4 ms·

Commenter looks at a field that hires only white men, and excludes everyone else, and sees a meritocracy. If an single extremely competent, outstandingly-quali

Commenter looks at a field that hires only white men, and excludes everyone else, and sees a meritocracy. If an single extremely competent, outstandingly-qualified black man is hired, it's because of his identity. Remarkable.

thosakwe 8y ago
For GP, and for those in other comments who were confused about the phrase "token," this is it in a nutshell - having people doubt your accomplishments, and assume that the reason you're in a position is not because you're qualified, but because you have a specific identity.
- afiori 8y ago
  there is another side; the one were companies actually hire people for numbers (I am not claiming they are common). for example in china there is a market of "white guy in suit walking around the office looking busy when visitors are present". I don't want to diminish your point as it is indeed a serious problem, but it is not the whole picture.
afiori 8y ago
In my country many university apply for European grants, one easy way to get more points is to include minorities in you research group, if by some chance you get a female immigrant african disabled student you are going to want to include her in every project you ever have. The above commenter saw a place where from above there were incentives to hire minorities, it is not impossible to believe that at some point an administrator claimed "we need a diversity hire in the next 6 month" and they hired the only matching one. Also the bigotry of low expectation is a real thing, where some people treat minorities as essentially stupid by default and then get magically surprised when they are normally competent. I don't know if I agree with the commenter above, but the incentives of affirmative action and diversity hire are sometimes problematic. (just for clarity, my personal opinion is to assume that everyone that got a job deserved it. Even if it is obviously false sometimes it is the most stable one, we should keep our culture in a place where that is a reasonable assumption)

thosakwe 8y ago

For GP, and for those in other comments who were confused about the phrase "token," this is it in a nutshell - having people doubt your accomplishments, and assume that the reason you're in a position is not because you're qualified, but because you have a specific identity.

afiori 8y ago
there is another side; the one were companies actually hire people for numbers (I am not claiming they are common). for example in china there is a market of "white guy in suit walking around the office looking busy when visitors are present". I don't want to diminish your point as it is indeed a serious problem, but it is not the whole picture.

afiori 8y ago

In my country many university apply for European grants, one easy way to get more points is to include minorities in you research group, if by some chance you get a female immigrant african disabled student you are going to want to include her in every project you ever have. The above commenter saw a place where from above there were incentives to hire minorities, it is not impossible to believe that at some point an administrator claimed "we need a diversity hire in the next 6 month" and they hired the only matching one. Also the bigotry of low expectation is a real thing, where some people treat minorities as essentially stupid by default and then get magically surprised when they are normally competent. I don't know if I agree with the commenter above, but the incentives of affirmative action and diversity hire are sometimes problematic. (just for clarity, my personal opinion is to assume that everyone that got a job deserved it. Even if it is obviously false sometimes it is the most stable one, we should keep our culture in a place where that is a reasonable assumption)