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> The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specif

by zyxley 10y ago

> The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specific genders in pedestals just to please other people. It's not "just to please other people"; it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. Studies have shown[1] that, for example, people with "White-sounding" names get more responses from job applications than people with "Black-sounding" names, even when the resumes sent in are identical. [1]: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/jalen-ross/black-name-resume-50-percent-less-likely-get-respo/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/...

said 10y ago
Given the widespread use of pro-black affirmative-action (practiced by GitHub, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft; nearly every major university; many government contractors; and probably the majority of F500 companies), isn't it only logical to view black resumes with more suspicion? Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. On a side note, affirmative action policies ultimately help middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites. The upper-class whites who push for affirmative action are not affected by it, and neither are their children. Helping middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites is a prime example of virtue signaling gone awry.
- cgy1 10y ago
  Affirmative action, as commonly practiced for university admissions, don't hurt whites at all. They primarily hurt Asian-American applicants.
- laughinghan 10y ago
  > Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. The scientific consensus is that the opposite is true, that black people need to display higher competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites, which is precisely why affirmative action is hoped to be valuable. See "Social Justice for the Highly-Demanding of Rigor" for a meta-analysis of over a dozen separate scientific studies: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-highly-demanding-of-rigor/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-...
  - said 10y ago
    That article does not refute what I'm saying. By the 1990s, affirmative action was already in full swing. Universities and large companies were already on board, as was the federal government and many state and local governments. Additionally, by the 1990s, the national media had been very sympathetic to affirmative action policies for at least 20 years—you would have been hard-pressed to find a single American who didn't know those policies existed. So it was already perfectly reasonable (and expected) for a profit-seeking non-racist [1] to view black resumes with more suspicion. [1]: And indeed, the studies mentioned in the article showed that blacks and whites exhibited the same bias toward black resumes. Furthermore, regarding the studies mentioned in the article, there are some important question that need answering (by someone who has access): 1. To which employers did the subjects apply? 2. How were those employers selected? 3. Did any of those employers have pro-black affirmative action policies? 4. If the studies did include employers with pro-black affirmative action policies, how heavily were those employers represented in terms of applications? This is important: even if only 2% of employers have pro-black affirmative action policies (a number far too low), those employers might employ (directly or indirectly) 60% of Americans.
    - laughinghan 10y ago
      It's a direct counterargument to what you're saying. You're saying that due to 20 years of affirmative action policies where a black person who is less competent than a white person is able to put an identical item on their resume, it's reasonable to expect that a black person with an identical resume as a white person is less competent. Is that a mischaracterization? I said that the scientific consensus is that the opposite is true, that a black person has to be more competent to be able to put an identical item on their resume. Therefore affirmative action when considering resumes is reasonable. > ... non-racist [1] ... [1]: And indeed, the studies mentioned in the article showed that blacks and whites exhibited the same bias toward black resumes. This is generally taken to mean that black people are just as racist as white people, just like women can be just as sexist as men. I'm not sure why you're concluding that non-racists can be racially biased (which seems to me like a contradiction in terms). > Furthermore, regarding the studies mentioned in the article, there are some important question that need answering What answers to those questions would change your mind, and what answers do you believe should change my mind?
- balls187 10y ago
  > On a side note, affirmative action policies ultimately help middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites. The upper-class whites who push for affirmative action are not affected by it, and neither are their children. Data to back that up? > isn't it only logical to view black resumes with more suspicion? Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. No, that's against the law (in the US).
jsmthrowaway 10y ago
> It's not "just to please other people"; it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. Your counterpoint to that quote can itself be reduced to "just to please other people," for what it's worth; it just slightly changes who the "people" are and what "pleasing" means, if you really think about it. Perhaps you and GP don't entirely disagree, depending on how one interprets things. Important: I am not stating an opinion on this because I know better in these threads. That is an merely an observation on the observation.
lr4444lr 10y ago
> it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. No. The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. The Supreme Court already decided against the principle you're describing in the ruling of the Bakke case.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  > The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. That sounds like maybe a broader statement that you intended... Certainly not every company has that plan. Are you talking about a specific kind of company?
  - lr4444lr 10y ago
    Perhaps "protect against potential lawsuits" is a better phrasing. Fear of accusations of disparate impact hiring is very real for HR, not to mention the negative press even if you beat the charges. In the specific case of Github, fallout from the Horvath fiasco. Better to spend some resources preventatively to make sure your employee composition can reasonably help fend off attacks.
    - erikpukinskis 10y ago
      I understand the kind of company you are talking about, I was just asking if you really intended to say that all companies are like that, or if you are talking about a specific kind of company. In my experience people don't generally think about potential lawsuits all that much. I'm only curious because you must have experience in a different kind of company than me. I'm gently trying to encourage you to narrow your statement because it is too broad to make sense to me.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        I'd agree with that. When I've been a hiring manager, I've definitely gone to a lot of trouble to "attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities". Lawsuits were never my worry.
cb18 10y ago
"Institutional racism,"(has it undergone re-branding as "institutionalized discrimination"?) is this vague, boogey-man term used as an explanation of last resort to explain the "achievement gap," among other divergences between the races. The thing is, there is tenuous evidence at best for "institutional racism," and in nowhere near the quantity that would be needed to account for all of its supposed effects. Indeed to the contrary we've had decades of policies seeking parity between between certain segments of society on various measures, and yet the gaps remain virtually unchanged. There are other exceedingly more plausible explanations for the "achievement gap" and the other divergences. But people in certain segments of polite society have a nasty habit of trying to ruin the lives of anyone who so much as mutters these other explanations. For the "institutional racism" proponents... Has anyone attempted to explain why all this "institutional racism" seems to be working to such great benefit for north-east Asians in the US, who consistently rank above the supposed "evil white oppressors" in various socio-economic metrics? Or why we see common patterns of achievement and behavior between races across societies with wildly different institutional histories?
- PlainsWight 10y ago
  Please enlighten the rest of us with what the more plausible explanations are.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  "Institutional racism,” also “Systemic racism,” is not a vague, bogeyman term, it has a specific and objective meaning. It can be measured and has been measured, repeatedly. In almost every area of American life, there are measurable effects. Blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites for the same crimes. They are more likely to be sent to prison and to get longer prison sentences given the same criminal records and the same circumstances. As is often quoted, resumes with black-sounding names get far fewer calls for interviews than resumes with white-sounding names. These are facts, and on Hacker News we prize facts. As it is so often put when talking about things like creationism, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” --- What I am finding more and more is a certain type of rhetoric, I will call it “Racism Denial.” It works just like Creationism Denial and Climate Change Denial. The denialist does not approach these discussions with any good faith attempt to discuss the issues or to weigh the factors on display. The denialist has an agenda, and the agenda is to derail progress, to disrupt any and all attempts to fix what ails the system. This is because the denialist fears that change will hurt them personally. The creationist denies evolution, because accepting evolution means turning away from the creationist God, which means letting go of the religious fervour that they have adopted as a core part of their identity. The climate change denier denies climate change because accepting climate change means another step towards ending certain industries and jobs. They fear the loss of their income, the dissolution and decay of their coal mining town, the loss of jobs making gasoline-powered cars and a transfer of economic wealth to places like California where they make clean electric cars. So let me ask you: What do you personally fear from people nodding and saying “Yes, there is systemic racism in America?” What do you think you will lose? What bad things will happen to you and to America if people stop pretending there is a problem and stop blaming blacks for everything that happens to them? Why are you trying so hard to pretend there’s nothing going on?
746F7475 10y ago
Well, if you are hiring a secretary and there are two applicants with minimal experience and same resume, but one is called Jane Smith and other is Shereesha Taulava, name does have meaning since you probably can only pronounce one of these names right just by reading them. So you are more likely to interview them first. And if you have a quota to send X amount of letters, then these easily pronounceable names do have advantage. Still I see no racism, people just naturally go through path of least resistance with these sort of things.

by zyxley 10y ago

said 10y ago

Given the widespread use of pro-black affirmative-action (practiced by GitHub, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft; nearly every major university; many government contractors; and probably the majority of F500 companies), isn't it only logical to view black resumes with more suspicion? Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. On a side note, affirmative action policies ultimately help middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites. The upper-class whites who push for affirmative action are not affected by it, and neither are their children. Helping middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites is a prime example of virtue signaling gone awry.

cgy1 10y ago
Affirmative action, as commonly practiced for university admissions, don't hurt whites at all. They primarily hurt Asian-American applicants.
laughinghan 10y ago
> Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. The scientific consensus is that the opposite is true, that black people need to display higher competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites, which is precisely why affirmative action is hoped to be valuable. See "Social Justice for the Highly-Demanding of Rigor" for a meta-analysis of over a dozen separate scientific studies: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-highly-demanding-of-rigor/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-...
- said 10y ago
  That article does not refute what I'm saying. By the 1990s, affirmative action was already in full swing. Universities and large companies were already on board, as was the federal government and many state and local governments. Additionally, by the 1990s, the national media had been very sympathetic to affirmative action policies for at least 20 years—you would have been hard-pressed to find a single American who didn't know those policies existed. So it was already perfectly reasonable (and expected) for a profit-seeking non-racist [1] to view black resumes with more suspicion. [1]: And indeed, the studies mentioned in the article showed that blacks and whites exhibited the same bias toward black resumes. Furthermore, regarding the studies mentioned in the article, there are some important question that need answering (by someone who has access): 1. To which employers did the subjects apply? 2. How were those employers selected? 3. Did any of those employers have pro-black affirmative action policies? 4. If the studies did include employers with pro-black affirmative action policies, how heavily were those employers represented in terms of applications? This is important: even if only 2% of employers have pro-black affirmative action policies (a number far too low), those employers might employ (directly or indirectly) 60% of Americans.
  - laughinghan 10y ago
    It's a direct counterargument to what you're saying. You're saying that due to 20 years of affirmative action policies where a black person who is less competent than a white person is able to put an identical item on their resume, it's reasonable to expect that a black person with an identical resume as a white person is less competent. Is that a mischaracterization? I said that the scientific consensus is that the opposite is true, that a black person has to be more competent to be able to put an identical item on their resume. Therefore affirmative action when considering resumes is reasonable. > ... non-racist [1] ... [1]: And indeed, the studies mentioned in the article showed that blacks and whites exhibited the same bias toward black resumes. This is generally taken to mean that black people are just as racist as white people, just like women can be just as sexist as men. I'm not sure why you're concluding that non-racists can be racially biased (which seems to me like a contradiction in terms). > Furthermore, regarding the studies mentioned in the article, there are some important question that need answering What answers to those questions would change your mind, and what answers do you believe should change my mind?
balls187 10y ago
> On a side note, affirmative action policies ultimately help middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites. The upper-class whites who push for affirmative action are not affected by it, and neither are their children. Data to back that up? > isn't it only logical to view black resumes with more suspicion? Objectively, blacks need to display lower competency in relevant skills to achieve identical resumes as whites. No, that's against the law (in the US).

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

> It's not "just to please other people"; it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. Your counterpoint to that quote can itself be reduced to "just to please other people," for what it's worth; it just slightly changes who the "people" are and what "pleasing" means, if you really think about it. Perhaps you and GP don't entirely disagree, depending on how one interprets things. Important: I am not stating an opinion on this because I know better in these threads. That is an merely an observation on the observation.

lr4444lr 10y ago

> it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. No. The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. The Supreme Court already decided against the principle you're describing in the ruling of the Bakke case.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
> The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. That sounds like maybe a broader statement that you intended... Certainly not every company has that plan. Are you talking about a specific kind of company?
- lr4444lr 10y ago
  Perhaps "protect against potential lawsuits" is a better phrasing. Fear of accusations of disparate impact hiring is very real for HR, not to mention the negative press even if you beat the charges. In the specific case of Github, fallout from the Horvath fiasco. Better to spend some resources preventatively to make sure your employee composition can reasonably help fend off attacks.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    I understand the kind of company you are talking about, I was just asking if you really intended to say that all companies are like that, or if you are talking about a specific kind of company. In my experience people don't generally think about potential lawsuits all that much. I'm only curious because you must have experience in a different kind of company than me. I'm gently trying to encourage you to narrow your statement because it is too broad to make sense to me.
    - wpietri 10y ago
      I'd agree with that. When I've been a hiring manager, I've definitely gone to a lot of trouble to "attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities". Lawsuits were never my worry.

cb18 10y ago

"Institutional racism,"(has it undergone re-branding as "institutionalized discrimination"?) is this vague, boogey-man term used as an explanation of last resort to explain the "achievement gap," among other divergences between the races. The thing is, there is tenuous evidence at best for "institutional racism," and in nowhere near the quantity that would be needed to account for all of its supposed effects. Indeed to the contrary we've had decades of policies seeking parity between between certain segments of society on various measures, and yet the gaps remain virtually unchanged. There are other exceedingly more plausible explanations for the "achievement gap" and the other divergences. But people in certain segments of polite society have a nasty habit of trying to ruin the lives of anyone who so much as mutters these other explanations. For the "institutional racism" proponents... Has anyone attempted to explain why all this "institutional racism" seems to be working to such great benefit for north-east Asians in the US, who consistently rank above the supposed "evil white oppressors" in various socio-economic metrics? Or why we see common patterns of achievement and behavior between races across societies with wildly different institutional histories?

PlainsWight 10y ago
Please enlighten the rest of us with what the more plausible explanations are.
braythwayt 10y ago
"Institutional racism,” also “Systemic racism,” is not a vague, bogeyman term, it has a specific and objective meaning. It can be measured and has been measured, repeatedly. In almost every area of American life, there are measurable effects. Blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites for the same crimes. They are more likely to be sent to prison and to get longer prison sentences given the same criminal records and the same circumstances. As is often quoted, resumes with black-sounding names get far fewer calls for interviews than resumes with white-sounding names. These are facts, and on Hacker News we prize facts. As it is so often put when talking about things like creationism, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” --- What I am finding more and more is a certain type of rhetoric, I will call it “Racism Denial.” It works just like Creationism Denial and Climate Change Denial. The denialist does not approach these discussions with any good faith attempt to discuss the issues or to weigh the factors on display. The denialist has an agenda, and the agenda is to derail progress, to disrupt any and all attempts to fix what ails the system. This is because the denialist fears that change will hurt them personally. The creationist denies evolution, because accepting evolution means turning away from the creationist God, which means letting go of the religious fervour that they have adopted as a core part of their identity. The climate change denier denies climate change because accepting climate change means another step towards ending certain industries and jobs. They fear the loss of their income, the dissolution and decay of their coal mining town, the loss of jobs making gasoline-powered cars and a transfer of economic wealth to places like California where they make clean electric cars. So let me ask you: What do you personally fear from people nodding and saying “Yes, there is systemic racism in America?” What do you think you will lose? What bad things will happen to you and to America if people stop pretending there is a problem and stop blaming blacks for everything that happens to them? Why are you trying so hard to pretend there’s nothing going on?

746F7475 10y ago

Well, if you are hiring a secretary and there are two applicants with minimal experience and same resume, but one is called Jane Smith and other is Shereesha Taulava, name does have meaning since you probably can only pronounce one of these names right just by reading them. So you are more likely to interview them first. And if you have a quota to send X amount of letters, then these easily pronounceable names do have advantage. Still I see no racism, people just naturally go through path of least resistance with these sort of things.