3 ms·

Listen, white guy, the simplest counter argument is that white guys just aren't 100% of the field. They're probably <60-70% of the field. So yeah, you do end u

by phillmv 14y ago

Listen, white guy, the simplest counter argument is that white guys just aren't 100% of the field. They're probably <60-70% of the field. So yeah, you do end up with a problem if somehow, conference after conference, we only field white guys.

aw3c2 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kin... says that in 2001, >90% of the people in the UK were white. Got any sources for your <60-70% in the Ruby community?
- phillmv 14y ago
  Yeah, 51% of the population are also women.
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    Now you are trolling. Or do you have a source for that? It seems highly unlikely that a programming community would have such a high percentage of women. I would link to wikipedia for some verification of that feeling but all I could fine were biased feminist articles on that topic.
    - phillmv 14y ago
      For posterity: I edited my comment to clarify my statement prior to seeing this comment. Half of all people are women. !caucasians and !males are probably at least 30% of the industry, especially when you consider how minorities are overrepresented.
      - Yver 14y ago
        Since we're not citing any source, I'll say that population X is at least Y% of the industry.
    - astrodust 14y ago
      > It seems highly unlikely that a programming community would have such a high percentage of women. This is the problem with the programming community we need to fix.
markshead 14y ago
You are saying that greater than 40% of the developers in GB are not white males. What are you basing this on? GB is only about 10% non-white and last statistic I saw on gender was that only 1.5% of people participating on open source projects (world wide) were female.
- phillmv 14y ago
  To be strictly fair, I live in Toronto so that may skew my own perspectives - my graduating Computer Science class was definitely <60% white.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
danenania 14y ago
You should calm down and read what I actually wrote. "So yeah, you do end up with a problem if somehow, conference after conference, we only field white guys." I agree with you. But in this case, racist and sexist are not appropriate terms unless you believe that speakers were actually excluded based on race or gender. Also, when you begin a post that is meant to argue against discrimination and prejudice with "Listen, white guy", it might be time to step away from the keyboard for awhile...
- phillmv 14y ago
  I did read what you wrote. You just spelled out a very common fallacy. It is racist, and/or sexist. It's just a kind of wholesale discrimination, visavis the retail, personalized kind of racism/sexism we're more accustomed to. It's not intentionally evil, there may not be any malice behind it, but it's still… discriminatory. As white dudes, it's especially hard to see as we're largely unaffected by it, blah blah privilege, etc.
  - harshreality 14y ago
    How do you propose to fix things? Selecting speakers that are not as preferred by the selection committee simply because of being a minority race (minority in the context of the community in question)? i.e. the committee ranks all speaker applications, figures out the necessary demographics to mirror the conference's targeted community, and then allocates speaker slots for each demographic to the best speakers who are in that demographic? If you artificially make minorities (based on the community's demographics) a majority on the selection committee, in the hope they will select speakers that more closely mirror the larger community, and if they pick more speakers who are members of minority groups, how do you know they aren't being subconsciously racist/reverse-racist in exactly the same way you're complaining about whites/males being racist? How do you objectively evaluate the race-blind quality of a set of potential speakers if your claim is that everyone on any possible selection committee is potentially subconsciously biased? What if you make an effort to select speakers that mirror the demographics of the larger community, and conference attendees rate this new anti-racist conference lower than they rated the last ("racist") one? Is this demographics equality campaign to be pursued at the expense of attendees' perceived value of the conference?
tomwalker 14y ago
I don't think any conference should be allowed to have proceed without a single black person, Eskimo, female or badger on the speak list. Here are a few shows that were also not diverse enough for my liking: London Boat show - too many white males http://www.londonboatshow.com/2013/whats_on/attractions__events/knowledge_box.aspx http://www.londonboatshow.com/2013/whats_on/attractions__eve... British Educational Training and Technology Show - not a single person with a double barrel name :( http://www.bettshow.com/Conferences-Features http://www.bettshow.com/Conferences-Features The baby show - only females speaking. This is COMPLETELY unacceptable. This show should NOT go ahead. Refunds all around http://www.thebabyshow.co.uk/excel/new-parent/for-baby http://www.thebabyshow.co.uk/excel/new-parent/for-baby Professional Beauty- not enough males http://www.professionalbeauty.co.uk/page.cfm/Link=149/nocache=13082012#PageAnchor03 http://www.professionalbeauty.co.uk/page.cfm/Link=149/nocach... /sarcasm
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

by phillmv 14y ago

aw3c2 14y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kin... says that in 2001, >90% of the people in the UK were white. Got any sources for your <60-70% in the Ruby community?

phillmv 14y ago
Yeah, 51% of the population are also women.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  Now you are trolling. Or do you have a source for that? It seems highly unlikely that a programming community would have such a high percentage of women. I would link to wikipedia for some verification of that feeling but all I could fine were biased feminist articles on that topic.
  - phillmv 14y ago
    For posterity: I edited my comment to clarify my statement prior to seeing this comment. Half of all people are women. !caucasians and !males are probably at least 30% of the industry, especially when you consider how minorities are overrepresented.
    - Yver 14y ago
      Since we're not citing any source, I'll say that population X is at least Y% of the industry.
  - astrodust 14y ago
    > It seems highly unlikely that a programming community would have such a high percentage of women. This is the problem with the programming community we need to fix.

markshead 14y ago

You are saying that greater than 40% of the developers in GB are not white males. What are you basing this on? GB is only about 10% non-white and last statistic I saw on gender was that only 1.5% of people participating on open source projects (world wide) were female.

phillmv 14y ago
To be strictly fair, I live in Toronto so that may skew my own perspectives - my graduating Computer Science class was definitely <60% white.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

danenania 14y ago

You should calm down and read what I actually wrote. "So yeah, you do end up with a problem if somehow, conference after conference, we only field white guys." I agree with you. But in this case, racist and sexist are not appropriate terms unless you believe that speakers were actually excluded based on race or gender. Also, when you begin a post that is meant to argue against discrimination and prejudice with "Listen, white guy", it might be time to step away from the keyboard for awhile...

phillmv 14y ago
I did read what you wrote. You just spelled out a very common fallacy. It is racist, and/or sexist. It's just a kind of wholesale discrimination, visavis the retail, personalized kind of racism/sexism we're more accustomed to. It's not intentionally evil, there may not be any malice behind it, but it's still… discriminatory. As white dudes, it's especially hard to see as we're largely unaffected by it, blah blah privilege, etc.
- harshreality 14y ago
  How do you propose to fix things? Selecting speakers that are not as preferred by the selection committee simply because of being a minority race (minority in the context of the community in question)? i.e. the committee ranks all speaker applications, figures out the necessary demographics to mirror the conference's targeted community, and then allocates speaker slots for each demographic to the best speakers who are in that demographic? If you artificially make minorities (based on the community's demographics) a majority on the selection committee, in the hope they will select speakers that more closely mirror the larger community, and if they pick more speakers who are members of minority groups, how do you know they aren't being subconsciously racist/reverse-racist in exactly the same way you're complaining about whites/males being racist? How do you objectively evaluate the race-blind quality of a set of potential speakers if your claim is that everyone on any possible selection committee is potentially subconsciously biased? What if you make an effort to select speakers that mirror the demographics of the larger community, and conference attendees rate this new anti-racist conference lower than they rated the last ("racist") one? Is this demographics equality campaign to be pursued at the expense of attendees' perceived value of the conference?

tomwalker 14y ago

I don't think any conference should be allowed to have proceed without a single black person, Eskimo, female or badger on the speak list. Here are a few shows that were also not diverse enough for my liking: London Boat show - too many white males http://www.londonboatshow.com/2013/whats_on/attractions__events/knowledge_box.aspx http://www.londonboatshow.com/2013/whats_on/attractions__eve... British Educational Training and Technology Show - not a single person with a double barrel name :( http://www.bettshow.com/Conferences-Features http://www.bettshow.com/Conferences-Features The baby show - only females speaking. This is COMPLETELY unacceptable. This show should NOT go ahead. Refunds all around http://www.thebabyshow.co.uk/excel/new-parent/for-baby http://www.thebabyshow.co.uk/excel/new-parent/for-baby Professional Beauty- not enough males http://www.professionalbeauty.co.uk/page.cfm/Link=149/nocache=13082012#PageAnchor03 http://www.professionalbeauty.co.uk/page.cfm/Link=149/nocach... /sarcasm

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]