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

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

#591

Post by RestlessMind » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #370

aparsons wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it not he argued that the recent phenomenon of cancelling / treating those accused of these acts as criminals and trying to ruin their livelihoods, means applying a criminal level of evidence is warranted?

No. We have played this argument out and I'd love to get over beating this dead horse, here and all over the tech industry. Go look elsewhere in the comments. Fantastical conspiracy webs ("trying to ruin their livelihoods") require according evidence, not refutation. We have a slew of people on the record, and direct response from Coinbase. Not to mention that no one is getting "cancelled" here. The bigger conversati…

> We have played this argument out

I didn't get the memo.

> I'd love to get over beating this dead horse, here and all over the tech industry

Among the people I know closely enough, I see almost no one who has changed their minds ever since these discussions started circa 2015. And I have been in the tech industry for a long time. So keep beating that dead horse, or beat it in a different way.

> Not to mention that no one is getting "cancelled" here.

Some people are trying very hard. NYT article seems like a smear campaign as part of that overall effort.

> cancel culture doesn't exist as you describe even.

In my experience, it does. I personally know many other people for whom it does. Maybe your bubble is very thick? Maybe people are not honest and open with you because you are highly opinionated and based on this comment, not open to an open dialog?

> I'm simply tired of this.

If you keep communicating the same way as in this comment, you will keep getting tired. I don't think cancel culture, SJWs or suppression of uncomfortable viewpoints are going to stop anytime soon, nor the secret revulsion of these trends.

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

#592

Post by whymauri » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

RestlessMind wrote: post #585

whymauri wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CB is a really great company for any curious nerd to join. Not if they're black or brown, apparently. I have no idea how you could say this is a 'great' company after reading this article. Like my mind is actually blown.

> Not if they're black or brown, apparently. You are wrong, apparently. 4 out of 7 members of the exec team have last names indicating they are people of color. Check yourself: https://www.coinbase.com/about If the head of product and the head of engineering are brown people, I am very confident that CB is a great place to join for brown nerds since culture flows from the top.

Really missing the forests for the trees, here. It's clear that there are under-represented groups at CoinBase that are routinely discriminated. It is unthinkable to me for HN readers to defend that, but here we are regardless.

Maybe I should have used the term 'under-represented minorities,' because I don't see a single black or latino person (admittedly, this is what I meant as 'brown' since I'm Hispanic).

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

#593

Post by RestlessMind » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

ironchef wrote: post #255

bra-ket wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustration is understandable, but BLM movement discredited any and all accusations of racism, as they've been blatantly lying for months via massive propaganda campaign, making martyrs out of criminals while staging violent protests against non-existent 'police brutality'.

No. The majority of the protests were mostly peaceful. https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-vi... Police brutality is real https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z

"No.

The majority of police are mostly peaceful.

Violence at BLM protests is real."

See how we can continue talking past each other?

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

#594

Post by bArray » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

sthnblllII wrote: post #580

MetalGuru wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an unfortunate consequence of diversity-driven hiring practices. Another is that applicants who would’ve gotten hired on their own merit are prejudged as diversity hires.

The much more important problem is all the people who are legitimately better qualified who are turned down because of their race.

I wouldn't say "more important", but certainly important. I've now spoken to quite a few (very capable) white friends who believe they didn't get the job due to their color - and I couldn't tell them they were wrong. It's definitely creating racial divides.

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

#595

Post by bertomart » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

bra-ket wrote: post #193

roenxi wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To repeat the grandparent, what else can they do? Many of the "issues" bought up in this article aren't even problematic. It says John Russ left because Armstrong took public stance that he wanted Coinbase to focus on crypto space stuff. Coinbase's stance there is fair, reasonable and moral. It is desirable that some companies just do what it says on the tin. If Russ had a reason for quitting that was race-related th…

They can do nothing, once someone calls you 'racist' you're racist for good. I don't know the details of the story, but the thing is with baseless accusations of racism is that it's a perfect slander, one can never prove innocence once proclaimed guilty.

What are you trying to say? over 16 people are just lieing! Whatever dude, you're privilege to not have to face the bs. Then why don't you go get the details before you start talking smack

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

#596

Post by bra-ket » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

ausbah wrote: post #563

bra-ket wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the article is from an extremely biased source, done in the midst of 'social justice' trend running out of steam, I'd just ignore it. Think long term.

people have been saying that about "SJWs" for >5 years now, maybe there's more to it then "it's just trendy"

yeah, the same propaganda that drives the trend also helps with the elections

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

#597

Post by nerdponx » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

wolco2 wrote: post #571

nerdponx wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an application of the "white silence is violence" principle. Vox (among others) wrote a piece on it: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21278245/antiracist-racism-race...

Can this principle be universally applied?

I'm not sure. I think it probably applies in personal life. But is there an imperative to 1) bring it into the workplace, and 2) to fall in line with any specific group and their chosen preferred language/actions?

I'm equivocal on both of these.

In the case of (1), why should the act of fighting injustice pause by some notion of decorum at work? Where should our priorities and values lie?

In the case of (2), many people have good reasons to find the prevailing leftist/progressive rhetoric distasteful. But right now the groups who espouse that rhetoric are also the most active and most effective groups taking action right now. If you aren't with them, who exactly are you with? Or so the rhetoric might go.

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

#598

Post by enra » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #333

2-tpg wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No edit, I just replied to you in my previous comment. Are you under the impression that Coinbase makes Work-From-Home decisions based on the skin-color of their employees? If yes (which it seems like to me), I'd like to learn more about that, and your reasoning. Am I oblivious to modern work-place racism? Imperceptive? Naive? Defending vile racists? I'd like to reconsider those questions on a more informed ground. M…

I am under the impression that Coinbase demanded that the Black employees of the compliance group relocate to PDX so that the whole group could work out of the same office, and then exempted a white worker in the same group from that requirement.

These kinds of things happen all the time in companies. Company relocates team x, company decides not to allow remote but that one engineer doesn’t relocate it or works remotely. Usually because the employees has long tenure/unique skillset/otherwise valuable that losing them would be a big loss.

We don’t have details who exactly was required to relocate and who weren’t. Coinbase’s compliance department is huge made of multiple teams, so it’s not just the handful of people mentioned in this article.

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

#599

Post by textgel » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

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…

You can find it as depressing, problematic and triggering as you like; those interested in a civilised society aren't interested in bringing in witch trials no matter how traumatised the progressive crowd are by their unreasonable demands not being met.

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

#600

Post by i-write-comment » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

baryphonic wrote: post #574

i-write-comment wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support for "defund the police", both the harsh slogan and the actual policy of reallocating some funding to social services, is dramatically higher among POC than whites so I don't think your analysis that "those who want radical change appear to be overwhelmingly white and particularly non-black" is correct. https://morningconsult.com/2020/06/17/defund-the-police-comm...

Framing in these types of polls is incredibly important (indeed, I found two others from around the same time as yours, and all were fairly different from one another in their conclusions[1][2]). If you ask people whether they want the police presence in their communities to stay the same or increase, large majorities agree. Only 19% of black Americans want police presence to decrease.[3] And yet none of this is inco…

None of what you posted here supports the original claim made that "the overwhelmingly majority of people who want radical change are white and aren't black"; these polls all contradict that.

One example, from the first Gallup poll:

> Which of the following best describes your view about changes that may or may not need to be made to policing in the United States?

> Major changes needed:

> Black Americans: 88%

> White Americans: 51%

We can quibble about the definition of "radical" vs "major" but it seems pretty clear based on most polling that Black americans are far more dissatisfied as a demographic group with policing, than white americans, and are far more open to a variety of reforms ranging from minor to "radical".

As you said, there's no contradiction between wanting to reallocate money from police, who may be seen as doing a poor job, to social services, and wanting the police to actually show up and do the job they're supposed to be doing.