Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by _trackno5 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

ejstronge wrote: post #568

_trackno5 wrote: post #553

Heh, I feel the same way towards DEI: I'm from Brazil and this stupid DEI stuff keeps putting me in the "LatinX" bucket. I freaking hate that. I'm not a freaking latino. That is a dumb denomination created by the US. Yet I keep getting invited for dumb LatinX events as if that means anything. I want to be recognized by the stack of excellent work I've done. Not because I happen to be from a part of the world that is…

I'm a little confused - why do you say that Brazil is not part of Latin America? Is it because Brazil speaks Portugese (a descendant of Latin) instead of Spanish (another descendant of Latin)? I heard a very humorous and apt anecdote that there are no black people in Africa - maybe the same phenomenon is happening here, where the identity you have in Brazil (just a Brazilian) is different from the identity you are as…

I'm not saying Brazil is not part of Latin America. What I am saying is I don't call myself a latino. Nobody in South America or Central America calls themselves latinos. That's a US made up term.

We all call ourselves by our nationalities.

The anecdote on Africa is probably correct though.

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

#592

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #555

kfajdsl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm much much younger than John23832, but I definitely recognized a lot of the same in some of the gaming communities I was a part of in the mid to late 2010s. There wasn't quite as much racism (at least in the places I hung out), but there was plenty of sexism and homophobia. It wouldn't necessarily be explicit, but there were lots of offhand comments and jokes. That's how racism (and sexism, homophobia, ...) tends…

> It wouldn't necessarily be explicit, but there were lots of offhand comments and jokes. That's how racism (and sexism, homophobia, ...) tends to present itself; it's a lot more subtle than people straight up going "I hate ${group}". Don't conflate those jokes and offhand comments with hate. You're erasing all sorts of meaningful differences between basically harmless husbands joking about their wives or differences…

[deleted]

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

#593

Post by anon019293 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #520

Firmwarrior wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Hispanic man, I can say that I don't care about whether I earned my spot or lucked into it through my ancestry. Life isn't fair, and I'll gladly take whatever advantages I can scrounge up. The software interview process in particular is already so capricious that I feel absolutely no shame in tilting it in my favor in any way that I can.

Would you be okay with white and Asian people similarly applying in-group advantage towards their own races to the detriment of ours? The software interview process is capricious, but this doesn't justify racial discrimination. If we're so nonchalant about racism favoring us, we're hypocrites for criticizing racism favoring other groups over us. I am deeply troubled by racial discrimination favoring Latin people, des…

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

#594

Post by balls187 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:37 PM UTC

excerionsforte wrote: post #580

balls187 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloud isn't Japanese. He is a fictional character from a fictional planet. And Goku isn't Japanese either; he is Saiyan, an Alien race. > Race, in general, isn't a big deal when you are younger It isn't a big deal, if you're not impacted by it (colloquially known today as 'privilege'). However, what you might not believe is a big deal, is arguably a big deal to other people. A few examples: You may not be aware that…

Let's be honest here, a creator can make Apples be purple and slightly deformed and call it Banora Apples, but it's still an apple. Plenty of people who like DBZ or FF to debate with on how to classify said characters based on traits such as skeletal structure, influences from the creator, etc. These classifications, I don't think about much when playing games in general, not that much of a fanboy in trying to identi…

Japanese isn't a race it's a nationality and/or ethnicity, and neither Goku nor Cloud are from Japan nor do they share any real cultural traits with Japanese people.

You've changed crux of your argument (or perhaps clarified what you inteded to argue) to now be what school age children do or do not think; though that isn't very compelling as neither you nor I are capable of reading minds. However the comment I did respond to was clearly written--"Race, in general, isn't a big deal when you are younger..." and it clearly can be a big deal to young people; just perhaps not a big deal to you.

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

#595

Post by travisjungroth » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #509

tacitusarc wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a different risk with DEI, and I’d sure love your perspective if you’re willing to give it. I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and white though the fact they are white is explainable as a statistical artifact) who feel empowered by DEI to push for changes that are meaningless and burdensome, but give them a feeling of power and virtuousness. This includes changing away from “master” as a br…

> I see a different risk with DEI, and I’d sure love your perspective if you’re willing to give it. I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and white though the fact they are white is explainable as a statistical artifact) who feel empowered by DEI to push for changes that are meaningless and burdensome, but give them a feeling of power and virtuousness. Yes there are plenty of people who want to sit…

> Yes there are plenty of people who want to sit at the top of the food chain by way of gathering a "diverse" crowd.

Woah this suddenly made the behavior of some people who gave me the creeps but were doing "all the right things" make sense. Thanks.

On the brownbag thing, I've had someone tell me we shouldn't say "picnic" because of a racist etymology. When I showed her this etymology wasn't real, she said it didn't matter. We still shouldn't say it because it might harm someone. This doesn't make anti-racism absurd. I think there are real heroes there. But that interaction sure felt absurd.

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

#596

Post by wyager » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #347

wyager wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People fail to understand the entire point of DEI: avoiding hiring discrimination lawsuits. There's a tacit understanding that, if you spend enough money on DEI coordinators, and hire enough of the right people, you will not be punished by state or federal prosecutors. This has nothing to do with eliminating hiring discrimination or whatever; it's part of a political patronage network. You hire our most dedicated peo…

I disagree - DEI is about upholding the prevailing form of political correctness so as not to get publicly shamed. Federal law still bans racial discrimination in hiring, so lawsuits are less of a concern than looking bad in the public eye. The irony is that DEI as a worldview promotes and condones racial discrimination in many forms -- that is, treating people differently because of the color of their skin, not the…

I'm not disagreeing with you at an object level, but at a meta level you're at least 30-40 years behind what's going on with title VII legal strategy, and your grade school understanding of MLK is not helping things. I would suggest looking more into what he was actually about, rather than taking at face value a few words from his most popular speech.

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

#597

Post by mensetmanusman » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #338

catiopatio wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we literally meant dog. It was a joke. Why might it matter? Because the rest of the world was a lot more racist and sexist, but IRC wasn’t.

> but IRC wasn’t No, sorry, I was there. That's the key thing people need to remember about the Old Internet. Some of IRC was extremely racist and sexist. Almost all of the rest was "regular" racist and sexist. It was pretty closely related to 4chan culture (under-moderated by outside forces that had little power to force any particular standards upon the moderators). The magic of the medium was that since everything…

IRC isn’t a place, it’s a platform for speech for lots of diverse groups, some of which were/are racist. Saying IRC was/is racist is like saying the internet is racist.

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

#598

Post by ejstronge » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

DrThunder wrote: post #417

moomoo11 wrote: post #176

I wish we would transcend to a point where we look up to people based on their achievements and separate their race from it. I’m Asian btw. I can relate to Lebron just as much as I can relate to Neil Armstrong or Satya or Matz or Woz or Marie Curie because they are all excellent at what they did/do. I want to be excellent like them. Because we all are humans.

This is exactly the way normal anti-racism was up until recently. It's how MLK wanted it to be and it's pretty much how the US was treating it up until the last decade. Somehow we've switched in the last few years to the point where skin color and/or specific race is the MOST important attribute someone has. Diversity based on skin color is absolutely asinine. You can have a multitude of poc in one room but if their…

From a very sincere position, can you link to your sources for 'how MLK wanted it to be' and 'how the US was treating' DEI?

Unless we were all in the same positions within our careers since the time of MLK to now (and I'll also ignore some other confounders, like the fact that many black Americans could not easily attend college in the time of MLK), I wonder whether a recency bias may explain the differences you are reporting.

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

#599

Post by throwaway4848 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #372

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…

I see a different risk with DEI, and I’d sure love your perspective if you’re willing to give it. I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and white though the fact they are white is explainable as a statistical artifact) who feel empowered by DEI to push for changes that are meaningless and burdensome, but give them a feeling of power and virtuousness. This includes changing away from “master” as a br…

> I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and white though the fact they are white is explainable as a statistical artifact) who feel empowered by DEI to push for changes that are meaningless and burdensome, but give them a feeling of power and virtuousness.

A more compelling reason is because demonstrating "leadership" in DEI is a prerequisite to getting a promotion or getting a management job. It's baked into many job listings now and is part of the executive interview process. If you don't check the DEI box on some tangible dimension, you don't progress to the next round, especially if you are white.

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

#600

Post by tremon » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #555

kfajdsl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm much much younger than John23832, but I definitely recognized a lot of the same in some of the gaming communities I was a part of in the mid to late 2010s. There wasn't quite as much racism (at least in the places I hung out), but there was plenty of sexism and homophobia. It wouldn't necessarily be explicit, but there were lots of offhand comments and jokes. That's how racism (and sexism, homophobia, ...) tends…

> It wouldn't necessarily be explicit, but there were lots of offhand comments and jokes. That's how racism (and sexism, homophobia, ...) tends to present itself; it's a lot more subtle than people straight up going "I hate ${group}". Don't conflate those jokes and offhand comments with hate. You're erasing all sorts of meaningful differences between basically harmless husbands joking about their wives or differences…

Similarly, don't assume that all racism is expressed as hate. You're erasing all sorts of meaningful difficulties experienced by minorities if you assume that only overtly hateful comments can be disparaging.