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> "Why should I feel proud of my accomplishments, when the accomplishments were spoon-fed to me by the company because of my skin color? If I were a white man w

> "Why should I feel proud of my accomplishments, when the accomplishments were spoon-fed to me by the company because of my skin color? If I were a white man with the same experience, I might not even be here?" I'm not a PoC but I am disabled. I have uncorrectable low vision. My perspective is different. If they want to hire me and promote me because I'm blind that's fine by me. I'm just happy that for once, something I have no control over, is maybe giving me a boost instead of being a drag. But maybe it's because I'm skeptical of meritocracy. Not in an absolute sense. I have a strong suspicion that if I weren't delivering value, I'd be gone by now despite being a diversity hire. But simultaneously, I don't believe people are promoted one over another strictly due to performance, even when DEI isn't a consideration. There's plenty of research indicating that humans and especially organizations suck at evaluating job performance. And I've seen many cases directly where someone is filling a leadership role to everyone's satisfaction yet someone else gets promoted to the permanent position even though they are clearly inadequate for the job. Promotions already appear chaotic, political and quasi-random. Essentially, what does it matter if DEI is just one more wonky variable in quantum mechanical promotion engine.

Forgeties79 4y ago
> I don't believe people are promoted one over another strictly due to performance, even when DEI isn't a consideration. I wish I could find the study but this one fascinating read pointed out that the greatest predictor of whether you'd get promotions/raises/etc. was whether or not you were 1) white, 2) male... Those 2 aren't surprising but then it continued: ...3) 6ft tall or taller, 4) "conventionally handsome" (very loaded to term I know), 5) well-groomed/dressed by whatever standards of the industry you were in. Height in particular had a ton of correlation. As you said, the meritocracy idea is kind of BS. It's a consideration, but it's not the primary consideration. Presentation appears to have an outsized effect, whether you control it or not.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  The bias is toward looking like a better version of your boss. Match him in everything culturally, but be cooler than him, better looking that him, taller than him. As a black man, I'm pretty sure I got more than one programming job because I played in punk bands in the 90s. This would be bad if the demographics of the people hiring were representative of the general population. They're not, so it makes it worse for specific groups.
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Forgeties79 4y ago

> I don't believe people are promoted one over another strictly due to performance, even when DEI isn't a consideration. I wish I could find the study but this one fascinating read pointed out that the greatest predictor of whether you'd get promotions/raises/etc. was whether or not you were 1) white, 2) male... Those 2 aren't surprising but then it continued: ...3) 6ft tall or taller, 4) "conventionally handsome" (very loaded to term I know), 5) well-groomed/dressed by whatever standards of the industry you were in. Height in particular had a ton of correlation. As you said, the meritocracy idea is kind of BS. It's a consideration, but it's not the primary consideration. Presentation appears to have an outsized effect, whether you control it or not.

pessimizer 4y ago
The bias is toward looking like a better version of your boss. Match him in everything culturally, but be cooler than him, better looking that him, taller than him. As a black man, I'm pretty sure I got more than one programming job because I played in punk bands in the 90s. This would be bad if the demographics of the people hiring were representative of the general population. They're not, so it makes it worse for specific groups.
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