[freditup]

> Interviewer: I suppose if you think that, the next obvious question is do you think Google itself is institutionally racist?

> Dr. Gebru: Yes, Google itself is institutionally racist.

> Interviewer: That's quite a thing to say - you were a Google employee until a short while ago.

> Dr. Gebru: I feel like most if not all tech companies are institutionally racist. I mean, how can I not say that they are not institutionally racist? The Congressional Black Caucus is the one who's forcing them to publish their diversity numbers. It's not by accident that black women have one of the lowest retention rates[, in the technology industry]. So for sure Google and all of the other tech companies are institutionally racist.

There's not really much to discuss or unpack here. There's no defining of 'institutionally racist' in the conversation, so it's impossible to say what standards are being using to determine if something is institutionally racist. Dr. Gebru also provides essentially no facts or evidence for her claims.

Asking if organizations are racist is a fair question, but the conversation will basically only be productive if terms are clearly defined and accusations are based on concrete evidence.

This seems like it was a very casual interview, so I'm not faulting Dr. Gebru for not providing more evidence here, just saying that this interview is not super helpful in the larger conversation around racism. Because an accusation of racism is a serious accusation to make, I wish in these situations that there was more substantiated evidence provided.

[yokaze]

> Dr. Gebru also provides essentially no facts or evidence for her claims

Your quote of hers contains two facts right there in the answer.

Also in the interview, she argues that she's being fired in contrast to "complicated" white male colleagues are usually encouraged to leave quietly (E.g. Andy Rubin).

[leoh]

It is arguably disappointing. Yet she is deeply upset and doubtlessly experiencing a severe degree of stress at the moment. Thus, I would cut her some slack here. Although an explicit, concrete, pedagogical discussion would be helpful, I don't think it's fair to expect it from her at the moment.

[FiberBundle]

Cut her some slack? She's making extremely harsh accusations without any kind of evidence. Why is it that these people have seemingly unlimited leeway in their statements whereas any just slightly politically incorrect statement can cost other people their careers?

[HexagonalKitten]

All of which is caused by her going public with vague accusations. Had she not fought with her boss, and made the unreasonable demand of knowing who her anonymous reviewers were, she'd be able to have a nice quiet talk with a lawyer while still on the payroll, and eventually write a well sourced article about it once she left calmly and under her own power.

So no. You don't get slack once you make heinous public allegations. You'd better have your ducks in a row before attempting to tear someone down.