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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

#821

Post by GrinningFool »

tristor wrote: post #782
GrinningFool wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first one was someone who proved black people could get it done This phrasing suggests an base expectation that a black person needs to prove they could get it done [like a white person could]. What I think DEI tries[1] to do is normalize the idea that anyone of sufficient ability /can/ do the work by giving more opportunity to people who 'traditionally' have not received those opportunities. And in so doing, r…

> This phrasing suggests an base expectation that a black person needs to prove they could get it done [like a white person could]. Your response suggests a base expectation that a white person doesn't have to prove they can get it done. The realities of the job market suggest otherwise. Turns out, with a /very narrow/ set of exceptions based on direct nepotism, white people too must go through interviews, demonstrat…

Thanks for the considered reply. I agree that everyone must prove themselves on their own merit.

But the op did not say, "The first one was someone who proved she could do the job". They said, "The first one was someone who proved black people could get it done".

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

#822

Post by mikrotikker »

onetimeusename wrote: post #771
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…

So in other words, without DEI, white people are evil and with DEI, white people are evil. Are you sure "white people" are actually in control?

Yes, by white people who use DEI for power.

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

#823

Post by Izkata »

_gql5 wrote: post #701
lynndotpy wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: In the below thread are many people who personally identify as omnipresent IRC Gods, so my experience must have happened in an alternate universe. My bad. For what it's worth, this aligns with what I've seen on IRC as well (in the 00s.) I really think a lot of people just don't see bigotry for what it is when it's not explicit. (E.g. "lol girl = guy irl, there are no girls on the internet" being a common sent…

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…

> 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.

For the most part "there are no girls on the internet" was actually just a snarky way to say exactly this. It could just have easily been "there are no boys on the internet", except people would jump all over themselves to help a girl, so the only reason to bring it up was to get special treatment. The snark was to stop that, it's just really easily misunderstood.

An alternative more-PC version you've probably heard is "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog".

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

#824

Post by vmilner »

mikrotikker wrote: post #809
vmilner wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives us evidence (for the above discussion) that the term “brown bag lunch” has actually been documented as harmful by someone - and wasn’t just made up as a stick to beat diversity initiatives with. I would argue it also gives an indication of how “mission creep” works. (A well-used term like “tarball” now being deemed potentially offensive, presumably because it sounds like “tarbaby”, even though it’s obviously…

Anyone who thinks tarbaby when they see tarball is a racist and I refuse to let that become my problem.

"tarball (tar archive)

While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby."

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag...

I'm genuinely fascinated by how this came to be written. Were there brainstorming sessions where people threw out random word associations to show willing, combined with a fear from the rest of the group of accusations of racism for calling it out as arrant nonsense?

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

#825

Post by mikrotikker »

vmilner wrote: post #824
mikrotikker wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who thinks tarbaby when they see tarball is a racist and I refuse to let that become my problem.

"tarball (tar archive) While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby." https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag... I'm genuinely fascinated by how this came to be written. Were there brainstorming sessions where people threw out random word associations to show willing, combined with a fear from the…

Sadly, It's not the silliest example I've heard, let me tell you that.

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

#826

Post by account42 »

dbrueck wrote: post #243
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…

Not disputing your bad experiences, but do you know how virulent some of those communities were to just about everyone? :) Speaking of 2 things being true at once, what's amazing about BBSs/USENET/IRC/etc. especially in the early years was that they had: - online discussions where a lot of things just didn't matter. Race, gender, etc. just didn't matter. You got judged on the merit of your ideas, not what you looked…

I think your second point is really important: A lot of instances of what people perceive as -isms are relaly just people being mean not because youf your race/gender/whatever but because you annoyed them somehow or just because they can, and then reaching for whatever traits of yours they can to get to you. Lumping this with actual hate for people with different traits is only going to make honest discussion impossible.

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

#827

Post by naasking »

mostly_lurks wrote: post #755
naasking wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I think you'll find that the net effect of your comment is still one of dismissing a black person's lived experience Pointing out that those venues were full of anti-everything hate is not dismissing a black person's experience, it's validating it, while pointing out that he's not alone.

Hate directed at black people, who have been exploited, oppressed, enslaved, killed, and more for over 400 years has a more significant and problematic impact than hate directed at other, more privileged groups. Recentering the conversation away from the black person's experience is a form of dismissal, not validation. An abuser on IRC calling a black person the n-word is objectively more harmful than an abuser on IR…

I reject the claim that such a response is recentering the conversation, and I also reject the implicit assumption that words can be objectively harmful.

For instance, a black person might be reasonably angry at hearing the n-word, until they find out the person suffers from Tourette's, at which point the "harm" vanishes. The harm clearly did not result from the word but from the framing of the situation, and the framing exists entirely within the mind and can be changed.

This pattern of harm resulting from framing is seen repeatedly throughout psychology. Of course we should still push for relegating incorrect and outdated framings, like the various -isms, to the dustbin of history, but there's considerably more latitude for how to do this than naive language policing like is commonly suggested.

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

#828

Post by dcow »

mostly_lurks wrote: post #756
dcow wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, maybe you’re the one projecting negativity for assuming that the existence of another anecdote downplays the black one in play? I give it no such credence.

"My mother died today." "Well, lots of peoples mothers died today." Do you not see how that response is problematic? How it downplays the person's experience?

Thats not an accurate reduction.

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

#829

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

tristor wrote: post #795
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your response to me is utterly uncalled for, and you continue to double down after I pointed this out. There is no point in having a discussion with you, as you are determined to straw man me, libel me, and otherwise behave in a manner which is inappropriate for HN and civil discourse generally. You know nothing about me, and your claims about me are not only wrong, they’re laughably so. I hope I never have to work w…

What's "uncalled for" about what I said? Is this an outrage copypasta you got from somewhere? You could paste what you wrote in reply to nearly any comment on this platform and it'd be about as valid.

And I didn't say I knew anything about you? I said things that are true for any thinking, breathing human.

Honestly, what a weird reaction. You clearly feel attacked, which I guess makes sense if you genuinely are the worst possible parts of what I wrote about (choosing to be a racist asshole rather than a person of reason), but you're opting into those designations for some reason.

The things people will do to justify hatred are wild, thank you for reminding me of that.

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

#830

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #791
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just… stop. DEI works when well executed. Accept that. If you want to police DEI initiatives to ensure they’re properly implemented, go for it, but the constant aversion to a so thoroughly researched concept is bordering on flat earther level conspiracy.

Continuously asserting that they are “thoroughly researched” does not make them so. Comparing “criticizing DEI” with “advocating flat earth” is pretty absurd, not least of all because DEI programs are incredibly diverse (of course, you are unhelpfully referring only to the “good ones”).

Criticizing DEI is fine. Acting as if it isn't effective when properly implemented is on the same level as "advocating flat earth" theories, as they both fly in the face of a whole lot of data.

And you're right, claiming something does not make it so. What makes it so is all of the data supporting it, which is readily available to anyone who actually cares about this topic (up to you if that's you).

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