Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 717 posts

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

#311

Post by cbthrow91 »

tptacek wrote: post #289
cbthrow91 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything in the article that implies the PHL employee was given a choice of office. For all we know they made the request after CB decided against WFH teams.

If we take the articles claims at face value, what we know is: * There was an existing compliance department. * It had several remote team members. * The company opened a compliance office in PDX. * The company required Black team members to relocate to PDX or apply for new jobs. * The company allowed a non-Black team member to remain in PHL and work out of the NYC office. * Multiple sources claimed that the PHL empl…

It's unclear but I think when it's mentioned PHL employee is able to work remote, they mean they are able to work out of the NYC office which is remote relative to the PDX office. It was not my read that they are working remote from home.

Your wording speculates on how the communication around remote was delivered in an unfavorable light. We know the decision was made to end WFH/remote, and one employee managed to get permission to work from the NYC office. A more realistic (still speculative) scenario imo:

-Company announces end of wfh/remote for a team. Folks are asked to relocate to PDX. -Employee asks for permission to work from NYC. Request is approved.

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

#312

Post by tptacek »

nshepperd wrote: post #184

It's interesting how spot-on Coinbase's 'prebuttal' was ( https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012... ). There's very little in the NYT article that isn't mentioned. The only point of inaccuracy seems to be that the story was published on Friday morning, the day right after the prebuttal, not Sunday as originally suggested. Maybe the prebuttal forced NYT's hand?

It's spot-on because the NYT told them ahead of time about the claims they were going to make, in the process of fact-checking those claims and offering Coinbase an opportunity to provide quotes to rebut them in the article, which opportunity Coinbase availed itself of.

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

#313

Post by johncena33 »

ardit33 wrote: post #165
whoknew1122 wrote: post #154

Hmmm. A 'mission focused' company that bans discusses political and societal issues also has issues with diversity and how it treats its non-white workers? I'll go ahead and file this in the 'In other news, water is wet' category.

It can go two ways: 1. Coinbase has real problems of discrimination 2. Coinbase is being targeted at a smearing campaign, for not playing ball with the ideology of de-jure of some circles. It is kinda like a repeat of 2003: "if you are not with us (for the Iraqi war), then you are with the terrorist" mantra of conservative circles to justify their war. The truth, is probably somewhere in between. Also, NYT has become…

> Also, NYT has become heavily biased/activist type of journal. While they don't straight up lie, they often omit many important details in their story, in order to justify their conclusion.

That's also my experience with the media on the left. It's not straight-up fake news. But it's more misleading news. The infamous "women earn 78 cents for every dollar a man make". Which gives you the impression that a man and a woman both working at the same role doing the same work and woman makes 20% less than man. While in reality this is just an abject misrepresentation of the actual stat and weaponized for political gain. But unfortunately, this will not qualify as fake news.

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

#314

Post by o-__-o »

0-_-0 wrote: post #265
ironchef wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The majority of the protests were mostly peaceful. https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-vi... Police brutality is real https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z

Police are mostly peaceful

I have an imposter! But friendly reminder that police are not your friends and you should not talk to the police unless it is absolutely necessary and even then stay tight lipped.

Figure I’ll add a story about being black and driving a nice car. One day I had a flat tire and pulled into a gas station after hours to change the tire. I didn’t have a lug wrench and the kid working in the store didn’t have one either. So I called triple A. With an obvious , and I mean my rim was sitting on the ground, flat tire. Mr big bad cop comes up and questions me about why I’m here. I explain the AAA situation. He asks for my license, I ask why, because there were robberies here and I’m a suspect because I’m parked here. I make a dramatic turn to the flat tire on my car. And ask him where I’m going to drive off to. He puts his hand on his holster and asks if there is a problem.

This is what happens more often than we realize and is the reason why my cars are no longer registered to me from a personal capacity, and why I have a dark tint on my windows. But more importantly it’s why people of color have an unfounded anxiety from simply driving a car. It’s a sad state of affairs but I am blessed that I can look back and laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

After he took my license guess who showed up? He quickly got out of his cruiser, walked over, gave me my license and peeled out. I said “you’re not even going to say good bye?” as he was waking away. The AAA driver, also a white man, had some choice words for the police and we bonded on that during the ride back to my house.

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

#315

Post by tptacek »

cbthrow91 wrote: post #311
tptacek wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we take the articles claims at face value, what we know is: * There was an existing compliance department. * It had several remote team members. * The company opened a compliance office in PDX. * The company required Black team members to relocate to PDX or apply for new jobs. * The company allowed a non-Black team member to remain in PHL and work out of the NYC office. * Multiple sources claimed that the PHL empl…

It's unclear but I think when it's mentioned PHL employee is able to work remote, they mean they are able to work out of the NYC office which is remote relative to the PDX office. It was not my read that they are working remote from home. Your wording speculates on how the communication around remote was delivered in an unfavorable light. We know the decision was made to end WFH/remote, and one employee managed to ge…

Group employee relocations are a big deal. You are leaving out the part where the stated rationale for that relo is to have the team all together in one place. Instead, the real rationale appears to have been to have all the Black employees all together in one place (or, just as pausibly, that the relo was in fact a soft RIF of that group of employees).

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

#316

Post by Taek »

spamizbad wrote: post #242
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!

This comment is too snarky for my taste but the main thrust of the message is spot on. When I've taken the time to ask black friends and black professionals in my industry about their experience, it's very clear that they deal with an extra level of complications and hardships compared to me.

And it's not "my one black friend was a victim of racism this one time." It's just generally harder to get a job. It's just generally harder to get promoted. It's just generally harder to be taken seriously relative to your white peers.

And that's why these responses from Coinbase are unsatisfying. Every company and every hiring process has elements of racism in it. We haven't escaped the biases that permeate our culture. There are companies that are aware of these biases and work hard to minimize their impact, and there are companies that stick their heads in the sand and say 'nope, no racism here! Find me actual proof!'.

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

#317

Post by bleepblorp »

eganist wrote: post #253
bra-ket wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

> BLM movement discredited any and all accusations of racism, as they've been blatantly lying for months via massive propaganda campaign Can you please provide a reputable and well-sourced journalistic or academic reference for this claim that BLM is operating a "massive propaganda campaign"? > making martyrs out of criminals Can you please provide a reputable and well-sourced journalistic or academic reference for t…

[flagged]

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

#318

Post by jlokier »

adjkant wrote: post #287
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Wired's reporting is accurate ( https://www.wired.com/story/turmoil-black-lives-matter-polit... ), Coinbase did try to ride the line, but a bunch of activists demanded for Armstrong to publicly chant the slogan and eventually went on strike until he did.

Then they made their choice - their employees believed their company was not supporting them as people and forced the issue. Coinbase then chose its side. Is there anything more to say?

From those actions alone you can't determine if Coinbase rejected George Floyd/BLM, or rejected all kinds of slogan chanting that the CEO was pressured to chant by strikes.

It was, after all the first time he was pressured that way.

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

#319

Post by tptacek »

Taek wrote: post #316
spamizbad wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This comment is too snarky for my taste but the main thrust of the message is spot on. When I've taken the time to ask black friends and black professionals in my industry about their experience, it's very clear that they deal with an extra level of complications and hardships compared to me. And it's not "my one black friend was a victim of racism this one time." It's just generally harder to get a job. It's just ge…

Same! For instance, it never occurred to me that Black men have to be especially careful about expressing frustration, because white coworkers find any expression of anger from a Black man threatening. But that's what my neighbor, who also works in tech, told me: that he's basically never allowed to object as forcefully as white coworkers, because otherwise he'll get HR complaints.

There's probably a whole lot of shit like this that we just don't know, as a group, about.

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

#320

Post by SamReidHughes »

tyrust wrote: post #300
SamReidHughes wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OP just said it seems [my words here:] not grounded in observations of their behavior, not some definitional impossibility.
Post reply on HN