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

My experience growing up as a southeast Asian child in the early 00s is that I suddenly had access to practitioners and even experts in the field who now gave me an audience, as both my age and ethnicity were completely inaccessible to my counterparty on the other side of the chat window.

No one asked, and no one cared. We discussed technical topics, and what mattered was the strength of your ideas and their ability to withstand rebuttal. Your identity did not factor into the discussion, as the medium being used (IRC) abstracted away all notion of geographic location, physical appearance, skin color, accent, tone of voice, gender, sex, etc... into the written word. That's all everyone saw - your words, and your words only.

Now, in our photo and video driven digital landscape, your physical appearance - the way you look, present, the color of your skin, etc. - is front and center. In fact, without a visual representation, you may as well not exist - "pics or it didn't happen."

Which makes the matter all the more aggravating - people are now using media that bring cues for common stereotypes (i.e. judging someone for the way they look [0]) to the forefront, while simultaneously declaring that, no, they are completely free from any and all such bias. Why not remove all doubt, the, and use blind Zoom interviews (which I did myself), text fora (such as this one), and text-only protocols (such as IRC)?

It's fascinating to see just how differently I am treated and perceived on purely textual media vs. other media where my physical appearance is evident. If IRC was racist, then I would say the new media is orders of magnitude more so, as I have been subject to numerous misjudgments of my character and/or microaggressions based on my physical appearance - which simply would not have been accessible in older, text-based protocols.

I can't escape the new "ethnic minority" or "visible minority" label that these DEI initiatives (and related ideologies) have created - they are now automatically and subconsciously applied to me the minute others take a look at me, and as a result all of the associated ideas are subsequently brought to mind - "disadvantaged," "lacking education," "lower socioeconomic status," "hired because of their race," etc.

I'd rather go back to IRC. None of these judgments would be possible there, and I wouldn't have to have the "minority" label applied to me if I chose to simply not to disclose my appearance or ethnic background.

[0] https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac...

I was being very charitable - it seems you are asserting knowledge of Dr. King's canon of work based on your memory of a very meme-ified quote.

I also requested information about how the US used to treat racial equity better in the past; do you have any such evidence?

> Explain to me how making everything equitable and inclusive for specific class oppressed poc isn't basing things on skin color vs. merit? This is a logical test, not one that needs sources.

The quote you reference mentions character. The issues at hand are whether hiring ignores qualified candidates based on their skin color. I understand that you wish for a colorblind world but this is not the world we live in. I suspect that it is easy for you to forego a 'patch' in our current situation because the problems at play do not affect you. To rephrase, because you're not running an affected version of a problematic script, nobody should be allowed to install a hotpatch. Better to wait for the perfect v1.0 to be released.

> Here's another test for you - explain how you make everyone equitable without lowering the higher achievers in society down to the average? Do you think it's possible to make under-achievers the same intelligence, physical capability as higher-achieving people?

This is the perennial boogeyman and strawman. I think the reason it comes up is to make those who have enjoyed unappreciated benefits feel that their experience relates solely to their ability.

One of the best pitchers in baseball history never had a chance to play in his prime. Why? Because of an accident of his genetics.

With the arguments you set up, I surmise that you would argue that expending any effort to finding such good, but unappreciated, players necessarily debases all players; let's leave the greats in the dust to ensure that the sons of the wealthy get to play the game.

I would say that it is a disservice to humanity not to explore every option to uncover wasted talent.

We will disagree on this, but I encounter brilliant people whose life stories hinge on just one lucky break regularly. When I am confronted by the mammoth systemic inequalities the United States has imposed against some of its daughters and sons for hundreds of years, I am motivated to spend an extra moment to find qualified candidates in unappreciated venues.

Finally - your argument presupposes that every job search finds the best candidate. This may be a surprise to you, but as someone who hires, the candidate I end up with is as much defined by the vagaries of chance as by the candidate's ability. This is not controversial to any one who hires and is indeed a confound that we all must consider.

One key factor in someone getting their foot in the door is knowing someone who can contact me. Is this fair? Do I lower the average quality of all candidates if I use this very common source of referrals?

Are you also vocal when Native American tribes are given things? Quite a bit of money goes to them directly -- that is racism to you, right?

That is obviously not a valid translation. It appears you did not understand what I wrote. When dealing with a complex problem, in this case several hundred years of discriminatory practices and laws, it’s not possible to come up with a remedy that is satisfactory to all. An all or nothing mindset leads nowhere. We must go with imperfect solutions since perfection does not exist. We can try to minimize negative side effects but not erase them. On the whole the ongoing level of discrimination against blacks is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of reverse discrimination.

It could equally be argued that alternative players could have been better than Jeremy Lin. Then they promoted Lin at the time because they wanted to enter new markets. As it expanded in popularity new demos entered they pitched the “over coming race” angle because new people joined. Imo using it to make an example kinda proves the real use of DEI - to give people feels and sell stuff.

Teams are trying to sell seats. Businesses are trying to target various markets, but more importantly raise capital and get cheap labor.

You could argue the same thing in my case, and that’s fine. I won’t play the race game. For reference, me and others were offered an exorbitant amount to stay. But to your point, give those opportunities to others, who by definition didn’t earn their place.