3 ms·

I'm African and I think these name changes are ludicrous. Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hirin

by Olumde 6y ago

I'm African and I think these name changes are ludicrous. Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hiring overwhelmingly male candidates of European and Asian origin? Reminds me of something Martin Luther King (MLK) said after he started the second phase of his activism. Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had been passed 1964 and 1965 respectively, so MLK started to agitate for economic opportunities and equality. He noted that this would be the harder fight because allowing people to vote costs nothing. It was during this phase of his activism that he was assassinated. Changing the name of your repo means little and is not a substitute for looking deeply at your organization and asking the hard questions. You can call your repo Conan the Barbarian conqueror of all, or master. It doesn't matter to me. Edit Can I just add that IMO overcoming bias can only be achieved by individual effort. No amount of talk about diversity and equality by the company will fix the problem if any persons involved in the hiring process has biases and preferences rooted in ethnicity. If diversity initiatives were sufficient Google would be a more diverse place today. Not faulting them for trying though. My experience: I once interviewed a candidate who was much older than the rest of the team and I could see ageism welling up in me as soon as I met him. I had to consciously blind myself to the age of the candidate and forced myself to consider the him on merit only. Turns out the guy was great, and I agreed with the team that he would be a good hire. All I ask is not to look at the color or my skin but only on what I know. And do not offer me a job that I cannot do just because you want to be diverse.

Huwyt_Nashi031 6y ago
Is there any big tech company that doesn't have explicit policies that favour the hiring of non-"male candidates of European and Asian origin"? These are conscious biases that are feverishly pursued and policed. I think you can put that notion to bed.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hiring overwhelmingly male candidates of European and Asian origin?" Speaking of biases, please refrain from lumping us Asians in with whites. Asians had nothing to do with the origins or history of America's race problems.
- afiori 6y ago
  nothing in the comment implied that, if anything it asked for a stop to look at people as "asians", "whites", "blacks" or anything else and just look at them as people (while remembering that your ability to do so is likely imperfect). we do not need blame we need unity
hnarn 6y ago
I agree with everything you just said, but why can't it be both? It seems to me like a knee-jerk reaction to disparage small, symbolic changes like this because there's more important change that should happen instead. This implies that there's some kind of zero sum game at play where people's tolerance for change is somehow depleted by small changes, making larger changes harder. I guess the jury's out on that one, I don't know of any experiments made that can indicate one way or the other, but I don't believe that's the case. In fact, I believe disparaging small changes can be harmful to larger changes, because it accuses people that engage in trying to make positive change happen of wasting their time, because they're not focusing on the changes that you personally feel are more important. Having been an activist for many years, albeit in union related issues and not what's generally called "civil rights", I can certify that the main issue with any kind of social change or activism is that people are not engaging in it in the first place. Because of this, I'm firmly convinced that even "meaningless" change is at least change, and that denigrating it will turn people off on attempting change at all.
- Olumde 6y ago
  Thanks for making that point. You are right. I was just concerned some organizations would take naming a repo as "job done".

by Olumde 6y ago

Huwyt_Nashi031 6y ago

Is there any big tech company that doesn't have explicit policies that favour the hiring of non-"male candidates of European and Asian origin"? These are conscious biases that are feverishly pursued and policed. I think you can put that notion to bed.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hiring overwhelmingly male candidates of European and Asian origin?" Speaking of biases, please refrain from lumping us Asians in with whites. Asians had nothing to do with the origins or history of America's race problems.

afiori 6y ago
nothing in the comment implied that, if anything it asked for a stop to look at people as "asians", "whites", "blacks" or anything else and just look at them as people (while remembering that your ability to do so is likely imperfect). we do not need blame we need unity

hnarn 6y ago

I agree with everything you just said, but why can't it be both? It seems to me like a knee-jerk reaction to disparage small, symbolic changes like this because there's more important change that should happen instead. This implies that there's some kind of zero sum game at play where people's tolerance for change is somehow depleted by small changes, making larger changes harder. I guess the jury's out on that one, I don't know of any experiments made that can indicate one way or the other, but I don't believe that's the case. In fact, I believe disparaging small changes can be harmful to larger changes, because it accuses people that engage in trying to make positive change happen of wasting their time, because they're not focusing on the changes that you personally feel are more important. Having been an activist for many years, albeit in union related issues and not what's generally called "civil rights", I can certify that the main issue with any kind of social change or activism is that people are not engaging in it in the first place. Because of this, I'm firmly convinced that even "meaningless" change is at least change, and that denigrating it will turn people off on attempting change at all.

Olumde 6y ago
Thanks for making that point. You are right. I was just concerned some organizations would take naming a repo as "job done".