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> While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging How is this even legal? Change 'wh

> While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging How is this even legal? Change 'white' for any other race, and you'd have yourself a workplace discrimination lawsuit.

ericjang 11y ago
It definitely doesn't sound right. I'm hoping/wishing that this quote was taken out of context. Can anybody with more insider context elaborate? I'm very interested in the "internal cultural battle" over diversity issues at Github, because my school's CS dept. is having a lot of dialogue lately with similar rhetorical arguments. Teaching Assistants recently had a mandatory student-run training session that I perceived to be frighteningly one-sided. Besides the photo, what else did the talk discuss?
- greenrd 11y ago
  This is very odd. I know universities can be very liberal places, but where did this combination of "mandatory" and "student-run" come from? I'm actually in favour of flattening hierarchies - but not inverting them. Why should students barely out of high school get to dictate the behaviour of teaching assistants who may be up to 40 years their senior? Why should the power relationships be temporarily inverted like that?
yulaow 11y ago
Well tumblerinas says you can't be racist against white because patriarchy. /s No really, just read reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction and realize wtf people are saying these days shielding behind (false)feminist propaganda and some very confused idea of oppression.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  > No really, just read reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction Before reading that subreddit, one should probably be aware of Poe's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
  - grimman 11y ago
    It's a deep, and scary, rabbit hole. If you're at all curious, it seems Sargon of Akkad and Thunderf00t on YouTube are not just slinging shit. I've watched some, and sources have always been included. Don't get me wrong, they clearly kick things up a notch in the drama department, but they do the ground work in sourcing articles for you.
    - err4nt 11y ago
      My fiancée enjoys watching TLDR (teal deer) on youtube because he's the only youtuber speaking on these topics who literally only ever speaks facts. Theres not a thing he says that he doesn't back up for you.
- dasil003 11y ago
  Well to be fair, a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia. But on the other hand being ignorant does not make you less-than-human which seems to have become a common opinion in the age of Twitter lynch mobs.
  - dracht 11y ago
    >Well to be fair, a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia. I hope the irony is not lost on you. What a despicable (and sadly typical) comment.
  - b6 11y ago
    > a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia This sentiment is racist and sexist.
  - tmnvix 11y ago
    But in that case you aren't blaming the Pacific Islanders for the lack of warmth in Siberia. If you were, I would like to hear their opinion on the matter.
jcoffland 11y ago
Well, you have to remember that this statement is the opinion of one anonymous employee. Some of the other more blatant racial statements are much more worrying.
- tajen 11y ago
  A lawsuit would be nice to confirm that 1. This is not legal, then 2. Confirm that it's the role of GitHub to get rid of such employees, 3. Have it happen regularly at GitHub for both racist and revert-racist attitudes, until clean, 4. and in the IT sector in general.
dominotw 11y ago
Its not, but lawsuits are finally happening http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/yahoo-sued-over-employee-rankings-anti-male-discrimination/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/yahoo-sued-over-e...
yuhong 11y ago
I dislike anti-discrimination laws in general of course. I think a good compromise would be to limit to manual labor jobs and the like which the laws was originally designed for.
argonaut 11y ago
You have to take the article with a grain of salt. Their anonymous sources are likely the most disgruntled of the disgruntled employees.
anonicode 11y ago
This isn't true of GitHub as a whole, and I'm not sure it is true of any part of GitHub. Their team page shows everybody on staff in the order they were hired. Scroll to the bottom and you will see that there is no shortage of white people being hired. https://github.com/about/team https://github.com/about/team
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Is that up to date? They used to introduce each employee on their blog but they hadn't done one for months last time I checked.
  - anonicode 11y ago
    It's up to date. It has people who started last week.

ericjang 11y ago

It definitely doesn't sound right. I'm hoping/wishing that this quote was taken out of context. Can anybody with more insider context elaborate? I'm very interested in the "internal cultural battle" over diversity issues at Github, because my school's CS dept. is having a lot of dialogue lately with similar rhetorical arguments. Teaching Assistants recently had a mandatory student-run training session that I perceived to be frighteningly one-sided. Besides the photo, what else did the talk discuss?

greenrd 11y ago
This is very odd. I know universities can be very liberal places, but where did this combination of "mandatory" and "student-run" come from? I'm actually in favour of flattening hierarchies - but not inverting them. Why should students barely out of high school get to dictate the behaviour of teaching assistants who may be up to 40 years their senior? Why should the power relationships be temporarily inverted like that?

yulaow 11y ago

Well tumblerinas says you can't be racist against white because patriarchy. /s No really, just read reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction and realize wtf people are saying these days shielding behind (false)feminist propaganda and some very confused idea of oppression.

ceejayoz 11y ago
> No really, just read reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction Before reading that subreddit, one should probably be aware of Poe's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- grimman 11y ago
  It's a deep, and scary, rabbit hole. If you're at all curious, it seems Sargon of Akkad and Thunderf00t on YouTube are not just slinging shit. I've watched some, and sources have always been included. Don't get me wrong, they clearly kick things up a notch in the drama department, but they do the ground work in sourcing articles for you.
  - err4nt 11y ago
    My fiancée enjoys watching TLDR (teal deer) on youtube because he's the only youtuber speaking on these topics who literally only ever speaks facts. Theres not a thing he says that he doesn't back up for you.
dasil003 11y ago
Well to be fair, a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia. But on the other hand being ignorant does not make you less-than-human which seems to have become a common opinion in the age of Twitter lynch mobs.
- dracht 11y ago
  >Well to be fair, a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia. I hope the irony is not lost on you. What a despicable (and sadly typical) comment.
- b6 11y ago
  > a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia This sentiment is racist and sexist.
- tmnvix 11y ago
  But in that case you aren't blaming the Pacific Islanders for the lack of warmth in Siberia. If you were, I would like to hear their opinion on the matter.

jcoffland 11y ago

Well, you have to remember that this statement is the opinion of one anonymous employee. Some of the other more blatant racial statements are much more worrying.

tajen 11y ago
A lawsuit would be nice to confirm that 1. This is not legal, then 2. Confirm that it's the role of GitHub to get rid of such employees, 3. Have it happen regularly at GitHub for both racist and revert-racist attitudes, until clean, 4. and in the IT sector in general.

dominotw 11y ago

Its not, but lawsuits are finally happening http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/yahoo-sued-over-employee-rankings-anti-male-discrimination/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/yahoo-sued-over-e...

yuhong 11y ago

I dislike anti-discrimination laws in general of course. I think a good compromise would be to limit to manual labor jobs and the like which the laws was originally designed for.

argonaut 11y ago

You have to take the article with a grain of salt. Their anonymous sources are likely the most disgruntled of the disgruntled employees.

anonicode 11y ago

This isn't true of GitHub as a whole, and I'm not sure it is true of any part of GitHub. Their team page shows everybody on staff in the order they were hired. Scroll to the bottom and you will see that there is no shortage of white people being hired. https://github.com/about/team https://github.com/about/team

cookiecaper 11y ago
Is that up to date? They used to introduce each employee on their blog but they hadn't done one for months last time I checked.
- anonicode 11y ago
  It's up to date. It has people who started last week.