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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

#431

Post by thewanderer1983 »

lolinder wrote: post #371
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 c…

>so there go the marketing programs that were designed for the old power structure.

AKA. Cheerleading for the power structures.

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

#432

Post by andrepd »

gigatree wrote: post #343
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…

Has anyone asked why so many companies seem to care so much about the appearance of DEI? And all at the same time? I know there’s cultural shifts towards that sort of thing, probably to fill the void left by religion, but does that explain why the world’s largest private equity firms push them so hard? Seems like something everyone just accepts without question, even though it’s completely out of character for people…

It's marketing, they judge that they will gain more by the good will earned than it costs to hire those "DEI experts". Now that the reaction is in full swing across many territories they start to cut back (see tfa).

It's all very exhausting.

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

#433

Post by scelerat »

harrall wrote: post #407
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…

Personally I feel if you want to make an impact, you need to provide resources early on when people are growing up and in school. There’s nothing like gaining inspiration because someone you know growing up is doing it. e.g. It’s much easier to go camping for your first time when someone in your life is “the camping person” and can guide you through it. And the earlier you do it, the higher chance that you end up pur…

It's why day care, head start, school lunch and the like are super important.

Even before we get to corporate demographics or college graduation, admittance, and application rates, there are millions of children growing up in poverty in the US. Relatively inexpensive social welfare investments can mitigate many of the worst effects, even for those who don't decide to become software engineers.

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

#434

Post by andrepd »

_yb2s wrote: post #302
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…

I’ve noticed most academic places I’ve worked perpetually use photos of the same 1-2 black people that ever worked there in marketing materials. Including people that left or were pushed out years ago due to racism and unfair treatment. We have constant trainings and workshops on diversity and inclusion (taught exclusively by perpetually angry and abrasive middle aged white people), but everyone ignores me when I poi…

Yes, effecting actual change is hard, pulling employees into a meeting room for 45mins to show them some buzzword filled slides is much easier.

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

#435

Post by dijit »

65 wrote: post #335
OnionBlender wrote: post #248

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

My controversial opinion is that I think "main" is more descriptive and intuitive than "master."

my controversial opinion is that it never mattered, all that really mattered was that there was a universal word- changing it to anything would cause at least a few hundred hours of development work and a few hundred additional hours of changing documents and tutorials and stuff.

For what? Main isn’t better if the issue is racism, because “main” has some really negative connotations in Korea (“main” families having servant families).

And, for crying out loud. the tools name is literally a mild british swear word.

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

#436

Post by whimsicalism »

jlhawn wrote: post #257
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…

> ... 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…

funny because i feel that your comment plays into the exact same tropes about “indigenous ways of knowing” you critique

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

#437

Post by whimsicalism »

miles wrote: post #273
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…

> Of 323,092 new jobs added in 2021 by S&P 100 companies, 302,570 (94%) went to people of color Given this July 2024 population estimate by race from census.gov[1], leaving only 6% of new jobs to the majority seems tailor-made to trigger a large-scale backlash: 75.3% White alone 13.7% Black alone 1.3% American Indian and Alaska Native alone 6.4% Asian alone 0.3% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone 3.1% T…

this is an incredibly misleading statistic skewed by the fact that almost all retiring corporate workers are white so lots of white jobs were “lost”

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

#438

Post by eapressoandcats »

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.

Brett Devereaux talks about this in relation to the Mongols and other nomads. Yes they didn’t “own” land but if you trespassed on their grazing pastures they would absolutely use violence against you: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-hord...

The notion of a lack of land ownership is just fetishization.

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

#439

Post by triceratops »

thepasswordis wrote: post #316
triceratops wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to...make their hiring more diverse?

No I think what they're saying is that they want ability to be the only (or at least by far the primary) metric used to evaluate the fitness of a candidate.

Then they're saying specifically Chinese and Indian managers hire people who are less skilled than the best candidates available to them. It's a fishy claim that needs proof.

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

#440

Post by pixxel »

seadan83 wrote: post #413
lolinder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I agree with most of your points. Though with respect lasting change, where is your impression coming from that the gains are in the last 10 to 15 years? Or even that is a widespread belief? According to reporting at the guardian [1], FBs DEI program increased black and brown employees from 8% to 12%. Seems abysmal. My perspective, US society is still fighting for gains that _started_ 160 years ago. Still painstaking…

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