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How can you look at this data and know it’s “racism”? There’s so many unexplained confounds that you can’t account for. It’s “interesting” data, but using it to

How can you look at this data and know it’s “racism”? There’s so many unexplained confounds that you can’t account for. It’s “interesting” data, but using it to definitively draw conclusions seems malicious and pseudo scientific.

Fnoord 4y ago
My family is of Dutch origin. The husband of my niece is from Moroccan origin. He has his own business. He experimented with giving her last name, and suddenly he got way more clients (all pre-covid btw). So they married and he changed his last name to hers. It kind of adds to the problem on one hand but on another this type of assimilation of culture is something you can find throughout history. Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time. Its a never ending struggle, and sometimes it goes with more violence (ie. Uyghur concentration camps) than elsewhere. Also, I have a family member who worked at the Dutch tax dept. customer service who got a burnout over this very issue. Because they knew it was wrong.
- rs999gti 4y ago
  Sort of the same thing happened to my mom's family. Her grandparents immigrated to another country (not US) and the natives were very hostile to them because of their last name. They changed it to a native sounding last name and were able to integrate into society. However, on her side of the family, some of the relatives choose to go back to the old last name, so when we have reunions there is a mix of people with the native and original last name.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Wow. This is such a deeply personal reply. Thank you to share about your experience. Please don't think this is only the Netherlands. The United States still has similar issues. If you have a name that "sounds Black" on your CV, you are much less likely to get a call for interview. It is sad, and it bothers me to no end. The same will be for people who have traditional Islamic/Moslem names (Muhammed, Siti, etc.). What makes me most hopeful: These investigations and reporting demonstrates a functioning democracy is able to audit itself -- either internally or externally via media. Years ago, I had a Japanese co-worker. We were discussing recent news events in Australia. For whatever reason, Australia was in one of those mini-bubbles of political corruption. To him, it seemed like everyday was some new corruption in Australia! He asked me -- in all seriousness: "Is Australia a corrupt country? Look what we see in the news." I am not Australian, but I mentioned that it was positive the gov't and media was investigating and being transparent about it. That part was the most important to me. In the end, he seemed satisfied with my explanation -- and not excusing the scandal.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  > Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time. It's part of a larger problem in the Netherlands. There is a lot of segregation in the Netherlands based on social class and education level. A Dutch person immediately judges someone's social class based on looks -- clothing, tattoos, obesity, hairstyle, et cetera. And lower social classes are predujiced against. And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. People with Western foreign names are thought of as "expats" and mentally put into the highly educated / high social class group. Yes, foreigners must adapt, but I hope that over time as Dutch society becomes more integrated with the world, this aspect of Dutch culture will also be weakened. This racism is a side effect of our classism.
  - meragrin_ 4y ago
    > And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. Or maybe harder to communicate with?
    - Scarblac 4y ago
      Nah, I don't think so. Most of them will be born in the Netherlands and speak perfectly normal Dutch.
    - yunohn 4y ago
      If you think the local Moroccans and Turkish can’t speak Dutch, clearly you know nothing about NL and are projecting your biases further.
z3c0 4y ago
The distinction is "institutional racism" vs "personal racism". Is it possible that nobody had deliberate malicious intent in this matter? Completely. But what "institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy. Usually, it's only ignorance at play, but it's still not good to create a system that has a "net racist" effect without at least trying to understand why.
- rajin444 4y ago
  > “institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy How do you prove these things are caused by socioeconomic factors? At a minimum we have nowhere near the genetic understanding to control for those aspects. At a higher level, human society, culture, and the systems created by it are infinitely complex. Grouping people on 1 axis then saying the reason for this grouping is “socioeconomic” seems…optimistic at best. There are so many reasons one racial grouping may be disparately impacted by something. We should focus on fixing the downsides of that impact for all people, not asking why X arbitrary category we came up with doesn’t match Y (because the answer to question is far beyond our technical ability). And our metric of success cannot be “x group more affected” - if we make that our metric, we’ll find a way to hit that target, correct or not.
  - soco 4y ago
    This sounds very nihilistic, or maybe libertarian I can't tell the difference. My point is, we must do something and as engineers we work based on data. Now you can argue successfully that data is not perfect, but if the alternative is (institutional) paralysis, then what? A state cannot afford to be that zen regarding the well-being of its citizens.
    - choko 4y ago
      This sounds authoritarian, or maybe progressive. I can't tell the difference. My point is that data without context is almost worthless when crafting policy.

Fnoord 4y ago

My family is of Dutch origin. The husband of my niece is from Moroccan origin. He has his own business. He experimented with giving her last name, and suddenly he got way more clients (all pre-covid btw). So they married and he changed his last name to hers. It kind of adds to the problem on one hand but on another this type of assimilation of culture is something you can find throughout history. Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time. Its a never ending struggle, and sometimes it goes with more violence (ie. Uyghur concentration camps) than elsewhere. Also, I have a family member who worked at the Dutch tax dept. customer service who got a burnout over this very issue. Because they knew it was wrong.

rs999gti 4y ago
Sort of the same thing happened to my mom's family. Her grandparents immigrated to another country (not US) and the natives were very hostile to them because of their last name. They changed it to a native sounding last name and were able to integrate into society. However, on her side of the family, some of the relatives choose to go back to the old last name, so when we have reunions there is a mix of people with the native and original last name.
throwaway2037 4y ago
Wow. This is such a deeply personal reply. Thank you to share about your experience. Please don't think this is only the Netherlands. The United States still has similar issues. If you have a name that "sounds Black" on your CV, you are much less likely to get a call for interview. It is sad, and it bothers me to no end. The same will be for people who have traditional Islamic/Moslem names (Muhammed, Siti, etc.). What makes me most hopeful: These investigations and reporting demonstrates a functioning democracy is able to audit itself -- either internally or externally via media. Years ago, I had a Japanese co-worker. We were discussing recent news events in Australia. For whatever reason, Australia was in one of those mini-bubbles of political corruption. To him, it seemed like everyday was some new corruption in Australia! He asked me -- in all seriousness: "Is Australia a corrupt country? Look what we see in the news." I am not Australian, but I mentioned that it was positive the gov't and media was investigating and being transparent about it. That part was the most important to me. In the end, he seemed satisfied with my explanation -- and not excusing the scandal.
Scarblac 4y ago
> Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time. It's part of a larger problem in the Netherlands. There is a lot of segregation in the Netherlands based on social class and education level. A Dutch person immediately judges someone's social class based on looks -- clothing, tattoos, obesity, hairstyle, et cetera. And lower social classes are predujiced against. And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. People with Western foreign names are thought of as "expats" and mentally put into the highly educated / high social class group. Yes, foreigners must adapt, but I hope that over time as Dutch society becomes more integrated with the world, this aspect of Dutch culture will also be weakened. This racism is a side effect of our classism.
- meragrin_ 4y ago
  > And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. Or maybe harder to communicate with?
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    Nah, I don't think so. Most of them will be born in the Netherlands and speak perfectly normal Dutch.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    If you think the local Moroccans and Turkish can’t speak Dutch, clearly you know nothing about NL and are projecting your biases further.

z3c0 4y ago

The distinction is "institutional racism" vs "personal racism". Is it possible that nobody had deliberate malicious intent in this matter? Completely. But what "institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy. Usually, it's only ignorance at play, but it's still not good to create a system that has a "net racist" effect without at least trying to understand why.

rajin444 4y ago
> “institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy How do you prove these things are caused by socioeconomic factors? At a minimum we have nowhere near the genetic understanding to control for those aspects. At a higher level, human society, culture, and the systems created by it are infinitely complex. Grouping people on 1 axis then saying the reason for this grouping is “socioeconomic” seems…optimistic at best. There are so many reasons one racial grouping may be disparately impacted by something. We should focus on fixing the downsides of that impact for all people, not asking why X arbitrary category we came up with doesn’t match Y (because the answer to question is far beyond our technical ability). And our metric of success cannot be “x group more affected” - if we make that our metric, we’ll find a way to hit that target, correct or not.
- soco 4y ago
  This sounds very nihilistic, or maybe libertarian I can't tell the difference. My point is, we must do something and as engineers we work based on data. Now you can argue successfully that data is not perfect, but if the alternative is (institutional) paralysis, then what? A state cannot afford to be that zen regarding the well-being of its citizens.
  - choko 4y ago
    This sounds authoritarian, or maybe progressive. I can't tell the difference. My point is that data without context is almost worthless when crafting policy.