4 ms·

You are mistaken that DEI is racist, unless you consider any attempt to correct for racism is itself racist.

by deeg 2y ago

UltraSane 2y ago
In your words how does DEI "correct" for racism?
- deeg 2y ago
  Thanks for listening. The topic of racism and DEI is broad so I'll try to focus on a small part: I believe that black people have a harder time finding a job than white people with similar skills. This appears to be supported by some research [0]. DEI is trying to apply a corrective lens to racism; it says (I'm paraphrasing) to make a conscious effort to include more black people in your search for employees. If you have two equal candidates, maybe consider hiring the black person as a correction for the times they don't get hired. I'll give what I consider to be a positive experience with DEI. A while back my company was hiring an engineer and a woman candidate did poorly on her phone screen. Normally we didn't bring in candidates who did poorly but the hiring manager decided that we didn't have enough woman engineers and brought in the candidate for interviews anyway. I was one of the interviewers and the woman was one of the best interviews I ever conducted. We eventually hired her and she was one of the smartest coworkers I ever had. In retrospect she did poorly on the phone screen because English was her third language. Was it unfair that she got a second chance when a male candidate wouldn't? Maybe, but the entire field of software engineering is unfair against women and this was one action to help level it. We can all hope for a day we don't need DEI to give everyone an equal chance but that is not this day. [0] - https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    DEI becomes racism when it causes someone to choose a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate. But it is fine if you have two equally good candidates and DEI causes you to choose the minority.

You are mistaken that DEI is racist, unless you consider any attempt to correct for racism is itself racist.

by deeg 2y ago

You are mistaken that DEI is racist, unless you consider any attempt to correct for racism is itself racist.

UltraSane 2y ago

In your words how does DEI "correct" for racism?

deeg 2y ago
Thanks for listening. The topic of racism and DEI is broad so I'll try to focus on a small part: I believe that black people have a harder time finding a job than white people with similar skills. This appears to be supported by some research [0]. DEI is trying to apply a corrective lens to racism; it says (I'm paraphrasing) to make a conscious effort to include more black people in your search for employees. If you have two equal candidates, maybe consider hiring the black person as a correction for the times they don't get hired. I'll give what I consider to be a positive experience with DEI. A while back my company was hiring an engineer and a woman candidate did poorly on her phone screen. Normally we didn't bring in candidates who did poorly but the hiring manager decided that we didn't have enough woman engineers and brought in the candidate for interviews anyway. I was one of the interviewers and the woman was one of the best interviews I ever conducted. We eventually hired her and she was one of the smartest coworkers I ever had. In retrospect she did poorly on the phone screen because English was her third language. Was it unfair that she got a second chance when a male candidate wouldn't? Maybe, but the entire field of software engineering is unfair against women and this was one action to help level it. We can all hope for a day we don't need DEI to give everyone an equal chance but that is not this day. [0] - https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...
- UltraSane 2y ago
  DEI becomes racism when it causes someone to choose a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate. But it is fine if you have two equally good candidates and DEI causes you to choose the minority.