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

#671

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #662

gfodor wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

Irrational bias will always exist, but it will always be a bunch of shifting goalposts. Once DEI systematizes enough it can be incorporated into whatever HR eventually turns in to, instead of being a separate division.

[deleted]

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

#672

Post by PathOfEclipse » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #579

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #562

Diversity should be natural, not forced. DEI forces diversity, which causes more problems than it solves and harms more people than it helps. It's been this way forever, including back when it was called "affirmative action." I suggest reading this book to see just how disastrous it's been: https://www.amazon.com/Affirmative-Action-Around-World-Empir... How do we improve natural diversity? Through persuasion, not coe…

Personally, I wouldn't link anything Thomas Sowell has written. He has literally claimed that Black Americans were better off during slavery than they are today [1]. > America is one of the least racist places overall in recorded history [citation needed] [1] - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-the-legacy-o...

Personally, I wouldn't blatantly tell obvious lies. I clicked on the link. Sowell didn't say that at all. But I have to admit, that's a new one. Falsely claim someone said something awful, then provide a link to make it look legitimate. It's a pretty vile and disgusting tactic, honestly. But that's what I've come to expect from people of a certain political persuasion.

Anyways, I'll continue to link Sowell. I suggest you stop with the dishonesty, though.

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

#673

Post by rayiner » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

rirze wrote: post #654

rayiner wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm positive that Satya and Sundar are great motivators for indian kids to look up to (as they should be). I'm doubtful about that. At least among my cohort (first generation south asian immigrants to the east coast) there's not a strong sense of racial identity. There's strong identity in the sense of ties to religion, home countries, culture, and traditions, but not group identification or a feeling of collective…

I was hoping to find a reply like this; glad someone could articulate it better than I could. Overall, I believe that culturally-same role models is a stand-in for lazy parenting. Children whose parents constantly push their kids to be better, push harder will look towards successful people of any cultural background. Compare that with children with apathetic parents, who I surmise will only have the imagination to s…

It also robs even involved minority parents and communities of power. If you persuade minority kids to look to “representation” for ethnic role models, then the white people who select those representatives gain tremendous power in defining ethnic identity. Call me crazy, but I want my kids to learn what it means to be Bangladeshi from me and my parents and my extended family, not from teachers or role models selected by white people for that purpose.

It also reduces identity to something that’s offensively shallow. White people think Kamala Harris is a role model for south Asian girls because she has the experience of walking around with dark skin in America. But white people’s reaction is extremely low on the list of things that define south Asian identity.

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

#674

Post by Firmwarrior » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:09 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…

Ah, well, I didn't want to go on some long tangent. I'm sure elsewhere in the thread people are hashing out the pros and cons of giving underrepresented people an unfair advantage.

I just wanted to say that I don't think anyone should feel bad or like an impostor if they manage to get their foot in the door some way other than the traditional routes: you get lucky on a coding quiz, your dads meet at the country club, you bust your hump for 10 years in crappy jobs to work your way up to a good one, etc.

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

#675

Post by Siira » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

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…

As a PoC who has benefited from IRC, I don’t see how they would even know you’re not white unless you tell them yourself. Can you elaborate on your experience?

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

#676

Post by bjt2n3904 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:13 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #361

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh heck, let's not even address that saying "people of color" is respectful, but "colored people" is racist.

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…

What I truly understand is that if it is racist to say "colored person", then switching the terms around on the euphemism treadmill doesn't fix anything.

Give it another decade, and I promise you that BIPOC will be a racial slur. I've just ditched it ahead of time, so I won't have to write apologies about how I "didn't know better back then."

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

#677

Post by LarsDu88 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

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…

As someone who was born at the dawn of the internet age, was the early internet really that racist?

I feel this is something that will be lost to the history books if it isn't at least recorded for posterity.

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

#678

Post by nemothekid » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

rirze wrote: post #658

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if you only emphasize equal access of opportunity you will never reach equal outcomes. White men have centuries of cultural expectations, family wealth, and other advantages, and minorities have none of those advantages, and may be only a few decades (if that) removed from illiterate, impoverished inequality. Give those groups equal opportunity and it's unsurprising when an inequality of outcomes i…

The only thing minorities lack is a proper value system. There are multiple immigrant groups that start from nothing and achieve upper middle-class status in a generation's time. Once we realize, as a society, that what minorities really need is internal support to reform their cultural systems, only then will minorities will empower themselves to do better.

>There are multiple immigrant groups that start from nothing and achieve upper middle-class status in a generation's time

You can't compare an immigrant group, which is _most likely_ elite in their home countries (it is very expensive and very difficult to immigrate to the united states), to minorities in America who have seen their family units destroyed as recently as 60 years ago.

You can point to the success of Nigerian-Americans; one of, if not the most educated[1] racial group in the US. If you are an immigrant from Nigeria, the second richest country in Africa by GDP, the US as a result of its immigration policies simply selects for the best and brightest.

Minorities "lacking a value system" (??), isn't something innate to their culture. It's been a purposeful policy for America for most of it's lifetime. Just look at the Tulsa Race Massacre; it was an incredible destruction of future generational and cultural wealth for the people who you now say "lack a value system".

>minorities really need is internal support to reform their cultural systems

There are multiple ways to approach this but it tends to be labeled as socialism, woke-ism, CRT, or DEI.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-10-13/it-isn...

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

#679

Post by vmilner » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:32 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…

Well, it (brown bag lunch) made the Stanford harmful language list. I agree there is enough moronic content on that list to give the impression that the writers were playing false-flag games. But I’m prepared to believe they were sincere.

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

#680

Post by gfodor » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #662

gfodor wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

Irrational bias will always exist, but it will always be a bunch of shifting goalposts. Once DEI systematizes enough it can be incorporated into whatever HR eventually turns in to, instead of being a separate division.

Purely irrational bias isn’t really the issue since most people of sound mind can be dissuaded from purely irrational acts. The issue is stereotyping of individuals based upon statistical or anecdotal patterns by people imagined to be a member of the same class combined with the usual human natures of otherization and tribalism. This isn’t purely irrational, since stereotypes can provide predictive power beyond pure randomness - if you don’t believe me, consider the fact that there are countless “positive stereotypes” for certain groups we happily tend to accept and make decisions on given it complements the presumed members of that group, as opposed to increasing distrust or hatred of them.

Ironically, programs seeking to reduce discrimination which characterize the former phenomenon as entirely irrational is what helps perpetuate the latter, because it undermines any sense that there is a good faith engagement going on.