I think it's fascinating how people can claim that a group is homogeneous from skin color and genitalia alone. What about diversity of background, view point, education, job experience, etc?
First, there are lots of types of diversity of background, viewpoint, education, experience, and the like that you can't get without making sure you have diversity of race, gender, class, and so forth.
Second, there's a question about what the point of diversity is; nobody is claiming that reducing homogeneity is, in and of itself, a worthwhile goal. In CS at least, it's obvious to me that there's no particularly good (in the sense of intrinsic) reason that there are way more male than female, white and Asian than black and Hispanic, etc. people in the industry. This means that my industry is missing some two-thirds of the people who could be in it -- drawing from a pool that's artificially limited to maybe a third of what it could be. I work for a company that's having trouble hiring, and I use and contribute to several open source projects that are having trouble finding volunteers. If we can triple the pool of involved folks, my life gets personally better.
Meanwhile, it's not at all clear to me that it's the case that CS as an industry (or design as an industry) is missing a bunch of folks who are perfectly capable of contributing except that they have the wrong background or viewpoint. Background is very easy to fix (if you're motivated and have the right opportunities available to you); work-relevant viewpoints tend to actually be important, like whether you value being a stickler for style, and I think there's plenty of diversity in work-irrelevant viewpoints.
Relatedly, there's a question of accounting for privilege. It is entirely too easy for me to geek out with people who have all been programming since middle school, which can be legitimately intimidating to someone who's just picking it up and afraid of asking dumb questions (instead of merely seeming precocious). Class, and to a lesser extent race and gender, influence privilege and what opportunities are available to people. Things like viewpoint, not so much, and things like education are an effect, not a cause (since they're fixable, and since it's a good thing not to have diversity of education and merely to have everyone well-educated -- tying back in to what the point of achieving diversity is). Going out of our way to include people who didn't have the opportunities we had is a good way to counteract the effects of that unfairness.
I'm quite glad to see that the "uh guys, you might be privileged" meme is attracting enough attention and mindshare to draw this sort of opposition. It shows that the efforts of the parties that have been pushing it are successful at reaching the people they need to reach, and more importantly, working to change the shared perception of standards in various communities. You'll note that he speaks as a minority viewpoint trying to claim that the majority is crazy, not like a person in line with the prevailing views of the community who's quieting a lone crazy voice.
Note: Due to the highly charged nature of the subject matter, and likelihood of readers already having strongly entrenched positions, I realize that it will be anywhere from difficult to impossible for some people to 'hear' me on this. All I can ask is that you keep an open mind, and try to see it from the other side.
There's a negative and a positive way to approach the diversity problem, and unfortunately, the "uh guys, you might be privileged" camp have decided to run with the negative way, hence the (quite understandable) backlash.
Don't get me wrong, I understand and share the sentiment, but the inescapable fact is that saying "you're privileged" is not only inherently accusatory, but does more to emphasize (and reinforce) that which divides, rather than that which unites.
On the other hand, I've been very fortunate to be involved in advocacy groups like PHPWomen, which provide mentorship opportunities for female (PHP) developers, and connects them with conference organizers and major Open Source projects. They've been doing this for years (i.e. well before hating white male privilege was en vogue in the tech community), and they've been tremendously successful.
Guilt-tripping and divisiveness are toxic. If this is a problem you genuinely care about, the above might be a model to follow. Don't be reactive, be proactive.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the word racist meant someone who classifies people based on race?
That racist could be using their classification in a 'positive' or 'negative' way depending on your viewpoint or desires.
Personally, I'd rather classify people based on decency, skills, and other material differentiators and leave both the 'positive' and 'negative' racists to the dustbin of history.
I'll correct you. That is wrong. "Racist" is a negative term. If it meant "classifying people based on race," then the word loses all meaning unless you are completely blind and never notice any of the physical or social characteristics that tend to cluster in human beings.
Historically, people who defend the status quo have tried to broaden the word as much as possible, because one way to "win a debate on the Internet" is to move the goal posts. e.g. If Alice brings up a subject about racism that Bob finds uncomfortable, he asks her if she considers herself Black. When she says "yes," Bob accuses her of being a racist. Alice now spends a frustrating hour debating the meaning of the word "racist" and Bob has neatly eased out of discussing her original disquiet.
This Andy Rutledge fella seems like just the type that has an overly simplified, reductionist point of view, which is akin to a child's mind. "Capitalist idealists" are too often blind to the reality of the world, seeing privilege as some made up idea because they don't understand their own.
This is kind of disappointing that rather than looking at ourselves as part of a society and many communities, there is passive aggressive, smarmy, drivel like http://conferencequotas.com/.
I'd dare this fella to have a conversation with Eric Ries or Vivek Wadhwa and others. He'd get dummied into the next century, if this isn't a poorly thought out clumsy attempt at caricature/satire/parody.
Noticed it as well, had to Shift+Ctrl+T to get back to it. Oh well, I can't take any more of "it's her fault" style responses from the HN community this week after the last volley of posts on this matter (which incidentally resulted in the woman's website being DOSd.)
People like this are obviously blind to the sort of misogyny and racism that still permeates human culture, especially U.S. culture, today, and don't realize what considering the people affected by these social diseases can do. When you consider the marginalized, the marginalized will get a voice, and this demonstrates that people besides white cissexual men can have a place in the community (in this case tech communities).
But then again, we're talking about adults who still use 4chanisms like "o hai!" (see: the footer of conferencequotes.com), so it's possibly just a matter of waiting for these people to grow old and get out of the way of more progressive-minded individuals who are building communities that can afford to value sensitivity and skepticism, without egos and masculinity complexes keeping love and rationality at bay.
[+] [-] caseysoftware|13 years ago|reply
I wonder how they choose books to read..
[+] [-] geofft|13 years ago|reply
Second, there's a question about what the point of diversity is; nobody is claiming that reducing homogeneity is, in and of itself, a worthwhile goal. In CS at least, it's obvious to me that there's no particularly good (in the sense of intrinsic) reason that there are way more male than female, white and Asian than black and Hispanic, etc. people in the industry. This means that my industry is missing some two-thirds of the people who could be in it -- drawing from a pool that's artificially limited to maybe a third of what it could be. I work for a company that's having trouble hiring, and I use and contribute to several open source projects that are having trouble finding volunteers. If we can triple the pool of involved folks, my life gets personally better.
Meanwhile, it's not at all clear to me that it's the case that CS as an industry (or design as an industry) is missing a bunch of folks who are perfectly capable of contributing except that they have the wrong background or viewpoint. Background is very easy to fix (if you're motivated and have the right opportunities available to you); work-relevant viewpoints tend to actually be important, like whether you value being a stickler for style, and I think there's plenty of diversity in work-irrelevant viewpoints.
Relatedly, there's a question of accounting for privilege. It is entirely too easy for me to geek out with people who have all been programming since middle school, which can be legitimately intimidating to someone who's just picking it up and afraid of asking dumb questions (instead of merely seeming precocious). Class, and to a lesser extent race and gender, influence privilege and what opportunities are available to people. Things like viewpoint, not so much, and things like education are an effect, not a cause (since they're fixable, and since it's a good thing not to have diversity of education and merely to have everyone well-educated -- tying back in to what the point of achieving diversity is). Going out of our way to include people who didn't have the opportunities we had is a good way to counteract the effects of that unfairness.
[+] [-] geofft|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nateabele|13 years ago|reply
There's a negative and a positive way to approach the diversity problem, and unfortunately, the "uh guys, you might be privileged" camp have decided to run with the negative way, hence the (quite understandable) backlash.
Don't get me wrong, I understand and share the sentiment, but the inescapable fact is that saying "you're privileged" is not only inherently accusatory, but does more to emphasize (and reinforce) that which divides, rather than that which unites.
On the other hand, I've been very fortunate to be involved in advocacy groups like PHPWomen, which provide mentorship opportunities for female (PHP) developers, and connects them with conference organizers and major Open Source projects. They've been doing this for years (i.e. well before hating white male privilege was en vogue in the tech community), and they've been tremendously successful.
Guilt-tripping and divisiveness are toxic. If this is a problem you genuinely care about, the above might be a model to follow. Don't be reactive, be proactive.
[+] [-] benjohnson|13 years ago|reply
That racist could be using their classification in a 'positive' or 'negative' way depending on your viewpoint or desires.
Personally, I'd rather classify people based on decency, skills, and other material differentiators and leave both the 'positive' and 'negative' racists to the dustbin of history.
[+] [-] raganwald|13 years ago|reply
Historically, people who defend the status quo have tried to broaden the word as much as possible, because one way to "win a debate on the Internet" is to move the goal posts. e.g. If Alice brings up a subject about racism that Bob finds uncomfortable, he asks her if she considers herself Black. When she says "yes," Bob accuses her of being a racist. Alice now spends a frustrating hour debating the meaning of the word "racist" and Bob has neatly eased out of discussing her original disquiet.
[+] [-] antihero|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|13 years ago|reply
I'd dare this fella to have a conversation with Eric Ries or Vivek Wadhwa and others. He'd get dummied into the next century, if this isn't a poorly thought out clumsy attempt at caricature/satire/parody.
[+] [-] nateabele|13 years ago|reply
From the footer: "This site is satire. It pokes fun at the destructive idea of arbitrary diversity, or tokenism, and the people who promulgate it."
[+] [-] recursive|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temiri|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bfhp|13 years ago|reply
But then again, we're talking about adults who still use 4chanisms like "o hai!" (see: the footer of conferencequotes.com), so it's possibly just a matter of waiting for these people to grow old and get out of the way of more progressive-minded individuals who are building communities that can afford to value sensitivity and skepticism, without egos and masculinity complexes keeping love and rationality at bay.
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
This is beyond great too, stick around for the quiz: http://capitalismis.com/
[+] [-] eru|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robwgibbons|13 years ago|reply
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