6 ms·

That is where I take issue. You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based o

That is where I take issue. You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based off those two things. You don't know if you are looking at a wealthy black kid, or a poor white kid, you don't know which house hold had a dysfunctional abusive situation based off skin or gender. You can't tell which one was made fun of in school and bullied. You can't even say which one had actually had more exposure to whatever field you are hiring for. You just can't, that is not how it works. You are being racist and sexist if you make assumptions about a individual based off their skin color or gender. How all the sudden you know somebodies background because you have negative views about what it must have been like to be born a certain color or gender. And don't tell me that you are not doing that, otherwise you would be using some other metric than gender or color to suggest the things you are suggesting. I would be furious if I just got done interviewing with you and you thought I had high raw talent because of my skin color or gender. I have said many times when this topic comes up. If you really want to make change you have to do so at the beginning of the pipe line, when the kids are young. Support for low income single parent family's (any race). Ensure the environment is well suited for girls to take part in tech activities (e.g. treat everybody the same). I don't buy the "needs roll models" argument at all. Kids / people are either going to like program or not. And if the problems is "there are too many dudes" in tech then maybe we should all stop vilifying the men in tech and create environments where both sexes can learn to calibrate and work together. After reading stuff from vice, and the like no wonder girls/women would be terrified to work with men. tl;dr Do everybody a favor and stop imagining how disadvantage somebody is based off their skin color, or gender, you really have no clue.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 8y ago
You have misunderstood the point so badly it almost seems willful. The scale is already tipped; AA policies are an attempt to fix that, not to promote mediocrities. For instance consider this work showing that, given the exact same resume, employers are less likely to call back applicants whose names sound black: https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/jalen-ross/black-name-resume-50-percent-less-likely-get-respo/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15... > The [identical] resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more callbacks than the ones with black-sounding names. > After responding to 1,300 ads with more than 5,000 resumes, the researchers found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to get one callback, but the black candidate needed to send 15 for one. > It didn’t matter whether the employer was a federal contractor or was described as an "equal opportunity employer," as those also discriminated like the others. > "We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names," their paper states. "These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market."
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  I have actually read that paper and it is fairly old at this point, and other studies like it more recently have concluded different results. While your quote mentions class, and asserts that they were not getting signals from class -- one look at the name list chosen for white people will show you how they did not properly control for class. For example they have almost no low class names on the white side. I am sure adding a Bo, Ada, Billy, Bucephelus, Cleatus or Clyde would have for sure changed the callback results on whites. At the time the study was done I was working at a company that would have never posted a advertisement in a paper, but would have called every single last person both white and black back. The suggestion is that people who posted in papers might have been of a different age group and other means of replying to a job ad such as email at the time may have produced more balanced results. There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This happened more so in low-income racially divided areas. It was part of Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique. But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best of the teachers for these areas. This is the key because it gives the kids real tools for life that will serve them regardless of how they are treated once they get out of school. A good education also helps with racism in general. If you look the people thinking about these issue and trying things are very educated. If you target poor areas with a relentless education effort both whites and non-whites will be educated, and in return lower the total racial tension, creating a new wave of diversity that will be a lasting one.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

emodendroket 8y ago

You have misunderstood the point so badly it almost seems willful. The scale is already tipped; AA policies are an attempt to fix that, not to promote mediocrities. For instance consider this work showing that, given the exact same resume, employers are less likely to call back applicants whose names sound black: https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/jalen-ross/black-name-resume-50-percent-less-likely-get-respo/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15... > The [identical] resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more callbacks than the ones with black-sounding names. > After responding to 1,300 ads with more than 5,000 resumes, the researchers found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to get one callback, but the black candidate needed to send 15 for one. > It didn’t matter whether the employer was a federal contractor or was described as an "equal opportunity employer," as those also discriminated like the others. > "We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names," their paper states. "These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market."

mbrumlow 8y ago
I have actually read that paper and it is fairly old at this point, and other studies like it more recently have concluded different results. While your quote mentions class, and asserts that they were not getting signals from class -- one look at the name list chosen for white people will show you how they did not properly control for class. For example they have almost no low class names on the white side. I am sure adding a Bo, Ada, Billy, Bucephelus, Cleatus or Clyde would have for sure changed the callback results on whites. At the time the study was done I was working at a company that would have never posted a advertisement in a paper, but would have called every single last person both white and black back. The suggestion is that people who posted in papers might have been of a different age group and other means of replying to a job ad such as email at the time may have produced more balanced results. There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This happened more so in low-income racially divided areas. It was part of Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique. But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best of the teachers for these areas. This is the key because it gives the kids real tools for life that will serve them regardless of how they are treated once they get out of school. A good education also helps with racism in general. If you look the people thinking about these issue and trying things are very educated. If you target poor areas with a relentless education effort both whites and non-whites will be educated, and in return lower the total racial tension, creating a new wave of diversity that will be a lasting one.