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And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply pe

And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence. I have read countless articles and posts at this point claiming that "America doesn't care about black bodies" and that black people in America should "fear for their lives every day," all in regards to the perceived danger of police shootings. In that example, despite this perception by not only those populations themselves, but a large majority of the population at large, the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem. I actually think that this is a central theme to many of these discussions, where one population is claiming that there is a substantial disadvantage to having a certain characteristic, whereas the counter states that there is either no such disadvantage, or its magnitude is misrepresented. In any event, I think that there is often merit to both cases, and I think what you're seeing with the Facebook group here is simply a response to the growing perception that the conversation has become increasingly one-sided in the large SV corporations. Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. That's not okay.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
> And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence. Why do you think that your opinions about other people's feelings and experiences are more valid that their actual experiences? (When answering, please be aware that that your statistic about police killings does not single-handedly invalidate black Americans' daily experience of racism and discrimination.)
ProfessorLayton 8y ago
Except one doesn't have to fear being killed by the police to be wary of them. The fact is that POC are arrested disproportionately to their population size. Being incarcerated is enough to cut your chances of a job offer or a call back by %50[1]. There are many underlying reasons as to why POC people are arrested more, including remnants of systemic oppression, but that is another argument for another time. It's easy to hand-wave other's hardships away when one doesn't experience them first-hand, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. [1] https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/ https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
- prostoalex 8y ago
  Let's say someone doesn't want to hand-wave other's hardships away. Out of multiple possible venues, such as (a) political action (voting, city council meetings, writing to a congressman) (b) civil action (rallies, protests, community organizing, civil disobedience) (c) work action (send an email, post on internal slack channel) (d) public relations (letter to an editor, an op/ed in local paper, getting a local news station to cover the issue) is (c) the most effective for achieving the desired results?
  - ProfessorLayton 8y ago
    I’m not sure I follow, none of those actions are mutually exclusive, so any and all combinations are available, even if one type of action is more effective than others.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  Men are arrested hundreds of times more than women. Is the justice system sexist, too?
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Men are arrested hundreds of times more than women. It's not actually "hundreds of times" more. It is, however, more than 10 to 1, which is more than the ratio of black to white inmates (even accounting for proportion of the general population).
arkades 8y ago
In NY, in the Brownsville, BK area, 93 of every 100 residents was stopped by the NYPD under its stop and frisk policy in 2009. In 2011, the NYPD has more black male stop-and-frisks than there are black males living in NYC. That’s not a perception of disproportionate attention from the police, that’s an overbearing presence one must objectively acknowledge in ones life. When -those- are your daily experiences with the police, the fact that non-violent, un-resisting black males are killed by the police without repercussion in your city (see: Eric Garner) is terrifying, even if the absolute risk of your being shot by an officer is low.
- leereeves 8y ago
  Is it relevant that Brownsville is one of Brooklyn's most dangerous neighborhoods?
  - carterage 8y ago
    Brownsville has a reputation, yes. But Brownsville is an engineered pocket of Brooklyn, for sure. The reason Brownsville exists in this way, is because other parts of the city have created it the serve thusly. Spend enough time in NYC, and you gain an affinity for the equillibrium that fixtures on its map have acquired, in order to persist for decades and generations. Brownsville is a landlocked pocket of subway-accessible pavement, about an hour from Manhattan. Inside the footprint of the city limts, things exist as a matter of human will. The more powerful forces at the top tend to have stronger influnce over the sequence of events, than those at the bottom. What was going on with the walled city of kowloon? Was it there because people aspired to that, and it was a reflection of their intent?
aluren 8y ago
> And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence. > 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem. Perception doesn't make a political experience any less valid. You don't have to have lived a traumatic experience to be afraid of it, and the records of bad encounters with police from black people are plenty even though they aren't counted in your stats. It is of course the same with women and sexual assault etc. I suggest you listen to the stories of people around you as they probably have many to tell, and if they don't, here is a very good read that someone posted here on HN: https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/ https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/ >Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. I don't believe that was the fireable offense, although the statement itself is no less ludicrous. If I remember well, the letter made a clear distinction between the abstract wishy-washy evopsych stuff and the clear implication that Google's current diversity policies were lowering the bar for hiring and thus that his female colleagues were less capable than average.
state_less 8y ago
You don't have to be shot to feel the bitter sting of being an outcast. Try getting a job with a foreign or black name, your chances of getting a callback are significantly diminished [1] Being shot by a police officer is a symptom of the disease, but you can see the effects on a daily basis if you take time to notice. [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
danso 8y ago
What would you consider the minimum percentage of deaths for something to be a concern worth protesting? Historians estimate that fewer than 4,000 black people were lynched in the years between 1877 and 1950 [0] -- e.g. about 55 per year, which makes being lynched as an African-American not "statistically relevant" by your standards. Were the protests by African-Americans in that period unnecessary? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/1...
colanderman 8y ago
Um, no. When you are legally barred from say, having power of attorney when your loved one of decades is on their deathbed, or, say, unable to find a landlord that will rent to you, because some asshole politicians fought on behalf of their asshole constituents against your right to do so simply because you do not conform to the idea they project onto their god as holding as to what constitutes a "proper" family unit, politics very much happens to you.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Is it not relevant that "the system" has already done what you wanted in this case and constitutionally recognized gay marriage? You're asking for something you already have.
  - colanderman 8y ago
    You say that like LGBT individuals don't continue to face legal challenges at the state level [1], or the threat of reduced protections at the federal level [2]. Anyway, the answer is no, because the discussion is about the impact of denigrating political stances on individuals generally. My example is one of many illustrating the importance of a greater principle: a workplace that supports the parties that work to forward such legislation supports the dehumanization of individuals. That is intolerable. When human dignity hangs in the balance, politics matter. [1] https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-across-country#harmfulantilgbt https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-acros... [2] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-discrimination-353774 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-...
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      But now you're moving the goalposts. It's no longer about making life decisions for your own family and avoiding homelessness, now it's about forcing another person to do something against their will even though similar services are available elsewhere. Your position is no longer as convincing.
guiambros 8y ago
> the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black Per 2016 US Census [1]: > Black or African American = 40,241,818 (12.6%) Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader... If you really believe that under-represented minorities are not at a major disadvantage in our society, facing multiple layers of explicit and implicit discrimination against them, then, in my opinion, you're part of the problem. > the lack of female representation in tech... Likewise, if you took the pseudo-science [3] by disgruntled engineers for granted, and believe that the lack of female representation in tech is due to some ridiculous genetic predisposition, ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes, on top of open sexual and moral harassment, then you're part of the reason for the divide. It's exactly this kind of thinking that creates gender stereotyping and legitimizes the systemic sexism in our industry. If you're interested in understanding more about the true root causes of our gender disparity, a good initial read is "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley", by the amazing Emily Chang [4]. No pseudo-science required. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the_United_States&section=10 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [3] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-research-science-women-biology-tech-james-damore https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-me... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley/dp/0735213534 https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley...
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader... Your point is obviously that the percentage is higher for black people. But the percentage is higher for black people for a wide variety of causes of death, like exposure to toxic substances (due to living in high risk areas), which actually kill more people. So why is this one in particular the subject of a national campaign? > ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes The "tech industry" (meaning the likes of Google) wasn't possible before the internet was a thing used by the majority of the population. It hasn't even existed for 50+ years. And the predecessor industries you would have to include to get back that far had a much less skewed gender balance. Whatever this is, it doesn't have a 50+ year history. > on top of open sexual and moral harassment that created a toxic environment for women Studies have shown that the degree of sexual harassment in gender balanced industries like medicine is atrocious -- significantly worse than it is in tech. Attempting to use that as an explanation for the gender balance fails because the relative difference is in the opposite direction. > then you're helping to increase the gender divide. ...unless you're wrong about the causes, in which case we need to understand the real ones in order to do something about it. And for that we need to be able to talk about them without slamming the door in the face of anyone who questions the prevailing narrative. And Damore was clearly wrong about some things. But if you don't allow people to speak at the risk of being wrong then they'll say nothing even when they're right. When someone is wrong you don't eject them from the community, you explain why and have the debate.
dang 8y ago
Since this subthread went into generic ideology, we've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864539 and marked it off-topic.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Isn't that story actually about generic ideology? The premise is that there is a set of acceptable ideas and people who disagree are unwelcome. Obviously people are going to want to talk about specific examples. Half this thread is about Damore, which is directly on point.
  - dang 8y ago
    It's not; it's about something currently happening at Facebook. I admit that the line is hard to draw and the root comment there had a foot on both sides of it. But we've learned that ideologically inflammatory threads do much better when they stay grounded in the specifics of the current story. If we end up with a bunch of angry flamewars burning in separate places about veganism, Stalinism, etc., all at the same time, that's one of the worst-case scenarios for this forum.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

> And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence. Why do you think that your opinions about other people's feelings and experiences are more valid that their actual experiences? (When answering, please be aware that that your statistic about police killings does not single-handedly invalidate black Americans' daily experience of racism and discrimination.)

ProfessorLayton 8y ago

Except one doesn't have to fear being killed by the police to be wary of them. The fact is that POC are arrested disproportionately to their population size. Being incarcerated is enough to cut your chances of a job offer or a call back by %50[1]. There are many underlying reasons as to why POC people are arrested more, including remnants of systemic oppression, but that is another argument for another time. It's easy to hand-wave other's hardships away when one doesn't experience them first-hand, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. [1] https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/ https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

prostoalex 8y ago
Let's say someone doesn't want to hand-wave other's hardships away. Out of multiple possible venues, such as (a) political action (voting, city council meetings, writing to a congressman) (b) civil action (rallies, protests, community organizing, civil disobedience) (c) work action (send an email, post on internal slack channel) (d) public relations (letter to an editor, an op/ed in local paper, getting a local news station to cover the issue) is (c) the most effective for achieving the desired results?
- ProfessorLayton 8y ago
  I’m not sure I follow, none of those actions are mutually exclusive, so any and all combinations are available, even if one type of action is more effective than others.
commandlinefan 8y ago
Men are arrested hundreds of times more than women. Is the justice system sexist, too?
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Men are arrested hundreds of times more than women. It's not actually "hundreds of times" more. It is, however, more than 10 to 1, which is more than the ratio of black to white inmates (even accounting for proportion of the general population).

arkades 8y ago

In NY, in the Brownsville, BK area, 93 of every 100 residents was stopped by the NYPD under its stop and frisk policy in 2009. In 2011, the NYPD has more black male stop-and-frisks than there are black males living in NYC. That’s not a perception of disproportionate attention from the police, that’s an overbearing presence one must objectively acknowledge in ones life. When -those- are your daily experiences with the police, the fact that non-violent, un-resisting black males are killed by the police without repercussion in your city (see: Eric Garner) is terrifying, even if the absolute risk of your being shot by an officer is low.

leereeves 8y ago
Is it relevant that Brownsville is one of Brooklyn's most dangerous neighborhoods?
- carterage 8y ago
  Brownsville has a reputation, yes. But Brownsville is an engineered pocket of Brooklyn, for sure. The reason Brownsville exists in this way, is because other parts of the city have created it the serve thusly. Spend enough time in NYC, and you gain an affinity for the equillibrium that fixtures on its map have acquired, in order to persist for decades and generations. Brownsville is a landlocked pocket of subway-accessible pavement, about an hour from Manhattan. Inside the footprint of the city limts, things exist as a matter of human will. The more powerful forces at the top tend to have stronger influnce over the sequence of events, than those at the bottom. What was going on with the walled city of kowloon? Was it there because people aspired to that, and it was a reflection of their intent?

aluren 8y ago

> And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence. > 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem. Perception doesn't make a political experience any less valid. You don't have to have lived a traumatic experience to be afraid of it, and the records of bad encounters with police from black people are plenty even though they aren't counted in your stats. It is of course the same with women and sexual assault etc. I suggest you listen to the stories of people around you as they probably have many to tell, and if they don't, here is a very good read that someone posted here on HN: https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/ https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/ >Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. I don't believe that was the fireable offense, although the statement itself is no less ludicrous. If I remember well, the letter made a clear distinction between the abstract wishy-washy evopsych stuff and the clear implication that Google's current diversity policies were lowering the bar for hiring and thus that his female colleagues were less capable than average.

state_less 8y ago

You don't have to be shot to feel the bitter sting of being an outcast. Try getting a job with a foreign or black name, your chances of getting a callback are significantly diminished [1] Being shot by a police officer is a symptom of the disease, but you can see the effects on a daily basis if you take time to notice. [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

danso 8y ago

What would you consider the minimum percentage of deaths for something to be a concern worth protesting? Historians estimate that fewer than 4,000 black people were lynched in the years between 1877 and 1950 [0] -- e.g. about 55 per year, which makes being lynched as an African-American not "statistically relevant" by your standards. Were the protests by African-Americans in that period unnecessary? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/1...

colanderman 8y ago

Um, no. When you are legally barred from say, having power of attorney when your loved one of decades is on their deathbed, or, say, unable to find a landlord that will rent to you, because some asshole politicians fought on behalf of their asshole constituents against your right to do so simply because you do not conform to the idea they project onto their god as holding as to what constitutes a "proper" family unit, politics very much happens to you.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
Is it not relevant that "the system" has already done what you wanted in this case and constitutionally recognized gay marriage? You're asking for something you already have.
- colanderman 8y ago
  You say that like LGBT individuals don't continue to face legal challenges at the state level [1], or the threat of reduced protections at the federal level [2]. Anyway, the answer is no, because the discussion is about the impact of denigrating political stances on individuals generally. My example is one of many illustrating the importance of a greater principle: a workplace that supports the parties that work to forward such legislation supports the dehumanization of individuals. That is intolerable. When human dignity hangs in the balance, politics matter. [1] https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-across-country#harmfulantilgbt https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-acros... [2] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-discrimination-353774 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-...
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    But now you're moving the goalposts. It's no longer about making life decisions for your own family and avoiding homelessness, now it's about forcing another person to do something against their will even though similar services are available elsewhere. Your position is no longer as convincing.

guiambros 8y ago

> the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black Per 2016 US Census [1]: > Black or African American = 40,241,818 (12.6%) Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader... If you really believe that under-represented minorities are not at a major disadvantage in our society, facing multiple layers of explicit and implicit discrimination against them, then, in my opinion, you're part of the problem. > the lack of female representation in tech... Likewise, if you took the pseudo-science [3] by disgruntled engineers for granted, and believe that the lack of female representation in tech is due to some ridiculous genetic predisposition, ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes, on top of open sexual and moral harassment, then you're part of the reason for the divide. It's exactly this kind of thinking that creates gender stereotyping and legitimizes the systemic sexism in our industry. If you're interested in understanding more about the true root causes of our gender disparity, a good initial read is "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley", by the amazing Emily Chang [4]. No pseudo-science required. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the_United_States&section=10 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [3] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-research-science-women-biology-tech-james-damore https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-me... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley/dp/0735213534 https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley...

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader... Your point is obviously that the percentage is higher for black people. But the percentage is higher for black people for a wide variety of causes of death, like exposure to toxic substances (due to living in high risk areas), which actually kill more people. So why is this one in particular the subject of a national campaign? > ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes The "tech industry" (meaning the likes of Google) wasn't possible before the internet was a thing used by the majority of the population. It hasn't even existed for 50+ years. And the predecessor industries you would have to include to get back that far had a much less skewed gender balance. Whatever this is, it doesn't have a 50+ year history. > on top of open sexual and moral harassment that created a toxic environment for women Studies have shown that the degree of sexual harassment in gender balanced industries like medicine is atrocious -- significantly worse than it is in tech. Attempting to use that as an explanation for the gender balance fails because the relative difference is in the opposite direction. > then you're helping to increase the gender divide. ...unless you're wrong about the causes, in which case we need to understand the real ones in order to do something about it. And for that we need to be able to talk about them without slamming the door in the face of anyone who questions the prevailing narrative. And Damore was clearly wrong about some things. But if you don't allow people to speak at the risk of being wrong then they'll say nothing even when they're right. When someone is wrong you don't eject them from the community, you explain why and have the debate.

dang 8y ago

Since this subthread went into generic ideology, we've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864539 and marked it off-topic.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
Isn't that story actually about generic ideology? The premise is that there is a set of acceptable ideas and people who disagree are unwelcome. Obviously people are going to want to talk about specific examples. Half this thread is about Damore, which is directly on point.
- dang 8y ago
  It's not; it's about something currently happening at Facebook. I admit that the line is hard to draw and the root comment there had a foot on both sides of it. But we've learned that ideologically inflammatory threads do much better when they stay grounded in the specifics of the current story. If we end up with a bunch of angry flamewars burning in separate places about veganism, Stalinism, etc., all at the same time, that's one of the worst-case scenarios for this forum.