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

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

#711

Post by acjohnson55 »

xwowsersx wrote: post #39

Interestingly enough, Pew Research ran a study[0] a few years back which found that the majority of whites, blacks, and Hispanics reject race-conscious hiring—even if it results in less diversity. I can only imagine what it would feel like to be a PoC in a company that has openly stated that their goal is to achieve a certain racial/ethnic composition regardless of standards. How would I not always have a sneaking su…

As a Black person, I have never experienced a company sacrificing standards to improve representation. I have seen companies want to become more representative of the their customer base, but rarely have I seen them actually succeed.

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

#713

Post by Firmwarrior »

DrThunder wrote: post #700
Firmwarrior wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, it's really weird to find myself on the SJW side of this argument for once. I'm usually the token brown guy in Libertarian circles. Despite what you might've read on Tumblr or Fox News, I'm not planning to oppress anyone or commit white genocide. When I'm doing interviews or looking at resumes, I'll give an extra moment of consideration to anyone born in the USA who seems to have pulled him/herself up by their b…

You're strawmanning a lot of what I said. My comment is just about what it leads to if we have a society that bases their hiring on specific skin colors. It seems like you're failing to differentiate between exactly what you're personally doing and the society wide affect of sitting back and accepting race based hiring.

You're talking about how we're on a slippery slope to creating "the superior class" and then try to claim that I'm being combative? Comeon man.

To attempt to salvage this subthread: What I'm personally doing is exactly what DEI is for the most part. BigCo gives you a yearly training that says "Make sure you give someone a fair shot even if they don't wow you with their resume". BigCo sends out a slideshow with some examples of certain minorities succeeding at their jobs. Done.

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

#714

Post by sn9 »

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…

The problem is that if you don't personally know the views of the people involved, racist jokes are often indistinguishable from hate.

Outside of a context where the humor is understood by all like a stand-up comedy act, you aren't entitled to how other people perceive your behavior.

If you walk like a racist and talk like a racist, people are just gonna assume you're a racist.

If that's a problem for you, there's a really fucking simple solution.

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

#715

Post by lliamander »

qdog wrote: post #685
lliamander wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I think a lot of these people are upset by DEI precisely because it is resulting in more diversity. You are exemplifying a fallacy known as asymmetric insight , whereby you assume to know more about someone else's "real" intentions than they do. While at some level we do have to have a mental model of other people's motivations, the temptation is strong to pathologize those we disagree with rather than t…

I certainly haven't conducted a scientific study, this isn't my field. I am, however, a white male who checks most of the 'tech dude' boxes, and I don't usually have to guess what people are thinking about this. I just have to be around at the right time for people to make their opinions known. So my evidence is anecdotal, but no, I don't have to wonder if people have racial bias, they will tell you if you let them.…

> I certainly haven't conducted a scientific study, this isn't my field.

I'm not asking for a scientific study, I'm just asking for some indication that you take arguments against DEI programs seriously.

> I am, however, a white male who checks most of the 'tech dude' boxes, and I don't usually have to guess what people are thinking about this. I just have to be around at the right time for people to make their opinions known. So my evidence is anecdotal, but no, I don't have to wonder if people have racial bias, they will tell you if you let them.

Sharing demographic characteristics with some people does not automatically give you special insight into their true motivations. The insinuations that people "let you know" about their racial bias suggests that they didn't explicitly tell you as such, but rather you inferred it based on other things they did or said (things that, if I hazard to guess, might not be seen as racist by most people).

I must say, as someone who does oppose DEI programs (and who has successfully lobbied against them in small ways) I find your presumption about the motivations of people on my side of the issue extremely aggravating. You are going to do much more to help the dialogue if you actually respond in good faith to the arguments against DEI.

But, if you want to know what motivates people on this side, just ask.

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

#716

Post by supercheetah »

DrThunder wrote: post #694
kodah wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're just saying this occurrence isn't unique and it doesn't look like they approve of it. Many of us identify with our own struggles in deep ways. If you create an opportunity for people to organize around those struggles then people will, because as was said, there is power there. That power is in representation. The problem is generally in the silo'ing of representation. This is, imo, what things like i…

Ok, and my point is that doing the exact same thing as those people did in the past isn't doing better. You don't fix oppression by moving that oppression to a new group. Simply pointing out that victimhood has always existed serves no purpose at all in response to my original comment. "This is, imo, what things like intersectionality begin to address." How? All intersectionality does is create a competition for the…

Your description of intersectionality is the exact opposite of what it is. It's entire purpose is to show everyone that playing the operation Olympics is a pointless game that no one wins. It's too show that everyone's struggles don't fit into neat little boxes that define them, and show that social problems are multidimensional that don't have simple solutions, and shows that a lot of DEI initiatives are superficial, and likely won't make any real difference.

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

#717

Post by goatlover »

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...

He doesn't say that in the article you linked. Sowel's argument is against the liberal policies of the past 30+ years compared to post-slavery economic growth among blacks prior to that. You can dispute his claims, but nowhere does he say that blacks were better off under slavery. He's claiming they were better off after slavery and before the modern welfare state, which as a conservative he views as destructive to the nuclear family and produces a sense of victimhood. Again, feel free to disagree with that. But don't misrepresent his argument.

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

#718

Post by ChickenNugger »

asimpletune wrote: post #120

Honest question for the crowd. Obviously DEI or affirmative action-esque initiatives are not perfect. But is there something better that could be done? Asking bc I went to a good school that had affirmative action. It was for years that I just assumed it was racist, even if it was helping poc. Then it dawned on me in my last year that it was also benefitting me . That if the govt hadn’t done something to intervene, I…

>(For those of you wondering, a lot of Americans are born in highly segregated communities, where there are few (or even zero) poc, like many suburbs, and it’s not by choice or fault of their own)

I was born in West Virginia. Growing up there were like no black people. My high school had one dude who was half black. Coincidentally he ended up being a coworker and my roommate after high school. I think it's true that racism has to be taught. I was never taught to be racist. Who would I be racist to? Or about? Everyone in my community was white. There was more contention about Ford vs. Chevy than race.

So if racism is taught, isn't the solution to not teach it? And to judge people by their character and not their skin? The more people talk about race like it's important, the more new people (kids) are going to think it's important, and that we're more different than alike, which just isn't true. There's so much racebaiting in the media these days its ridiculous. Imagine you're a kid growing up and the media is constantly highlighting race. You're going to think race is an important distinction to think about, and make decisions based on it. If it wasn't important to distinguish race, why is everyone talking about it all the time?

Basically, instead of being target fixated on the problem, focus on the solution. What would a racism free society look like? Would they talk about race all the time? Or would they look at you funny if you brought up race? The least evil option, IMHO is to simply be the person that looks at someone funny for bringing up race. To quote Morgan Freeman: "Stop talking about it." https://youtu.be/RosCZkH5uTI?t=25

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

#719

Post by goatlover »

antisceptic wrote: post #277

One problem with DEI is that many ethnicities get thrown under the white or white-adjacent umbrella and aren't given the same opportunities simply because the popular view of history doesn't seem them as historically oppressed when in fact they were. For instance, Armenians are a historically oppressed group, even genocided, yet they are not afforded any DEI perks in their career paths. Palestinians are also not incl…

White-adjacent is one of the dumbest terms I've ever heard, and is downright offensive. But hardly the only one to come out of DEI-like minded movements. Latinx being another.

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

#720

Post by kenjackson »

lettergram wrote: post #709
kenjackson wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, yes I'd say that is ridiculous. There are shorter NBA players, the fact we target "bigs" shows a lazy coach who's incapable of assessing the best way to form a team. The fact that you speak so confidently about a topic you clearly know almost nothing about I think speaks to why maybe your old team seemed OK to let you go. > You don't want to say "we need less white people" or "we need less green eyed people"…

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.…

I got it. So even when a member of an underrepresented group outperforms others you will still say it’s for some alternative reason, with no evidence for it. And you thought your old boss was a bigot??
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