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I think everyone is perfectly aware that whites and asians dominate tech. You're not considered diverse because it's pretty commonplace to see ONLY those two gr

I think everyone is perfectly aware that whites and asians dominate tech. You're not considered diverse because it's pretty commonplace to see ONLY those two groups represented. I guess if you compare it to only whites it's more diverse, but I don't think 2 groups, instead of just 1, is really the diversity that's targeted. Realistically, I think these people are hoping for something closer to a complete cross section of Americans, which would mean a lot more blacks and latinos being involved.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> but I don't think 2 groups, instead of just 1, is really the diversity that's targeted Indians and Chinese don't have much in common except for being in the same legal census bucket.
- arebop 11y ago
  It seems that Indians and Chinese cultures both (all?) celebrate education and particularly science/engineering more than other cultures.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    Indians in America aren't particularly representative of Indians in India.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > It seems that Indians and Chinese cultures both (all?) celebrate education and particularly science/engineering more than other cultures. We start to head down a dangerous path when we paint with broad strokes like this. Starting off by talking about Indian culture as if it's a single entity (as opposed to an incredibly heterogenous set of cultures that happen to exist in the same sovereign state) does not lead to an accurate or nuanced perspective for the discussion at hand.
    - arebop 11y ago
      I'm not saying that all Indians are alike in all ways, just that in India the most popular majors are STEM [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_India], whereas in the U.S. the most popular ambition of students is to become business administrators [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37].
TulliusCicero 11y ago
Grouping South and East Asians seems pretty silly to me.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > Grouping South and East Asians seems pretty silly to me. Agreed 100%. Honestly, even lumping all South Asians together and all East Asians together is pretty silly and obscures a lot of cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, etc. differences that are hugely important when talking about "diversity". Let's not forget that literally over half the world's population is South Asian or East Asian[0]. It'd be ridiculous not to assume that these are incredibly heterogeneous groups that can't be all bucketed under the same category, but sadly, that's what people generally do. [0] Before someone points out that "Asians" are a smaller percentage of the US population - yes, but that misses the point. These group definitions are arbitrary (and have changed greatly over the years). If we're going to talk about racial and ethnic origin as a component of diversity, we can't gerrymander the group definitions unless our actual goal is to artificially inflate metrics on diversity.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    even lumping all South Asians together and all East Asians together is pretty silly... Well, not terribly much more silly than lumping all caucasoids together at least.
    - chimeracoder 11y ago
      > Well, not terribly much more silly than lumping all caucasoids together at least. "Caucasoid" is a term that already includes a large chunk (if not a majority) of South Asians, so yes, it is silly.
    - angersock 11y ago
      No no no, remember, the official story is that all whites are interchangeable members of an oppressive conspiracy. :|
- 11y ago
gyc 11y ago
Eh, I doubt people would be saying the tech industry lacks diversity if 40% of the workers were black instead of Asian.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

thaumasiotes 11y ago

> but I don't think 2 groups, instead of just 1, is really the diversity that's targeted Indians and Chinese don't have much in common except for being in the same legal census bucket.

arebop 11y ago
It seems that Indians and Chinese cultures both (all?) celebrate education and particularly science/engineering more than other cultures.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  Indians in America aren't particularly representative of Indians in India.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > It seems that Indians and Chinese cultures both (all?) celebrate education and particularly science/engineering more than other cultures. We start to head down a dangerous path when we paint with broad strokes like this. Starting off by talking about Indian culture as if it's a single entity (as opposed to an incredibly heterogenous set of cultures that happen to exist in the same sovereign state) does not lead to an accurate or nuanced perspective for the discussion at hand.
  - arebop 11y ago
    I'm not saying that all Indians are alike in all ways, just that in India the most popular majors are STEM [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_India], whereas in the U.S. the most popular ambition of students is to become business administrators [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37].

TulliusCicero 11y ago

Grouping South and East Asians seems pretty silly to me.

chimeracoder 11y ago
> Grouping South and East Asians seems pretty silly to me. Agreed 100%. Honestly, even lumping all South Asians together and all East Asians together is pretty silly and obscures a lot of cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, etc. differences that are hugely important when talking about "diversity". Let's not forget that literally over half the world's population is South Asian or East Asian[0]. It'd be ridiculous not to assume that these are incredibly heterogeneous groups that can't be all bucketed under the same category, but sadly, that's what people generally do. [0] Before someone points out that "Asians" are a smaller percentage of the US population - yes, but that misses the point. These group definitions are arbitrary (and have changed greatly over the years). If we're going to talk about racial and ethnic origin as a component of diversity, we can't gerrymander the group definitions unless our actual goal is to artificially inflate metrics on diversity.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  even lumping all South Asians together and all East Asians together is pretty silly... Well, not terribly much more silly than lumping all caucasoids together at least.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > Well, not terribly much more silly than lumping all caucasoids together at least. "Caucasoid" is a term that already includes a large chunk (if not a majority) of South Asians, so yes, it is silly.
  - angersock 11y ago
    No no no, remember, the official story is that all whites are interchangeable members of an oppressive conspiracy. :|
11y ago

gyc 11y ago

Eh, I doubt people would be saying the tech industry lacks diversity if 40% of the workers were black instead of Asian.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]