10 ms·

Yet another white, male engineer here. I agree with the "what am I supposed to do about it" responses. I don't think I'm doing anything exclusionary (my team do

Yet another white, male engineer here. I agree with the "what am I supposed to do about it" responses. I don't think I'm doing anything exclusionary (my team does have a lot of non-whites, mostly Indian and Chinese). The guy she uses as the main example - the teammate who made the domestic abuse "jokes" - clearly should be out on his ass with a lawsuit. I think we can all agree with that. But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? One theme from the article that bothered me: >diversity lightning struck: I was a black woman reporting to another black woman in a technical role. Moreover, our team was predominantly black. This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow...

soamv 12y ago
You started with asking what you can do to help, then went on to discount her experience as an outlier despite her clearly saying it wasn't, and then finished more or less by implying that _she's_ racist. So if you're asking what you should do, the answer is: the exact opposite of whatever you're doing now.
- sosuke 12y ago
  It isn't cool to point the racism finger anywhere, but how would you describe that? If I was to say that I was uncomfortable working in a group of opposite gendered difference raced folks who were already a clique before I joined in, then said it was hard to fake being a part of that group and how much stress that put on me, and how the industry needs to change to include everyone, diversity. In the same story I talk about how great it was when I joined a same raced same gendered group and how that was diversity, would you not say I had a warped sense of what diversity means? There is no definition for a diverse group, but her one sample isn't diverse. Google searched "Picture of Diverse People" http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/056/19e/34082f9.jpg http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/056/19e/34082f9.jp...
  - bkirwi 12y ago
    If you do any reading on race and diversity, you'll come across the idea of racism as a systemic thing -- racism not as single instances of discrimination based, but a recurring pattern. This is why it's very hard to insult a white person with a racial slur. It's why 'girls who code' groups are common, but male-only versions feel pretty gross. It's why, in the context of our industry, a predominantly black dev team is really unusally diverse. (It's also a bit weird that people keep calling that example 'non-diverse', when entirely-white groups of developers are still the norm. Even a predominantly white group -- but with some people of colour -- is unusually diverse in this field, sadly.)
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      People are calling that example 'non-diverse' because they are using the dictionary definition of diversity: "the state of being diverse; variety" or "an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities". By this definition, a team of white, south asian and east asian people is diverse. A team of black Americans is not. You seem to be using some alternate definition - I'm guessing diversity for you means "sufficient numbers of non-Asian minorities", but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
      - bkirwi 12y ago
        Sure! Let's take the immediately preceding example, where the author had a black woman as a supervisor. The author describes this as 'diversity lightning'. If you interpret this narrowly, this makes absolutely no sense: there's no way in which a single person can be considered diverse. On the other hand, if you think about it at an environmental or company level, things look different. Suppose we take a random US tech company's employees and dump them in a vase. (Let's ignore the ethical issues with this for a moment.) At this point, we'd expect the odds of a random draw to reflect the tech industry's demographics, which is to say, predominantly white and asian males. If you draw this 'predominantly black' development team from the vase, though, you need to update your priors. You probably shouldn't calculate your posterior as 'everyone at this company is black' -- but you'd still probably guess that you're looking at a tech company where there are more black people and women than average. Which is to say, you'd expect that the company as a whole was more diverse. I think this second reading is a lot more charitable to the author. I also think it's the more interesting reading; the demographic representation in a small group is subject to a huge amount of randomness, but the demographics of a entire organization are more telling, and can reveal more interesting things about policy and bias. As a community, software people are normally biased toward systems-level thinking; it's weird to me that in this particular issue people have this laser-focus on small groups and tokenism.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  So if you're asking what you should do, the answer is: the exact opposite of whatever you're doing now. Reversed stupidity isn't intelligence. If mistakes are being made because of clueless action, then having them "do the opposite" is still going result in clueless actions. The proper antidote is honest and open communication. The key takeaway is that her environments didn't foster this communication. I doubt that the majority of the environments she was in had enough capacity for self-awareness and introspection to make such a thing easy and apparent. I would also posit, that the very mechanical pattern-matching way we currently implement "political correctness" is counterproductive in this way. I wonder if the fear around issues of race and group inclusiveness didn't drive the HR response she described. Political correctness shouldn't be about enforcing superficial behavior. It should be about the epistemic health of a group. It should be about how well a group can discover and absorb cultural issues is isn't yet aware of.
bulius 12y ago
> This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... Maybe! But your level of comfort around people who are like you doesn't dictate your ability to be inclusive. It just shows how important diversity is to help us understand why we may be uncomfortable in these scenarios and how to address it.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago
  True, but mostly what I meant was that it's funny that she refers to a room full of black people as a utopia of diversity, when it's really just that she happens to be in the majority there.
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    Which may be the only time, in our industry that has a white supremacy problem, in which she feels her knowledge and abilities are judged on their merits rather than on how well she conforms or how well she plays the game of being accepted by white folks. She talked quite a bit about that in the article; I believe she was clear, if you aren't taking single sentences or even paragraphs out of context. I believe she is saying that in a team that at least somewhat shares her race and gender, she can expect her race and gender to be invisible and not part of the equation. Whereas, in a team where she is the only black woman on the team, she expects other things to determine her fate (based on prior experience in similar situations), and that causes her distress (as it would for anyone). Being in the majority allows one to be ignorant of problems of diversity. She hasn't said she needs to be in the majority to be happy. What she has said, I believe, is that she needs to not have to think about blending in in order to be happy; and a massive preponderance of white males in the workplace does not allow her that freedom, because of the direct and indirect actions of some white males.
    - mbubb 12y ago
      "Being in the majority allows one to be ignorant of problems of diversity..." Your point is expressed very well. Made me think about how, though I have been the sole or one-of-a-few white guy(s) in work situations and maybe at times times taken out of my comfort zone. But not to the extent that the author describes. I cant imagine dealing with what she describes. Saying it is the same thing is disingenuous or worse.
sosuke 12y ago
I had a fairly similar feeling. I've been giving it some thought about why, at least personally, I like to connect with my team, play games together, send jokes, look at new tech toys. I realized that, for myself at least, my work group is my only social circle and I have no other personal bonds or social groups. I've only been in one group like that. All of my other more diverse groups, all of which I've loved, I have enjoyed a great work relationship, but nothing in common other than the work. The more diverse a group, the more the focus is on just work, no water cooler talk, no goofing off. If I was faced with a work group I have nothing in common with, the work would be my focus, and I would itch the social scratch outside of work, without my co-workers. Changing yourself to fit into a group is something I figured people just grew out of after leaving high school. The asshole, I agree with you, but that was just the one. The rest of the story I felt was her own projection, in a microcosm we've all dealt with that in the past. As others have said, an HR department is there to diffuse a situation for the company, not help you. She wanted to please everyone else, I've known plenty of people like that, I'm sure everyone has, they do everything they can, and still feel guilty about it. Being passed up for a promotion is more likely about scratching the back of someone they know than trying to slight her. I know others who have experienced similar things, because the bosses wanted kickbacks from friends of the contractors, or could get a $1000 referral fee. The reasons people are jerks can also be not because of you, your race, your gender, but because they are acting selfishly. I've personally experienced similar situations being passed up and I imagine it was because they knew the people at the company they contracted in. The in house developers yell "we can do it!" but the money changing hands is too good to pass up. By the time she mentions NY or the Bay Area she doesn't have a sense of self at all, only the mask. No one else seems to be the oppressor, if I was the odd white male out in a team of a different race and gender I wouldn't try to wear their suits, it wouldn't work in the same way I've seen people try to fit into groups that they just weren't them, but they were discovering who they were. There is a lot of hardship, depression, self deprecation, and terrible treatment she endured. I'm glad she shared her story, there are other who feel the same about who they are, not just because of race or gender. I'm glad she is taking action in defining who she is as a person, and how she wants to influence people who meet her. However saying the industry needs to change isn't accurate, it is akin to asking for cliques to not exist, for like minded people to not congregate. She changed herself to fit in, she is now defining who she is, the solution is not to ask others to change to make everyone feel included and accepted. She felt changed, so now she wants to change the industry, which includes the rest of the non-asshole workers. I've been in very diverse groups, very homogeneous groups, I spent a year in a group as the only male. The real trick is to do as she is doing now, focus on making a you that you like, then cultivate that pride and energy, until being yourself isn't work, but just like putting on shoes.
dang 12y ago
> This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... Let's apply the Principle of Charity here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity). The words you quoted don't say that, and it's easy to find plausible ways of reading them that don't mean that. Indeed, when you say that something "sounds like" X, it's you who are adding X, not the author. Choosing that interpretation in order to dismiss it seems unnecessary, and likely to polarize the responses. (I mention the latter because of how unpolarized and thoughtful the thread has been—edit: or had been.)
- sosuke 12y ago
  That is really cool, I've never heard of the Principle of Charity, I usually said it was just assuming the best of people. I like that quite a bit.
- khalstvedt 12y ago
  I now have a (widely-recognized) name for this concept. My profuse thanks.
- nickonline 12y ago
  I came to a similar conclusion to GeneralMayhem. She talks about not fitting in until she reaches Oakland and the issue of racism. A huge portion of the article is talking about her not wanting to do an activity that the rest of the team does (e.g. video gaming or drinking beer) I do not feel as though these activities are specifically 'white male engineer' activities. If the team was predominantly black, and these activities still being participated in would she have still felt pressured to attend? I assume she would.
  - Mangalor 12y ago
    > I do not feel as though these activities are specifically 'white male engineer' activities. If someone says they're uncomfortable they're uncomfortable. Even with black teammates, as a woman she might still feel those activities are not her usual thing to do.
saraid216 12y ago
> But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Make an effort to include every member of your team in your activities. It's Burkeian "omission of good" rather than "commission of evil". Let's assume that you're perfectly non-exclusionary. Fine. What are you doing to be inclusionary? You know what stuck out to me? This line: > I remember asking if we could do other outings that didn’t include beer and getting voted down. I know that feel, and I'm neither black nor female.
- x0x0 12y ago
  Are these work sponsored outings or small non-work sponsored groups of people hanging out? Work-sponsored should attempt to round-robin enough to be maximally inclusive. Non-work sponsored gatherings are what they are -- I used to do Thursday night drinks at a bar near with coworkers; anyone was welcome but we weren't going to go get bubble tea instead just because someone didn't drink.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    Right. That's how it works. You kick some people to the curb because their preferences are just not important enough to you. Which is more important to you? Making a coworker feel included in your social gathering or drinking the right drink because it was Thursday? Or more succinctly: is your tradition more important, or is your coworker more important? Yes, your coworker should also try to fit in and properly conform to the standards your clique sets, and if it's so impossible for you to hang out together because there's absolutely no activity you have in common, then I wouldn't be surprised if they left the company. You could have gone and gotten bubble tea on Tuesday instead, for instance.
    - crazypyro 12y ago
      Oh, that's so ridiculous. It's not tradition versus inclusion of a coworker. They are completely different environments. Some people really enjoy getting that alcohol buzz after a stressful day at work. Tradition would be like only going to a specific bar that one coworker can't go to or something. You aren't comparing apples to oranges. You are expecting people to change their personal habits because another coworker may not approve of them. That is a dangerous slope to begin down.... Its outside of work. Your own convictions and interests should dictate what you do outside of work. There are more differences between drinking beer at a bar and drinking non alcoholic drinks at a starbucks. People are going to enjoy them separately and unfortunately, for many people, the activities are not interchangeable. I personally don't drink, but I would never suggest to co-workers that they change their outside of work habits because I don't want to go to a bar. It's clearly different if its a work sponsored event.
stcredzero 12y ago
The guy she uses as the main example - the teammate who made the domestic abuse "jokes" - clearly should be out on his ass with a lawsuit. I think we can all agree with that. But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Create an atmosphere where people can talk about things that make them uncomfortable. Granted, much of the language and distorted dogma around race and gender issues has made this difficult. It's anti-intellectual claptrap to label things like objectification and stereotyping as things that are like "sin." Those are epiphenomena of human social information processing. They are things to be aware of, not things to shame people with. The good news in that, is that the same things one does to foster honest and direct communication around technical issues are the same things one does to foster honest and direct communication around social issues. The bad news in this, is that to accomplish that, you are going to have to get past a lot of the BS and recrimination that acts as a barrier. (For the record, I think the way "political correctness" is currently implemented doesn't help on the whole.) This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... I don't think it's that she only wants to hang out with black people. It's that she wishes she felt as comfortable around tech coworkers as she does in predominantly black settings. Is it possible that she's doing things that exacerbate her feelings? Sure. Again, that's something to be cured with honest and direct communication. If we all rationally applied what we now know about group psychology, we should anticipate many of the events and situations she described happening. Also, if the entire group of coworkers were anticipating and applying such knowledge, I would posit things would go differently. Unfortunately, the fear and social coercion around the current version of "political correctness" work against this and instead produce an atmosphere of fear and tiptoeing around hair-triggers for fear of being tarred with labels synonymous with villainy. Could you imagine such an atmosphere around implementing continuous integration, or effective testing, or coding practices? Instead, encountering different cultures/sub-cultures should be considered an instance of encountering "known unknowns." One should go into the situation with a stance of discovery. That is what "cultural sensitivity" should really mean, not this tiptoeing/gotcha game BS that we play. EDIT: A series of questions for 3rd party readers: Is your workplace about "open and honest motivated problem solving" in the social dimension? Or is it more like "tiptoeing around gotchas?" Or is it a combination of the two concerning different social issues? What does it mean?
kamaal 12y ago
>>But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Just be normal. Is that really so difficult to be? All people ever want is to work around normal people. I'm not sure why that is a impossible expectation to have. People's skin color, ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, religion or whatever is the person's private business. Just being fair to their performance on the job can solve all the issues. >>This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people If you treat people badly over and over, over years. And then you consider your birth right to screw their careers and life. And all the person at the other end wants to protect themselves from this, I don't see what's so wrong with it. What should she do otherwise? If all your efforts to succeed with just efforts fail, Its perfectly fine to act in your best interest.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago
  >All people ever want is to work around normal people. That's not the impression I got from the post. She clearly feels that the established "normal" (setting aside the obvious asshole outliers) isn't making her feel welcome. Just being the only black woman is apparently enough to do that, because of her fear that there might be a problem, even if it hasn't materialized. The easy response is to tell her that she needs to get over it and stop inventing problems where nobody is actually out to get her, but there are enough stories like hers that there's probably more to it.
- VLM 12y ago
  "Just be normal. Is that really so difficult to be?" No, she doesn't like extroverts, and saying that is socially unacceptable, so she's going all "black vs white" instead. Look at the comments along the lines of "everybody did their own thing, did their job, and went home." (I love that kind of working environment, its unfortunately rare to have a professional working environment) "I remember asking if we could do other outings that didn’t include beer and getting voted down." (despite not being a black woman, I feel exactly the same way as she does WRT this topic, so I suspect her and I would get along great, other than the whole we're both apparently introverts so getting along great would mean sitting silently, very happily, with each other) There is an anecdotal aspect to her argument. As a white dude I've met and worked with a lot of really weird white dudes over the decades, and thats apparently ok. She met ONE weird white dude, ONE!, and that's a big problem solely because she's a black woman. I'm not impressed. I'm not saying weirdos are good or correct or shouldn't be punished, but I am saying that trying to portray weirdos as as "a black women problem" is extremely inaccurate. They are a PITA for us all, or there exist PITA weirdos that affect every ethnic or social group. And to be honest, management and HR are utterly ineffective at weeding out weirdos regardless if the people offended are white dudes or black women, which is fairness, in a way. I'd argue that dealing with weirdos is an adult social skill. So a long time ago I sat next to a guy with a severe temper problem who would scream at me occasionally, usually just nonsense although sometimes I admit I'd provoke him a bit. Well, it was not exactly paradise, but I'm a big boy so its "OK". It did freak out people who weren't as tough as I was, which I found amusing (You're the one who's freaked out while I'm the one sitting next to him?) The ideal social interaction system might be all candy and balloons and girl scout songs all the time but adults can and should handle something a bit worse, a bit more realistic. Toughen up, basically. She is apparently under the mistaken impression that no weirdos ever bug white dudes magically because we're the oppressor, and that is quite inaccurate.
pistle 12y ago
Pretty sure she described enjoying a situation where she was still in a minority, so your assumption is wrong which would mean your conclusion is unsupported by your claims. I'd say it's more interesting that when you are in the majority and similar to those with power, you don't deal with certain bullshit and it's easier to relax and get shit done. That sounds a bit like all the other white engineers that aren't really focused on cultural sensitivities because they are (can be) focused on other things.
golgappi 12y ago
There is a problem in the author's views, but its not what you pointed out. On one hand the author feels she loses her cultural identity by trying to mingle with a while group. On the other she advocates diversity. And yes, she also feels comfortable when working in a predominantly black team. I think the solution that she forgets to mention is having people of all groups equally represented (most or less) in any field. With that happening, I can see how nobody would feel like an outsider, and get to preserve their cultural prefernces and tastes, along with mingling with other cultures and races. It doesn't have to be a black team, a white team and a brown team. All that is needed is people of all races in the workplace with diverse teams. That will balance things out. As for "What can you do as a white person other than not being a racist and voicing your prejudices openly" .. I don't think there's much you can do. I guess those of you in recruiting positions can encourage people from all backgrounds to come up. Not saying give special treatment to minorities, but generally try to keep bias away from recruitment procedures. Same applies to promotions, relocations and the like.

soamv 12y ago

You started with asking what you can do to help, then went on to discount her experience as an outlier despite her clearly saying it wasn't, and then finished more or less by implying that _she's_ racist. So if you're asking what you should do, the answer is: the exact opposite of whatever you're doing now.

sosuke 12y ago
It isn't cool to point the racism finger anywhere, but how would you describe that? If I was to say that I was uncomfortable working in a group of opposite gendered difference raced folks who were already a clique before I joined in, then said it was hard to fake being a part of that group and how much stress that put on me, and how the industry needs to change to include everyone, diversity. In the same story I talk about how great it was when I joined a same raced same gendered group and how that was diversity, would you not say I had a warped sense of what diversity means? There is no definition for a diverse group, but her one sample isn't diverse. Google searched "Picture of Diverse People" http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/056/19e/34082f9.jpg http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/056/19e/34082f9.jp...
- bkirwi 12y ago
  If you do any reading on race and diversity, you'll come across the idea of racism as a systemic thing -- racism not as single instances of discrimination based, but a recurring pattern. This is why it's very hard to insult a white person with a racial slur. It's why 'girls who code' groups are common, but male-only versions feel pretty gross. It's why, in the context of our industry, a predominantly black dev team is really unusally diverse. (It's also a bit weird that people keep calling that example 'non-diverse', when entirely-white groups of developers are still the norm. Even a predominantly white group -- but with some people of colour -- is unusually diverse in this field, sadly.)
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    People are calling that example 'non-diverse' because they are using the dictionary definition of diversity: "the state of being diverse; variety" or "an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities". By this definition, a team of white, south asian and east asian people is diverse. A team of black Americans is not. You seem to be using some alternate definition - I'm guessing diversity for you means "sufficient numbers of non-Asian minorities", but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
    - bkirwi 12y ago
      Sure! Let's take the immediately preceding example, where the author had a black woman as a supervisor. The author describes this as 'diversity lightning'. If you interpret this narrowly, this makes absolutely no sense: there's no way in which a single person can be considered diverse. On the other hand, if you think about it at an environmental or company level, things look different. Suppose we take a random US tech company's employees and dump them in a vase. (Let's ignore the ethical issues with this for a moment.) At this point, we'd expect the odds of a random draw to reflect the tech industry's demographics, which is to say, predominantly white and asian males. If you draw this 'predominantly black' development team from the vase, though, you need to update your priors. You probably shouldn't calculate your posterior as 'everyone at this company is black' -- but you'd still probably guess that you're looking at a tech company where there are more black people and women than average. Which is to say, you'd expect that the company as a whole was more diverse. I think this second reading is a lot more charitable to the author. I also think it's the more interesting reading; the demographic representation in a small group is subject to a huge amount of randomness, but the demographics of a entire organization are more telling, and can reveal more interesting things about policy and bias. As a community, software people are normally biased toward systems-level thinking; it's weird to me that in this particular issue people have this laser-focus on small groups and tokenism.
stcredzero 12y ago
So if you're asking what you should do, the answer is: the exact opposite of whatever you're doing now. Reversed stupidity isn't intelligence. If mistakes are being made because of clueless action, then having them "do the opposite" is still going result in clueless actions. The proper antidote is honest and open communication. The key takeaway is that her environments didn't foster this communication. I doubt that the majority of the environments she was in had enough capacity for self-awareness and introspection to make such a thing easy and apparent. I would also posit, that the very mechanical pattern-matching way we currently implement "political correctness" is counterproductive in this way. I wonder if the fear around issues of race and group inclusiveness didn't drive the HR response she described. Political correctness shouldn't be about enforcing superficial behavior. It should be about the epistemic health of a group. It should be about how well a group can discover and absorb cultural issues is isn't yet aware of.

bulius 12y ago

> This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... Maybe! But your level of comfort around people who are like you doesn't dictate your ability to be inclusive. It just shows how important diversity is to help us understand why we may be uncomfortable in these scenarios and how to address it.

GeneralMayhem 12y ago
True, but mostly what I meant was that it's funny that she refers to a room full of black people as a utopia of diversity, when it's really just that she happens to be in the majority there.
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  Which may be the only time, in our industry that has a white supremacy problem, in which she feels her knowledge and abilities are judged on their merits rather than on how well she conforms or how well she plays the game of being accepted by white folks. She talked quite a bit about that in the article; I believe she was clear, if you aren't taking single sentences or even paragraphs out of context. I believe she is saying that in a team that at least somewhat shares her race and gender, she can expect her race and gender to be invisible and not part of the equation. Whereas, in a team where she is the only black woman on the team, she expects other things to determine her fate (based on prior experience in similar situations), and that causes her distress (as it would for anyone). Being in the majority allows one to be ignorant of problems of diversity. She hasn't said she needs to be in the majority to be happy. What she has said, I believe, is that she needs to not have to think about blending in in order to be happy; and a massive preponderance of white males in the workplace does not allow her that freedom, because of the direct and indirect actions of some white males.
  - mbubb 12y ago
    "Being in the majority allows one to be ignorant of problems of diversity..." Your point is expressed very well. Made me think about how, though I have been the sole or one-of-a-few white guy(s) in work situations and maybe at times times taken out of my comfort zone. But not to the extent that the author describes. I cant imagine dealing with what she describes. Saying it is the same thing is disingenuous or worse.

sosuke 12y ago

I had a fairly similar feeling. I've been giving it some thought about why, at least personally, I like to connect with my team, play games together, send jokes, look at new tech toys. I realized that, for myself at least, my work group is my only social circle and I have no other personal bonds or social groups. I've only been in one group like that. All of my other more diverse groups, all of which I've loved, I have enjoyed a great work relationship, but nothing in common other than the work. The more diverse a group, the more the focus is on just work, no water cooler talk, no goofing off. If I was faced with a work group I have nothing in common with, the work would be my focus, and I would itch the social scratch outside of work, without my co-workers. Changing yourself to fit into a group is something I figured people just grew out of after leaving high school. The asshole, I agree with you, but that was just the one. The rest of the story I felt was her own projection, in a microcosm we've all dealt with that in the past. As others have said, an HR department is there to diffuse a situation for the company, not help you. She wanted to please everyone else, I've known plenty of people like that, I'm sure everyone has, they do everything they can, and still feel guilty about it. Being passed up for a promotion is more likely about scratching the back of someone they know than trying to slight her. I know others who have experienced similar things, because the bosses wanted kickbacks from friends of the contractors, or could get a $1000 referral fee. The reasons people are jerks can also be not because of you, your race, your gender, but because they are acting selfishly. I've personally experienced similar situations being passed up and I imagine it was because they knew the people at the company they contracted in. The in house developers yell "we can do it!" but the money changing hands is too good to pass up. By the time she mentions NY or the Bay Area she doesn't have a sense of self at all, only the mask. No one else seems to be the oppressor, if I was the odd white male out in a team of a different race and gender I wouldn't try to wear their suits, it wouldn't work in the same way I've seen people try to fit into groups that they just weren't them, but they were discovering who they were. There is a lot of hardship, depression, self deprecation, and terrible treatment she endured. I'm glad she shared her story, there are other who feel the same about who they are, not just because of race or gender. I'm glad she is taking action in defining who she is as a person, and how she wants to influence people who meet her. However saying the industry needs to change isn't accurate, it is akin to asking for cliques to not exist, for like minded people to not congregate. She changed herself to fit in, she is now defining who she is, the solution is not to ask others to change to make everyone feel included and accepted. She felt changed, so now she wants to change the industry, which includes the rest of the non-asshole workers. I've been in very diverse groups, very homogeneous groups, I spent a year in a group as the only male. The real trick is to do as she is doing now, focus on making a you that you like, then cultivate that pride and energy, until being yourself isn't work, but just like putting on shoes.

dang 12y ago

> This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... Let's apply the Principle of Charity here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity). The words you quoted don't say that, and it's easy to find plausible ways of reading them that don't mean that. Indeed, when you say that something "sounds like" X, it's you who are adding X, not the author. Choosing that interpretation in order to dismiss it seems unnecessary, and likely to polarize the responses. (I mention the latter because of how unpolarized and thoughtful the thread has been—edit: or had been.)

sosuke 12y ago
That is really cool, I've never heard of the Principle of Charity, I usually said it was just assuming the best of people. I like that quite a bit.
khalstvedt 12y ago
I now have a (widely-recognized) name for this concept. My profuse thanks.
nickonline 12y ago
I came to a similar conclusion to GeneralMayhem. She talks about not fitting in until she reaches Oakland and the issue of racism. A huge portion of the article is talking about her not wanting to do an activity that the rest of the team does (e.g. video gaming or drinking beer) I do not feel as though these activities are specifically 'white male engineer' activities. If the team was predominantly black, and these activities still being participated in would she have still felt pressured to attend? I assume she would.
- Mangalor 12y ago
  > I do not feel as though these activities are specifically 'white male engineer' activities. If someone says they're uncomfortable they're uncomfortable. Even with black teammates, as a woman she might still feel those activities are not her usual thing to do.

saraid216 12y ago

> But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Make an effort to include every member of your team in your activities. It's Burkeian "omission of good" rather than "commission of evil". Let's assume that you're perfectly non-exclusionary. Fine. What are you doing to be inclusionary? You know what stuck out to me? This line: > I remember asking if we could do other outings that didn’t include beer and getting voted down. I know that feel, and I'm neither black nor female.

x0x0 12y ago
Are these work sponsored outings or small non-work sponsored groups of people hanging out? Work-sponsored should attempt to round-robin enough to be maximally inclusive. Non-work sponsored gatherings are what they are -- I used to do Thursday night drinks at a bar near with coworkers; anyone was welcome but we weren't going to go get bubble tea instead just because someone didn't drink.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Right. That's how it works. You kick some people to the curb because their preferences are just not important enough to you. Which is more important to you? Making a coworker feel included in your social gathering or drinking the right drink because it was Thursday? Or more succinctly: is your tradition more important, or is your coworker more important? Yes, your coworker should also try to fit in and properly conform to the standards your clique sets, and if it's so impossible for you to hang out together because there's absolutely no activity you have in common, then I wouldn't be surprised if they left the company. You could have gone and gotten bubble tea on Tuesday instead, for instance.
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    Oh, that's so ridiculous. It's not tradition versus inclusion of a coworker. They are completely different environments. Some people really enjoy getting that alcohol buzz after a stressful day at work. Tradition would be like only going to a specific bar that one coworker can't go to or something. You aren't comparing apples to oranges. You are expecting people to change their personal habits because another coworker may not approve of them. That is a dangerous slope to begin down.... Its outside of work. Your own convictions and interests should dictate what you do outside of work. There are more differences between drinking beer at a bar and drinking non alcoholic drinks at a starbucks. People are going to enjoy them separately and unfortunately, for many people, the activities are not interchangeable. I personally don't drink, but I would never suggest to co-workers that they change their outside of work habits because I don't want to go to a bar. It's clearly different if its a work sponsored event.

stcredzero 12y ago

The guy she uses as the main example - the teammate who made the domestic abuse "jokes" - clearly should be out on his ass with a lawsuit. I think we can all agree with that. But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Create an atmosphere where people can talk about things that make them uncomfortable. Granted, much of the language and distorted dogma around race and gender issues has made this difficult. It's anti-intellectual claptrap to label things like objectification and stereotyping as things that are like "sin." Those are epiphenomena of human social information processing. They are things to be aware of, not things to shame people with. The good news in that, is that the same things one does to foster honest and direct communication around technical issues are the same things one does to foster honest and direct communication around social issues. The bad news in this, is that to accomplish that, you are going to have to get past a lot of the BS and recrimination that acts as a barrier. (For the record, I think the way "political correctness" is currently implemented doesn't help on the whole.) This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people - in which case, the pleas for all-inclusive diversity sound a bit hollow... I don't think it's that she only wants to hang out with black people. It's that she wishes she felt as comfortable around tech coworkers as she does in predominantly black settings. Is it possible that she's doing things that exacerbate her feelings? Sure. Again, that's something to be cured with honest and direct communication. If we all rationally applied what we now know about group psychology, we should anticipate many of the events and situations she described happening. Also, if the entire group of coworkers were anticipating and applying such knowledge, I would posit things would go differently. Unfortunately, the fear and social coercion around the current version of "political correctness" work against this and instead produce an atmosphere of fear and tiptoeing around hair-triggers for fear of being tarred with labels synonymous with villainy. Could you imagine such an atmosphere around implementing continuous integration, or effective testing, or coding practices? Instead, encountering different cultures/sub-cultures should be considered an instance of encountering "known unknowns." One should go into the situation with a stance of discovery. That is what "cultural sensitivity" should really mean, not this tiptoeing/gotcha game BS that we play. EDIT: A series of questions for 3rd party readers: Is your workplace about "open and honest motivated problem solving" in the social dimension? Or is it more like "tiptoeing around gotchas?" Or is it a combination of the two concerning different social issues? What does it mean?

kamaal 12y ago

>>But what exactly do you want the other 99% of us who just happen to have been born into the majority to do? Just be normal. Is that really so difficult to be? All people ever want is to work around normal people. I'm not sure why that is a impossible expectation to have. People's skin color, ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, religion or whatever is the person's private business. Just being fair to their performance on the job can solve all the issues. >>This sounds like she's most comfortable working only with black people If you treat people badly over and over, over years. And then you consider your birth right to screw their careers and life. And all the person at the other end wants to protect themselves from this, I don't see what's so wrong with it. What should she do otherwise? If all your efforts to succeed with just efforts fail, Its perfectly fine to act in your best interest.

GeneralMayhem 12y ago
>All people ever want is to work around normal people. That's not the impression I got from the post. She clearly feels that the established "normal" (setting aside the obvious asshole outliers) isn't making her feel welcome. Just being the only black woman is apparently enough to do that, because of her fear that there might be a problem, even if it hasn't materialized. The easy response is to tell her that she needs to get over it and stop inventing problems where nobody is actually out to get her, but there are enough stories like hers that there's probably more to it.
VLM 12y ago
"Just be normal. Is that really so difficult to be?" No, she doesn't like extroverts, and saying that is socially unacceptable, so she's going all "black vs white" instead. Look at the comments along the lines of "everybody did their own thing, did their job, and went home." (I love that kind of working environment, its unfortunately rare to have a professional working environment) "I remember asking if we could do other outings that didn’t include beer and getting voted down." (despite not being a black woman, I feel exactly the same way as she does WRT this topic, so I suspect her and I would get along great, other than the whole we're both apparently introverts so getting along great would mean sitting silently, very happily, with each other) There is an anecdotal aspect to her argument. As a white dude I've met and worked with a lot of really weird white dudes over the decades, and thats apparently ok. She met ONE weird white dude, ONE!, and that's a big problem solely because she's a black woman. I'm not impressed. I'm not saying weirdos are good or correct or shouldn't be punished, but I am saying that trying to portray weirdos as as "a black women problem" is extremely inaccurate. They are a PITA for us all, or there exist PITA weirdos that affect every ethnic or social group. And to be honest, management and HR are utterly ineffective at weeding out weirdos regardless if the people offended are white dudes or black women, which is fairness, in a way. I'd argue that dealing with weirdos is an adult social skill. So a long time ago I sat next to a guy with a severe temper problem who would scream at me occasionally, usually just nonsense although sometimes I admit I'd provoke him a bit. Well, it was not exactly paradise, but I'm a big boy so its "OK". It did freak out people who weren't as tough as I was, which I found amusing (You're the one who's freaked out while I'm the one sitting next to him?) The ideal social interaction system might be all candy and balloons and girl scout songs all the time but adults can and should handle something a bit worse, a bit more realistic. Toughen up, basically. She is apparently under the mistaken impression that no weirdos ever bug white dudes magically because we're the oppressor, and that is quite inaccurate.

pistle 12y ago

Pretty sure she described enjoying a situation where she was still in a minority, so your assumption is wrong which would mean your conclusion is unsupported by your claims. I'd say it's more interesting that when you are in the majority and similar to those with power, you don't deal with certain bullshit and it's easier to relax and get shit done. That sounds a bit like all the other white engineers that aren't really focused on cultural sensitivities because they are (can be) focused on other things.

golgappi 12y ago

There is a problem in the author's views, but its not what you pointed out. On one hand the author feels she loses her cultural identity by trying to mingle with a while group. On the other she advocates diversity. And yes, she also feels comfortable when working in a predominantly black team. I think the solution that she forgets to mention is having people of all groups equally represented (most or less) in any field. With that happening, I can see how nobody would feel like an outsider, and get to preserve their cultural prefernces and tastes, along with mingling with other cultures and races. It doesn't have to be a black team, a white team and a brown team. All that is needed is people of all races in the workplace with diverse teams. That will balance things out. As for "What can you do as a white person other than not being a racist and voicing your prejudices openly" .. I don't think there's much you can do. I guess those of you in recruiting positions can encourage people from all backgrounds to come up. Not saying give special treatment to minorities, but generally try to keep bias away from recruitment procedures. Same applies to promotions, relocations and the like.