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It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about who has the power. The Kixeye CEO did exactly the right thing for his shareholders. He's also going to

It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about who has the power. The Kixeye CEO did exactly the right thing for his shareholders. He's also going to make a large payment to the OP, which will enable this obvious professional victim to live for years off his month of work. This is also the right thing to do - for the shareholders. The lesson for hiring managers is that you have to be very careful when hiring a member of a "protected class." You are effectively hiring them for a different position than your ordinary second-class citizens. It's not illegal to be an asshole to an ordinary second-class citizen. But a member of a protected class is effectively a noble, and a different set of legal norms apply to him. It is illegal to be an asshole to a member of this nobility. America is a nation of laws, and you have to follow the law. Kudos to the Kixeye CEO for realizing this. Why isn't it illegal for anyone to be an asshole to anyone else? A fascinating question. Worth thinking about. (And don't ask me how our country got to have "protected classes" at the same time as it got "equal protection under the law." Actually, the latter is legally derived from the former - believe it or not.)

mikeash 14y ago
If the guy had been white and everybody had been racist toward him because of that, it would have been just as illegal.
- aristotelian 14y ago
  It would have been. It wouldn't have been enforced, however. If you look at the history of civil rights jurisprudence, in the South before 1960 there were a lot of laws that looked race-neutral. Their actual intent was to keep black people from voting, however. It didn't fool the Supreme Court. Software patents are just as illegal. But what actually happens?
  - mikeash 14y ago
    Oh, sorry, when you started talking about "illegal" and all that, I thought you were actually talking about the, you know, laws.
cynicalkane 14y ago
My God. Say what you will about affirmative action and discrimination law, but I assure you that minorities and women do not feel like "nobles" in America.
- aristotelian 14y ago
  Oh, no, they sure don't! They feel like they're horribly oppressed. But when you look at the actual legal privileges that the actual legal and political system actually affords them - like the privilege not to be insulted, not to mention the 450 free points (blacks over Asians) on their SAT - what you see is almost exactly the kinds of privileges that medieval polities gave their nobilities. I guess there's no sumptuary laws or stuff like that.
- basseq 14y ago
  BTW, if anyone else was confused by the 450 SAT points comment, here's the detail: "To receive equal consideration by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points, Hispanics by 280 points, Blacks by 450 points in SAT (Total 1600)." From "No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life" by Thomas J. Espenshade & Alexandria Walton Radford (2009) Source: http://80-20initiative.blogspot.com/2012/03/450-point-sat-gap-large-racial.html http://80-20initiative.blogspot.com/2012/03/450-point-sat-ga...
taybin 14y ago
You're being ridiculous.
mindslight 14y ago
Your rant could be applicable if it were directed at an appropriate situation. This is not that situation. A major problem with racism is that it's a Schelling point for assholes. I presume the entire department isn't made up of racists, yet it takes just a few assholes to make it a hostile racist environment. OP's next gig may involve assholes as well, but those assholes (hopefully) won't be using the same insults, singling OP out, or abusing the same sore spots that OP sees throughout his life. Letting the common assholes devolve into racism makes it so OP would be unlikely to find somewhere free of being specifically picked on due to something he cannot change. (Hellbanning as a moderation system is unfortunate. If you are who I think you are, I suspect that the specter of inevitable banning is causing you to go for a shotgun comment approach rather than taking the time to compose something less emotional and more defensible)
- mikeash 14y ago
  Pardon me for semi-hijacking the thread, but can you explain your comment about hellbanning being unfortunate? When I first read about the idea, I thought it was pretty ingenious. However, I haven't thought about it deeply, nor studied its true effects, so I'm interested in what makes you say that.
  - mindslight 14y ago
    As long as it's applied to those who you don't empathize with - spammers, one-liners, youtube style, etc - it's ingenious. When applied to people with well-spoken yet unpopular opinions, it's basically the worst dystopian censorship - invisible, unaccountable, and ostracizing. The saddest cases are the people who make a few trollish comments, don't know they're hellbanned, and keep on trying to contribute. Turn on showdead and you'll get an impression of how various cases play out. I just wish there were a way to un-dead comments/accounts through upvotes.
rmc 14y ago
Conservatives often like to pretend that "the pendulum has gone too far" and that the poor white men are now the ones being discriminated against! "You can't say anything anymore!" they'll exclaim, usually they want to right to continue to call Latinos "Wetback". Appparently their inability to insult people is a terrible crime.

mikeash 14y ago

If the guy had been white and everybody had been racist toward him because of that, it would have been just as illegal.

aristotelian 14y ago
It would have been. It wouldn't have been enforced, however. If you look at the history of civil rights jurisprudence, in the South before 1960 there were a lot of laws that looked race-neutral. Their actual intent was to keep black people from voting, however. It didn't fool the Supreme Court. Software patents are just as illegal. But what actually happens?
- mikeash 14y ago
  Oh, sorry, when you started talking about "illegal" and all that, I thought you were actually talking about the, you know, laws.

cynicalkane 14y ago

My God. Say what you will about affirmative action and discrimination law, but I assure you that minorities and women do not feel like "nobles" in America.

aristotelian 14y ago
Oh, no, they sure don't! They feel like they're horribly oppressed. But when you look at the actual legal privileges that the actual legal and political system actually affords them - like the privilege not to be insulted, not to mention the 450 free points (blacks over Asians) on their SAT - what you see is almost exactly the kinds of privileges that medieval polities gave their nobilities. I guess there's no sumptuary laws or stuff like that.
basseq 14y ago
BTW, if anyone else was confused by the 450 SAT points comment, here's the detail: "To receive equal consideration by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points, Hispanics by 280 points, Blacks by 450 points in SAT (Total 1600)." From "No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life" by Thomas J. Espenshade & Alexandria Walton Radford (2009) Source: http://80-20initiative.blogspot.com/2012/03/450-point-sat-gap-large-racial.html http://80-20initiative.blogspot.com/2012/03/450-point-sat-ga...

taybin 14y ago

You're being ridiculous.

mindslight 14y ago

Your rant could be applicable if it were directed at an appropriate situation. This is not that situation. A major problem with racism is that it's a Schelling point for assholes. I presume the entire department isn't made up of racists, yet it takes just a few assholes to make it a hostile racist environment. OP's next gig may involve assholes as well, but those assholes (hopefully) won't be using the same insults, singling OP out, or abusing the same sore spots that OP sees throughout his life. Letting the common assholes devolve into racism makes it so OP would be unlikely to find somewhere free of being specifically picked on due to something he cannot change. (Hellbanning as a moderation system is unfortunate. If you are who I think you are, I suspect that the specter of inevitable banning is causing you to go for a shotgun comment approach rather than taking the time to compose something less emotional and more defensible)

mikeash 14y ago
Pardon me for semi-hijacking the thread, but can you explain your comment about hellbanning being unfortunate? When I first read about the idea, I thought it was pretty ingenious. However, I haven't thought about it deeply, nor studied its true effects, so I'm interested in what makes you say that.
- mindslight 14y ago
  As long as it's applied to those who you don't empathize with - spammers, one-liners, youtube style, etc - it's ingenious. When applied to people with well-spoken yet unpopular opinions, it's basically the worst dystopian censorship - invisible, unaccountable, and ostracizing. The saddest cases are the people who make a few trollish comments, don't know they're hellbanned, and keep on trying to contribute. Turn on showdead and you'll get an impression of how various cases play out. I just wish there were a way to un-dead comments/accounts through upvotes.

rmc 14y ago

Conservatives often like to pretend that "the pendulum has gone too far" and that the poor white men are now the ones being discriminated against! "You can't say anything anymore!" they'll exclaim, usually they want to right to continue to call Latinos "Wetback". Appparently their inability to insult people is a terrible crime.