That's all very rant-y. I'm not sure I quite grok the author's thesis here.
But, for the sake of debate...
"The reality is that Silicon Valley is one of the most open and diverse industries in the United States."
Ok, that might be true, but the supplied graph doesn't exactly support the statement. Blacks make up 13% of the population, but <5% of Google employees in the US. Similarly, Latino/Latinas make up 18% of the population and <7% of Google employees. Drilling into the chart (leads to a Google-owned site), the workforce is 32% female vs ~51% population.
Yeah, there are a lot of Asians (from many countries and ethnic backgrounds) in STEM. That doesn't prove that there isn't a lack of opportunity for US-born minorities (or even some majorities, as we see with women).
So, yeah, tech companies might be better than others, but the author didn't provide anything to back that assertion.
I also take issue with his statement that 365 reviews are a near-universal in STEM. They aren't. I've never had one done on myself, and have only ever participated in 2-3 (all of which involved a manager, not an IC, who was failing and eventually exited). I believe most of my peers would report a similar experience. I'm also not sure what these have to do with diversity in the workplace.
What is the purpose of having a company's demographics represent the country?
What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech?
Do we just want equally smart people, or do we want people who also are motivated to work on tech, due to their cultural values?
What about the individuals themselves? What if we ignore the color of their skin for a moment and try to find diversity in peoples' experiences, backgrounds etc. I feel these anti-racism movements do more to further cement race as an important component of identity into peoples' minds than anything else these days.
I started to write a similar reply, got distracted, and by the time I turned back I assumed someone would have written it (and you had!).
There's a ton of biases in tech, and it's possible for that to result in complex situations like the ones we see. If you largely prefer hiring people from a small number of universities, and those universities are largely white, asian, and/or male - you're going to have a very non-diverse population even if you have a lot of immigrants. If you interview people in a particular way that is optimized for a specific style of education, people who did not experience that same education are going to be at a disadvantage. Similarly, if you primarily hire people in an area that is not particularly diverse, you're going to end up with a very non-diverse employee base.
None of this is to say that everyone is a racist or that there's no way for a minority to be successful in big tech, it's just that the structural systems in place work against them. The odds are longer and the hurdles higher.
If you look at some of the things that big tech companies are doing to address that - heavily recruiting at schools with large minority student bodies, helping to build curriculums to help those students perform well on interviews, and even opening offices in places where there is greater diversity - you're trying to remove some of those structural hurdles. I remembered this article from a long time ago that I was able to track down:
It's got great details on how hard some of these challenges can be to address, and looking back on it, things have gotten better. But why is it such a problem to say that there's more to be done?
I think his point is that the problem is no longer as simple as a lack of diversity, and blanket calls for "more diversity" are not addressing the problem. The problem is a lack of women and black people and we need to stop framing it as "white men won't let in anyone but themselves."
Wouldn't you need to compare it to available workforce and not entire population? I don't know how the available workforce breaks down by race (even more specifically tech) but it seems like that could change the numbers a lot.
The reason for all this is pretty simple, when you get down to it. Corporations want to look good with regards to quote-"diversity" much more than they actually want diversity. Pandering to the stereotypical caricatures of diversity is far more rewarding, both in the C-suite and on the modern university campus. Real diversity is a nice-to-have, sure — it's not all cynical pretense — but quote-"diversity" will mean good press, more status, and ward off certain critics.
I think meaning of the term diversity is often twisted into a binary outcome. If a company is 65% white and 35% Chinese is that more diverse than a company that is 70% white, 10% Chinese, 10% Indian, and 10% Vietnamese?
Often, the above two examples would be flattened to just 35% or 30% Asian. But even my example is very reductive - China, for example, has many dozens of ethnic groups.
I think 'diversity' is a very hard thing to quantify, which makes it more difficult to measure the effectiveness of initiatives to increase diversity.
Can anyone point me towards better methods of measuring diversity? If society or a particular organization wishes to increase diversity, it seems important to be able to measure it with more nuance.
What would an ideal algorithm for quantifying diversity look like?
It also ignores the most important diversity, which is diversity of thought. Having ten employees of ten different races who all think the same is hardly diversity.
EDIT: Getting downvoted by the 'diversity' crowd I see :)
Jews for a long time now have been functionally white
It's a Schrodinger's white guy situation, often even to themselves. I've seen the same person claim to be both white and not white in different times and contexts. I wonder if Irish and Italian people went through a similar period on their way to whiteness and we just don't know about it because no one was listening.
Well, i'm indian, and I was told by a college professor in a history of immigration class that I am white because I believe in things like hard-work to better my family's situation, education, etc. The book he had us read was all about how different races got 'whitened', and he was convinced Indians are being 'whitened'.
Let's just sit here and consider for a minute the inherent racism in referring to anyone being rich as having the quality of 'being white'.
> Liberalism announces ‘one person, one vote’ and ‘equality before the law’, and yet somehow the children of the wealthy have a plusher time on Christmas morning than those of the very poor (not to mention most other days of their lives).
I'm not sure I see the "and yet" conflict here; equality before the law and one person, one vote don't have anything to do with money. In fact, the big deal about these two ideas is that they completely ignore how much money you have. Maybe someone can explain to me what the author means here.
The Diversity agenda of the past 20+ years has created more racism and division than I witnessed in my entire life before then. I have come to conclude that it's one of the most misguided movements in modern history. We were making progress (seemingly too slow, I know) by applying Dr. King's prescription for Color Blindness. But, that concept has been rejected (though his name is still used in honor); and sure enough, we've slid horribly backwards.
It has just become a very combative and partisan issue. Take the statement "women make 70% of what men do". This statement has been thoroughly debunked, but if someone made that statement and you challenged it, even with something reasonable like: "There is a gap but it is not that large", you would be risking ostracization by longtime friends, loss of career, etc. Are we supposed to feel like we are making forward progress when objecting to bad statistics, or any reasonable discussion around certain issues will result in an insanely hostile response?
But consider all of the little slights of hand performed. I recall the unhappy Tweets from feminists when women were considered for the draft, mostly around the theme of "this isn't the equality I wanted." Equality is the whole package, it isn't a pick and choose. It isn't "only the good stuff."
And then the shift has been to equity now. You have probably noticed this.
MLK was against what people today call colorblindness. Just because he said he wanted people to not judge his children by the color of their skin does not mean he didn't recognize that modern society does and will continue to do so, so we need to put in place compensating measures. Using a dead person's words in the exact opposite way they were intended is bad.
I am frankly tired of this as a person of color. I work in Silicon Valley and constantly being hassled by HR/PR/Marketing teams to pose as their diversity pawn. Yes, I have a picture of me taken (company owns the rights) to put me at the fore front of their marketing materials.
Regardless of what anything thinks about it, it's here to stay as the diversity industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. The people leading this movement have amassed lots of power over corporations and government.
EDIT: Downvoted for speaking facts. Amazing this site.
> The Diversity agenda of the past 20+ years has created more racism and division than I witnessed in my entire life before then
I am forced to wonder if this isn't precisely because the "diversity agenda" has simply called attention to something already lurking in the background. In other words, it's not that there is more racism and division than there used to be, only that you're more aware of it now.
The racism and division was being intentionally enflamed the past few years. Muslims being banned from the US (until the courts shot it down). Anti-immigrant rhetoric. "Build the wall." "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." It's easy to have a short memory nowadays, but you're taking something that's local temporally and acting like it was always this way.
"The Diversity agenda of the past 20+ years has created more racism and division than I witnessed in my entire life before then."
Are your children being taken from you, forced to speak a different language in a state-mandated school where they're underfed and not given medical treatment, leading to high death rates from preventable diseases?
>The contrast is even sharper if you consider the equity that various social justice movements seek to achieve, whereby every sub-segment of society (at least those we fixate on) must be proportionally represented at every echelon of society.
This is a false premise. Not all social justice movements are concerned purely with representation. The overarching response of existing power to the varied material and structural asks (like police funding reallocation, decarceration, housing and healthcare access) has been to flatten them as such.
You can tell the movements co-opted by corporations and major political parties by the extent to which they ignore material conditions.
>The equality of outcome pursued by ‘wokeness’ is a whole other bar to reach from mere equality of rights or opportunity.
"Equality of outcome" is another disingenuous misrepresentation of what activists want. Activists want structural change, not superficial papering over of abuses of power that have been inflicted on their communities.
These are unfortunately elements that this author included that really take away from the reasonable critique of the ranking and hiring system that he is subjected to as a laborer working in a modern technology company. Perhaps he needed to start with that in order to get the outrage machine sharing his article.
> Activists want structural change, not a superficial papering over of the abuse of power that has been inflicted on their communities.
What is the reason for the structural change though? Because mostly I see it just to fit an ideology of "how things should be", with not much thought beyond that.
I agree that many of the current systems are horribly broken, but I don't think that critical race theory or other Marxist-founded systems put us in a better place. They certainly don't have a track record of success, and I'd argue that even in their limited application in the US their effects on the general population, and their effect on perception and treatment of minorities, has been largely detrimental against their own claimed goals of equality.
[+] [-] gengelbro|4 years ago|reply
"Why does it always have to be a white guy with a beard".
I did take the job, but I've reflected on that moment once in a while.
[+] [-] Cyberthal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alistairSH|4 years ago|reply
But, for the sake of debate... "The reality is that Silicon Valley is one of the most open and diverse industries in the United States."
Ok, that might be true, but the supplied graph doesn't exactly support the statement. Blacks make up 13% of the population, but <5% of Google employees in the US. Similarly, Latino/Latinas make up 18% of the population and <7% of Google employees. Drilling into the chart (leads to a Google-owned site), the workforce is 32% female vs ~51% population.
Yeah, there are a lot of Asians (from many countries and ethnic backgrounds) in STEM. That doesn't prove that there isn't a lack of opportunity for US-born minorities (or even some majorities, as we see with women).
So, yeah, tech companies might be better than others, but the author didn't provide anything to back that assertion.
I also take issue with his statement that 365 reviews are a near-universal in STEM. They aren't. I've never had one done on myself, and have only ever participated in 2-3 (all of which involved a manager, not an IC, who was failing and eventually exited). I believe most of my peers would report a similar experience. I'm also not sure what these have to do with diversity in the workplace.
[+] [-] snovv_crash|4 years ago|reply
What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech?
Do we just want equally smart people, or do we want people who also are motivated to work on tech, due to their cultural values?
What about the individuals themselves? What if we ignore the color of their skin for a moment and try to find diversity in peoples' experiences, backgrounds etc. I feel these anti-racism movements do more to further cement race as an important component of identity into peoples' minds than anything else these days.
[+] [-] mattzito|4 years ago|reply
There's a ton of biases in tech, and it's possible for that to result in complex situations like the ones we see. If you largely prefer hiring people from a small number of universities, and those universities are largely white, asian, and/or male - you're going to have a very non-diverse population even if you have a lot of immigrants. If you interview people in a particular way that is optimized for a specific style of education, people who did not experience that same education are going to be at a disadvantage. Similarly, if you primarily hire people in an area that is not particularly diverse, you're going to end up with a very non-diverse employee base.
None of this is to say that everyone is a racist or that there's no way for a minority to be successful in big tech, it's just that the structural systems in place work against them. The odds are longer and the hurdles higher.
If you look at some of the things that big tech companies are doing to address that - heavily recruiting at schools with large minority student bodies, helping to build curriculums to help those students perform well on interviews, and even opening offices in places where there is greater diversity - you're trying to remove some of those structural hurdles. I remembered this article from a long time ago that I was able to track down:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-co...
It's got great details on how hard some of these challenges can be to address, and looking back on it, things have gotten better. But why is it such a problem to say that there's more to be done?
[+] [-] bruceb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Causality1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nightski|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonymet|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] president|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] anonleb4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doit4thebitties|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cwkoss|4 years ago|reply
Often, the above two examples would be flattened to just 35% or 30% Asian. But even my example is very reductive - China, for example, has many dozens of ethnic groups.
I think 'diversity' is a very hard thing to quantify, which makes it more difficult to measure the effectiveness of initiatives to increase diversity.
Can anyone point me towards better methods of measuring diversity? If society or a particular organization wishes to increase diversity, it seems important to be able to measure it with more nuance.
What would an ideal algorithm for quantifying diversity look like?
[+] [-] iammisc|4 years ago|reply
EDIT: Getting downvoted by the 'diversity' crowd I see :)
[+] [-] Causality1|4 years ago|reply
It's a Schrodinger's white guy situation, often even to themselves. I've seen the same person claim to be both white and not white in different times and contexts. I wonder if Irish and Italian people went through a similar period on their way to whiteness and we just don't know about it because no one was listening.
[+] [-] iammisc|4 years ago|reply
Let's just sit here and consider for a minute the inherent racism in referring to anyone being rich as having the quality of 'being white'.
[+] [-] alphabettsy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muzster|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iammisc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tines|4 years ago|reply
I'm not sure I see the "and yet" conflict here; equality before the law and one person, one vote don't have anything to do with money. In fact, the big deal about these two ideas is that they completely ignore how much money you have. Maybe someone can explain to me what the author means here.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ursugardaddy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eplanit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmcer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] at_a_remove|4 years ago|reply
But consider all of the little slights of hand performed. I recall the unhappy Tweets from feminists when women were considered for the draft, mostly around the theme of "this isn't the equality I wanted." Equality is the whole package, it isn't a pick and choose. It isn't "only the good stuff."
And then the shift has been to equity now. You have probably noticed this.
[+] [-] enkid|4 years ago|reply
https://www.forbes.com/sites/colinseale/2020/01/20/mlks-i-ha...
[+] [-] systemvoltage|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] president|4 years ago|reply
EDIT: Downvoted for speaking facts. Amazing this site.
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|4 years ago|reply
I am forced to wonder if this isn't precisely because the "diversity agenda" has simply called attention to something already lurking in the background. In other words, it's not that there is more racism and division than there used to be, only that you're more aware of it now.
[+] [-] tossmeaway12345|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guyzero|4 years ago|reply
Are your children being taken from you, forced to speak a different language in a state-mandated school where they're underfed and not given medical treatment, leading to high death rates from preventable diseases?
Or do you just love pretending being persecuted?
[+] [-] kenjackson|4 years ago|reply
This could only be said from someone in a group that benefitted from the racism of the past.
Edit: Love the downvotes, but not unexpected given the demographic.
[+] [-] TheTester|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] horrified|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonleb4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] commandlinefan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] doit4thebitties|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cratermoon|4 years ago|reply
- https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h...
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2021/05/13/apple-pa...
[+] [-] omegaworks|4 years ago|reply
This is a false premise. Not all social justice movements are concerned purely with representation. The overarching response of existing power to the varied material and structural asks (like police funding reallocation, decarceration, housing and healthcare access) has been to flatten them as such.
You can tell the movements co-opted by corporations and major political parties by the extent to which they ignore material conditions.
>The equality of outcome pursued by ‘wokeness’ is a whole other bar to reach from mere equality of rights or opportunity.
"Equality of outcome" is another disingenuous misrepresentation of what activists want. Activists want structural change, not superficial papering over of abuses of power that have been inflicted on their communities.
These are unfortunately elements that this author included that really take away from the reasonable critique of the ranking and hiring system that he is subjected to as a laborer working in a modern technology company. Perhaps he needed to start with that in order to get the outrage machine sharing his article.
[+] [-] commandlinefan|4 years ago|reply
... which always seems to take a form strikingly similar to communism.
[+] [-] snovv_crash|4 years ago|reply
What is the reason for the structural change though? Because mostly I see it just to fit an ideology of "how things should be", with not much thought beyond that.
I agree that many of the current systems are horribly broken, but I don't think that critical race theory or other Marxist-founded systems put us in a better place. They certainly don't have a track record of success, and I'd argue that even in their limited application in the US their effects on the general population, and their effect on perception and treatment of minorities, has been largely detrimental against their own claimed goals of equality.