in under a colour blind system. That’s fine as long as people are ok with the fact that different groups are being held to different standards. (Asians famously have “bad personalities”.) But it’s considered déclassé to mention it. This is bad. Lying to people is bad. It leads to children believing the bullshit and then they grow up and believe the bullshit still.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
> actually hire some folks from diverse backgrounds Because you’re trying to hire from a small pool of candidates (minority software developer or whatever) that EVERY OTHER tech company is trying to get in a desperate attempt to not look bad (because not having a sufficient number of minorities on staff is a sin). It’s simply a question of numbers. There’s only so many minorities, and only a fraction of them are suff…
Locally the pool of candidates might seem small. Globally it is much larger than one thinks or realizes.
Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company
#280When I was in graduate school, we had a guest speaker who was a diversity consultant come give a talk and ran us through one of the example exercises they do for clients. It basically involves everyone standing in a conference room, on one side of a line, and the diversity consultant standing on the other side. They iteratively make statements relating to personal attributes or experiences and anyone that chooses to…