4 ms·

Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is.

by swalsh 8y ago

Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area are retail and healthcare. I managed to move out, but the vast majority of people I went to high school with are stuck. Why is economic background not a class we care about too? Shouldn't economic mobility be a part of social justice as well?

danharaj 8y ago
> Why is economic background not a class we care about too? Shouldn't economic mobility be a part of social justice as well? It is, but those people are called socialists and/or communists. If you look, you'd find groups that try to synthesize a unified picture of our common struggles.
dongkyun 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
aylmao 8y ago
I don't know why this is getting downvoted; he has a very valid point. Economic class/background is as important when it comes to diversity. I feel like there's little conversation about it because it's an even harder problem to tackle and a less obvious one to see. I will say though, to a large extent economic class and race still remain tied in the US.
- dongkyun 8y ago
  They're getting downvoted because the people who do care about racial and gender equality very much do care about class mobilization and to premise the question with the idea that they don't care means at best, OP doesn't know what they're talking about and at worst, OP is using class issues in bad faith to bludgeon away any attempts at talking about the former.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    > They're getting downvoted because the people who do care about racial and gender equality very much do care about class mobilization I think this is an overgeneralization. I don't doubt this is mostly the case but I don't think it's conclusive that it is always the case, especially when you look into the activism within and by wealthier classes and corporations. > to premise the question with the idea that they don't care means at best, OP doesn't know what they're talking about The way I understood the comment is in reference to Facebook/tech, in which case it's very true: Facebook seems to survey gender and race but there's no mention in their diversity efforts about social/economic background. For all we know, all those great paying jobs could be going to well-off people. 4.9% hispanics of 25000 employees is 1,225 people: Are they first-generation college students born in the US to immigrant parents, middle-class graduates from Mexico's engineering schools or well-off kids from Latin America whose parents could afford them a Harvard education? For the record I know people who would fall under each of these three buckets and I think the idea of classifying them under the same category in diversity efforts is very short-sighted. > at worst, OP is using class issues in bad faith to bludgeon away any attempts at talking about the former. I don't know in what faith OP posted, but from his last sentence I gather he is vouching to include economic status as part of "social justice as well", not instead-of.
mikec3010 8y ago
I also think it's discrimination against the tech industry to pressure them for equality more than other biased fields: hairdressers, wedding planners, childcare workers, sanitation workers, firefighters. All these occupations have severe biases that go ignored by the people who continually roll FANG through the ringer because they aren't "diverse".
Naritai 8y ago
Economic mobility is definitely a part of social justice. But let's note that those groups that most suffer from a lack of economic mobility are Black and Latinx groups. Even among whites, white men tend have better economic mobility than white women. See for example the data at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-your-own-mobility-animation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y.... So, race and sex are directly tied to economic mobility, which is why they are the important factors that are being measured.
jhedwards 8y ago
I think the reason is that historically black people and women were intentionally discriminated against and prevented from entering school and the workplace, so there's an attempt to actively make amends for that. So politically that's why the focus is on race and gender. I also think that people who champion social justice are also very much in favor of investment in education and public resources like public libraries to help with economic mobility. So I don't think that isn't a focus on economic mobility, it's more that we expect the federal and local governments to flex their muscle to ease problems with social mobility while companies themselves are supposed to make themselves more welcome to diverse candidates.
- Jwarder 8y ago
  It looks like a measurement issue. The problem we want to eliminate is sexism and racism. Counting the number of times people are actually affected by a negative -ism is difficult. We don't know what people are thinking unless they tell us. Bigots have an incentive to lie about their reasons and non-bigots can be subject to unconscious biases. On the other hand categorizing people by race/gender is easy. There is always some wiggle room, but there is a lot less ambiguity when answering "is this employee a black woman" compared to "was this employee hired because she is black". Once you have a set of (mostly) reliable statistics then you can start looking at trends over time, patterns by industry, etc. These numbers can't tell you anything about racism/sexism on their own, but they can help show the general direction the population studied is going and if there are any outliers who might deserve more attention.
throwaway8cc3 8y ago
> Why did we decide Well, "we" didn't decide, my fellow white dude. Cultural marxists did, and they are imposing their decision through their long march through the institutions, which includes universities, governments, and corporations throughout the West. "They" have an aligned interest to consolidate power and human resources on an international scale. White males are a convenient scapegoat, and feminism is being pushed to further divide whites on the basis of gender to more easily conquer any collective resistance we may have to the program since, in general, we whites have the most to lose. After all, we did create essentially all the wealth that exists in the Western world, so the natural reaction is to defend what is being stolen from us. The biggest threat to this communist power bloc is that we realize what's happening in time enough to stop them. Hence, calling any white person who realizes their own ethnic interest a Nazi.
- sctb 8y ago
  If you keep doing this we'll ban the main account as well. This site is not for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lord_ring_111 8y ago
Amen. This is exactly what is wrong with many countries. In india for example tgere is caste based reservation purely for political gains as its easier to split people emotionally over race (easier to see) etc than over money. Same thing here. If some section of population wants c suite positions, they stir up need for fair representation of that section everywhere.

by swalsh 8y ago

danharaj 8y ago

> Why is economic background not a class we care about too? Shouldn't economic mobility be a part of social justice as well? It is, but those people are called socialists and/or communists. If you look, you'd find groups that try to synthesize a unified picture of our common struggles.

dongkyun 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

aylmao 8y ago

I don't know why this is getting downvoted; he has a very valid point. Economic class/background is as important when it comes to diversity. I feel like there's little conversation about it because it's an even harder problem to tackle and a less obvious one to see. I will say though, to a large extent economic class and race still remain tied in the US.

dongkyun 8y ago
They're getting downvoted because the people who do care about racial and gender equality very much do care about class mobilization and to premise the question with the idea that they don't care means at best, OP doesn't know what they're talking about and at worst, OP is using class issues in bad faith to bludgeon away any attempts at talking about the former.
- aylmao 8y ago
  > They're getting downvoted because the people who do care about racial and gender equality very much do care about class mobilization I think this is an overgeneralization. I don't doubt this is mostly the case but I don't think it's conclusive that it is always the case, especially when you look into the activism within and by wealthier classes and corporations. > to premise the question with the idea that they don't care means at best, OP doesn't know what they're talking about The way I understood the comment is in reference to Facebook/tech, in which case it's very true: Facebook seems to survey gender and race but there's no mention in their diversity efforts about social/economic background. For all we know, all those great paying jobs could be going to well-off people. 4.9% hispanics of 25000 employees is 1,225 people: Are they first-generation college students born in the US to immigrant parents, middle-class graduates from Mexico's engineering schools or well-off kids from Latin America whose parents could afford them a Harvard education? For the record I know people who would fall under each of these three buckets and I think the idea of classifying them under the same category in diversity efforts is very short-sighted. > at worst, OP is using class issues in bad faith to bludgeon away any attempts at talking about the former. I don't know in what faith OP posted, but from his last sentence I gather he is vouching to include economic status as part of "social justice as well", not instead-of.

mikec3010 8y ago

I also think it's discrimination against the tech industry to pressure them for equality more than other biased fields: hairdressers, wedding planners, childcare workers, sanitation workers, firefighters. All these occupations have severe biases that go ignored by the people who continually roll FANG through the ringer because they aren't "diverse".

Naritai 8y ago

Economic mobility is definitely a part of social justice. But let's note that those groups that most suffer from a lack of economic mobility are Black and Latinx groups. Even among whites, white men tend have better economic mobility than white women. See for example the data at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-your-own-mobility-animation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y.... So, race and sex are directly tied to economic mobility, which is why they are the important factors that are being measured.

jhedwards 8y ago

I think the reason is that historically black people and women were intentionally discriminated against and prevented from entering school and the workplace, so there's an attempt to actively make amends for that. So politically that's why the focus is on race and gender. I also think that people who champion social justice are also very much in favor of investment in education and public resources like public libraries to help with economic mobility. So I don't think that isn't a focus on economic mobility, it's more that we expect the federal and local governments to flex their muscle to ease problems with social mobility while companies themselves are supposed to make themselves more welcome to diverse candidates.

Jwarder 8y ago
It looks like a measurement issue. The problem we want to eliminate is sexism and racism. Counting the number of times people are actually affected by a negative -ism is difficult. We don't know what people are thinking unless they tell us. Bigots have an incentive to lie about their reasons and non-bigots can be subject to unconscious biases. On the other hand categorizing people by race/gender is easy. There is always some wiggle room, but there is a lot less ambiguity when answering "is this employee a black woman" compared to "was this employee hired because she is black". Once you have a set of (mostly) reliable statistics then you can start looking at trends over time, patterns by industry, etc. These numbers can't tell you anything about racism/sexism on their own, but they can help show the general direction the population studied is going and if there are any outliers who might deserve more attention.

throwaway8cc3 8y ago

> Why did we decide Well, "we" didn't decide, my fellow white dude. Cultural marxists did, and they are imposing their decision through their long march through the institutions, which includes universities, governments, and corporations throughout the West. "They" have an aligned interest to consolidate power and human resources on an international scale. White males are a convenient scapegoat, and feminism is being pushed to further divide whites on the basis of gender to more easily conquer any collective resistance we may have to the program since, in general, we whites have the most to lose. After all, we did create essentially all the wealth that exists in the Western world, so the natural reaction is to defend what is being stolen from us. The biggest threat to this communist power bloc is that we realize what's happening in time enough to stop them. Hence, calling any white person who realizes their own ethnic interest a Nazi.

sctb 8y ago
If you keep doing this we'll ban the main account as well. This site is not for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lord_ring_111 8y ago

Amen. This is exactly what is wrong with many countries. In india for example tgere is caste based reservation purely for political gains as its easier to split people emotionally over race (easier to see) etc than over money. Same thing here. If some section of population wants c suite positions, they stir up need for fair representation of that section everywhere.