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

#631

Post by not_a_pet_rock » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #454

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…

> * For those who don’t know, there used to be a racist practice by some fraternities, etc called a “brown bag test” where a brown bag was used to judge skin color for entry. This made brown bags racist, which in turn made brown bag lunches racist. I think that's a inaccurate and misleading description. I think the correct term is "colorism" not "racism," and it sounds like those distinctions were more significant wi…

colorism is just racism.

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

#632

Post by letrowekwel » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

kfajdsl wrote: post #157

aliqot wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up on IRC, I have very much the same experience as you but quite opposite as I experienced hardly any racism, and nobody knew my identity either. Nobody wanted to involve their personal lives or details until recently when identity and identifying became the thing.

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…

I feel that with gaming communities the main problem is simply having too many teenagers without supervision. It's pretty much like school really, immature people picking on others because of their own insecurity / problems. Eventually most people even in very toxic communities grow up and stop hating people for no logical reason, at least the smart ones.

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

#633

Post by naasking » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #600

naasking wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Similarly, don't assume that all racism is expressed as hate.

Who really claims that though? Saying "black people are always late" is racist because it's a racial prejudice, but that's not an expression of hatred towards black people. I think everyone gets that.

I also agree non-hateful comments can be insulting. So we're in agreement: erasing nuance is dumb. My point is that this nuance dictates that we shouldn't group these distinct behaviours all together and respond to them the same way.

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

#634

Post by nullfield » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

jablongo wrote: post #224

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…

To be clear, do you think race-based diversity hiring is good? I can agree that having good role models and educational opportunities is important but I'm not so sure race-aware hiring is a good thing, for the reasons stated by OP and others. At what point do you think DEI should stop? Is there any metric or threshold at which these programs/events should end? One of the biggest issues for me is that these measures a…

They’ll never end, because 1. The people making money off of running them don’t want them to, and 2. “historically oppressed groups” never (and can never) become “not historically oppressed”; it’s my belief that this is intentional via the choice of words used by the DEI cadre.

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

#635

Post by ChickenNugger » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #476

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…

Yet the NAACP...

For anyone not aware, it stands for The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded in 1909, when polite society was at "colored people" on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill for "African Americans". Or are we fully at BIPOC now?

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

#636

Post by hunter2_ » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

crackercrews wrote: post #572

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's not an assumption. > Along all dimensions measured, the more similar the investment partners, the lower their investments’ performance. For example, the success rate of acquisitions and IPOs was 11.5% lower, on average, for investments by p…

I haven't read all these studies but wonder if they claim causality or mere correlation. I see lots of correlation, which could be reverse correlation in disguise. Companies that are on a good trajectory decide to engage in more DEI than companies that are fighting to survive. Analysts conclude that DEI and success are correlated. They don't consider the possibility that the causal arrow runs the other way.

True, and it could even be as simple as: well-educated people make companies more successful, and they pursue diversity more, compared to other people -- i.e., one input has these two outputs.

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

#637

Post by rajin444 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

jonathanlb wrote: post #291

_fat_santa wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I look at it from a top level. Say that in the tech industry, 20% (totally made up number BTW) of your workers are black. It would be possible for some companies to have >20% of their workforce be black, but if you look at the top employers (GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, AAPL, etc), there would be physically impossible for them to hire >20% black workers because there are simply not enough of them out there in the broader w…

Agreed that DEI initiatives are hard, but the picture is a bit incomplete. Quotas are the boogey/strawman that get trotted out when DEI initiatives are mentioned. Quotas _must_ be filled, and this serves no one, not the companies doing the hiring (because there aren't enough qualified candidates, and hiring unqualified candidates is bad for business), nor the candidates themselves (because they didn't get hired on th…

> Hiring _targets_, on the other hand, should be attained

How do you determine what those targets should be? This implies the we can determine the correct % of X race/gender/etc.

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

#638

Post by rayiner » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

not_a_pet_rock wrote: post #631

tablespoon wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * For those who don’t know, there used to be a racist practice by some fraternities, etc called a “brown bag test” where a brown bag was used to judge skin color for entry. This made brown bags racist, which in turn made brown bag lunches racist. I think that's a inaccurate and misleading description. I think the correct term is "colorism" not "racism," and it sounds like those distinctions were more significant wi…

colorism is just racism.

Colorism isn’t racism because racism isn’t about color. Color is merely an imperfect proxy for distinguishing different groups of people. (Many white people, especially Greeks or Italians, are darker than many East Asians, but that doesn’t change the racial categories.)

In some communities, colorism is a byproduct of racial categorization based on color. But in many places it’s just an aesthetic preference. Colorism in Asia and Africa long predates colonialism or contact with white people. An important thing to note is that in these societies, colorism doesn’t imply that white people are seen as the most beautiful. A person can be too light, just as they can be too tall or too skinny.

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

#639

Post by hunter2_ » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #524

slowmovintarget wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 adult…

> 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. It's not an assumption. > Along all dimensions measured, the more similar the investment partners, the lower their investments’ performance. For example, the success rate of acquisitions and IPOs was 11.5% lower, on average, for investments by p…

A pattern I'm seeing here is the possibility that these beneficial outcomes could be rooted in racism/sexism/etc.: having enough diversity among staff such that you can easily pair up people (provider and patient, fiduciary and client, or whatever scenario) who share personal characteristics can increase trust and synergy between them? Ugh!

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

#640

Post by gfodor » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #625

gfodor wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tribalism is pretty innate but the tribes change. I’d argue if DEI programs had an analog during the reformation era we would be more likely to see Protestant vs Catholic discrimination persist as those programs inflamed it for their own self preservation.

Why do you assume any particular DEI goalpost will persist for years or decades or centuries? It's not as if generalized racism has persisted against the same categories since the late 1500s. And why do you assume the generalized tribalism will persist based on particular initiatives? The old initiatives used to be hire from the gentry. Attitudes amongst the many do change. It doesn't matter if some vocal minorities…

The entire question of this thread is the mechanism by which DEI can unwind a given goalpost. (And if/when the last goalpost evaporates, so would DEI.) It sounds to me like your own perspective there is no way for them to do so, given that any given goalpost could be argued as possibly at risk of regression.

Concretely, if your own perspective is taken as the standard, we ought to expect that without any motive or standard to dictate we unwind DEI goalposts around (for example) racial groups, we should expect those goalposts to persist, regardless of the general presence of the phenomena which motivated their creation in the first place.