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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

#491

Post by hnuser123456 »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #483
hnuser123456 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had someone pay money, like $10 to attach a banner to my name on a forum, denying that I had a certification that I revealed I had to back up my claims of knowing a superior answer to some pointless argument. It was unsettling and aggravating for about a month before I found humor in it all. It's still one of my favorite communities and overall far more mature than when that happened ~10 years ago. Most people ther…

That doesn't address my point that women are way more likely to explicitly receive sexual harassment and stalking even when men report receiving more online harassment generally. I'm not arguing that you weren't harassed online, only that harassment is way more nuanced than whether or not everyone was equally victimized.

I mean, I get lots of sexual hate/harassment online for being traumatized from being circumcised, and advocating against it when not absolutely medically necessary, from people who tell me it's not a valid thing to be traumatized by. Most people just don't want to think about it but some people really put in effort to trolling about it. There really isn't a worse form of sexual discrimination than preventing one of the sexes from feeling full sexual pleasure.

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

#492

Post by f6v »

_wolfie_ wrote: post #362
colpabar wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of the bipoc label is to exclude asians from diversity stuff.

Yellow is not a color? I always assumed that Asians are included in PoC.

It seems that some Asians are already over-represented in certain fields, like sciences. I heard somewhere that being Chinese makes your chances of admission worse.

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

#493

Post by geraldwhen »

rayiner wrote: post #458
CharlesW wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming good faith, and that you truly don't understand the difference. I'd be curious to know if it's because you're old enough to remember when "colored" was "fine", or too young to have an understanding of the racist usage of "colored". https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/dahleen-glanton/ct-da... "While the distinctions can be complicated, the information is readily available for anyone willing to seek it…

Sorry, both are racist--they're just two almost identical ways to say "not white." It's a term that gets used primarily by white people--most black people consider themselves black, not "poc," most Guatemalans consider themselves as such, not "poc," etc.--to erase all the differences and distinct interests between all these groups and reduce them to really the only think they have in common: that they're not white.

That’s similar to how “Asian” is used. Ask a Vietnamese person if they would include themselves in a group of Chinese people.

Asia is half of earths population, so “Asian” cannot possibly mean anything.

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

#494

Post by dbrueck »

projectazorian wrote: post #421
dbrueck wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like, "because you're responding to a comment made by a black person, the only acceptable response is one of total agreement". I think you might want to reflect for a minute on the importance of nuance in a discussion, and the net effect of trying to police comments on others' behalf. I completely believe the commenter's experience, but I also witnessed the opposite a lot (and was deep…

> Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like, "because you're responding to a comment made by a black person, the only acceptable response is one of total agreement". Not true. There is another acceptable response - not posting, taking some time to read and reflect, and moving along with your day. You no doubt have any number of other things you could be doing, but you’re in here. Might be worth thinking about why that is.

> You no doubt have any number of other things you could be doing, but you’re in here. Might be worth thinking about why that is.

Obviously this applies to you as well. Maybe you've taken what I wrote as some sort of disagreement or getting defensive or... something? And then from there concluding that I shouldn't be allowed to participate? I'm not sure, but this is a discussion site and I'm participating in the discussion, and please don't take this the wrong way, but it's really not your place to tell me that I shouldn't participate. My original comment was in agreement with the poster I was replying to, and I was adding nuance and finding common ground in a semi-shared experience. None of that is wrong for me to do. Have a great day!

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

#495

Post by venatiodecorus »

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…

there are definitely racists online but i think in these environments, where you are limited to text only, certain words became 'weaponized' such as specific slurs. in my experience this is less about racism and more about trolls trying to anger as many people as possible with minimal effort.

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

#496

Post by kodah »

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…

> There's also the fact that most (read: all) of the computing pioneers are white

Not refuting this take as it's accurate, but if you're looking for someone that's Black in early computing I'd recommend free software pioneer Brian Fox (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox_(computer_programm...) best known for inventing Bash.

Kelsey Hightower is also notable as the man that pioneered the use of Kubernetes at many businesses through his book.

Marian Croak is the pioneer of VOIP and now heads SRE among other things at Google.

Mark Dean pioneered ISA which is still the leading standard today in industrial applications.

(Non-exhaustive list, but these are the programmers that are Black that I know of off the top of my head)

I'll caveat this with my own take: all these folks worked in what is in the industry referred to as Systems Engineering, which is very much still a "working man's" profession when compared to traditional software engineering and prior to things like SRE paid accordingly less. It's also how a lot of vets, POC, and people without degrees enter the industry.

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

#497

Post by slowmovintarget »

hunter2_ wrote: post #379
slackfan wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>actively hiring under-qualified Oh it's absolutely been done. I have very strict color and gender-blind hiring standards, because I want to hire the actual best people for the job. My filtering of candidates has absolutely been overruled by (white) upper management, because they needed to make the department I was in more $diverse, for whatever that means. The punchline is that I'm not white. I've since moved on fro…

I think the idea is that even if blind hiring makes for the best possible employees on an individual basis in the short term, loosening that optimization in favor of diversity is a worthwhile pursuit because the company actually will thrive more when you look at long term collaboration (conversations and opinions that draw from a larger variety of life experiences can improve user advocacy, for example) and the possi…

Thomas Sowell pointed out two problems with the "idea" in Discrimination and Disparities.

First, what evidence do we have that diversity does result in a company performing better, or gaining that amazing employee? He argues that this is an unfounded assumption.

Setting that aside, his second point requires deeper consideration. Disparities are often caused by upstream circumstances, like fewer children having adults in the home that value education, leading to fewer candidates that meet diversity criteria to hire from in the first place. By laying quotas on at hiring time, people are wrongly assuming the problem to be occurring where it is detected (in hiring) and not where it originates (in-home attitudes to education and work).

In the meantime, corporations hire consultants that emplace DEI "initiatives" that train workforces to detect "microaggressions," among similar evidence-free curricula. They do this, not because it solves a problem, but because it allows favorable public relations announcements.

How about initiatives funding scholarships, and contributing to in home book programs? How about funding campaigns for supporting community libraries?

These would go at the root of the issue, rather than the cosmetics of the issue. But then, they couldn't gain the indulgences for failing to actually be diverse as a corporate culture.

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

#498

Post by ejstronge »

azangru wrote: post #234
ejstronge wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your analogy and I will politely remind you that in American history, members of certain classes did indeed have limbs cut off or their body parts stretched for arbitrary reasons. In fact, this practice only really ended in the 1960s; controversially, one might even say that this practice continues to today. So what do we do when confronted with an anecdote from antiquity versus system inequities from ou…

> So what do we do when confronted with an anecdote from antiquity versus system inequities from our modern era? I guess, in the spirit of the analogy, your options are to either stop cutting off body parts from anyone, or to start cutting them off those who look like people who engaged in body cutting two or more generations ago. DEI prefers the second option. Some people would rather see the first.

I imagine that there are lessons in antiquity where a famous Greek or Roman thinker chooses a pragmatic option instead of a spiteful or absolutist option.

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

#499

Post by dimmke »

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…

Yeah not to defend how bad those spaces were but my memories of technical IRC channels on like Freenode was that they were mostly about helping people and discussing the technology the channel was about.

You never had to disclose any aspect of your identity. Your gender or ethnicity. You were just a username. The only thing someone could find out about you was your general location based on IP address but even that could be masked if you want.

I understand closer relationships formed on IRC I’m just saying, you could go there for help without experiencing prejudice. There was no expectation of revealing your real self.

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

#500

Post by zamalek »

dbrueck wrote: post #481
zamalek wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only acceptable response is one of total agreement That's not exactly it. The only informed response about a black person's experience on these platforms is a black person's. When people talk about "lived experience," the implication is that empathy is practically impossible. The best you can offer is sympathy. > I've been on the receiving end of racist remarks offline I am a white person who has been on the re…

> The best you can offer is sympathy. > I can almost guarantee that you have not [experienced racism] - especially if you are American. My goodness! How can you honestly make such an assertion? I am American, I've visited every state and lived in a dozen of them. I am well-acquainted with many forms of racism and am fascinated that you could believe such a statement. All I can say is that you are unequivocally wrong.…

> All I can say is that you are unequivocally wrong.

You, as a white person, have been a victim of racism?

Edit: > finding common ground is the key to rooting out and overcoming things like racism

How is refuting the experiences of a black person finding common ground?

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