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Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

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Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#321

Post by throwaway35934 »

michaelt wrote: post #195
jcims wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen quite a few people angrily push back on statements like 'pipeline problem' and I don't understand why. Obviously there's more to it than that, but it's also that (with hard numbers to back it up).

> I've seen quite a few people angrily push back on statements like 'pipeline problem' and I don't understand why. Well, some people think when a company says "pipeline problem" it's a PR-vetted way to announce they ain't going to do shit. Whether you think that's true probably depends on how cynical you are.

I mean, what are they supposed to do?

To take one obvious example: there's massive under-performance of black men (vs. any other group) at every stage of the educational ladder up to the tertiary level. There simply aren't enough qualified candidates for engineering jobs for firms to be representative of the relative populations at a national level.

36% of white men have at least a bachelors degree; only 19% of black men do. Black college graduates choose STEM majors at only two-thirds the rate of white graduates, and one-third the rate of Asians.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#322

Post by flippinburgers »

slackfan wrote: post #263
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

[flagged]

If by new era of enlightenment you mean a new era of unquestionable bigotry I suppose you are correct.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#323

Post by kenjackson »

mst wrote: post #305
voxic11 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well hiring under-qualified candidates purely for the sake of a quota (relating to a protected class) would be illegal in the United States. So its unlikely you will hear anyone explicitly saying that is what they intend to do. https://www.aclusocal.org/en/inclusion-targets-whats-legal

I've heard anecdotes from nonwhite Intel employees who claimed that that was definitely happening there and it meant they could basically only bother to do any work when they felt like it because nobody expected decent productivity out of them anyway. I don't claim to have remotely enough knowledge of the situation to know whether they were right or not, mind. It strikes me that your colleagues being acceptable, you…

I’ve heard from white males at Intel that they didn’t need to be productive either. I think this was an Intel problem. But interestingly I suspect POC think it’s about their race. While white males assume this is the case for everyone.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#324

Post by meowkit »

mostly_lurks wrote: post #306
dbrueck wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disputing your bad experiences, but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone? :) Speaking of 2 things being true at once, what's amazing about BBSs/USENET/IRC/etc. especially in the early years was that they had: - online discussions where a lot of things just didn't matter. Race, gender, etc. just didn't matter. You got judged on the merit of your ideas, not what you looked…

I think you might want to reflect for a minute on why you thought "but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone?" was an appropriate response to a black person talking about their experience of racism. I recognize you believed yourself to be mitigating the effect of your statement by prefacing it with "Not disputing your bad experiences," but I think you'll find that the net effe…

And to counter your claim here - someone's "lived experience" is not a sufficient ballast for blindly accepting an anecdote.

People's memories suck. And more often than not subjective experiences don't map onto reality, especially when negative or stressful emotions are involved.

One negative experience on an IRC/forum can cloud a person's entire recollection simply on the basis of the Negativity Bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#325

Post by shadowgovt »

sinity wrote: post #207
shadowgovt wrote: post #130

Earlier 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.

Of course they meant dog. Which is a placeholder for _anything else_.

> they meant dog

> which is a placeholder for

... exactly. It's a placeholder; not literal.

It's a placeholder because if the New Yorker had run a comic that said "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a black man," that wouldn't have been funny at all.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#326

Post by pocman »

ndjsnsinsis wrote: post #198
John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

I suppose if that's the goal, we should have a defined goal. I grew up in India and I think we have the problem of a runaway effect of this. I totally agree that it helps, there are remote tribal communities or disadvantaged communities in India (say based on caste that historically, and even currently, face stuff like untouchability) but there's got to be a goal at which point you stop. When I had to pick a college…

)))Some people game the system to try and get paperwork to show you belong to such a section so that college enrollment, public sector jobs etc get a lot easier.

Prominent lawmakers in the US also game the system.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/01/690806434/warren-apologizes-t...

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/16/17983250/elizabeth-warren-bar...

VOX: New evidence has emerged [SENATOR!] Elizabeth Warren claimed American Indian heritage in 1986 Warren identified as “American Indian” on a registration card for the State Bar of Texas, according to a Washington Post report.

By Ella Nilsen Updated Feb 5, 2019, 8:29pm EST

(TLDR for those not in the US: wealthy powerful while woman rose in ranks after abusing DEI quotas, now has huge influence over tech industry and always angry about an industry which has real diversity (tech:Asians) but conveniently not angry about lack of diversity at Harvard or Senate.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#327

Post by flippinburgers »

backzerman wrote: post #208
zozbot234 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it any better when supposedly "tech" focused communities are virulently anti-white, anti-male or anti-Asian? These things have no place in genuine professional discourse.

> virulently anti-white, anti-male, or anti-Asian I'm a white guy. I've sat through many a DEI session. I've never, ever felt this. How could I? 85% of the people in the room are white or Asian men. I'm not trying to sound disingenuous here, but I really want to know, how does "virulently anti-" empirically manifest itself in the communities you speak of? Hiring? Pay? Promotion decisions? Possibly freedom of speech?…

Yeah you are free to say whatever you like as long as you say what you are told to parrot.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#329

Post by trieste92 »

I always thought the reason why companies all started doing this (pretty much simulataneously) is because they think it minimizes settlement liability or something

It isn't about making people feel welcome, it's about making it harder to sue them and playing corporate politics

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#330

Post by John23832 »

trogdor wrote: post #308
John23832 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, that's your experience. But I was sharing mine, and those of the other minorities I know very well.

How do you know the experience of other categories of people very well?

I don't. I only know my experience and the experience of other minorities, that I personally know well, who have convey their experiences to me.
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