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This person was fired for pointing out systematic racism at google. If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregate

by illumen 16y ago

This person was fired for pointing out systematic racism at google. If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous. It really does say something about the corporate culture there. I hope it is investigated more closely by other parties, and that Google can make it better If there is something like this happening.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I think you are misinterpreting the story. They have a separate building where low level data entry people work. The segregation is by work function, not race.
AlexC04 16y ago
And they don't get free ice cream sandwiches when the ice cream truck pulls up. Is that racism or is it economics? Scanning books is a manual process that is much like sewing or factory work in the repetitiveness. (Maybe less skilled than sewing). The "racism" of the situation happened years before anyone walked onto the Google campus. The socio-economic opportunities of things like safety, education, nutrition, books, time, parental involvement all feeds in to the situation where the workers in building 3.14 get one level of education and the engineers get another. If it were true that they were segregating "people of color" then it absolutely would be outrageous. However, it is absolutely NOT true that they are segregating for reasons of color. It's a red-herring argument. What if the 4 to 2:30 schedule is to control traffic flow. Setting a non trivial number of workers to arrive and leave at a certain time means that the twice daily 'mega traffic jam' arriving and leaving doesn't happen. Which puts everyone at their desks longer. Which saves money. What if the reason that yellow badged workers aren't allowed to freely wander the rest of the google campus is down to security? Would you want low paid wage workers wandering around amongst your industrial secrets?
- mattmanser 16y ago
  In a corporation the size of Google there will be a lot of other low-paid workers, secretaries, post-room, catering, etc. Are they all yellow badge too? And do they all steal secrets as you seem to imply every low-paid person is bound to do? Seriously, just because someone is low paid doesn't mean they're any less trust worthy. That's one fucked up world view you have there. Also it doesn't make much sense as it's the higher paid workers who can do the serious economic damage as they know what's actually valuable.
  - AlexC04 16y ago
    I'm sorry you took my statement to read that I think they're less trustworthy. I don't in any way shape of form believe that they are less trustworthy than anyone else on campus. However, from a security point of view, if you could successfully eliminate 100% of the risk for a given group of individuals, wouldn't you? Anyways, I've either misspoke or you've misunderstood.
bennysaurus 16y ago
First up segregation is not the issue here but this guy's choice of words. The real problem here is if Google responds to any of his comments, on paper it really does look like there's a class issue and then the company can potentially find themselves in hot water. I would shut right up in that situation as well. The way he keeps saying 'people of colour' and talking about different classes doesn't lend to his cause either, nor going right out with a video camera as it really does look like he is filming an expose. If he was smart, he should have replied he was simply curious as to what these guys do and why the rules are different for this particular group. To elaborate any further than that, well, he dug his own pit there.
glenra 16y ago
> If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous. But it's not true and the allegation is so obviously ridiculous that it marks OP as a moron. When you say "people of color", does that term include people of Chinese descent? Japanese? Indian? You should find plenty of those in the main building, because those races are reasonably well represented among the class of "people who got a CS degree from Stanford (or similar)". Whereas if you look at any section of the business that doesn't require advanced tech degrees, you'll tend to see a different mix. > It really does say something about the corporate culture there. No, it really doesn't.
sudhirj 16y ago
I'd be very surprised if the the building was filled with only 'people of color' but that's not really the point anyway. If you've bothered to actually do any research, you'll find that tons of 'people of color' who are brilliant engineers, lawyers and execs are everywhere in the company, including the top management. If more people of color apply for jobs that do not require high qualifications then that situation is a reflection of society, not some racist conspiracy a certain class of people.
rmrm 16y ago
its ridiculous to even entertain the "seperate building where people of color work". The Googleplex itself is filled with "non-Anglos". Lets all be honest with what we're talking about, and in America what "people of color" really means (in most cases, and probably this one). It means black people. This guy noticed a lot of black people with yellow badges. The yellow badges had a high percentage of African Americans. Much higher than in the Googleplex proper (which probably tracks much closer to their % of the US population). And they (apparently) get less perks. This pushes all sorts of historical hot buttons in the American psyche. What's left up to us to determine (assuming the veracity of the OP) is WHY this is. The most logical reason why is that the yellow badge jobs are low paying jobs, and the company that is contracting for these low paying jobs draws heavily from the African American community in the surrounding areas. What is possibly interesting in all of this is the original issue of why low paying jobs potentially are filled by a much higher percentage of blacks than high paying jobs, which unfortunately has very little to do with Google, and a lot more to do with educational opportunities and the breakdown of the family structure in some African American communities, imo, which leads to a skewing of the potential job opportunities from urban American African Americans to be lower paying than anyone would like.

by illumen 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I think you are misinterpreting the story. They have a separate building where low level data entry people work. The segregation is by work function, not race.

AlexC04 16y ago

And they don't get free ice cream sandwiches when the ice cream truck pulls up. Is that racism or is it economics? Scanning books is a manual process that is much like sewing or factory work in the repetitiveness. (Maybe less skilled than sewing). The "racism" of the situation happened years before anyone walked onto the Google campus. The socio-economic opportunities of things like safety, education, nutrition, books, time, parental involvement all feeds in to the situation where the workers in building 3.14 get one level of education and the engineers get another. If it were true that they were segregating "people of color" then it absolutely would be outrageous. However, it is absolutely NOT true that they are segregating for reasons of color. It's a red-herring argument. What if the 4 to 2:30 schedule is to control traffic flow. Setting a non trivial number of workers to arrive and leave at a certain time means that the twice daily 'mega traffic jam' arriving and leaving doesn't happen. Which puts everyone at their desks longer. Which saves money. What if the reason that yellow badged workers aren't allowed to freely wander the rest of the google campus is down to security? Would you want low paid wage workers wandering around amongst your industrial secrets?

mattmanser 16y ago
In a corporation the size of Google there will be a lot of other low-paid workers, secretaries, post-room, catering, etc. Are they all yellow badge too? And do they all steal secrets as you seem to imply every low-paid person is bound to do? Seriously, just because someone is low paid doesn't mean they're any less trust worthy. That's one fucked up world view you have there. Also it doesn't make much sense as it's the higher paid workers who can do the serious economic damage as they know what's actually valuable.
- AlexC04 16y ago
  I'm sorry you took my statement to read that I think they're less trustworthy. I don't in any way shape of form believe that they are less trustworthy than anyone else on campus. However, from a security point of view, if you could successfully eliminate 100% of the risk for a given group of individuals, wouldn't you? Anyways, I've either misspoke or you've misunderstood.

bennysaurus 16y ago

First up segregation is not the issue here but this guy's choice of words. The real problem here is if Google responds to any of his comments, on paper it really does look like there's a class issue and then the company can potentially find themselves in hot water. I would shut right up in that situation as well. The way he keeps saying 'people of colour' and talking about different classes doesn't lend to his cause either, nor going right out with a video camera as it really does look like he is filming an expose. If he was smart, he should have replied he was simply curious as to what these guys do and why the rules are different for this particular group. To elaborate any further than that, well, he dug his own pit there.

glenra 16y ago

> If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous. But it's not true and the allegation is so obviously ridiculous that it marks OP as a moron. When you say "people of color", does that term include people of Chinese descent? Japanese? Indian? You should find plenty of those in the main building, because those races are reasonably well represented among the class of "people who got a CS degree from Stanford (or similar)". Whereas if you look at any section of the business that doesn't require advanced tech degrees, you'll tend to see a different mix. > It really does say something about the corporate culture there. No, it really doesn't.

sudhirj 16y ago

I'd be very surprised if the the building was filled with only 'people of color' but that's not really the point anyway. If you've bothered to actually do any research, you'll find that tons of 'people of color' who are brilliant engineers, lawyers and execs are everywhere in the company, including the top management. If more people of color apply for jobs that do not require high qualifications then that situation is a reflection of society, not some racist conspiracy a certain class of people.

rmrm 16y ago

its ridiculous to even entertain the "seperate building where people of color work". The Googleplex itself is filled with "non-Anglos". Lets all be honest with what we're talking about, and in America what "people of color" really means (in most cases, and probably this one). It means black people. This guy noticed a lot of black people with yellow badges. The yellow badges had a high percentage of African Americans. Much higher than in the Googleplex proper (which probably tracks much closer to their % of the US population). And they (apparently) get less perks. This pushes all sorts of historical hot buttons in the American psyche. What's left up to us to determine (assuming the veracity of the OP) is WHY this is. The most logical reason why is that the yellow badge jobs are low paying jobs, and the company that is contracting for these low paying jobs draws heavily from the African American community in the surrounding areas. What is possibly interesting in all of this is the original issue of why low paying jobs potentially are filled by a much higher percentage of blacks than high paying jobs, which unfortunately has very little to do with Google, and a lot more to do with educational opportunities and the breakdown of the family structure in some African American communities, imo, which leads to a skewing of the potential job opportunities from urban American African Americans to be lower paying than anyone would like.