5 ms·

It's funny how everyone brings up all these anecdotes, but then the reality is that there are plenty of studies that show that if your name is associated with b

It's funny how everyone brings up all these anecdotes, but then the reality is that there are plenty of studies that show that if your name is associated with being black you have much lower chances to be invited to an interview. So seems like all this talk by HR people didn't really change any hiring practices. It's also funny how everyone is outraged by the DEI programs, instead of the real discrimination that is happening in hiring.

WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
Hint: if everyone has such anecdotes, they are no longer anecdotes.
- heroprotagonist 1y ago
  No, they're still anecdotes. anecdote /'ænɪk,doʊt/ noun short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  It's enough to show that something isn't ultra rare, but it's not enough to show whether it's happening at 0.1% of companies or 90% of companies or where in between. If someone is racist in a manner that's outweighed 10:1 by opposite racist practices, that's something we do want to stop, but it shouldn't be top priority and definitely shouldn't be treated as the example of what racism looks like these days.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    There is very little evidence of those “opposite racist practices” that are supposedly 10 times more common, at least in large corporations and universities. Microsoft was out there promising to double the percentage of black executives. Where is the big corporations promising to double the number of white executives?
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      As mentioned a couple comments up, something like this: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A-Discrimination-Report-Card-1.pdf https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A-Discri... is way more impactful then some CEO choices. I can't find the Microsoft thing, but apparently among fortune 500 companies only 1.6% of CEOs are black. Even double that would still be an extremely low number. So unless you think some truly cosmic random odds happened here, that 1.6% is evidence of lots of racism.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        These studies are misleading, because they try to create race signals by using names that are also class signals: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-suggests-researchers-look-more-closely-at-connections-between-names-and-race https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-suggests-resea.... Also, the study suggests that, even with this flawed methodology, a bulk of industries are in the least discrimination category with only a 3% lower callback rate for “black sounding names.”
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        Do you have any numbers for trying to correct for that factor? And the bulk are not at 3%, the bulk are between 5 and 10. 3 was the absolute lowest. Also you didn't mention the CEO thing, does that mean my numbers were sufficient to address that worry?
        rayiner 1y ago
        As I read it, the industries were grouped into three categories. “Least discriminatory” was at 3%. Those are all the industries in green. These are small differences in a study that’s not well designed to begin with. The explicit discrimination in universities against whites and asians is huge in comparison: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/ https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti.... A black applicant to Harvard with an academic index in the 5th decile had an 800-900% higher chance of admission than a white or asian candidate with the same qualifications. This isn’t just CEOs. The pattern was similar at UNC, a state school.
JuniperMesos 11mo ago
A lot of the contemporary formal scientific process is done incredibly badly, for a variety of reasons including overt political bias on the part of individual scientists working in the academic system, pressure to publish any results including poor ones, and outright laziness and fraud. In general we shouldn't assume that if a bunch of public scientific studies purport to show that some phenomenon is happening, that that phenomenon is actually happening. It takes substantial time, effort, and experience to evaluate whether a claimed scientific result is valid; and all the moreso when that result has immediate political policy implications.

WesolyKubeczek 1y ago

Hint: if everyone has such anecdotes, they are no longer anecdotes.

heroprotagonist 1y ago
No, they're still anecdotes. anecdote /'ænɪk,doʊt/ noun short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)
Dylan16807 1y ago
It's enough to show that something isn't ultra rare, but it's not enough to show whether it's happening at 0.1% of companies or 90% of companies or where in between. If someone is racist in a manner that's outweighed 10:1 by opposite racist practices, that's something we do want to stop, but it shouldn't be top priority and definitely shouldn't be treated as the example of what racism looks like these days.
- rayiner 1y ago
  There is very little evidence of those “opposite racist practices” that are supposedly 10 times more common, at least in large corporations and universities. Microsoft was out there promising to double the percentage of black executives. Where is the big corporations promising to double the number of white executives?
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    As mentioned a couple comments up, something like this: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A-Discrimination-Report-Card-1.pdf https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A-Discri... is way more impactful then some CEO choices. I can't find the Microsoft thing, but apparently among fortune 500 companies only 1.6% of CEOs are black. Even double that would still be an extremely low number. So unless you think some truly cosmic random odds happened here, that 1.6% is evidence of lots of racism.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      These studies are misleading, because they try to create race signals by using names that are also class signals: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-suggests-researchers-look-more-closely-at-connections-between-names-and-race https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-suggests-resea.... Also, the study suggests that, even with this flawed methodology, a bulk of industries are in the least discrimination category with only a 3% lower callback rate for “black sounding names.”
      - Dylan16807 1y ago
        Do you have any numbers for trying to correct for that factor? And the bulk are not at 3%, the bulk are between 5 and 10. 3 was the absolute lowest. Also you didn't mention the CEO thing, does that mean my numbers were sufficient to address that worry?
        rayiner 1y ago
        As I read it, the industries were grouped into three categories. “Least discriminatory” was at 3%. Those are all the industries in green. These are small differences in a study that’s not well designed to begin with. The explicit discrimination in universities against whites and asians is huge in comparison: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/ https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti.... A black applicant to Harvard with an academic index in the 5th decile had an 800-900% higher chance of admission than a white or asian candidate with the same qualifications. This isn’t just CEOs. The pattern was similar at UNC, a state school.

JuniperMesos 11mo ago

A lot of the contemporary formal scientific process is done incredibly badly, for a variety of reasons including overt political bias on the part of individual scientists working in the academic system, pressure to publish any results including poor ones, and outright laziness and fraud. In general we shouldn't assume that if a bunch of public scientific studies purport to show that some phenomenon is happening, that that phenomenon is actually happening. It takes substantial time, effort, and experience to evaluate whether a claimed scientific result is valid; and all the moreso when that result has immediate political policy implications.