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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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

#291

Post by slg »

2-tpg wrote: post #271
slg wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 discri…

Take it to court then. Collect circumstantial evidence and allow for an objective ruling on discrimination and racism in the workplace. If the circumstantial he-said she-said is of any substance, you can prove your guilt. Don't do trial by (social) media. Especially when your accusations are incredibly heavy and damaging. Don't play judge when you are not capable of objectively looking at all the presented evidence.…

From the article:

>Ms. Sawyerr said she had talked with four other Black employees about bringing a discrimination lawsuit against Coinbase, but the others backed out after being offered hefty severance payments in exchange for confidentiality agreements.

It never went to court because almost everyone involved was incentivized for it to not end up in court. Going to court is often a difficult, expensive, and likely damaging path to pursue for victims of a variety of crimes. The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here.

>For the law, intent is of utmost importance. For (social) media, just "circumstantial evidence" of exhibiting patterns of discrimination is enough to act. It is not enough to act, if you are a decent person.

Once again, you are factually wrong with this comment. People can be thrown in jail based purely on an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence and companies can be punished for discriminatory behavior even if there is documented proof that there was no intent to discriminate.

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

#292

Post by bellevue »

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…

100% agree. I saw some of the shit posted about this on Cryptocurrency forums when Coinbase posted their weird tirade about wanting to be "neutral and apolitical" with regards to social justice and a few days ago about how everything is a lie as they tried to pre-empt this article.

It all feels of gaslighting and has a shit ton of people buying into it.

At the end of the day, the best thing for Coinbase employees to do is to jump ship to a competitor (I for one, am happy to give a referral to any Coinbase employee who is leaving due to all this) - but absolutely vile that they would try to buy-out all POC in the company.

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

#293

Post by arcticbull »

symlinkk wrote: post #288
arcticbull wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without taking a meaningful position here, how do you differentiate between the individuals on the street who are generally poor and powerless (and if you take them at their word, disenfranchised), while the police are backed by the institution, carrying military weapons, and legally empowered to use violence to stop them? This is a question I have struggled with, so I'm curious what your take is, and that of the res…

What’s with the wall of text? Violence isn’t justified regardless of who’s doing it

> What’s with the wall of text?

Because, if you'd read it, it's much more nuanced than you're making it out to be. I felt an exploration might be interesting. You clearly disagree.

> Violence isn’t justified regardless of who’s doing it.

Yes, it is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you're justified in a violent response. Period. I doubt even a pacifist monk would disagree.

Where things get more interesting is what if an oppressive system comes at you, and isn't interested in your feedback or reforms?

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

#294

Post by tyrust »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #281
mattmanser wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is exactly what he said, laid out in argument form: Premise 1: Tech companies are often accused of racism (any, not coinbase, neither of us mentioned coinbase) Premise 2: Tech companies often contain a much larger % of Asians, a minority Premise 3: (implied) having a disproportionate % of any one minority makes you non-racist Conclusion: Therefore Tech companies are not racist The conclusion does not follow…

Premise 3 was not implied.

You're right, it wasn't implied: it was explicitly stated.

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

#296

Post by kaitai »

Sacho wrote: post #266
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…

I apologize in advance because you seem to be emotionally invested in this, but I really do not understand the questions you pose in your comment. What did you actually expect from the discussion? Were there not enough comments against Coinbase? Were there not enough comments outraged about the perceived racist behavior of it? Do you think none of those commenters "imagine the possibility that racism is a problem in…

How 'bout comments talking about how to fix these problems proactively in other companies?

Why not do something useful instead of just waste minutes and photons?

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

#297

Post by bra-ket »

arcticbull wrote: post #293
symlinkk wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s with the wall of text? Violence isn’t justified regardless of who’s doing it

> What’s with the wall of text? Because, if you'd read it, it's much more nuanced than you're making it out to be. I felt an exploration might be interesting. You clearly disagree. > Violence isn’t justified regardless of who’s doing it. Yes, it is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you're justified in a violent response. Period. I doubt even a pacifist monk would disagree. Where things get more interesting is wh…

> If someone comes at you with a knife, you're justified in a violent response. Period.

Exactly. Only there is no 'oppressive system', but an individual officer responding to 911 call and standing against an agitated individual with a weapon who's about to attack.

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

#298

Post by bellevue »

vmception wrote: post #63

I was willing to support the general message Brian Armstrong put out, but with the added context and chronology I cannot. I would say that this kind of mission statement can only work if done at the beginning, as reacting in response to the work environment described by their employees was doomed for failure. I know many people like Brian Armstrong, and the investors. They are all cut from a similar cloth and they ho…

+1000. So succinct. Brian's hissy fit about being "apolitical" was clear and blatant "not my problem, let's ignore any racism and accusations of racism" which is utterly unacceptable at a company that (like any others of this size) is likely to have the occasional (or very common) problem with racism and discrimination.

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

#299

Post by nullc »

adjkant wrote: post #269
bmarquez wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 60 people who left makes it clear this is not agreed upon. Did all 60 people leave because of Coinbase's political stance, or did some leave because of the generous severance package of 4-6 months pay that the CEO offered in September? I know that if I were looking to make a life change, I'd seriously consider that offer even if I liked the politics.

We can only speculate on the numbers, but it can always be a both/and situation. This culture/environment itself can be part of the reason for wanting that life change. But forget number speculation, we have concrete proof of this in the article: > another employee who left in October was John Russ, the head of marketing and the company’s highest ranking Black employee , who had been hired three months earlier. > In…

> We can only speculate on the numbers,

We can, but we can only do this because people in the comments are independently informed. The NYT repeatedly emphasized 60 people leaving (across two articles) but never mentioned the severance.

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

#300

Post by tyrust »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #295
tyrust wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it wasn't implied: it was explicitly stated.

It wasn't explicitly stated, either.

I think mattmanser has argued the point well.

The first paragraph is the OP saying that the company cannot [0] be racist since they (might) have a disproportionate number of one minority under their employment.

[0] - "cannot without causing the OP confusion", at least

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