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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#371

Post by lolinder »

firefoxd wrote: post #184

I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…

Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing.

So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has changed, so there go the marketing programs that were designed for the old power structure.

Change that occurs through fear of your power can only last as long as your power. Lasting change is only possible by actually changing hearts and minds. Progressives have forgotten in the last 10-15 years that the progress which we've won took generations not because our predecessors were weak and slow but because it inherently takes generations to effect lasting change. It's a slow, painful process, and if you think you accomplished it in a decade you're almost certainly wrong.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#372

Post by tyleo »

thefaux wrote: post #269

The really troubling news buried in this to me was the appointment of Dana White to the meta board of directors. Like seriously what purpose does he serve but to appease the new administration?

Out with the DEI people appointed to appease the old administration in with Dana White to appease the new one I guess.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#374

Post by derektank »

cmdli wrote: post #304
bko wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people say DEI programs were purely performative and just for political points. But these policies did change the corporate landscape and affect hiring decisions. Of 323,092 new jobs added in 2021 by S&P 100 companies, 302,570 (94%) went to people of color This data came from workforce demographic reports submitted to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by 88 S&P 100 companies Hispanic individua…

Looking at that article, it looks like for "Professional" degrees, it was about 25% white and 40% Asian. The "White 6%" figure came from a decrease in white workers in low-skilled roles and a massive increase in Hispanic people in those same roles. Given that many DEI programs specifically focus on "high skill" roles (like software engineers), it's unlikely that DEI accounted for this disparity while massive numbers…

If only 25% of people hired for roles requiring professional degrees were white, that's still a remarkable number, given 2/3rds of people receiving professional degrees in 2021 where white, without even considering the total population of professional degree holders

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#375

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #291
jlhawn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... who owned the land ... they didn't use the word "owned", only "occupied". The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" and would think of it more like land alienation. As a Georgist, I'm personally very annoyed by these sort of empty indigenous land acknowledgements. I'm more excited about stuff like this Squamish Nation housing development in Vancouver, B…

> The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" I doubt they had deeds to land. But they did fight inter-tribal wars over which territory belonged to which tribe. Humans have a very well developed notion of "mine" and "not mine". Saying indigenous peoples did not have this is an extraordinary claim, and would need strong evidence.

[deleted]

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#376

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

WalterBright wrote: post #291
jlhawn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... who owned the land ... they didn't use the word "owned", only "occupied". The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" and would think of it more like land alienation. As a Georgist, I'm personally very annoyed by these sort of empty indigenous land acknowledgements. I'm more excited about stuff like this Squamish Nation housing development in Vancouver, B…

> The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" I doubt they had deeds to land. But they did fight inter-tribal wars over which territory belonged to which tribe. Humans have a very well developed notion of "mine" and "not mine". Saying indigenous peoples did not have this is an extraordinary claim, and would need strong evidence.

Thanks for this bit of sanity. Arguing that Native Americans didn't have a concept of land ownership, while still having the concept "I'm going to murder you and your compatriots so that I can occupy the land where you live.", seems a bit like splitting hairs.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#377

Post by curtisblaine »

greenthrow wrote: post #182
paxys wrote: post #88

DEI was a song and dance that companies put on for the media, politicians, investors, employees, and the public at large. Now anti-DEI is a song and dance for the exact same reason. If you have been in the business long enough, you will know that the company has NO ONE's interests at heart. Never had and never will. They will discriminate against any race they have to, whether majority or minority, if it leads to an…

This take is cynical to the point of wilfull ignorance. My spouse works in DEI and I guarantee you her and her coworkers are sincere and trying to instill better, less biased hiring practices and to make everyone feel welcome and part of the team. Not everyone is going to be the same but that's like anything else. Being 100% dismissive is as much of a mistake as being 100% unquestioningly accepting.

How does she implement DEI, in terms of hiring practices?

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#378

Post by cindycindy »

pavl- wrote: post #198
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just common sense, or should be. Unfortunately common sense is as uncommon as people tend to joke about. So you get a lot of focus on business hiring practices, even though it's literally impossible to hire candidates that don't exist. Sometimes this gets taken to absolutely farcical levels. I recall reading a blog from an Irish writer about how activists were trying to demand that companies there hire black…

One of the smartest people I know almost quit software her first year out of school, because her all-male team spent an afternoon teasing her about how they were going to start a strip poker game and they think she'd be "a natural", or some nonsense like that. Do you think such dynamics introduce barriers to female participation in tech? Do you think focusing solely at the "bottom of the funnel" could still result in…

[dead]

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#379

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

typon wrote: post #365
bko wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people say DEI programs were purely performative and just for political points. But these policies did change the corporate landscape and affect hiring decisions. Of 323,092 new jobs added in 2021 by S&P 100 companies, 302,570 (94%) went to people of color This data came from workforce demographic reports submitted to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by 88 S&P 100 companies Hispanic individua…

In my entire career working for US companies, I have yet to work with a black software engineer. Not a auxiliary role like PM, DevOps, IT but a straight SDE role. I have worked with literally hundreds of software engineers in my life.

As a black software engineer, in my entire career working for US companies, I have yet to work with another black software engineer.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#380

Post by snovymgodym »

renegade-otter wrote: post #325
OnionBlender wrote: post #248

Does this mean we can go back to using "master" as our git repo's default branch?

"master" was not a thing even before. While I get the farce of renaming it for "social justice" reasons, it's still a stupid name. It's "trunk", as in "trunk and branches".

It could not matter less. It's a piece of technical jargon. You learn what it means and move on.

Depending on VCS and branching style, "master, "main", "mainline", or "trunk" might make more sense.

"Master" always made sense to me.

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