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

You shouldn't have to do this but if you're being asked to present at the DEI townhall, you might politely but firmly ask for a different panel makeup to reflect the power the company is putting behind the effort. These initiatives should be driven by the business units, is the VP of product there, the SVP of engineering, the officers of the company, board members even???

This panel can talk about what they're doing to drive the initiative and ideally there are no DEI/People people on stage at all aside from maybe a moderator. If there is no diversity on that stage ... ask them what they're doing about it and if it's a goal for them to drive inclusion at all levels.

Also, big monthly meetings are an anti-pattern. Once high level people are participating, you will hopefully see the frequency go down and the quality go up.

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I don’t want to take away from your personal experience and opinions but the title led me to believe its assertion was from a study or some other kind of statistically backed examination.

If there is one I’d be fascinated to read it. Do the majority of PoC employees feel this way? That’s the kind of question that can’t really by answered by an HN thread.

I think these initiatives had great intentions, as the saying goes, “road to hell is paved with good intentions”

We shouldn’t be “color blind”, but at the same time shouldn’t raise (or especially demote) anyone for their skin color

These initiatives are antithetical to what MLK preached, to much of the civil rights movement

And just like the scrum cult, once these systems are implemented, they understandably have motive to keep themselves “alive” and worth the investment.

That begs the question then, if there’s perfect diversity in a company, why would you need DEI? You’d only justify the cost if it’s a perpetual problem that will never be solved, one that every individual is conscious or unconsciously guilty of, and actions must be taken to curb the ever-encroaching perpetuation of anti DEI thoughts/behaviors.

They had many DEI programs dating back to before it was called DEI. The one targeting women who were predisposed toward stem careers and keeping them on that track was the only one that persisted over time because it was the only one that wasn't asinine when you actually looked at the results. Management basically said as much but less directly whenever they cut other programs but kept that one.

The women hired as a result were far more socially diverse than people from the other hiring pipelines and I think that is of greater value than the fact that they were women.

This is a big non-FAANG tech company FWIW