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#FFFFFF Diversity

56 points by Amorymeltzer 11y ago

mc32 11y ago
My take is do what other women are doing. Form your own support group and organizations. Self interested groups are better equipped to understand the issues, priorities, etc. which affect a given community. While big cos. might have programs to address women's issues, that's not stopping women from forming more effective support groups and organizations. Let's look at an effective lobbying group, the NRA, how are they so effective? They are tenacious and they organize nd support each other --so while they do appeal to greater society and parties, that by itself isn't what's driven their success. It's the forming of community and having one focused issue. Also as with other groups, tap names in other industries, entertainment, sports, politics, etc. those who are interested in advancing your issues. Tap companies with black founders or ones directly serving the community.
- ralonso 11y ago
  Agreed with this comment. We have the technology where creating an organization should be fairly trivial. From Facebook to LinkedIn to MeetUp to Twitter, there are endless places where one could find other similar-minded folks. Gaining exposure might not be easy, but it shouldn't be difficult enough to make it impossible. There is endless information and postmortems for similar organizations that should help figure out the best way to approach these issues. I can't remember exactly if it was the GNOME Women Outreach program that was shut down recently, but I remember there being a lengthy author about the president of the organization's decision to step down and close the program (because no one else would step up to the chair, among other problems). The post went into some detail about where it succeeded and where it failed. Stuff like that could be very helpful if a new self-interest group decides to form.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > I can't remember exactly if it was the GNOME Women Outreach program that was shut down recently, but I remember there being a lengthy author about the president of the organization's decision to step down and close the program (because no one else would step up to the chair, among other problems). That was the Ada Initiative; see http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-is-ending-but-our-work-continues-on/ http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-... . Outreachy is alive and well, and has grown to encompass many more projects beyond GNOME, including the Linux kernel, OpenStack, and others. The Software Freedom Conservancy runs it now.
ralonso 11y ago
I rarely ever comment, but posts similar to this one have been popping out more and more as of late. I am a minority. I grew up in a different country, and most of my close friends are minorities, too, both female and male; half of them being in the tech industry. (If my username didn't give it away, I'm hispanic and so are most of my acquaintances.) With that out of the way, I do not understand anything about this article. This bolded line, for example: >Rarely, though, will you ever hear a white person lamenting about working conditions that their black/brown child/spouse/sibling might have to endure, because they rarely have those relationships, so aren’t forced to develop empathy for brown/black people. What working conditions? Care giving any examples? What are some pointers you could give to white people to help them understand your deplorable working conditions? Is it simply that there are no black speakers at conferences, or holding positions in these tech organizations? Personal experiences, as well as experiences from my hispanic friends, point to no such implied "bad working conditions." Some of my friends are brown-skinned and have noticeable accents. Most still use Spanish as their primary language, both on and offline. Yet there has been not one single incident involving either myself or any of my hispanic friends where we suffered any sort of discrimination, or experienced unwelcoming working conditions. Maybe the author and I have different goals when we attend such conferences. Maybe there are more hispanics than blacks or native Americans in tech. Yet I don't understand why that would matter when attending a conference. >Yet for the 2015 conference, they could not manage to find one black woman to be a “headline” speaker. Two white men are included in the set of headline speakers at a conference celebrating women in technology, but not a single black woman. It infuriates me to see this obsession with ethnic or racial background. This obsession with the color of the speaker's skin. In my eyes, that the keynote speakers are white males does not invalidate their opinions in any way. There is no implied message that they speak on behalf of women, or minorities. It's an invitation. It does not mean that they're not qualified on the subject - if anything, these "old white men" are the ones running these big companies and are there not just to speak, but to also listen to the other speakers and the attendants. I opened the videos linked in the article and I'll try to skip through them and I'll report back, hopefully. It just boggles my mind that in this day and age there is still this obsession with the speaker's racial background. And there is no solution proposed, either, besides "they should find more people of color to speak at these events." Isn't that the one of the points of these conferences? And is there any progress being made, considering that last year's was the first one Google organized? Did the author gather any information about this year's? Does the author have any proposals or people she would like to see at these events? I go to tech conferences to learn. My political and ethnic background is never, ever something that makes me biased against or for an event. It is also never a problem. My slightly noticeable accent, my hispanic facial features, my shirts with Spanish sentences, they do not have any effect on how people treat me. It might all come down to what your goals are when attending any event.
ageek123 11y ago
This article is a classic case of "Oppression Olympics" -- http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Oppression_Olympics http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Oppression_Olympics
- azima 11y ago
  no it isn't. she isn't competing with one person. she's bringing to attention that intersectionality exists and the tech industry isn't paying mind to it. quote from that link: "Oppression Olympics also tends to ignore Intersectionality"
  - ivanca 11y ago
    "Intersectionality" in this case means excluding black males right? That seems a bit wrong.
    - azima 11y ago
      That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignoring black men doesn't solve the diversity problem.
      - ivanca 11y ago
        The "diversity problem" is never going to be fixed, because the goalpost is always something more. The population of non-hispanic black people in California is of 6.4%, if half of them are women (3.2%) it means that if a tech company has 100 employees the perfect amount of diversity would be 3 black women and 97 non-black-women, they may not even get to know about each other in a company of that size. But I'm pretty sure in her mind the number should be a lot higher than that, otherwise white supremacy culture is to be to blame.
deleted 11y ago
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ivanca 11y ago
There is even less female black dwarfs in tech, I haven't seen even a single one in all my life, so clearly those are the real oppressed.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here.
Kiro 11y ago
Am I the only one who think it's perfectly logical that the speaker ratio is the same as the ratio of the tech population? Of course we should try hard to find minority speakers just to be proactive since we do have a diversty problem. However, when you go to a conference you want to see the best speakers and then it's only logical that a minority is less represented since, you know, there are less good speakers to choose from. Nordic.js is doing a great job with their "50% women speakers" policy but if we forcibly try to overrepresent every minority where do we end up? "50% black trans women speakers"? I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too high.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jackweirdy 11y ago
  > I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too high. Why?
  - Kiro 11y ago
    Because only a small % of all people in tech are good speakers. Having a smaller population to choose from would mean a higher risk of putting a bad speaker on the lineup.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      You're assuming that a) good-speakerness is a fixed quality, and b) that the speaker selection process is something like pulling bingo numbers. Neither is true.
- paulojreis 11y ago
  > but if we forcibly try to overrepresent every minority where do we end up? "50% black trans women speakers"? I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too hig\ You end up with hiring quotas in companies, where a less-than-competent candidate can be hired instead of a competent one because he/she belongs to a minority. Will the bet on minority over competence will yield greater gains in the long run? That is a question for the ages. :)
confiscate 11y ago
tldr; Diversity and Equality are not the main starting points nor goal of Women-in-Tech. Increasing women's role in tech helps improve diversity/equality, but is not the real mission of Women-in-Tech. Diversity/Equality is a (side) effect, and not the cause, of the Women-in-Tech movement. I think there's a tendency for Women-in-Tech PR to equate Diversity/Equality with Women-in-Tech, when in fact, Women-in-Tech is supposed to advance, well, Women in the tech sector, and not Equality/Diversity in general. The 2 are Not the same thing, although they are often claimed to be basically the same for PR reasons. It's getting so severe that even the author is "shocked" that Women-in-Tech events are less than diverse. She shouldn't be surprised--the fact that she was surprised, indicates she's bought into the whole "Women-in-Tech's mission is for workplace Equality" idea, which is false. To be clear, I think Women-in-Tech is a noble cause, and I am all for supporting it. But please stop claiming that Women-in-Tech "is for diversity"--it is for advancing women's role in tech. To be clear, I think in and of itself this is great because I'd love to see more women in the tech industry. But we should stop claiming that the mission of the movement is for "diversity", because "diversity" is not what drives the women-in-tech movement, and is not it's main goal. The main goal is to increase women's role, and not "diversity/equality" in general. If the movement's main goal was purely "diversity/equality", then it wouldn't be called "Women-in-Tech"--there are other misrepresented groups that are much more in urgent need of equal representation, that the movement would have focused on first if Diversity and Equality were the main motivators. I also agree with the author's photo of an all-white panel as being pretty funny :) It reminds me of the cast of Friends. Saying that the cast of Friends is "Diverse" or "Equal" would be kind of ridiculous.
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
Wait a minute! Where's the Romanian History Month? Where are the menu changes for Romanians? Where's the Romanian Googlers Network? Is it because those of you privileged enough to be born outside Romania are actively oppressing us? /s
tone 11y ago
"I can’t support a conference that doesn’t seem to understand the value and importance of intersectionality and representation." Doesn't this just promote the idea that people of different ethnicities really are that different? Why on earth is skin colour "representation" an important factor anywhere? I mean don't discriminate but how is this an argument? This just promotes the wrong idea that people of different ethnicities bring drastically different things to the table in one breath, and argues that race or gender do not affect technical ability with the next. How this insane person has people listening to them or why a completely backwards article on the right site gets linked here is beyond me.
- richmarr 11y ago
  > Doesn't this just promote the idea that people of different ethnicities really are that different? This is pretty much the "but we're a meritocracy" argument, and it's unfortunately wrong. Having worked extensively with the behavioural science behind things like hiring processes, performance reviews, etc. I can conclusively tell you that we do not live in a meritocracy. People get discriminated against, constantly. That's the reality they live in. They don't need a conference to tell them that. I'll go further. Believing that you yourself are unbiased and meritocratic is shown to be correlated with an increase in unconscious bias in your actions through effects such as moral licencing. (See the work by Daniel Effron) (Edit: you can downvote me if you don't like what I'm saying, but you're downvoting science, not opinion)
  - scintill76 11y ago
    I don't think this is really related to the comment you're replying to. Whether or not discrimination exists is not the same as whether or not "the value and importance of intersectionality and representation" (article quote) is something we should consciously pursue. How does that not carry a bias towards reverse discrimination? I agree with the OP, I'm scratching my head about how the article simultaneously argues that we need to treat everyone equally, but also need to tally their intersectionality combo bonus points and force an equal "representation." You can either argue for ignoring all labels or for special label-based treatments, not both. To take it into a perhaps more productive but related area, how would you say we should overcome bias? It seems to me if you try too hard, you will just introduce another form of bias.
CamatHN 11y ago
There are more Indians in tech from me observing on face value than black people. Any Indian heritage people here think there needs to be greater representation of indians in conferences? Thoughts?
- Manishearth 11y ago
  Mostly meh on that. I haven't heard of major discrimination against Indians in hiring practices (modulo visa, of course, I'm talking about Indian origin people with citizenship or equivalent). There's always casual racism (insensitive jokes, etc), but those are small potatoes compared to systemic issues which almost every woman/PoC in tech is aware of and has had tussles with personally. I've also seen tons of Indians giving talks at confs. I think the word "model minority" applies here. YMMV though. There might be lots of discrimination going on that my circle of acquaintances hasn't come across. (Indian origin, born & spent most of my life in the States, currently living in India)
tempodox 11y ago
Cripes, that this has to be a thing at all. It's bad enough that my skin color and sex might have had influence on my educational opportunities, but beyond that they have nothing to do with how good or bad I might be at my job. Take any and all measures to remove the influence of bias from your hiring process (e.g., pass résumés without photos or names to decision makers). That's something we all can do right now.
bshimmin 11y ago
The conversation between Kara Swisher and Parker Harris, quoted, is rather amazing in terms of the verbal gymnastics they resort to: "I have employees, that are, you know, other types of diversity coming to me..."
WhyDoPeople 11y ago
I wanted to preface this with a "as a minority", but no. As a human, I feel we are driving wedges where we should be finding common ground. And the biggest culprits seem to be the ones who have the most to win if they didn't do so. If you come from a different background, that's great. It means you may have different ideas to solve a problem, to create something, to make art, music, life. But that should be part of who we are. Our culture. "I am a person from this country. I grew up playing these instruments, reading these stories, eating this food" says what you have done in your life, what you know, but it doesn't dictate what you are, or put a box around you that can segregate others. When we put labels on ourselves, or say, "you can't possibly understand where I've come from" we're saying that others aren't "privileged" enough to have had their own experiences that allow them to relate; that you're life is more interesting and important than theirs, as you feel you're at a different level, or they're too ignorant to understand. The irony is amazing. I wish this woman didn't speak as if she is a voice for women, or black people, or "people of color" (another odd phrase, as even my white friends can be darker than me), because it seems she only speaks for herself. Women get a celebration, she shits on it. What if Indians got a celebration? She mentions brown, but talks about being black. Unless she was born in India, she wouldn't understand life coming from anywhere in India. How does having "black" skin make her relate to Indians? What about other brown people. Did she live her childhood in Bolivia? To end with, I must say I hate this kind of thing. It makes "minorities" look bad. I don't want to be seen as something that needs help. I want to be seen as somebody who is exciting, who makes fun things and is intelligent. If you want to eat delicious food for my home, learn about the culture or history, then just ask. But that is part of who I am. It's not what I am. What I am is me.
- azima 11y ago
  You know that brown people went through this years ago as did asians? We had to fight to be apart of society. Now we have the privelege of being "model minorities" while others don't. She talks about being black because she is black and shes talking about her feelings and perspective. It's ignorant to dismiss that. Unfortunately for many people of color. They dont have the same opportunities that a white or asian person would have so you cant understand their persoective so it's best to listen because there are thousands of examples out there. The more you listen to them the more youll learn. And she's shitting on the industry for ignoring races while being inclusive to white women. It's obviously great that women are getting an opportunity but it's ignorant to ignore women of color. Theyre speaking not because they have the most to win. Theyre speaking because they want to be equal, which they arent in the tech world and outside of it. they want to go from below equality to at equality, not above it. Frankly, i'm embarassed when minorities speak from their privilege ignoring the fact that indians/asians have been through it until white america said "no no guys, these asians are cool". That hasnt happened with black people yet.
spoiler 11y ago
Let me preface with what I'm about to say with this: I am very pro-equality in all aspects. Also, I am not a supporter of this new-wave Feminism which is full of misandry, anti-patriachy and other similar bullshit. Men of all skin colours get discriminated every day by women, too. Yes, women are not magical all do-good creatures; they can be horrible, regardless of skin colour. With that being said... However, I am afraid we'll soon have this trend where a black woman[1] with lesser qualifications will be hired in favour of a white man with better qualifications, simply because she is a woman and black. Same applies for speakership (or whatever you call it). That's not equality.
swallowinsights 11y ago
Who is this author? This Erica Joy? Is she real? While the story told by the author sounds plausible and real. I can't verify if Erica Joy is the true author nor if Erica Joy is a real authentic person. Before you dismiss me, I ask these questions because who's to say that some sexist white men realizing that women were organizing to stop sexism didn't come up with a propaganda ploy to cause division and diversion among women. How can I verify that this story and article is not controlled by someone employing a provocateur? How did the extremely wealthy capitalists maintain more control and slow down the rise of the labor force? They pitted the workers against each other... How can I verify Erica Joy (without spending vast amounts of time)? EDIT: I see she has a twitter account. And her posts and info appear real. But think about it how easy it would be for some sexist white men to setup a web of fake information to infiltrate these media outlets in order to start a fake fight between white and black women in an attempt to keep women divided (and looking bad for fighting)?

56 points by Amorymeltzer 11y ago

mc32 11y ago

My take is do what other women are doing. Form your own support group and organizations. Self interested groups are better equipped to understand the issues, priorities, etc. which affect a given community. While big cos. might have programs to address women's issues, that's not stopping women from forming more effective support groups and organizations. Let's look at an effective lobbying group, the NRA, how are they so effective? They are tenacious and they organize nd support each other --so while they do appeal to greater society and parties, that by itself isn't what's driven their success. It's the forming of community and having one focused issue. Also as with other groups, tap names in other industries, entertainment, sports, politics, etc. those who are interested in advancing your issues. Tap companies with black founders or ones directly serving the community.

ralonso 11y ago
Agreed with this comment. We have the technology where creating an organization should be fairly trivial. From Facebook to LinkedIn to MeetUp to Twitter, there are endless places where one could find other similar-minded folks. Gaining exposure might not be easy, but it shouldn't be difficult enough to make it impossible. There is endless information and postmortems for similar organizations that should help figure out the best way to approach these issues. I can't remember exactly if it was the GNOME Women Outreach program that was shut down recently, but I remember there being a lengthy author about the president of the organization's decision to step down and close the program (because no one else would step up to the chair, among other problems). The post went into some detail about where it succeeded and where it failed. Stuff like that could be very helpful if a new self-interest group decides to form.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > I can't remember exactly if it was the GNOME Women Outreach program that was shut down recently, but I remember there being a lengthy author about the president of the organization's decision to step down and close the program (because no one else would step up to the chair, among other problems). That was the Ada Initiative; see http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-is-ending-but-our-work-continues-on/ http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-... . Outreachy is alive and well, and has grown to encompass many more projects beyond GNOME, including the Linux kernel, OpenStack, and others. The Software Freedom Conservancy runs it now.

ralonso 11y ago

I rarely ever comment, but posts similar to this one have been popping out more and more as of late. I am a minority. I grew up in a different country, and most of my close friends are minorities, too, both female and male; half of them being in the tech industry. (If my username didn't give it away, I'm hispanic and so are most of my acquaintances.) With that out of the way, I do not understand anything about this article. This bolded line, for example: >Rarely, though, will you ever hear a white person lamenting about working conditions that their black/brown child/spouse/sibling might have to endure, because they rarely have those relationships, so aren’t forced to develop empathy for brown/black people. What working conditions? Care giving any examples? What are some pointers you could give to white people to help them understand your deplorable working conditions? Is it simply that there are no black speakers at conferences, or holding positions in these tech organizations? Personal experiences, as well as experiences from my hispanic friends, point to no such implied "bad working conditions." Some of my friends are brown-skinned and have noticeable accents. Most still use Spanish as their primary language, both on and offline. Yet there has been not one single incident involving either myself or any of my hispanic friends where we suffered any sort of discrimination, or experienced unwelcoming working conditions. Maybe the author and I have different goals when we attend such conferences. Maybe there are more hispanics than blacks or native Americans in tech. Yet I don't understand why that would matter when attending a conference. >Yet for the 2015 conference, they could not manage to find one black woman to be a “headline” speaker. Two white men are included in the set of headline speakers at a conference celebrating women in technology, but not a single black woman. It infuriates me to see this obsession with ethnic or racial background. This obsession with the color of the speaker's skin. In my eyes, that the keynote speakers are white males does not invalidate their opinions in any way. There is no implied message that they speak on behalf of women, or minorities. It's an invitation. It does not mean that they're not qualified on the subject - if anything, these "old white men" are the ones running these big companies and are there not just to speak, but to also listen to the other speakers and the attendants. I opened the videos linked in the article and I'll try to skip through them and I'll report back, hopefully. It just boggles my mind that in this day and age there is still this obsession with the speaker's racial background. And there is no solution proposed, either, besides "they should find more people of color to speak at these events." Isn't that the one of the points of these conferences? And is there any progress being made, considering that last year's was the first one Google organized? Did the author gather any information about this year's? Does the author have any proposals or people she would like to see at these events? I go to tech conferences to learn. My political and ethnic background is never, ever something that makes me biased against or for an event. It is also never a problem. My slightly noticeable accent, my hispanic facial features, my shirts with Spanish sentences, they do not have any effect on how people treat me. It might all come down to what your goals are when attending any event.

ageek123 11y ago

This article is a classic case of "Oppression Olympics" -- http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Oppression_Olympics http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Oppression_Olympics

azima 11y ago
no it isn't. she isn't competing with one person. she's bringing to attention that intersectionality exists and the tech industry isn't paying mind to it. quote from that link: "Oppression Olympics also tends to ignore Intersectionality"
- ivanca 11y ago
  "Intersectionality" in this case means excluding black males right? That seems a bit wrong.
  - azima 11y ago
    That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignoring black men doesn't solve the diversity problem.
    - ivanca 11y ago
      The "diversity problem" is never going to be fixed, because the goalpost is always something more. The population of non-hispanic black people in California is of 6.4%, if half of them are women (3.2%) it means that if a tech company has 100 employees the perfect amount of diversity would be 3 black women and 97 non-black-women, they may not even get to know about each other in a company of that size. But I'm pretty sure in her mind the number should be a lot higher than that, otherwise white supremacy culture is to be to blame.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ivanca 11y ago

There is even less female black dwarfs in tech, I haven't seen even a single one in all my life, so clearly those are the real oppressed.

dang 11y ago
Please don't do this here.

Kiro 11y ago

Am I the only one who think it's perfectly logical that the speaker ratio is the same as the ratio of the tech population? Of course we should try hard to find minority speakers just to be proactive since we do have a diversty problem. However, when you go to a conference you want to see the best speakers and then it's only logical that a minority is less represented since, you know, there are less good speakers to choose from. Nordic.js is doing a great job with their "50% women speakers" policy but if we forcibly try to overrepresent every minority where do we end up? "50% black trans women speakers"? I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too high.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jackweirdy 11y ago
> I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too high. Why?
- Kiro 11y ago
  Because only a small % of all people in tech are good speakers. Having a smaller population to choose from would mean a higher risk of putting a bad speaker on the lineup.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    You're assuming that a) good-speakerness is a fixed quality, and b) that the speaker selection process is something like pulling bingo numbers. Neither is true.
paulojreis 11y ago
> but if we forcibly try to overrepresent every minority where do we end up? "50% black trans women speakers"? I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too hig\ You end up with hiring quotas in companies, where a less-than-competent candidate can be hired instead of a competent one because he/she belongs to a minority. Will the bet on minority over competence will yield greater gains in the long run? That is a question for the ages. :)

confiscate 11y ago

tldr; Diversity and Equality are not the main starting points nor goal of Women-in-Tech. Increasing women's role in tech helps improve diversity/equality, but is not the real mission of Women-in-Tech. Diversity/Equality is a (side) effect, and not the cause, of the Women-in-Tech movement. I think there's a tendency for Women-in-Tech PR to equate Diversity/Equality with Women-in-Tech, when in fact, Women-in-Tech is supposed to advance, well, Women in the tech sector, and not Equality/Diversity in general. The 2 are Not the same thing, although they are often claimed to be basically the same for PR reasons. It's getting so severe that even the author is "shocked" that Women-in-Tech events are less than diverse. She shouldn't be surprised--the fact that she was surprised, indicates she's bought into the whole "Women-in-Tech's mission is for workplace Equality" idea, which is false. To be clear, I think Women-in-Tech is a noble cause, and I am all for supporting it. But please stop claiming that Women-in-Tech "is for diversity"--it is for advancing women's role in tech. To be clear, I think in and of itself this is great because I'd love to see more women in the tech industry. But we should stop claiming that the mission of the movement is for "diversity", because "diversity" is not what drives the women-in-tech movement, and is not it's main goal. The main goal is to increase women's role, and not "diversity/equality" in general. If the movement's main goal was purely "diversity/equality", then it wouldn't be called "Women-in-Tech"--there are other misrepresented groups that are much more in urgent need of equal representation, that the movement would have focused on first if Diversity and Equality were the main motivators. I also agree with the author's photo of an all-white panel as being pretty funny :) It reminds me of the cast of Friends. Saying that the cast of Friends is "Diverse" or "Equal" would be kind of ridiculous.

stefantalpalaru 11y ago

Wait a minute! Where's the Romanian History Month? Where are the menu changes for Romanians? Where's the Romanian Googlers Network? Is it because those of you privileged enough to be born outside Romania are actively oppressing us? /s

tone 11y ago

"I can’t support a conference that doesn’t seem to understand the value and importance of intersectionality and representation." Doesn't this just promote the idea that people of different ethnicities really are that different? Why on earth is skin colour "representation" an important factor anywhere? I mean don't discriminate but how is this an argument? This just promotes the wrong idea that people of different ethnicities bring drastically different things to the table in one breath, and argues that race or gender do not affect technical ability with the next. How this insane person has people listening to them or why a completely backwards article on the right site gets linked here is beyond me.

richmarr 11y ago
> Doesn't this just promote the idea that people of different ethnicities really are that different? This is pretty much the "but we're a meritocracy" argument, and it's unfortunately wrong. Having worked extensively with the behavioural science behind things like hiring processes, performance reviews, etc. I can conclusively tell you that we do not live in a meritocracy. People get discriminated against, constantly. That's the reality they live in. They don't need a conference to tell them that. I'll go further. Believing that you yourself are unbiased and meritocratic is shown to be correlated with an increase in unconscious bias in your actions through effects such as moral licencing. (See the work by Daniel Effron) (Edit: you can downvote me if you don't like what I'm saying, but you're downvoting science, not opinion)
- scintill76 11y ago
  I don't think this is really related to the comment you're replying to. Whether or not discrimination exists is not the same as whether or not "the value and importance of intersectionality and representation" (article quote) is something we should consciously pursue. How does that not carry a bias towards reverse discrimination? I agree with the OP, I'm scratching my head about how the article simultaneously argues that we need to treat everyone equally, but also need to tally their intersectionality combo bonus points and force an equal "representation." You can either argue for ignoring all labels or for special label-based treatments, not both. To take it into a perhaps more productive but related area, how would you say we should overcome bias? It seems to me if you try too hard, you will just introduce another form of bias.

CamatHN 11y ago

There are more Indians in tech from me observing on face value than black people. Any Indian heritage people here think there needs to be greater representation of indians in conferences? Thoughts?

Manishearth 11y ago
Mostly meh on that. I haven't heard of major discrimination against Indians in hiring practices (modulo visa, of course, I'm talking about Indian origin people with citizenship or equivalent). There's always casual racism (insensitive jokes, etc), but those are small potatoes compared to systemic issues which almost every woman/PoC in tech is aware of and has had tussles with personally. I've also seen tons of Indians giving talks at confs. I think the word "model minority" applies here. YMMV though. There might be lots of discrimination going on that my circle of acquaintances hasn't come across. (Indian origin, born & spent most of my life in the States, currently living in India)

tempodox 11y ago

Cripes, that this has to be a thing at all. It's bad enough that my skin color and sex might have had influence on my educational opportunities, but beyond that they have nothing to do with how good or bad I might be at my job. Take any and all measures to remove the influence of bias from your hiring process (e.g., pass résumés without photos or names to decision makers). That's something we all can do right now.

bshimmin 11y ago

The conversation between Kara Swisher and Parker Harris, quoted, is rather amazing in terms of the verbal gymnastics they resort to: "I have employees, that are, you know, other types of diversity coming to me..."

WhyDoPeople 11y ago

I wanted to preface this with a "as a minority", but no. As a human, I feel we are driving wedges where we should be finding common ground. And the biggest culprits seem to be the ones who have the most to win if they didn't do so. If you come from a different background, that's great. It means you may have different ideas to solve a problem, to create something, to make art, music, life. But that should be part of who we are. Our culture. "I am a person from this country. I grew up playing these instruments, reading these stories, eating this food" says what you have done in your life, what you know, but it doesn't dictate what you are, or put a box around you that can segregate others. When we put labels on ourselves, or say, "you can't possibly understand where I've come from" we're saying that others aren't "privileged" enough to have had their own experiences that allow them to relate; that you're life is more interesting and important than theirs, as you feel you're at a different level, or they're too ignorant to understand. The irony is amazing. I wish this woman didn't speak as if she is a voice for women, or black people, or "people of color" (another odd phrase, as even my white friends can be darker than me), because it seems she only speaks for herself. Women get a celebration, she shits on it. What if Indians got a celebration? She mentions brown, but talks about being black. Unless she was born in India, she wouldn't understand life coming from anywhere in India. How does having "black" skin make her relate to Indians? What about other brown people. Did she live her childhood in Bolivia? To end with, I must say I hate this kind of thing. It makes "minorities" look bad. I don't want to be seen as something that needs help. I want to be seen as somebody who is exciting, who makes fun things and is intelligent. If you want to eat delicious food for my home, learn about the culture or history, then just ask. But that is part of who I am. It's not what I am. What I am is me.

azima 11y ago
You know that brown people went through this years ago as did asians? We had to fight to be apart of society. Now we have the privelege of being "model minorities" while others don't. She talks about being black because she is black and shes talking about her feelings and perspective. It's ignorant to dismiss that. Unfortunately for many people of color. They dont have the same opportunities that a white or asian person would have so you cant understand their persoective so it's best to listen because there are thousands of examples out there. The more you listen to them the more youll learn. And she's shitting on the industry for ignoring races while being inclusive to white women. It's obviously great that women are getting an opportunity but it's ignorant to ignore women of color. Theyre speaking not because they have the most to win. Theyre speaking because they want to be equal, which they arent in the tech world and outside of it. they want to go from below equality to at equality, not above it. Frankly, i'm embarassed when minorities speak from their privilege ignoring the fact that indians/asians have been through it until white america said "no no guys, these asians are cool". That hasnt happened with black people yet.

spoiler 11y ago

Let me preface with what I'm about to say with this: I am very pro-equality in all aspects. Also, I am not a supporter of this new-wave Feminism which is full of misandry, anti-patriachy and other similar bullshit. Men of all skin colours get discriminated every day by women, too. Yes, women are not magical all do-good creatures; they can be horrible, regardless of skin colour. With that being said... However, I am afraid we'll soon have this trend where a black woman[1] with lesser qualifications will be hired in favour of a white man with better qualifications, simply because she is a woman and black. Same applies for speakership (or whatever you call it). That's not equality.

swallowinsights 11y ago

Who is this author? This Erica Joy? Is she real? While the story told by the author sounds plausible and real. I can't verify if Erica Joy is the true author nor if Erica Joy is a real authentic person. Before you dismiss me, I ask these questions because who's to say that some sexist white men realizing that women were organizing to stop sexism didn't come up with a propaganda ploy to cause division and diversion among women. How can I verify that this story and article is not controlled by someone employing a provocateur? How did the extremely wealthy capitalists maintain more control and slow down the rise of the labor force? They pitted the workers against each other... How can I verify Erica Joy (without spending vast amounts of time)? EDIT: I see she has a twitter account. And her posts and info appear real. But think about it how easy it would be for some sexist white men to setup a web of fake information to infiltrate these media outlets in order to start a fake fight between white and black women in an attempt to keep women divided (and looking bad for fighting)?