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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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

#381

Post by kaitai »

dstola wrote: post #159
slg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What else can they do if they are really innocent? Innocent of what exactly? At a certain point whether the leadership of Coinbase is racist or not doesn't matter. What matters is their actions. The article says "roughly three-quarters of the Black employees" left the company over a 6 month span due to feelings of being discriminated against. That isn't an accusation. It is a fact. It also isn't something that will…

Babysitting employees is not really a function of the employers. If people wish to leave it's their choice

Does there exist a thing called "effective management" or not? Do you just give a free pass to all companies for all actions? Is there any evidence that can exist that supports bad management, given that complaining isn't evidence, leaving is not evidence, calling it out isn't evidence sufficient for you? If Paul Graham called it bad management would that suffice?

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

#382

Post by throwaway201103 »

tptacek wrote: post #366
throwaway201103 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why does this stereotype of aggressive black men persist? Who promotes it?

White people who are afraid of Black people, I'd imagine.

And why are they afraid? Where did they get the notion that black people are aggressive?

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

#383

Post by thegrimmest »

ramraj07 wrote: post #357
dstola wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Babysitting employees is not really a function of the employers. If people wish to leave it's their choice

Yep, who cares that racism and sexism can go on and create a disproportionately hostile environment for just some people right! "I don't see anything bad happening to me, so everyone shouldn't care either!" Thankfully even if the world doesn't act that way, the majority (for now) aren't evil enough to also blatantly proclaim that this is also fine.

> I don't see anything bad happening to me, so everyone shouldn't care either!

What about:

> people's rights to have consensual interactions and relationships with each other are more important than their right to be treated "fairly" whatever that actually means.

The important point here is that we don't have a good working definition of "fair" that is universally agreed upon. The only ethical way to live in a society of people who fundamentally disagree is by optimising for consent.

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

#384

Post by [deleted] »

mplanchard wrote: post #375
nilkn wrote: post #338

[Thank you for all your advice -- it's greatly appreciated. I've edited this post since it included a few personal details that I don't want permanently attached to my account on here. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.]

Even in the absence of anything else, the fact that over half of their black employees complained to HR of racism and 3/4 quit[0] seems to be a strong signal that there is a problem. Whether you go on with the job or not should be based entirely on how you personally feel about the situation. Maybe this bothers you but you’d like the opportunity to make a difference and try to shift the culture. Maybe you’re so bothe…

[deleted]

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

#385

Post by slg »

2-tpg wrote: post #340
slg wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> Ms. Sawyerr said ... Of course she said that. Big bad company silenced her co-suiters with money, after their spy devision learned that she was bringing suit. Now she has no recourse to go court herself, she absolutely needed those four other employees. > The lack of a court case has nothing to do with the amount of evidence or the truthfulness of the accusations here. It allows me to disqualify it as hearsay, and…

I give up. Clearly there is no point to this discussion anymore if you are going to dismiss any possible reporting as hearsay if it isn't argued in court. So I will simply leave this from the American Bar Association.[1]

> In contrast, a disparate-impact claim does not require proof of an intention to discriminate. Instead, showing that a facially neutral employment practice has a disproportionately adverse impact on a protected group states a prima facie case of unlawful disparate-impact discrimination.

What do you know, intent isn't needed for a valid case of discrimination.

[1] - https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/publications/gp_so...

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

#386

Post by tptacek »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #382
tptacek wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White people who are afraid of Black people, I'd imagine.

And why are they afraid? Where did they get the notion that black people are aggressive?

Several centuries worth of deeply ingrained racism?

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

#387

Post by roenxi »

tptacek wrote: post #348
roenxi wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employee's. If someone makes a complaint to HR it might easily be illegal to investigate then broadcast it to the world accompanied with a "this employee is full of it" style message. Doing that might, for example, damage that employees prospects of finding employment or reveal specific personal details. Certainly appalling form, probably illegal.

You are, due respect, basically just making this up. Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly. It's possible that Coinbase contractually can't disclose the reports they've already commissioned --- in which case they probably ought not to have tried to refute the article with them --- but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose. It's a 600+ employee co…

> Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly.

Are you thinking of a specific example? I don't recall ever seeing this apart from sometimes a short statement on an outcomes (which Coinbase has given us - they found the complaints baseless [0]).

> ...but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose.

I did mention law but this isn't fundamentally a legal argument. I was just saying I'd expect there to be a law, given what releasing a detailed report would entail about employee privacy. I'd be ropeable if someone did that to me after I complained to HR and the story got international attention.

Companies have no role at all in airing internal dirty laundry of employees to Hacker News. Coinbase's position is an employee made a baseless claim - in my book it would probably be a very poor precedent for them to start broadcasting details globally. Best case, utterly unfair because of the power imbalance between a company and an individual employee. Worst case, a smear campaign. All cases, unhelpful except for the enjoyment of pundits Hacker News comment threads.

[0] EDIT Rather than replying - "all of whom found no evidence of wrongdoing and concluded the claims were unsubstantiated" https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...

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

#388

Post by slg »

tomp wrote: post #351
slg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The egregious complaints are corroborated by the other egregious complaints. Let's use another example in which evidence is hard to find: sexual assault. If one woman accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, the burden of proof for her story is high. She would need some pretty strong evidence to get Cosby charged let alone convicted. She probably wouldn't even receive coverage in the mainstream media without some other…

> Each individual's story is corroborated by someone else having a very similar story. Our culture is full of anecdotes and stories that serve as a warning why this is a very bad idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

Well I guess some witnesses lied over three centuries ago so we can't trust any group of people anymore for the rest of history. It is a bummer how that worked out.

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

#389

Post by aspaceman »

aparsons wrote: post #352
generalizations wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like what you're saying is entirely possible. However, where I disagree is that you seem to expect us to simply "face the truth" that the discrimination exists; you're deploring the existence of alternate possibilities! > Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion might just not be good enough for the job and then just blame discrimination rat…

This is the problem posed by “SJW” entities in a nutshell. Of course racism exists, and AAs have been one of the big targets for decades. But even considering another alternative explanation to something related to discrimination gets you on the list of racists/deserving-of-cancellation/etc. There is always room for debate, especially in a case like this where information is sparse. Forcibly shutting down anyone who…

But no one is being forcibly shut down here.

The debate is happening. It occurs. But then someone makes a comment like above: “is all this debate really necessary?” and the response is “this is censorship”.

I would agree that some viewpoints are silenced in public contexts. But insofar as this conversation, I don’t see anyone being cancelled or shut down for an opinion. That just seems like a defensive reaction to me.

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

#390

Post by 0xy »

TACIXAT wrote: post #331
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should any company or board reflect the population?

When companies do not reflect the population then it shows that some races do not have the same opportunity as others.

Do you think there are zero differences in races and that one race wouldn't naturally drift towards particular roles or industries more than another race? Because this point of view isn't supported by data.

Asians, a minority by every measurement, are over-represented in STEM classes to the point that Harvard and others actively discriminate against them.

Studies have shown, repeatedly, that blind hiring (stripping names from resumes, showing only experience) actually worsens diversity. This means companies generally give more opportunity to black, Asian and other minority groups.

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