6 ms·

Any affirmative action is by definition discriminating on the basis of race. If you want the best candidate for the job, you don't look at race, you look at the

Any affirmative action is by definition discriminating on the basis of race. If you want the best candidate for the job, you don't look at race, you look at their abilities to do the job. Period. Any bias towards hiring one race implies bias against hiring from other races. Why is it okay to have almost no Asian players in the NBA while a small percentage of black people in tech is a big fuss? It is all hypocrisy.

meroes 6y ago
And is that mutually exclusive to creating more opportunities for minorities to apply? And what if the current practices sans AA are already discriminatory (e.g. try having certain natural hairstyles at your interview that don't fit the status quo)...
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Setting quotas/goals doesn’t seem like the right approach though. We can try to correct for the biases you name without setting numerical targets. The thing is, there isn’t any correct number to aim for. For instance, some cultures emphasize STEM education/careers and it isn’t surprising or incorrect to see them represented in tech at numbers higher than their makeup of the general population. Setting targets like proportional demographic representation for blacks or any other racial group ultimately amounts to racist discrimination against those other races.
  - goldenManatee 6y ago
    What are 2 or 3 “right approaches” for improving diversity in tech? Unless, the view is that practices until now have been right? Cultural support for STEM comes through parents who themselves are capable of sitting at the dinner table to help kids with their math and science homework. Parents who encourage careers such as mechanical engineering, not just being a car mechanic because that feels most familiar to people they already know. So what are some “right approaches” for achieving more diverse workforces?
ausbah 6y ago
how about racial biases in hiring? no hiring is completely meritocratic, even in tech
zaroth 6y ago
There’s no getting around the fact. To the point where California is currently debating whether to remove the following phrase from their State Constitution; The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
nickpeterson 6y ago
Let’s use that NBA example, is the lack of Asian NBA players a problem? If it is, how would you go about fixing it?
cjohnson318 6y ago
Managers tend to take the three most highly qualified candidates and then, "all things being equal", hire the one most similar to them. It doesn't take a big brain to figure out how that has played out historically.
paxys 6y ago
Yes it is definitely discrimination, but not all such discrimination is illegal or morally wrong.
- xvector 6y ago
  > but not all such discrimination is illegal or morally wrong. Tell that to the Asian kid that just learnt that he now has to slave away at his studies because of his skin color.
Dwolb 6y ago
Whether someone can do a job is a mix of experience and potential (y-intercept and slope). It’s difficult for interviewers to assess potential so many rely on experience as the key indicator. It’s difficult for candidates from disadvantaged to show the same level of experience as candidates from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds are systematically segmented out from the hiring pool. Well-run diversity programs aim to better assess the potential of disadvantaged candidates and there are a variety of indicators for success.
john_moscow 6y ago
The elephant in the room is that due to rather dark times in the U.S. history, there are cultural differences between an average Black and an average White family. It doesn't mean that every family of a certain race will fit the stereotype, but if you look at numbers, they do check out. This isn't fair, this isn't nice, but it's a very important piece of the puzzle and you cannot solve the problem without admitting it. Many of these cultural differences are crucial to getting high-paid positions. Like nagging on your kids to study. Like making sure their role models are scientists and inventors, and not gang leaders. Like stressing out delayed gratification and showing how planning and persistence pays off in long term. If you look very carefully at company founders and people on high-paying jobs, almost every one of them will be from a family with these long-term values. Many Blacks have adopted these values and are successful. Nobody is telling them to go to a different drinking fountain, it's not 1930s anymore. So if you want to fix the problem for good, you need to advertise these values more, teach them at school, and give good examples. Maybe, remove roadblocks like providing free textbooks programming lessons for those in need. Unfortunately, this takes time, effort and only pays off for the next generation. So the racial equality movement has been hijacked by politicians that offer a short-term solution: divide people by the most visible factor, such as skin color, then take from the overrepresented and give to the underrepresented. Except in the long term, it makes the society more divisive. If you hire a weaker candidate based on quotas, other employees will see the weakness and won't respect them. The employee will perceive this as racism and get offensive. If you try to further address it by promotion quotas, you start getting cliques where Blacks always side with other Blacks, and Whites always side with Whites. You've just created racism out of nowhere.
- cjohnson318 6y ago
  > So the racial equality movement has been hijacked by politicians that offer a short-term solution: divide people by the most visible factor, such as skin color, then take from the overrepresented and give to the underrepresented. I think this is totally backwards. If anything, the U.S. government takes from the underrepresented and gives to the overrepresented. This is achieved through gerrymandering districts to dilute minority votes, limiting voting sites, and asking "concerned citizens" to "monitor" voting locations. Our social welfare programs pale in comparison to the subsidies and tax cuts given to big businesses, and other overrepresented groups.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
MS could increase their diversity by broadening where they advertise job listings, developing mentorship programs at schools with more diverse populations, or even simply changing the language used in job postings. Building a diverse work force need not (indeed should not) be as simplistic as hiring inferior candidates because they meet some quota. Building a diverse workforce should be about making sure you get the very best people in the job. If the composition of their leadership team is dramatically skewed from the demographics of the general population, how can they argue that they scoured the country and found the very best? The reason the NBA is different is because sports are based on physical abilities. Race, by definition, is a difference in physical traits. It is therefore unsurprising that race has a bearing on diversity in sports. Race has not been shown to have any bearing on one’s ability to do the work MS needs. Why am I even explaining this to you? Can you seriously not understand the difference. FFS.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  Race is very strongly correlated with culture. And many cultural traits are crucial to doing work that companies need. It's just very hard to measure one's culture and it's very easy to measure their skin color. I don't think forcing companies to be diverse per skin color is a good idea. A much better way could be finding aspiring people from underrepresented populations and removing roadblocks on the way of specific people.
  - cjohnson318 6y ago
    > I don't think forcing companies to be diverse per skin color is a good idea. Microsoft is not being forced hire more diverse leadership; this Microsoft's own internal initiative.
    - john_moscow 6y ago
      Someone at the board suggested it, and if anyone else opposed it, they would lose their seat as a racist. That is effectively being forced.
geitir 6y ago
This post is no longer showing up for me on the front page or even the second page. Can anyone else verify?
- john_moscow 6y ago
  Verified. The thing is, Affirmative Action is one of those topics where having a "wrong" opinion is seen as treason by these in power. And far too many people here had the "wrong" opinion. The good news is, the tide is turning.
proc0 6y ago
It's worse than hypocrisy, it's accomplishing the opposite of what it's supposed to do. It's only a matter of time until there is an obvious gap in skill, which will only hurt the reputation of that group and then the situation could backfire when conflict starts arising among people with different skillset.

meroes 6y ago

And is that mutually exclusive to creating more opportunities for minorities to apply? And what if the current practices sans AA are already discriminatory (e.g. try having certain natural hairstyles at your interview that don't fit the status quo)...

throwawaysea 6y ago
Setting quotas/goals doesn’t seem like the right approach though. We can try to correct for the biases you name without setting numerical targets. The thing is, there isn’t any correct number to aim for. For instance, some cultures emphasize STEM education/careers and it isn’t surprising or incorrect to see them represented in tech at numbers higher than their makeup of the general population. Setting targets like proportional demographic representation for blacks or any other racial group ultimately amounts to racist discrimination against those other races.
- goldenManatee 6y ago
  What are 2 or 3 “right approaches” for improving diversity in tech? Unless, the view is that practices until now have been right? Cultural support for STEM comes through parents who themselves are capable of sitting at the dinner table to help kids with their math and science homework. Parents who encourage careers such as mechanical engineering, not just being a car mechanic because that feels most familiar to people they already know. So what are some “right approaches” for achieving more diverse workforces?

ausbah 6y ago

how about racial biases in hiring? no hiring is completely meritocratic, even in tech

zaroth 6y ago

There’s no getting around the fact. To the point where California is currently debating whether to remove the following phrase from their State Constitution; The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

nickpeterson 6y ago

Let’s use that NBA example, is the lack of Asian NBA players a problem? If it is, how would you go about fixing it?

cjohnson318 6y ago

Managers tend to take the three most highly qualified candidates and then, "all things being equal", hire the one most similar to them. It doesn't take a big brain to figure out how that has played out historically.

paxys 6y ago

Yes it is definitely discrimination, but not all such discrimination is illegal or morally wrong.

xvector 6y ago
> but not all such discrimination is illegal or morally wrong. Tell that to the Asian kid that just learnt that he now has to slave away at his studies because of his skin color.

Dwolb 6y ago

Whether someone can do a job is a mix of experience and potential (y-intercept and slope). It’s difficult for interviewers to assess potential so many rely on experience as the key indicator. It’s difficult for candidates from disadvantaged to show the same level of experience as candidates from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds are systematically segmented out from the hiring pool. Well-run diversity programs aim to better assess the potential of disadvantaged candidates and there are a variety of indicators for success.

john_moscow 6y ago

The elephant in the room is that due to rather dark times in the U.S. history, there are cultural differences between an average Black and an average White family. It doesn't mean that every family of a certain race will fit the stereotype, but if you look at numbers, they do check out. This isn't fair, this isn't nice, but it's a very important piece of the puzzle and you cannot solve the problem without admitting it. Many of these cultural differences are crucial to getting high-paid positions. Like nagging on your kids to study. Like making sure their role models are scientists and inventors, and not gang leaders. Like stressing out delayed gratification and showing how planning and persistence pays off in long term. If you look very carefully at company founders and people on high-paying jobs, almost every one of them will be from a family with these long-term values. Many Blacks have adopted these values and are successful. Nobody is telling them to go to a different drinking fountain, it's not 1930s anymore. So if you want to fix the problem for good, you need to advertise these values more, teach them at school, and give good examples. Maybe, remove roadblocks like providing free textbooks programming lessons for those in need. Unfortunately, this takes time, effort and only pays off for the next generation. So the racial equality movement has been hijacked by politicians that offer a short-term solution: divide people by the most visible factor, such as skin color, then take from the overrepresented and give to the underrepresented. Except in the long term, it makes the society more divisive. If you hire a weaker candidate based on quotas, other employees will see the weakness and won't respect them. The employee will perceive this as racism and get offensive. If you try to further address it by promotion quotas, you start getting cliques where Blacks always side with other Blacks, and Whites always side with Whites. You've just created racism out of nowhere.

cjohnson318 6y ago
> So the racial equality movement has been hijacked by politicians that offer a short-term solution: divide people by the most visible factor, such as skin color, then take from the overrepresented and give to the underrepresented. I think this is totally backwards. If anything, the U.S. government takes from the underrepresented and gives to the overrepresented. This is achieved through gerrymandering districts to dilute minority votes, limiting voting sites, and asking "concerned citizens" to "monitor" voting locations. Our social welfare programs pale in comparison to the subsidies and tax cuts given to big businesses, and other overrepresented groups.

Hnrobert42 6y ago

MS could increase their diversity by broadening where they advertise job listings, developing mentorship programs at schools with more diverse populations, or even simply changing the language used in job postings. Building a diverse work force need not (indeed should not) be as simplistic as hiring inferior candidates because they meet some quota. Building a diverse workforce should be about making sure you get the very best people in the job. If the composition of their leadership team is dramatically skewed from the demographics of the general population, how can they argue that they scoured the country and found the very best? The reason the NBA is different is because sports are based on physical abilities. Race, by definition, is a difference in physical traits. It is therefore unsurprising that race has a bearing on diversity in sports. Race has not been shown to have any bearing on one’s ability to do the work MS needs. Why am I even explaining this to you? Can you seriously not understand the difference. FFS.

john_moscow 6y ago
Race is very strongly correlated with culture. And many cultural traits are crucial to doing work that companies need. It's just very hard to measure one's culture and it's very easy to measure their skin color. I don't think forcing companies to be diverse per skin color is a good idea. A much better way could be finding aspiring people from underrepresented populations and removing roadblocks on the way of specific people.
- cjohnson318 6y ago
  > I don't think forcing companies to be diverse per skin color is a good idea. Microsoft is not being forced hire more diverse leadership; this Microsoft's own internal initiative.
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    Someone at the board suggested it, and if anyone else opposed it, they would lose their seat as a racist. That is effectively being forced.

geitir 6y ago

This post is no longer showing up for me on the front page or even the second page. Can anyone else verify?

john_moscow 6y ago
Verified. The thing is, Affirmative Action is one of those topics where having a "wrong" opinion is seen as treason by these in power. And far too many people here had the "wrong" opinion. The good news is, the tide is turning.

proc0 6y ago

It's worse than hypocrisy, it's accomplishing the opposite of what it's supposed to do. It's only a matter of time until there is an obvious gap in skill, which will only hurt the reputation of that group and then the situation could backfire when conflict starts arising among people with different skillset.