‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by cadaadar » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:47 AM UTC

Everyone in this thread is missing the forest for the trees.

Coinbase is a medium-sized privately-held company. Reading through those comments, they had some minor issue with a few employees and a relocation plan. This may or may not have involved discriminatory and/or racist behavior.

How is that a story in the New York Times? Or rather: Why is that a story in the New York Times?

It's obviously not because a particularly terrible thing has allegedly been done to those 15 people. This kind of labor case is literally business as usual for courts.

The NYT pursuing an agenda that has probably more to do with the company's stance on politics, and perhaps also an agenda wrt. crypto-currencies.

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

#432

Post by variable11 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

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.]

I would not. I think there's a high possibility they start moving operations elsewhere, like Asia.

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

#433

Post by thegrimmest » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #416

thegrimmest wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 societ…

As much as it's uncomfortable to define fair, I'd argue that it behooves us to strain and come to a conclusion. Every societal problem today and in history can probably be attributed to people not wanting to define a global fair, or defining it in a way (at least in retrospect) that was ostensibly below the mark. I'm sure that at some points in the US history thought it's fair to treat some people as slaves, so does…

While we're straining, the more important question is to what degree is it ethical to impose your definition of fair on others. I would say that there is no ethical basis for the sort of extreme imposition that's currently the status quo. Slavery is clearly not a consensual relationship so it really doesn't apply here. Yes we should make everyone free. No we should not change the definition.

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

#434

Post by cbthrow91 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

bmarquez wrote: post #262

adjkant wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coinbase's stance there is fair, reasonable and moral The 60 people who left makes it clear this is not agreed upon. HN has already played out this debate on the original post so I'll save going into it here, but it's disingenuous to say that Russ didn't quit because of race-related policy, whether or not you think the policy is race-related. That said, putting out that "apolitical stance" in the direct wake of Geo…

> The 60 people who left makes it clear this is not agreed upon. Did all 60 people leave because of Coinbase's political stance, or did some leave because of the generous severance package of 4-6 months pay that the CEO offered in September? I know that if I were looking to make a life change, I'd seriously consider that offer even if I liked the politics.

Can anecdotally list 5 people who opportunistically took the package and were planning to make moves anyhow

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

#435

Post by tetrometal » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

CyanLite4 wrote: post #270

I’m not a fan of cancel culture, but I’ve seen enough to know that I want to move my Bitcoin trading elsewhere. Their prebuttal seemed odd, and now this article confirms the worst of my suspicions. I’m not saying they’re racist, but they’re clearly not anti-racist.

Being "not racist" - AKA the unfairly-maligned philosophy of "color blindness" - is a perfectly reasonable aspiration. I shouldn't be any more concerned with skin color than hair color or eye color.

I find the "anti-racist" philosophy of Kendi et al. to be misguided at best and divisive and racist at worst.

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

#436

Post by wpietri » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 3:59 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #251

tptacek wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, they came up with several examples of biased behavior, including an instance where the Black members of a team were required to relocate while a non-Black member wasn't, an instance where a Black team member was subjected to to insults about drug dealing and guns from their manager, recruiting team member claims that Black candidates were less capable, the fact that Coinbase employs Black workers at…

Starting with the assumption that they are racist, that is the tip of a nasty iceburg. Starting with the assumption it is a pretty normal company, that is a list mostly of stuff that nobody should care about. If someone can articulate what the HR complaints are about then that might be evidence. But complaints to HR are expected - that is why HR gets hired. They are there to deal with HR complaints. And read resumes.…

Racism is endemic in the US. It was founded with the notion that black people were basically livestock. We've slowly and fitfully moved away from that, but the problem is far from over. With any company we should assume that both personal and systemic bias are present. Which is why well-run companies work to counter that.

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

#437

Post by eli » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:02 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #164

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

11 of then ~20 Black employees by early 2019* had complained to HR about racism. That's over half! And that's only the people with the fortitude or optimism to talk to HR (HR is notoriously useless at many companies). That's a complete disaster. 15 of that 20 quit! Why wasn't that treated as an emergency? *At the end the article says at the end of 2019 there's 31 Black employees of 1000. At the beginning of the artic…

The cynical view is that you can either kick out your racists or those who complains about racists. And given how "diverse" tech is I wouldn't be surprised if the company would have a bigger problem if the racists left instead of the black people.

No, the cynical view is that the people in charge are racist.

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

#438

Post by jayd16 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #266

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…

I apologize in advance because you seem to be emotionally invested in this, but I really do not understand the questions you pose in your comment. What did you actually expect from the discussion? Were there not enough comments against Coinbase? Were there not enough comments outraged about the perceived racist behavior of it? Do you think none of those commenters "imagine the possibility that racism is a problem in…

Talk about gas lighting. The commenter should just accept racism as a daily fact, not be surprised or saddened, and not even mention the sadness it brings? I find this pretty offensive.

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

#439

Post by klyrs » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #427

adjkant wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many companies regularly work within mainstream political action such as LGTBQ+ rights, data privacy, homelessness, local housing or public works, and children's orgs such as Big Brother Big Sister. While these vary in controversiality, relevancy, and apolitical nature, it's not at all uncommon to see companies working in these areas (and others unlisted). Often companies grow into them along with size and profits, s…

> you couldn't avoid taking a side on. Pretty sure there’s only one “side” anybody’s actually ever taken there.

You can't be saying that the country is completely unified over this issue... what do you mean by this?

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

#440

Post by kernoble » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

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.]

Don't bother switching, companies that can't keep their internal issues private generally have lots of other issues. The devil you know is better.

It's like the kid getting caught doing drugs who claims it was their first time so they should be let off, odds are it wasn't their first time.