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I was with you until this part: >It was JeanHeyd who called Rust out for having no Black representation among Rust conference speakers. Rightly so, as both the

I was with you until this part: >It was JeanHeyd who called Rust out for having no Black representation among Rust conference speakers. Rightly so, as both the Rust organization and the conferences had little to no Black representation. Am I the only one that considers such arbitrary "diversity enforcement policy" horribly racist? No organisation should be "called out for a lack of - insert-race-here- representation unless that organisation is in fact discriminatory. No one should be discouraged, relegated, skipped for mentoring or removed from a membership or a leadership role in an organisation because that person is the wrong race. Regardless of the reason why you feel that race is wrong. Calling out a group "for lack of Black representation" is basically telling every single non-Black member of that group they are less valuable because of the color of their skin. People are not exchangeable units whose defining feature is the color of their skin. How can intelligent people not see this kind of thinking leads to the worst of social divisions? Personally, I was with the author until that quote. If I was a member of that organisation I too would not be OK being represented by a person that makes such horribly offensive personal opinions known regardless of their technical expertise.

depr 3y ago
He is saying there weren't any black speakers. Sure we can say how that should grow "organically", as some other poster did. But what if year in year out it doesn't happen? Maybe there aren't any black people in the Rust community and if they stepped forward with some good talks they would just be invited? Or maybe the situation is a little more complicated. On the one hand you have your "diversity enforcement policy" which is arguably racist. On the other hand you have black Rust developers but never any black speakers or organization leaders (in a community which doesn't hesitate to toot their diversity horn) which also arguably racist. So what gives? >Personally, I was with the author until that quote. If I was a member of that organisation I too would not be OK being represented by a person that makes such horribly offensive personal opinions known regardless of their technical expertise. You could ask yourself why something that someone else might see as a simple (minor) disagreement caused such as strong reaction in you.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  > But what if year in year out it doesn't happen? Then the intersection between "Black people" and "people willing to speak on a Rust conference" is extremely small and nothing can be done about it. Well, nothing that's not already being done I mean: like encourage everyone to be in these circles because nobody is going to show you the door for doing so, and nobody is going to discriminate you. What else should one programming language foundation be doing? They are not a world government that can and should fight systemic racism. They can only encourage people to participate. Which they already do. > You could ask yourself why something that someone else might see as a simple (minor) disagreement caused such as strong reaction in you. Throwing the ball at each others' hands is never gonna achieve anything. I can try answering for your parent poster: because the average white people are getting sick of being blamed of being racist while a lot of places are being racist towards them because they are white and somehow the problems of racism worldwide are our fault. I've never in my life discriminated anyone on any race or gender grounds and I also don't plan to ever do so. But constantly guilt-tripping whites that they should "fight for more representation" is not how you win them over for your cause. You only alienate them. Tell me this: "please never exclude people from conferences based on skin color and gender" and I'll immediately agree with you, we shake hands and the world became slightly better. But tell me "it's a little more complicated" without giving any context or explanation while still implying it's somehow my fault that there are no Black speakers on a Rust conference, and you definitely have lost me for your cause. I might even start fighting against you, if I allow my monkey brain to take over that is, which I actively strive to not do. Now, you ask yourself why did you try to shift blame. It's toxic. We can all be better than this. Let's start somewhere already. We got so much more in common than you seem to think. Or, if I completely misconstrued your comment then I am truly sorry. But I do get pissed off every now and then. We should all just stop blaming people for things that 95% of the time are just not there. :(
  - dagmx 3y ago
    I disagree that “nothing can be done”. There’s lots that could be done that don’t fall in to your description of affirmative action. Invitations could be extended to people to submit proposals for a talk. This already happens, but maybe the circle gets expanded once it’s evident that the circle has been too small. The simple act of asking is often enough to make people feel welcome. I also call BS on the claim that you’ve never discriminated against someone. No person is a saint like that. Every human and sentient creature has inherent biases. Maybe you’ve never actively discriminated, but you most surely have passively done so at some time in your life. For anyone to claim they are perfect in this regard is only fooling one’s self. That you then go on to say that it’s not there 95% of the time withoit any actual reflection on the matter perhaps shows that you’re not well versed enough in the dynamics of race and gender relations to make that call.
tkfu 3y ago
> No organisation should be "called out" for a lack of - insert-race-here- representation unless that organisation is in fact discriminatory. I don't think you're being very reasonable here. A lack of diversity is just a piece of data: it might be complete coincidence, or it might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination. "Calling out" a lack of diversity is just bringing attention to that piece of data. If you want to ignore it, fine. If you want to make a case that the lack of diversity isn't a problem and/or has nothing to do with bias, by all means do so. But you can't just tell people to shut up about inconvenient facts until discrimination is proved in a court of law (or to your own satisfaction, or whatever unstated burden of proof you think is sufficient). Free speech and dissent is important. You might not like it when people point out obvious and available data like "hey, this group seems to be pretty homogeneous", but that doesn't mean those people should shut up.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  I'll risk the downvotes then. > A lack of diversity is just a piece of data: it might be complete coincidence, or it might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination. I say it's a coincidence. I've known racist people but they were an overwhelming minority and had no power. Let's stop there. Find me a systemic racist in a position of power where I work or participate in local events and I promise I'll fight to eject them from their place of power. Done. Discussion should be over at this point: let's have actionable steps. We don't have them? Let's do something else. "Might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination" is not a convincing thing to say. Going witch-hunting for witches that are 90% likely to not even exist is unproductive. The Sun's magnetic storms might influence our moods, that too falls in the "it might" category, but I don't base my life decisions on it. > "Calling out" a lack of diversity is just bringing attention to that piece of data A lot of people have been "bringing up attention" to many things. What are you doing to help? I had a few technical talks held in my city and in one occasion I insisted the discussion after the talk be in English and not my native tongue because we had just two English-speaking participants in the audience. I am helping in practical terms. Are you helping practically? Many people in more privileged countries are completely blind to the fact that "raising awareness" is being done ever since the 1970s yet very little progress has been made in many areas (happily racism and sexism were reduced, which is good!). When are you going to understand that somebody at one point should actively do something about the problems and stop "raising awareness" until the heat death of the Universe? Many people are quite aware of a ton of problems, believe me. I go outside and talk to people of many nationalities and races. The people willing to do something outside virtue-signalling are very few and far between though, sadly. And you strike me as a virtue-signaller. I realize my tone is a bit combative but honestly, it's getting tiring and at one point I find it hard to talk entirely calmly when the other side of the discussion is content to only repeat the same things like a broken record.
laurels-marts 3y ago
> How can intelligent people not see this kind of thinking leads to the worst of social divisions? Intelligent people do see it. It’s typically people that have no actual direct value to contribute but still want to score points that focus on all kinds of secondary topics.
lost_tourist 3y ago
I don't think it's racist, but I do think it's tunnel vision and not taking into context in the greater context of society. There is obviously and undeniably a paucity of black people in STEM. So yeah, I think that having someone get a +1 for being a POC in a group of several +1's in choosing something like a keynote speaker. It's a chicken-and-egg problem in STEM. It should never be the sole determination, but if you're down to keynote speaker of basically identically talented keynotes, then being a non-white person can be that +1 to make a decision. Fairness does not always equate to exactly the same treatment
dagmx 3y ago
[flagged]
- klyrs 3y ago
  I, for one, would love to see compile-time reflection in Rust and I'm genuinely curious how somebody exploring the feasibility of that feature could make anybody feel uncomfortable. As a minority, I've been subject to firm decisions made on the basis of extremely dubious reasoning before. Is it bias? Who knows, it's never clear-cut in any specific example. But when it just seems to keep happening and nobody can explain why, it certainly feels fishy. And of course, being on hiring panels and hearing comments like "I don't like how she talks" or "I don't trust men who wear scarves" or "I don't think he'll fit the culture (which is mostly white)" made about candidates, and "I don't see any problem with hiring based on attractiveness" as a "joke" after a hiring decision was made in favor of a conventionally attractive woman... and later hearing comments like "I've never discriminated against anybody" come out of the same mouths? I don't buy it. I don't think I'm unbiased. I don't know how anybody could possibly think that about themselves.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    I share your experience here. I’m a minority, and arguably now considered an industry expert as well in my domain (graphics). The vast majority of time I’m the only minority involved in several circles. I am trying to raise diversity in these groups, across age, ethnicity and gender. But it’s so difficult to do when few others also join in that effort. Not because they’re necessarily bigoted (though some are), but they don’t see it. The only effective means I’ve found is to actually highlight the disparity between diversity in the industry versus representation in the committees. Then suddenly people have an amazing colleague that they forgot to invite, or a rising star Junior dev who could be mentored into the role. Sometimes people just need to be reminded that the status quo isn’t above questioning and that they have their own implicit biases that they just never reflect on.
- philstephenson 3y ago
  > Let me flip your quote back on you: how can intelligent people still believe in unbiased meritocracy being the default? Very few people I think would argue that systems based on meritocracy have zero bias. This is not the point. The point is that today’s conventional wisdom by the progressive left is that these biases must be resolved by a system of affirmative action where every sub culture or group somehow is proportionally representative of the overall population based on race, gender, etc. For some reason, that outcome is thought to be the best way to affirm that no bias exists in a group. Personally I think that premise is just very flawed. Meritocracy is not a perfect system. No one is saying that. But it’s the best system we have for engaging with the actual content that is relevant to any given group. As far as bias is concerned, the best we can do is call out specific instances of it and try to squash and correct those (and maybe this case in this blog post is one). There is no commonly understood way to measure bias or racism that everyone agrees with and so why would we think that measuring representation would somehow be the best solution?
drew-y 3y ago
I see where you're coming from and it's clear you have strong feelings on this matter. However, I believe there might be a misunderstanding here. The goal of diversity initiatives isn't about devaluing any particular group, it's about ensuring that the opportunities and benefits are more equitably distributed across different communities. When someone mentions a 'lack of Black representation', they're not saying that non-Black members are less valuable because of their skin color. Rather, they're highlighting that there appears to be a systemic issue preventing people of that particular race from participating or advancing in that space. By addressing these systemic issues, we can make organizations more inclusive and more representative of the broader community. Nobody is suggesting that people are exchangeable units defined solely by their skin color. On the contrary, it's recognized that everyone is unique and has a diverse set of skills, experiences, and perspectives to contribute. This does not mean discarding merit or reducing people to their race, but rather acknowledging that societal, cultural, and systemic barriers have created unequal access to opportunities. The ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their race, has an equal opportunity to succeed.
- slily 3y ago
  When were these supposed "systemic issues" ever identified? In my experience "systemic racism" is a vague pretext to implement racist policies that push out white people (and sometimes Asians) in favor of black people (and people considered "brown enough"). I see this at my job and at conferences: people are explicitly promoted or selected as speakers in part because they are not white (or not male). This isn't just something I observed, they say it openly when the "diversity", equity, and "inclusion" strategy is discussed. I've also seen conference attendees openly say that there should be fewer white males at a certain event. In none of those cases was a specific policy or practice identified that would explain the existence of "systemic issues" preventing minorities from getting hired, promoted, selected, and that would justify implementing discriminatory policies (aka "affirmative action"). So ironically we're discriminating against the "majority" (white males) over something that's mostly imaginary, at least in the US tech industry, based on nothing but demographic statistics. The fact that there's fewer qualified people of a certain color (proportionally to overall demographics) in the pool isn't evidence of systemic racism at the level we're operating. Meanwhile you would get laughed at for suggesting that we need gender parity in waste management jobs, or early childhood education.

depr 3y ago

He is saying there weren't any black speakers. Sure we can say how that should grow "organically", as some other poster did. But what if year in year out it doesn't happen? Maybe there aren't any black people in the Rust community and if they stepped forward with some good talks they would just be invited? Or maybe the situation is a little more complicated. On the one hand you have your "diversity enforcement policy" which is arguably racist. On the other hand you have black Rust developers but never any black speakers or organization leaders (in a community which doesn't hesitate to toot their diversity horn) which also arguably racist. So what gives? >Personally, I was with the author until that quote. If I was a member of that organisation I too would not be OK being represented by a person that makes such horribly offensive personal opinions known regardless of their technical expertise. You could ask yourself why something that someone else might see as a simple (minor) disagreement caused such as strong reaction in you.

pdimitar 3y ago
> But what if year in year out it doesn't happen? Then the intersection between "Black people" and "people willing to speak on a Rust conference" is extremely small and nothing can be done about it. Well, nothing that's not already being done I mean: like encourage everyone to be in these circles because nobody is going to show you the door for doing so, and nobody is going to discriminate you. What else should one programming language foundation be doing? They are not a world government that can and should fight systemic racism. They can only encourage people to participate. Which they already do. > You could ask yourself why something that someone else might see as a simple (minor) disagreement caused such as strong reaction in you. Throwing the ball at each others' hands is never gonna achieve anything. I can try answering for your parent poster: because the average white people are getting sick of being blamed of being racist while a lot of places are being racist towards them because they are white and somehow the problems of racism worldwide are our fault. I've never in my life discriminated anyone on any race or gender grounds and I also don't plan to ever do so. But constantly guilt-tripping whites that they should "fight for more representation" is not how you win them over for your cause. You only alienate them. Tell me this: "please never exclude people from conferences based on skin color and gender" and I'll immediately agree with you, we shake hands and the world became slightly better. But tell me "it's a little more complicated" without giving any context or explanation while still implying it's somehow my fault that there are no Black speakers on a Rust conference, and you definitely have lost me for your cause. I might even start fighting against you, if I allow my monkey brain to take over that is, which I actively strive to not do. Now, you ask yourself why did you try to shift blame. It's toxic. We can all be better than this. Let's start somewhere already. We got so much more in common than you seem to think. Or, if I completely misconstrued your comment then I am truly sorry. But I do get pissed off every now and then. We should all just stop blaming people for things that 95% of the time are just not there. :(
- dagmx 3y ago
  I disagree that “nothing can be done”. There’s lots that could be done that don’t fall in to your description of affirmative action. Invitations could be extended to people to submit proposals for a talk. This already happens, but maybe the circle gets expanded once it’s evident that the circle has been too small. The simple act of asking is often enough to make people feel welcome. I also call BS on the claim that you’ve never discriminated against someone. No person is a saint like that. Every human and sentient creature has inherent biases. Maybe you’ve never actively discriminated, but you most surely have passively done so at some time in your life. For anyone to claim they are perfect in this regard is only fooling one’s self. That you then go on to say that it’s not there 95% of the time withoit any actual reflection on the matter perhaps shows that you’re not well versed enough in the dynamics of race and gender relations to make that call.

tkfu 3y ago

> No organisation should be "called out" for a lack of - insert-race-here- representation unless that organisation is in fact discriminatory. I don't think you're being very reasonable here. A lack of diversity is just a piece of data: it might be complete coincidence, or it might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination. "Calling out" a lack of diversity is just bringing attention to that piece of data. If you want to ignore it, fine. If you want to make a case that the lack of diversity isn't a problem and/or has nothing to do with bias, by all means do so. But you can't just tell people to shut up about inconvenient facts until discrimination is proved in a court of law (or to your own satisfaction, or whatever unstated burden of proof you think is sufficient). Free speech and dissent is important. You might not like it when people point out obvious and available data like "hey, this group seems to be pretty homogeneous", but that doesn't mean those people should shut up.

pdimitar 3y ago
I'll risk the downvotes then. > A lack of diversity is just a piece of data: it might be complete coincidence, or it might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination. I say it's a coincidence. I've known racist people but they were an overwhelming minority and had no power. Let's stop there. Find me a systemic racist in a position of power where I work or participate in local events and I promise I'll fight to eject them from their place of power. Done. Discussion should be over at this point: let's have actionable steps. We don't have them? Let's do something else. "Might be related to some underlying bias or discrimination" is not a convincing thing to say. Going witch-hunting for witches that are 90% likely to not even exist is unproductive. The Sun's magnetic storms might influence our moods, that too falls in the "it might" category, but I don't base my life decisions on it. > "Calling out" a lack of diversity is just bringing attention to that piece of data A lot of people have been "bringing up attention" to many things. What are you doing to help? I had a few technical talks held in my city and in one occasion I insisted the discussion after the talk be in English and not my native tongue because we had just two English-speaking participants in the audience. I am helping in practical terms. Are you helping practically? Many people in more privileged countries are completely blind to the fact that "raising awareness" is being done ever since the 1970s yet very little progress has been made in many areas (happily racism and sexism were reduced, which is good!). When are you going to understand that somebody at one point should actively do something about the problems and stop "raising awareness" until the heat death of the Universe? Many people are quite aware of a ton of problems, believe me. I go outside and talk to people of many nationalities and races. The people willing to do something outside virtue-signalling are very few and far between though, sadly. And you strike me as a virtue-signaller. I realize my tone is a bit combative but honestly, it's getting tiring and at one point I find it hard to talk entirely calmly when the other side of the discussion is content to only repeat the same things like a broken record.

laurels-marts 3y ago

> How can intelligent people not see this kind of thinking leads to the worst of social divisions? Intelligent people do see it. It’s typically people that have no actual direct value to contribute but still want to score points that focus on all kinds of secondary topics.

lost_tourist 3y ago

I don't think it's racist, but I do think it's tunnel vision and not taking into context in the greater context of society. There is obviously and undeniably a paucity of black people in STEM. So yeah, I think that having someone get a +1 for being a POC in a group of several +1's in choosing something like a keynote speaker. It's a chicken-and-egg problem in STEM. It should never be the sole determination, but if you're down to keynote speaker of basically identically talented keynotes, then being a non-white person can be that +1 to make a decision. Fairness does not always equate to exactly the same treatment

dagmx 3y ago

[flagged]

klyrs 3y ago
I, for one, would love to see compile-time reflection in Rust and I'm genuinely curious how somebody exploring the feasibility of that feature could make anybody feel uncomfortable. As a minority, I've been subject to firm decisions made on the basis of extremely dubious reasoning before. Is it bias? Who knows, it's never clear-cut in any specific example. But when it just seems to keep happening and nobody can explain why, it certainly feels fishy. And of course, being on hiring panels and hearing comments like "I don't like how she talks" or "I don't trust men who wear scarves" or "I don't think he'll fit the culture (which is mostly white)" made about candidates, and "I don't see any problem with hiring based on attractiveness" as a "joke" after a hiring decision was made in favor of a conventionally attractive woman... and later hearing comments like "I've never discriminated against anybody" come out of the same mouths? I don't buy it. I don't think I'm unbiased. I don't know how anybody could possibly think that about themselves.
- dagmx 3y ago
  I share your experience here. I’m a minority, and arguably now considered an industry expert as well in my domain (graphics). The vast majority of time I’m the only minority involved in several circles. I am trying to raise diversity in these groups, across age, ethnicity and gender. But it’s so difficult to do when few others also join in that effort. Not because they’re necessarily bigoted (though some are), but they don’t see it. The only effective means I’ve found is to actually highlight the disparity between diversity in the industry versus representation in the committees. Then suddenly people have an amazing colleague that they forgot to invite, or a rising star Junior dev who could be mentored into the role. Sometimes people just need to be reminded that the status quo isn’t above questioning and that they have their own implicit biases that they just never reflect on.
philstephenson 3y ago
> Let me flip your quote back on you: how can intelligent people still believe in unbiased meritocracy being the default? Very few people I think would argue that systems based on meritocracy have zero bias. This is not the point. The point is that today’s conventional wisdom by the progressive left is that these biases must be resolved by a system of affirmative action where every sub culture or group somehow is proportionally representative of the overall population based on race, gender, etc. For some reason, that outcome is thought to be the best way to affirm that no bias exists in a group. Personally I think that premise is just very flawed. Meritocracy is not a perfect system. No one is saying that. But it’s the best system we have for engaging with the actual content that is relevant to any given group. As far as bias is concerned, the best we can do is call out specific instances of it and try to squash and correct those (and maybe this case in this blog post is one). There is no commonly understood way to measure bias or racism that everyone agrees with and so why would we think that measuring representation would somehow be the best solution?

drew-y 3y ago

I see where you're coming from and it's clear you have strong feelings on this matter. However, I believe there might be a misunderstanding here. The goal of diversity initiatives isn't about devaluing any particular group, it's about ensuring that the opportunities and benefits are more equitably distributed across different communities. When someone mentions a 'lack of Black representation', they're not saying that non-Black members are less valuable because of their skin color. Rather, they're highlighting that there appears to be a systemic issue preventing people of that particular race from participating or advancing in that space. By addressing these systemic issues, we can make organizations more inclusive and more representative of the broader community. Nobody is suggesting that people are exchangeable units defined solely by their skin color. On the contrary, it's recognized that everyone is unique and has a diverse set of skills, experiences, and perspectives to contribute. This does not mean discarding merit or reducing people to their race, but rather acknowledging that societal, cultural, and systemic barriers have created unequal access to opportunities. The ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their race, has an equal opportunity to succeed.

slily 3y ago
When were these supposed "systemic issues" ever identified? In my experience "systemic racism" is a vague pretext to implement racist policies that push out white people (and sometimes Asians) in favor of black people (and people considered "brown enough"). I see this at my job and at conferences: people are explicitly promoted or selected as speakers in part because they are not white (or not male). This isn't just something I observed, they say it openly when the "diversity", equity, and "inclusion" strategy is discussed. I've also seen conference attendees openly say that there should be fewer white males at a certain event. In none of those cases was a specific policy or practice identified that would explain the existence of "systemic issues" preventing minorities from getting hired, promoted, selected, and that would justify implementing discriminatory policies (aka "affirmative action"). So ironically we're discriminating against the "majority" (white males) over something that's mostly imaginary, at least in the US tech industry, based on nothing but demographic statistics. The fact that there's fewer qualified people of a certain color (proportionally to overall demographics) in the pool isn't evidence of systemic racism at the level we're operating. Meanwhile you would get laughed at for suggesting that we need gender parity in waste management jobs, or early childhood education.