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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

#351

Post by asimpletune »

barry-cotter wrote: post #278
asimpletune wrote: post #120

Honest 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…

> That if the govt hadn’t done something to intervene, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to know any poc until I was an adult. 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. (Asian…

The system in place at my university was color blind. The top 5% of students were automatically accepted.

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

#352

Post by eldaisfish »

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]

way to miss the point and your argument is a strawman.

People on IRC didn't care about "Who you were" because the assumption was that you came from privilege. Privilege usually translated to white, urban, heterosexual male. Those groups said some horrible things about other communities because they felt the space was "safe".

Now that this is changing and calling people "orientals" or "gay" is no longer acceptable, there is an attempt to rewrite history - as you are trying to do here.

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

#353

Post by hedora »

OJFord wrote: post #238

I really strongly agree, but I'm a white man, so it can be difficult to confidently have a reasonable conversation about, or maybe I really shouldn't care/be talking at all. I think it was the actor Morgan Freeman who in an interview answered something like 'how do we fix racism/diversity' with 'stop talking about it'. But I'd go further, I find 'PoC' (person/people of colour) which you used yourself a really strange…

The sad thing about PoC is that using the grammatical synonym “colored people” has recently ended people’s careers.

The funny thing about PoC is that it (apparently) includes Asians.

In California, Asians are greatly over-represented in colleges, etc.

So, any effective equity system would mostly just be reinstating old-school quotas against hiring/admitting too many Chinese people (which UC correctly eliminated decades ago).

Anyway, I suggest the UK revert to the global favorite of the 1990’s: African American.

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

#354

Post by nonethewiser »

backzerman wrote: post #129

I'm seeing a lot of claims here that DEI initiatives are about actively hiring under-qualified under-represented candidates to change the demographics of the company. I've sat through a lot of DEI sessions at work (as have many of my friends), and I've yet to hear of anyone actually _hiring_ under-qualified candidates for the sake of a quota. The DEI sessions I've sat through have focused heavily on the I--inclusion.…

DEI is about factoring in race. Race should never be part of the decision making process. On top of being morally reprehensible its also illegal.

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

#355

Post by oceanplexian »

dbrueck wrote: post #243
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…

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…

> 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 like, not what you sounded like.

We actually had real diversity and inclusion before these rent-seeking social media corporations and their fake DEI came in and ruined it. On IRC no one knew I was a 14 year old, or an 80 year old retiree, or male or female, or black or white, whatever.

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

#356

Post by jakelazaroff »

drstewart wrote: post #318
jakelazaroff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that these are so low-ranking compared to the top quotes is instructive. Also, the third one is definitely an example of anti-Blackness, not anti-whiteness.

Low ranking based on what? Are you telling people what feelings they should have towards slurs directed towards them? The "top quotes" don't bother me at all, for example.

Low ranking based on the number of votes they got. That's the green (or red) number in parentheses between the plus and minus signs. The top 100 quotes range from 9,000 to 41,000. If I refresh random a few times, the most common number of votes seems to be in the mid-100s, which is exactly where these fall.

So the fact that

- you had to search to find a couple low ranking quotes that might be insulting to white people

- there are numerous top ranking quotes that might be insulting to women, gay people, black people, etc

- those top quotes don't bother you

supports OP's point and undermines your own.

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

#357

Post by The5thElephant »

dbrueck wrote: post #243
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…

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…

Sure, virulent about everything that differed from the "engineering norm". How often were comments made mocking, stereotyping, or denigrating whiteness and white people? I can tell you not nearly as many as were made punching down at everyone else, and not nearly as harsh or gross.

The argument isn't that there was no good to be had from those communities, it's that you can't dismiss or ignore the bad that they put out as well.

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

#358

Post by 908B64B197 »

busterarm wrote: post #250
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

We opened a director level technology position, were encouraged to apply and then we were told explicitly at a company meeting that it was only open to a female PoC (which could only possibly be filled by an outside hire based no our org chart).

Here in America that would be completely illegal (And a lawyer somewhere would probably buy his next boat with that case!).

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

#359

Post by mberning »

I feel like it has a chilling effect on everything. As you have pointed out, it can make people in the target group feel patronized. And at the same time it can make people in the non-targeted group feel less desirable or less useful to the organization. I could say a lot more about it and what I have seen first hand, but I'll leave it at that.

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

#360

Post by excerionsforte »

HideousKojima wrote: post #217
moomoo11 wrote: post #176

I wish we would transcend to a point where we look up to people based on their achievements and separate their race from it. I’m Asian btw. I can relate to Lebron just as much as I can relate to Neil Armstrong or Satya or Matz or Woz or Marie Curie because they are all excellent at what they did/do. I want to be excellent like them. Because we all are humans.

I always get confused when people say they need to have people who look like them in prominent roles in order to feel welcome in a hobby/career/whatever. I'm a fan of boxing, and my favorite boxer is a black Muslim. I do some hobby-level game dev on the side, and most of my favorite devs that I look up to are Japanese. Young black men seem to disproportionately love Dragon Ball Z, with an Asian-appearing main charact…

Dragon Ball Z was introduced into lower income neighborhoods via Cartoon Network among many other anime, so it was hard to miss. It was pretty hard to miss Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z and etc. in elementary school especially with the merch kids brought to school. Marketing, re-runs and perceived coolness/epicness, I'd say drove the continued popularity of it. Once you hit high school and college though, Dragon Ball Z/Pokemon are niche and less visible (it stopped being cool and a relic of age) at least that was my experience in low income neighborhood. DBZ is still awesome because of its familarity, but not something I will watch intentionally.

Goku being Japanese and loved by people of lower income is like how Final Fantasy 7 is beloved in predominately white (western) countries. There's still discussions of people thinking Cloud Strife is white even though he is Japanese.

Race, in general, isn't a big deal when you are younger since it is not taught in schools (shockingly to some people :O). It becomes an issue when people actively start generalizing and using tropes for the purposes to make you feel like shit (in)directly.

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