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> I see a different risk with DEI, and I’d sure love your perspective if you’re willing to give it. I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and

> I see a different risk with DEI, and I’d sure love your perspective if you’re willing to give it. I think there’s a certain class of people (mostly young and white though the fact they are white is explainable as a statistical artifact) who feel empowered by DEI to push for changes that are meaningless and burdensome, but give them a feeling of power and virtuousness. Yes there are plenty of people who want to sit at the top of the food chain by way of gathering a "diverse" crowd. > DEI not only legitimizes, but actually encourages the above behavior. This seems problematic to me for two reasons: first, it creates a positive feedback loop for (at best) actions that make one feel self righteous without adding anything of real value, and second, it undermines the importance of critical thinking and analysis in engineering. This is not a problem with DEI. Look at the landgrab that is enterprise management. > In your opinion, do these changes have the intended effect? Are they meaningful and useful? Your premise is off, so I can't answer this. > * For those who don’t know, there used to be a racist practice by some fraternities, etc called a “brown bag test” where a brown bag was used to judge skin color for entry. This made brown bags racist, which in turn made brown bag lunches racist. This isn't true. Paper bags were never racist. I don't know where you picked this from. This is a misleading description to make anti-racism seem absurd.

strawpeople 4y ago
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cmh89 4y ago
>This isn't true. Paper bags were never racist. I don't know where you picked this from. This is a misleading description to make anti-racism seem absurd. What do you mean by 'isn't true'? It's at least real to some extent, without regard to how widespread it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2014/february.htm https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2014/febr... It's also the case that DEI groups want people to stop using 'brown bag lunch'.
- replygirl 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34681801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34681801
- John23832 4y ago
  > What do you mean by 'isn't true'? It's at least real to some extent, without regard to how widespread it was. The paper bag test doesn't make paper bags racist. It's a shade test. > It's also the case that DEI groups want people to stop using 'brown bag lunch'. I can't say that this hasn't happened. But if it has, this is one of the useless things that I take umbrage with in my original post.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Yes! Brown bags aren't racist, fraternities doing things like that were racist, at least as I see it.
  - tacitusarc 4y ago
    I appreciate your response. I think I have been so repeatedly told that the ridiculous elements of DEI (and anti-racism) are the core of those two… movements? by their (ostensible) advocates that I now strongly associate them with silliness, though maybe it is in fact a case of Nazis and the swastika. > I can't say that this hasn't happened. But if it has, this is one of the useless things that I take umbrage with in my original post. I sat in a meeting where two young, white colleagues informed another colleague that the term was racist and we should come up with a different one. I tried to push back gently, but I am a white man and as such have no standing in the DEI hierarchy. So it was decided in this meeting full of white people that we would no longer use the term as it might cause offense to someone, maybe. And the two young engineers were satisfied they had made the world a slightly better place. I found it disturbing but don’t know what to do.
travisjungroth 4y ago
> Yes there are plenty of people who want to sit at the top of the food chain by way of gathering a "diverse" crowd. Woah this suddenly made the behavior of some people who gave me the creeps but were doing "all the right things" make sense. Thanks. On the brownbag thing, I've had someone tell me we shouldn't say "picnic" because of a racist etymology. When I showed her this etymology wasn't real, she said it didn't matter. We still shouldn't say it because it might harm someone. This doesn't make anti-racism absurd. I think there are real heroes there. But that interaction sure felt absurd.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  Anti-racism is a specific and horrid ideological tool. Don't be anti-racist. Just don't be racist and call it out where you see it.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  I think it makes it absurd indeed and even worse I think it has a overall negative impact. It completely disregard intent, a pretty extreme position to take for any form of communication. Now you are not using the definitions of racists, which opinion might be worth disregarding, you are also using fictitious ones. You won't get through life without being hurt and learning to understand the meaning behind people using words is a skill you cannot skip to acquire. Misunderstanding happen and you need strategies to deal with them. It can but rarely results in conflict. You cannot expect everyone only using thoughts, associations and words you are content with. It is a false strategy without solution.
vmilner 4y ago
Well, it (brown bag lunch) made the Stanford harmful language list. I agree there is enough moronic content on that list to give the impression that the writers were playing false-flag games. But I’m prepared to believe they were sincere.
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  Just to add some context for that infamous Stanford list, it was a proposed internal list within the IT department about language to use for the text on official Stanford websites. As far as I'm aware that's the only place it was intended to be applied by the authors and it was never implemented. I know your intent wasn't bad but I found a lot of the media coverage massively over the top for what was essentially an overzealous suggestion to modify a website style guide.
  - vmilner 4y ago
    It gives us evidence (for the above discussion) that the term “brown bag lunch” has actually been documented as harmful by someone - and wasn’t just made up as a stick to beat diversity initiatives with. I would argue it also gives an indication of how “mission creep” works. (A well-used term like “tarball” now being deemed potentially offensive, presumably because it sounds like “tarbaby”, even though it’s obviously just referring to a bundle of files archived with the “tar” command.)
    - mikrotikker 4y ago
      Anyone who thinks tarbaby when they see tarball is a racist and I refuse to let that become my problem.
      - vmilner 4y ago
        "tarball (tar archive) While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby." https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag... I'm genuinely fascinated by how this came to be written. Were there brainstorming sessions where people threw out random word associations to show willing, combined with a fear from the rest of the group of accusations of racism for calling it out as arrant nonsense?

strawpeople 4y ago

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cmh89 4y ago

>This isn't true. Paper bags were never racist. I don't know where you picked this from. This is a misleading description to make anti-racism seem absurd. What do you mean by 'isn't true'? It's at least real to some extent, without regard to how widespread it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2014/february.htm https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2014/febr... It's also the case that DEI groups want people to stop using 'brown bag lunch'.

replygirl 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34681801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34681801
John23832 4y ago
> What do you mean by 'isn't true'? It's at least real to some extent, without regard to how widespread it was. The paper bag test doesn't make paper bags racist. It's a shade test. > It's also the case that DEI groups want people to stop using 'brown bag lunch'. I can't say that this hasn't happened. But if it has, this is one of the useless things that I take umbrage with in my original post.
- rnk 4y ago
  Yes! Brown bags aren't racist, fraternities doing things like that were racist, at least as I see it.
- tacitusarc 4y ago
  I appreciate your response. I think I have been so repeatedly told that the ridiculous elements of DEI (and anti-racism) are the core of those two… movements? by their (ostensible) advocates that I now strongly associate them with silliness, though maybe it is in fact a case of Nazis and the swastika. > I can't say that this hasn't happened. But if it has, this is one of the useless things that I take umbrage with in my original post. I sat in a meeting where two young, white colleagues informed another colleague that the term was racist and we should come up with a different one. I tried to push back gently, but I am a white man and as such have no standing in the DEI hierarchy. So it was decided in this meeting full of white people that we would no longer use the term as it might cause offense to someone, maybe. And the two young engineers were satisfied they had made the world a slightly better place. I found it disturbing but don’t know what to do.

travisjungroth 4y ago

> Yes there are plenty of people who want to sit at the top of the food chain by way of gathering a "diverse" crowd. Woah this suddenly made the behavior of some people who gave me the creeps but were doing "all the right things" make sense. Thanks. On the brownbag thing, I've had someone tell me we shouldn't say "picnic" because of a racist etymology. When I showed her this etymology wasn't real, she said it didn't matter. We still shouldn't say it because it might harm someone. This doesn't make anti-racism absurd. I think there are real heroes there. But that interaction sure felt absurd.

mikrotikker 4y ago
Anti-racism is a specific and horrid ideological tool. Don't be anti-racist. Just don't be racist and call it out where you see it.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
I think it makes it absurd indeed and even worse I think it has a overall negative impact. It completely disregard intent, a pretty extreme position to take for any form of communication. Now you are not using the definitions of racists, which opinion might be worth disregarding, you are also using fictitious ones. You won't get through life without being hurt and learning to understand the meaning behind people using words is a skill you cannot skip to acquire. Misunderstanding happen and you need strategies to deal with them. It can but rarely results in conflict. You cannot expect everyone only using thoughts, associations and words you are content with. It is a false strategy without solution.

vmilner 4y ago

Well, it (brown bag lunch) made the Stanford harmful language list. I agree there is enough moronic content on that list to give the impression that the writers were playing false-flag games. But I’m prepared to believe they were sincere.

enragedcacti 4y ago
Just to add some context for that infamous Stanford list, it was a proposed internal list within the IT department about language to use for the text on official Stanford websites. As far as I'm aware that's the only place it was intended to be applied by the authors and it was never implemented. I know your intent wasn't bad but I found a lot of the media coverage massively over the top for what was essentially an overzealous suggestion to modify a website style guide.
- vmilner 4y ago
  It gives us evidence (for the above discussion) that the term “brown bag lunch” has actually been documented as harmful by someone - and wasn’t just made up as a stick to beat diversity initiatives with. I would argue it also gives an indication of how “mission creep” works. (A well-used term like “tarball” now being deemed potentially offensive, presumably because it sounds like “tarbaby”, even though it’s obviously just referring to a bundle of files archived with the “tar” command.)
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    Anyone who thinks tarbaby when they see tarball is a racist and I refuse to let that become my problem.
    - vmilner 4y ago
      "tarball (tar archive) While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby." https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag... I'm genuinely fascinated by how this came to be written. Were there brainstorming sessions where people threw out random word associations to show willing, combined with a fear from the rest of the group of accusations of racism for calling it out as arrant nonsense?