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Of course it's part of the problem. But it's also a somewhat unavoidable side effect of supporting minorities. In a very weird way, anti-discriminative behavi

Of course it's part of the problem. But it's also a somewhat unavoidable side effect of supporting minorities. In a very weird way, anti-discriminative behaviour itself needs to be discriminative, because it needs to support minorities. And rightfully so, there needs to be a positive bias for minorities who were historically disenfranchised. Otherwise the historical disadvantage will propagate itself further. But then when you look at firings like this, it becomes very hard to distinguish whether it's discrimination or rightful. These two are members of minority groups. Their firing is, rightfully, examined to fine detail. But that same magnification lens has that chilling effect for the decision of hiring minority members. It's really a have-your-cake-and-eat-it problem. It f_cking sucks. And I don't know how to do better. I absolutely think we need affirmative action to relieve historic deficits, but at the same time this affirmative support is in itself discriminatory and can have negative effects. What to do? :(

shard972 6y ago
What if it wasn't all just historic deficits? If it was, Liberia would be a rival to america
higerordermap 6y ago
You know who is at the end disadvantaged by affirmative action? Minorities / women. Even if a PoC / woman is actually talented, people will subconsciously perceive them as diversity hires. There were plenty of instances of people telling on this forum that they don't want to be seen as diversity person, but actual engineer.
- xenihn 6y ago
  I think we've officially reached the point where you can stomp lumping all women together. Some companies are now prioritizing interns and junior devs from HBCUs, because they ended up with a new problem where the overwhelming majority of non-male hires for those roles were Asian.
panic 6y ago
Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. It feels like any attempt to design a solution ends up having to work around racism or, as you said in another comment, having to "take the devil's (racist's) advocate position". And sometimes the racism even takes the form of someone playing devil's advocate, in an honest attempt to make sure the solution is "realistic", but actually advancing the racists' position for them. The goal ultimately has to be to get to a place where we never have to think about what the racists will do because they don't have power any more.
- noofen 6y ago
  "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Oh, how far we have strayed.
Veelox 6y ago
>there needs to be a positive bias for minorities who were historically disenfranchised >I absolutely think we need affirmative action to relieve historic deficits, but at the same time this affirmative support is in itself discriminatory and can have negative effects. What to do? Quit affirmative action at anything above the high school level and poor resources into fixing the issues before high school. Personally I reject the framing that we need it and fully agree with you about the negative effects. The long term effects of people "being given" jobs or school placement I think are more negative than positive and you are seeing that. The Irish, Italian, Jews, Chinese, and Koreans were all able to get to parity or better without affirmative action.
- noofen 6y ago
  > The Irish, Italian, Jews, Chinese, and Koreans were all able to get to parity or better without affirmative action. This of course assumes that genetic (racial) differences in intellectual (and physical, for that matter) ability do not exist. This has never been proven to be the case [1], and never will. We all know dog breeds have different intellectual and physical characteristics. Why are humans supposedly immune from this? Because it is a morbid reality that throws a wrench in the "all men are created equal" liberal lie. This is not me advocating for gross eugenics or even discrimination. I just want to point out something frequently missing from these conversations. "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." – Aristotle [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
  - skannamalai 6y ago
    Biologist with a background in genetics here- there is no compelling evidence for statistically valid differences in measured intelligence on a racial genotypic basis. Most attempts to sort races by intelligence (e.g. The Bell Curve) end up being poorly designed junk science. Dr. Adam Rutherford is a great pop science presence for debunking, or at the very least, addressing the claims that intelligence tracks with race on a genetic basis if you're truly interested in this topic. https://youtu.be/3F0YSyeQavU https://youtu.be/3F0YSyeQavU

shard972 6y ago

What if it wasn't all just historic deficits? If it was, Liberia would be a rival to america

higerordermap 6y ago

You know who is at the end disadvantaged by affirmative action? Minorities / women. Even if a PoC / woman is actually talented, people will subconsciously perceive them as diversity hires. There were plenty of instances of people telling on this forum that they don't want to be seen as diversity person, but actual engineer.

xenihn 6y ago
I think we've officially reached the point where you can stomp lumping all women together. Some companies are now prioritizing interns and junior devs from HBCUs, because they ended up with a new problem where the overwhelming majority of non-male hires for those roles were Asian.

panic 6y ago

Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. It feels like any attempt to design a solution ends up having to work around racism or, as you said in another comment, having to "take the devil's (racist's) advocate position". And sometimes the racism even takes the form of someone playing devil's advocate, in an honest attempt to make sure the solution is "realistic", but actually advancing the racists' position for them. The goal ultimately has to be to get to a place where we never have to think about what the racists will do because they don't have power any more.

noofen 6y ago
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Oh, how far we have strayed.

Veelox 6y ago

>there needs to be a positive bias for minorities who were historically disenfranchised >I absolutely think we need affirmative action to relieve historic deficits, but at the same time this affirmative support is in itself discriminatory and can have negative effects. What to do? Quit affirmative action at anything above the high school level and poor resources into fixing the issues before high school. Personally I reject the framing that we need it and fully agree with you about the negative effects. The long term effects of people "being given" jobs or school placement I think are more negative than positive and you are seeing that. The Irish, Italian, Jews, Chinese, and Koreans were all able to get to parity or better without affirmative action.

noofen 6y ago
> The Irish, Italian, Jews, Chinese, and Koreans were all able to get to parity or better without affirmative action. This of course assumes that genetic (racial) differences in intellectual (and physical, for that matter) ability do not exist. This has never been proven to be the case [1], and never will. We all know dog breeds have different intellectual and physical characteristics. Why are humans supposedly immune from this? Because it is a morbid reality that throws a wrench in the "all men are created equal" liberal lie. This is not me advocating for gross eugenics or even discrimination. I just want to point out something frequently missing from these conversations. "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." – Aristotle [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
- skannamalai 6y ago
  Biologist with a background in genetics here- there is no compelling evidence for statistically valid differences in measured intelligence on a racial genotypic basis. Most attempts to sort races by intelligence (e.g. The Bell Curve) end up being poorly designed junk science. Dr. Adam Rutherford is a great pop science presence for debunking, or at the very least, addressing the claims that intelligence tracks with race on a genetic basis if you're truly interested in this topic. https://youtu.be/3F0YSyeQavU https://youtu.be/3F0YSyeQavU