I’m a Latino in Tech, and I Think the ‘Diversity’ Discussion Is Utterly Broken

http://observer.com/2016/10/lets-be-honest-we-have-no-idea-what-diversity-means/

by generic_user • 10 years ago

226 131 10 years ago

vsergiu3• 10 years ago

I don't like reading articles like this one. I hate discrimination and I am amazed that in 2016 we still have it. I am creating a website that lists companies that are hiring Latinos. Post your tech job here https://goo.gl/forms/CVIMrhigDXicaSUM2 if you are excited working with Latinos.

whitegenocide• 10 years ago

Shouldn't companies be hiring anyone who is qualified, latino or not?

fataliss• 10 years ago

In a perfect unbiased world, sure. Reality is quite a bit different sadly.

Retra• 10 years ago

That's easy to believe when you don't say what "qualified" means. For someone to be 'qualified' for a position, it only need be a good decision for that company to hire that person, which may well be a factor of how the company is perceived by the public.

incompatible• 10 years ago

I guess there will usually be plenty of qualified applicants for any particular position. Typical hiring processes may give scope for picking the one that will fit in best culturally, which would be the opposite to diversity.

placeybordeaux5• 10 years ago

Creating a website that only caters to a given ethnicity is extremely discriminatory.

vsergiu3• 10 years ago

It's not. It just helps Latinos find jobs easier. There are a ton of sites for female in tech and no one complains.

ebfe4• 10 years ago

Who cares? It has absolutely no effect on you, while helping his group of people.

The world would be a better place if people worked on improving their own communities as much as they do policing to make sure nobody else is improving theirs.

placeybordeaux5• 10 years ago

Diversity in many places seems to be largely focused on the shallowest parts of diversity, could that be because this is one of the easiest things to measure & tell about a person?

I certainly wouldn't be ready to fill out a survey about my political beliefs or my how my childhood was when interviewing.

generic_user4• 10 years ago

Skin color does not tell you anything about who a person is. Your just reconfirming your own biases when you assign characteristics to race.

Diversity often ends up being a political and ideological filter just as much as a racial filter. The organisation looking to hire a 'Diverse' person already has a set of ideological filters in place to rationalize why they prioritize 'Diversity' and what it means. There not just looking for any divers person but the 'right' kind of diverse person that agrees with there filters.

So there is process that leads to ideological and political monoculture as it is now. One of the points that to author is making is that focusing more on other forms of diversity rather the race can increase the intellectual and cultural diversity of your organisation far more the just hiring a group of different skin tones who all have the same believes and politics.

lutorm5• 10 years ago

Skin color does not tell you anything about who a person is.

The problem is that this is not true. If it was, it would be much simpler.

Race and ethnicity have a nonzero correlation with other factors like culture and socioeconomic status, which means they are, on average, likely to tell you something about the person. When applied to a given individual they're obviously very flawed predictors, but if they didn't sort of work as a proxy for other characteristics, I don't think it would be talked about as much as it is.

bobbytherobot3• 10 years ago

It may be shallow, but that same shallowness has been used to keep people at a disadvantage in society. I believe we should be actively un-biasing the negative biases throughout society. What I am describing is affirmative action which many people now see as a dirty word. For me, knowing the history and degree of suppression, it is going to be long active path to undo the effects of it.

One last though: if you can't get the shallowest level of diversity, can you really get the deep level of diversity?

mzw_mzw5• 10 years ago

For me, knowing the history and degree of suppression, it is going to be long active path to undo the effects of it.

Sure, but why do you think that discriminating against innocent third parties is going to help? That just creates increased bitterness and division.

sdegutis• 10 years ago

This is what I'm confused about. The "diversity in tech" campaign is obviously being executed all wrong, and I see article after article written by the people it's supposedly trying to help, who confirm what common sense already should know. But yet it still marches on with full strength, as if there's no problem. What gives?

Jimmie_Rustle• 10 years ago

It's an industry of it's own... Diversity consultants double down on falsehoods to continue to get paid

gxs2• 10 years ago

Exactly, there is a cottage industry that's cropped up around the subject - it's got a life of its own at this point.

FT_intern• 10 years ago

It's weird that this article is being downvoted. The comments sections are usually split 60-40 in the anti-diversity/pro-diversity debates.

However only the pro diversity articles ever get upvoted.

richmarr4• 10 years ago

Article argues that diversity of ideas is what's important, rather than diversity of ethnicity/gender, describes trying to solve racial/gender diversity for its own sake as "utterly broken".

There's plenty of evidence that women and people from under-represented groups are discriminated against because of their identity. Here are a few on gender alone: [0][1][2][3][4]

Perhaps there are cases of people being discriminated against for having "diverse" opinions, but it seems like a distinctly smaller problem, as witholding a controversial opinion is an option and witholding your existence is not.

[0] Female students seen as less competent than identical male students with identical application materials, offered lower starting salaries (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012)

[1] People in gender-incongruent roles penalised more heavily for mistakes (Brescoll, Dawson, & Uhlmann, 2010).

[2] Voluble women perceived as less competent and less suitable leaders, inverse true for men (Brescoll, 2011).

[3] Women who succeed in male-dominated fields percieved as not likeable (Heilman et al, 2004).

[4] Students question the competence of female teachers who evaluate them negatively, less so than male teachers (Sinclair & Kunda 2000).

jimmywanger6• 10 years ago

There's plenty of evidence that women and people from under-represented groups are discriminated against because of their identity. Here are a few on gender alone: [0][1][2][3][4]

Every single one of your examples has to do with gender, not ethnic diversity like the original article was talking about. Could you submit some evidence about under-represented groups?

jacalata2• 10 years ago

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-sounding-names-stu...

richmarr4• 10 years ago

Every single one of your examples has to do with gender, not ethnic diversity like the original article was talking about.

It's interesting that you interpreted it that way.

The author states that "diversity discussion is utterly broken", and I agree he focuses on race, but at no point did he constrain his criticism that to a particular sub-set of diversity.

In addition:

i) The article even opens with a lengthy movie reference (complete with a huge lead image) about the arrival of a woman at a previously all-male news team.

ii) From the article: "We’re turning race or gender into a crutch being used as an excuse for real or perceived failures."

iii) From the article: "Their goal is to help startups take proper steps to hire more women and minorities."

I don't think there's much wiggle room on the intent of the author, stated or implied.

I can only assume that either you didn't read the article completely or that you're attempting to move the goalposts; either consciously or due to confirmation bias.

Could you submit some evidence about under-represented groups?

We could get into evidence for ethnic/racial bias if you really want to; but first I'd rather address the issue of why you feel like you need to move the discussion away from gender.

Until we get past that problem, citing further evidence would likely just polarise the discussion and lead nowhere.

jdp23• 10 years ago

This might be the best diversity-related comment I've ever seen on Hacker News. Of course it was downvoted.

richmarr4• 10 years ago

Too kind, but thanks, and yeah this is a pretty hostile environment for this topic :/

have_faith• 10 years ago

Having grew up in an environment that was very troubled (to put it lightly) and also be a CIS white straight male; I find diversity discussions quite difficult. Lots of assumptions about myself due to the colour of my skin and my gender and lots of guilty by association "history is full of white males in X industry" to justify positive discrimination etc. I don't have a particular point to this post through in part being chastised in the past for having an opinion on the subject but I roughly follow the authors train of thought. When people talk of diversity their range seems to be quite shallow and skin deep.

nsxwolf2• 10 years ago

I learned to stop having such conversations long ago. You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet. Or you disagree with a point or two and get savaged, and marginalized.

When I just avoid the topic, everything stays OK and everyone remains friendly.

douche2• 10 years ago

The only winning move is not to play.

fnovd3• 10 years ago

You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet.

Talk about coded language.

zeitgeist: Focusing on diversity is just a temporary fad, I'm thinking ahead by sitting this one out

domesticated: Changing my opinion is akin to renouncing my freedom and autonomy

"ally": People like me don't really agree with those crazy diversity people, we just need reasonable cover

mindless pet: Those who don't agree with me have freed themselves from the perils of rational, enlightened thought. Like dogs! Or pigs, being fattened for the slaughter

I do agree with your premise (talking about diversity as a cis-straight-white-male can be a minefield), but there has to be some recognition that one's race (among other factors, even!) can color your experience on the job or in an interview. You may argue that social class or cultural upbringing have more of an impact, but those variables have an undeniable connection to race/ethnicity as well.

ocdtrekkie2• 10 years ago

I have lost a few friends for daring to indicate that I don't feel constantly guilty for the actions of people who I likely have no relevant relation to who share my skin pigmentation.

It's unsurprising white male suicide is up, when society is telling everyone white male opinions don't matter and that it's okay to discriminate against them.

(Oh, and the same people who discriminate against white males are usually the people ignoring the fact that most of the gun violence they're complaining about is mostly white male suicide. I agree with a lot of liberal views, but liberals can be funny sometimes too. Maybe instead of trying to ban guns we should just stop telling white males their voices aren't important because they're white males.)

ThrustVectoring• 10 years ago

It's not enough to just avoid the topic - I've had someone go off on a two minute talking-over-me rant about how I really ought to have an opinion on that sort of thing.

fapjacks• 10 years ago

Personally, I think the reason for this is because a lot of it doesn't actually have anything to do with diversity, but is just the same old bullshit about control, power, and domination. I encourage everyone to give this theory a chance, because I want an egalitarian world as much as any die-hard Star Trek nerd possibly can. It just appears that much of the discourse is being steamrolled in order to create local centers of power and control. Like many things throughout human history.

totalZero• 10 years ago

Pardon me asking, but what is CIS? I'm assuming that's where you work.

grmarcil• 10 years ago

"Cis" is short for "cisgender", ie the opposite of "transgender"

EpicEng• 10 years ago

99.999% of earth's population

Anthony-G• 10 years ago

When I first came across the term, I figured out what it meant based on the context and my interest in history: Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina, now in modern day Italy) was the part of Gaul on the same side of the Alps as classical Rome, while Transapline Gaul (Gallia Transalpina, in modern day France) was on the opposite side of the Alps.

lutorm5• 10 years ago

Diversity and discrimination are kind of two different topics, no? Discrimination clearly leads to lack of diversity, but lack of diversity does not imply discrimination. I hope everyone thinks discrimination is bad, that doesn't seem like a controversial subject.

Lack of diversity in STEM also has other causes, though, like self-selection away from subjects due to lack of role models, or struggling in college because your background has not prepared you for the academic culture. Some of these are likely more race/ethnicity/gender related, like the role model issue. When it comes to being prepared for the academic culture, though, that firmly seems to be in the socio-economic territory.

The trouble is that ethnicity also works as a semi-good proxy for socio-economic background, so it seems like people think that by fixing the "I don't see anyone like me here" problem, they can also do a good enough job of fixing problems due socio-economic background, even though that leaves out a significant chunk of people.

fnovd3• 10 years ago

The trouble is that ethnicity also works as a semi-good proxy for socio-economic background, so it seems like people think that by fixing the "I don't see anyone like me here" problem, they can also do a good enough job of fixing problems due socio-economic background, even though that leaves out a significant chunk of people.

Exactly this. A focus on race/ethnicity is only looking at part of the picture. The question remains, though: is it better than looking at none of the picture?

pesfandiar2• 10 years ago

I hope everyone thinks discrimination is bad, that doesn't seem like a controversial subject.

How about all the "positive" discrimination? As a Caucasian male from the Middle East, I feel like many entities take pride in actively discriminating against me, and I don't have any victimhood cards to play in that game.

lutorm5• 10 years ago

I'm a Caucasian male, too, and I've never experienced anything I'd call "discrimination". Even now when I live in a place where whites are in the minority (Hawaii, ~27%).

I'm curious what kinds of experiences you are referring to.

praxulus• 10 years ago

When it comes to being prepared for the academic culture, though, that firmly seems to be in the socio-economic territory.

Maybe the academic culture is wrong? What if that culture is applying arbitrary standards that disproportionately filter out certain groups, even when those standards don't translate to the skills needed in the real world?

lutorm5• 10 years ago

If you grew up never eating with a fork and knife, you'll certainly feel uncomfortable and out of place being put in a situation where that's expected. You can argue that culture is "wrong", but that won't really help you.

There are all kinds of cultures ("communities of practice", is the term) that we find ourselves in. Academics is one of them, in the sense that being a successful member requires you to be proficient in things like making coherent arguments, arguing from evidence, and asking clear questions. If your parents were university faculty, for example, you likely have much more exposure to a world where this is the norm than if you're first-generation college bound, which will make it much easier for you to navigate that world. That doesn't mean there's something "wrong" with academic culture -- it evolved because of what its practitioners do.

To the extent that "university student culture" crosses over into "the culture of the well-off", though, I'm inclined to agree with you.

ebfe4• 10 years ago

lack of diversity does not imply discrimination

If everyone is a blank slate and there is no genetic basis to intelligence, than yes, it does.

Their logic is correct, but it's based on a false premise. And if you call it into question, I sure hope you aren't dependent on having a job.

lutorm5• 10 years ago

Newborns may be blank slates, but college- and working-age people clearly are not. By the time we are ready to join the working world, we are already imprinted by what our culture tells us are "male" and "female" jobs, for example. I don't think of that as discrimination. It's discrimination if a female applies for a construction job and is passed over for being female, not if she never applies because she thinks construction isn't for her because that's something men do. But both lead to a lack of diversity.

pessimizer3• 10 years ago

I agree. It's important to realize that the rationalization of a lack of diversity in the workplace is explicitly based on racist theories about intelligence, and that the discomfort that many people feel is the fear of judgment if they openly express adherence to those beliefs.

thescribe2• 10 years ago

No one is a blank slate, large parts of personality are heritable.

home_boi2• 10 years ago

Not necessarily. That model completely removes the individual and community as actors in society. What you are saying is that all accomplishment of a person is due to society "acting on that person" to make that person successful. Everything that happens can be labeled as discrimination with that kind of model, making it a completely useless model.

Is society "discriminating" against communities and individuals when some individuals and communities value education and spend more time studying than others?

drewrv• 10 years ago

I agree with the author, there is definitely a "type" of diversity that we don't talk about or even have a name for. I'm gonna call it "cultural diversity". I think people focus on racial diversity and gender balance because they are good proxies for cultural diversity, which is otherwise quite hard to quantify.

For example, if your team's demographics match the demographics of the Stanford CS department, odds are your failing at "cultural diversity" even if you hired a black MIT grad. On the other hand if your team's demographics match the country as a whole, you're probably doing pretty well at cultural diversity.

mgarfias• 10 years ago

Sometimes I'm happy about being a Mexican American. Number one: I grew up eating Mexican food. Two: when the social justice set starts making noise my way I can point out that my dad grew up chopping cotton and the only reason I didn't is because he happened to get drafted and went to college on the GI bill. Then I'm part of the party, they leave me alone and I can go back to being a right wing redneck Mexican geek-farmer.

swozey2• 10 years ago

I mean, this goes for a lot of white Americans as well. The majority of us in GenX/Y (I'm early 30s, whatever I am) are second to third generation and our families came over in the 1910-1950s with zero prospects. I'm third generation, father and grandfather both US military (raised on a Tobacco farm), father drafted for Vietnam, not sure if my grandfather was drafted but he was a pilot at one point. Both sides of my family are from the Italian and German slums of NY (respectively). In fact, they lived in the Love Canal which was absolutely abysmal and thyroid cancer is rampant through the women in my family because of the toxic waste dumped there.

The absolute disdain between my German and Italian family is immeasurable. It's kind of hilarious being an outsider to what they went through.

I honestly can't think of one white person I know whose family has been in the USA for more than 2-3 generations. I know a LOT of Mexicans who have been here in TX for hundreds of years which I think is incredibly interesting. I'm so used to my friends having barely any history beyond the 1920s.

jondubois• 10 years ago

I also don't like how the discussion is framed because it tries to put a label on everyone (typically based on either gender, race or disability)... But that is a very narrow-minded way of thinking about diversity.

I think it's important to give extra attention to those who are disadvantaged but we should handle it on a case-by-case basis - Because not everyone who is different and disadvantaged will fit under a specific race/gender/disability label - We shouldn't leave those 'unlabelled' people out of the equation (I think that most disadvantaged people cannot be labelled - They are invisible minorities).

For example, studies have shown that attractive people get paid more on average than unattractive ones... So maybe we should also give extra consideration to ugly people... Or introverts, or people who have English as a second language... Or who come from a different country... Or had a bad childhood, etc... There are so many different categories; you cannot look at individuals in terms of their superficial qualities only; you have to consider the individual as a whole.

For example, you cannot give special treatment to someone just because they're a woman (without also considering other factors) - What if that woman has a $10 million dollar trust fund and tons of social connections? Maybe she doesn't actually need any special treatment at all - It changes the whole story.

I think that gender, race and disability should be considered, but you shouldn't look at them in isolation from everything else; I think that doing so is in itself is a form of discrimination against all unlabelled disadvantaged individuals.

At the root of this discussion lies the problem that companies are not good at considering people as individuals.

Mz• 10 years ago

When most people are trying to promote inclusiveness, they do just that: Try to include or reach out to certain specifically excluded groups. This has all kinds of inherent problems and does not work well.

In contrast, I do things that are less implicitly exclusionary. I do not try to target anyone for inclusion. I just do things that do not implicitly exclude them in the way I frame things.

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/07/less-exclusi...

pmarreck2• 10 years ago

I never see ethnicity after the first 5 seconds. If you can talk shop, you're cool, period (in my subjective brain). This is why I have issues with diversity discussions; it's like forcing me to acknowledge the elephant in the room that doesn't actually exist in mine. The best programmer I know is female (and I have told her as much), the second-best is half-black, the third-best is a white Jewish Stanford grad, and somewhere way down the list is curious old me. Who is still giving a shit about this stuff? (Disclaimer: I'm likely as white as can be, the Aryan ideal, dirty-blonde blue-eyed German firstborn American).

But for what it's worth, my latin-american brother-in-law introduced me to ceviche (he makes it himself), and that shit is the bomb-diggity

muad• 10 years ago

There was a segment on NPR this morning where a woman who wrote "The History of White People" explained that white people are uncomfortable talking about race because it has never been a problem for them.

Her argument was that now that being white is a "bad" thing, white people want to ignore race.

It was very enlightening, but not for the reasons she intended.

pmarreck2• 10 years ago

That's... a good point, unfortunately. :/

xenihn• 10 years ago

Hispanic engineer here (Salvadoran native/semitic/spanish mix, for what that matters), and I agree with the article's author in regards to socioeconomic class being a much bigger factor than race when it comes to the topic of diversity.

a philosopher from Peru resembles a philosopher from Scotland more than a janitor from Peru
students think that their environment is diverse if one comes from Missouri and another from Pakistan—never mind that all of their parents are doctors or bankers

Spot on.

I consider any sort of initiative to disenfranchise or disempower people based on their racial/ethnic background as detrimental to society as a whole, because it (understandably) causes resentment and division.

Imposter syndrome is a bad enough problem for engineers without having to take the possibility of preferential treatment that was conferred on the basis of minority status into account.

pessimizer3• 10 years ago

Imposter syndrome is a bad enough problem for engineers without having to take the possibility of preferential treatment that was conferred on the basis of minority status into account.

This seems completely topsy-turvy to me. I would think white men would be more liable to impostor syndrome due to the general favoritism towards white men. If there were some preferential treatment in the policy that got you hired as a non-white-man that recognized you as the top of your demographic, and your demographic is still vastly underrepresented in your profession; then to feel like an impostor based on that is to internally accept that your demographic is somehow inherently inferior to the overrepresented group.

The entire purpose of affirmative action to me is to dislodge the incompetent advantaged people bobbling around at the bottom of their profession, and replace them with people who are more likely not to have had a chance to reach their full potential yet.

zem• 10 years ago

I would think white men would be more liable to impostor syndrome due to the general favoritism towards white men.

favouritism towards white men is pervasive but invisible; affirmative action is rarer but highly visible, so it gets focused on more.

hackinthebochs• 10 years ago

socioeconomic class being a much bigger factor than race when it comes to the topic of diversity.

Maybe this is the case. But if there aren't enough funds to uplift everyone of the lower class, ultimately those you do help will mostly be of the dominant culture, thus indirectly perpetuating the same processes that subjugated minorities in the past. Funneling scarce resources to minority groups is acknowledging the unique factors that cased minority groups to be over-represented in the lower class.

gxs2• 10 years ago

Heh, spot on.

I'm also hispanic, the lack of diversity in SV and really any other place where you want to point it out (except for maybe the coaching staff of some football program in rural TX, things like that) is due to socioeconomic difference.

I'd take it one step further though and say it's just a difference in culture.

Go to an Indian friend's house and move a book on the floor out of the way with your foot- you will get a nasty glare. Why? Education is incredibly important in their culture and for that reason kicking a book is almost blasphemous to them.

All I'm saying is that cultures that value education that way succeed because increasingly to be competitive in the job market you need to have hard skills - not ethnic studies degrees with minors in russian dance.

Our culture (hispanic culture) and black culture from what I observed during the time I shared neighborhoods with poor urban blacks that were similar in socioeconomic status to us, just doesn't value education the same way. And pointing that out nowadays is considered racist, sadly.

The only reason I made it out the hood is because of my dad - he would always tell me that the only difference (true or not) between him and the uberly rich guys he works for in LA is education. Fast forward 25 years and now at 31 I'm doing just fine. Most of the "racism" I perceive day to day is in my head and I suspect it has to do with this non stop conversation.

sumedh• 10 years ago

you will get a nasty glare.

Indian here, my dad used to hit me if I moved a book with my foot. That is just not acceptable.

korethr• 10 years ago

It seems to me that the only diversity in tech that actually matters is diversity of thought: How does this person approach problem solving differently? What heretofore unknown problems do they spot before it's too late? Etc.

Skin reflectivity, ancestry/parentage, anything related to genitalia (be it shape, usage, TypeMismatchExceptions from the brain, etc), net-worth, or history of any of those strike as poor proxies for the diversity that does mater.

Can you solve the technical problem to hand? Great!

Am I missing something that it needs to be any more complicated than that?

bobbytherobot3• 10 years ago

It is very very easy to create bias interview questions for programming. I've seen too often people ask a college homework assignment they worked on. Is using your path to the job a good proxy for finding diversity of thinkers?

Then the question is, how do you set it up to find people that solve problems differently?

The interview is just the start of the phase. How do you keep people who are talented but approach the problem differently? What keeps them from feeling like an outsider?

eveningcoffee• 10 years ago

Edit: Well, I have to probably extend this to make it more understandable.

...that actually matters is diversity of thought. How does this person approach problem solving differently?

I think that this is what the industry is after, kind of. It would at least make economical sense, I think. While the problem is interesting and important, it also looks to be hard to solve. But there seems to exists a heuristic, instead of trying to create an actual diversity of thought directly, create a diversity of thinkers in hope that diversity of thought will arise from it.

There is also a political aspect, as the field is felt as attractive and high paying then there exists political groups that try to take advantage of the situation, also this forum is oriented to the CS field, so we also hear more about this field here.

This comment does not try to address the real issue but a meta-issue - that is, why it is perceived that there is so much talk about the issue.

calvinbhai• 10 years ago

I so agree with this article!!

Always had the same feeling about the "diversity" but never understood the why.

ftrflyr• 10 years ago

"A society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty." We are seeing the effects of society aiming for equality over liberty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKxCWheH5Vk

forrestthewoods• 10 years ago

Diversity is code for "race" and "sex". It's not a very diverse set of axes to measure.

I won't argue they aren't important axes. They may even be the two single most important. But either way it's disappointing that they're the only two axes we're actively measuring and scoring.

nickpsecurity5• 10 years ago

I've written these same things. The real value of diversity is different approaches to problem solving in various domains like leadership, product development, performance assessment, technical aptitude, crisis/dispute management, and more. It was obvious that getting races by themselves wouldn't solve the problem when most startups and big companies alike were already filtering candidates to be more like them ("culture fit"). That's killing diversity at the start.

The alternative is meritocracy. Things like blind auditions or at least leveraging existing diversity in assessments. There should be extra attention paid to whether the person has skills that complement the team's or took unusual but effective approaches to certain problems. I see that kind of stuff all the time in my line of work although management sees a lot less. It's because I'm looking harder. I don't care what the race or other traits of the person was as those who impress me vary considerably. I enjoy seeing the differences as I learn from them so long as the differences are mental.

pj_mukh2• 10 years ago

I am a tad bit confused at the premise of the article. It is primarily complaining that race (or gender) is just one dimension of diversity. To the extent of my anecdotal experiences, most diversity advocates whole-heartedly agree.

The example he uses, Project Include, specifically cites, "gender, race, class, age, religion, disability, education, sexual orientation, and others" and calls it a multi-dimensional problem [1].

Example: cis white men from poor or troubled families are most definitely included in this definition of under-represented minorities. It maybe difficult to explicitly measure, but they are definitely included.

There maybe specific organizations that work with a single dimension but I would like to see data on this supposed proliferation of solely race/gender based diversity organizations. Lots of good organizations work with other dimensions of minority representation. Stride[2], focussed on socio-economic conditions, in the bay area comes to mind.

[1] http://projectinclude.org/about/

[2] http://www.stridecenter.org/

mzw_mzw5• 10 years ago

Example: cis white men from poor or troubled families are most definitely included in this definition of under-represented minorities. It maybe difficult to explicitly measure, but they are definitely included.

The fact that poor white men are technically included in certain definitions of "disadvantaged" by obscure organizations no one has ever heard of, is of little import in the real world: where programs to, say, get more poor coal miners' sons from Appalachia into tech are thin on the ground, and anyone talking about those people's problems gets torrents of abuse and remarks about "white tears."

pj_mukh2• 10 years ago

Again, not sure what you are talking about. This particular situation (Appalachia in tech) was loudly celebrated in all circles[1]. This seems to be an enemy that's been made up (or defined by a thin fringe).

https://backchannel.com/canary-in-the-code-mine-903884eca853...

fuqted2• 10 years ago

From The Diversity Myth:

"...a woman might ‘realize’ that she had been ‘raped’ the next day or even many days later. Under these circumstances, it is unclear who should be held responsible. If the alcohol made both of them do it, then why should the woman’s consent be obviated any more than the man’s? Why is all blame placed on the man? "

I'm curious what people think about this.

bryanmgreen• 10 years ago

In an off the cuff thought, I'd say issues related to to diversity in this age generally come from stereotypes or generalizations rather than ignorant or malicious thinking.

IE: In the work place, a hiring manager might think "This person comes from that place which doesn't 'usually' produce top talent... On the other hand, I have this other individual from a place that generally produces top talent." Don't forget that a hiring manager's job is pretty much to entirely mitigate risk - thereby perpetuating, intentionally or otherwise, lack of diversity.

That's no excuse, but I think lack of diversity should be a viewed as a symptom, not a disease. In the above example, I describe a symptom of a risk-management mindset - and if companies could find a way to give more trust to hiring managers, perhaps it would give them the freedom to hire more diverse candidates.

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TL;DR Ask yourself: Do you think Lack of Diversity is a symptom of greater social/economic issues or is it a disease in that it is consciously/intentionally perpetrated?

pastProlog• 10 years ago

Many of the people on HN are in their twenties, some of us are slightly older.

In 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a black church in Birmingham and killed four little girls, because the church supported the rights of blacks to vote. Blacks were still banned from attending University of Alabama in that year, the governor himself stood in the school's door to block the first student trying to attend, blocked by federal marshals. In 1964 three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, with the help of local police. In 1961, groups riding on integrated buses in the south were attacked in several places, with the help of police, beaten to a pulp and the buses burned.

Even in the north - in 1965 Martin Luther King went on a march in Chicago against de facto segregated housing, which was met by what seemed to be a forming mob, he was hit by a brick and the white and black marchers were met with projectiles and feared a riot might ensue.

If you look at the Fox News viewer demographics, much of their audience were in their 20s and 30s when this was all happening. They grew up with it that way.

This isn't ancient history to some of us, and is American history. You go back farther and it is jim crow, lynching, and not all too far back, about 30 years before my grandfather was born, slavery.

Considering this, seeing blacks relegated to Oakland (which is itself being gentrified) and lacking in the makeup of startups in San Francisco is not surprising. Things have in some ways gotten better, but black men are still killed for little or no reason. Look at the case of Amadou Diallo, who was shot 41 times for opening his door - the police brass have been editing his entry on Wikipedia with exposed IPs, which has led to a little kerfuffle. So they're being paid by working taxpayers to rewrite history any how...

jeffrom• 10 years ago

Funny how when programmer's see a bug in some code, it doesn't matter so much _why_ the code is like that, what matters more is the result of that code being incorrect. The impact of the code is what matters, not the intent.

Yet, when it comes to diversity in tech, you can show all the data you want, and we still assume that affluent white men are the ones who are really under attack, that white men are predisposed to succeed in this field moreso than other groups, or any number of other theories that are really just anecdotally-based gut reactions. 2016 isn't that different from the 50s in that way.

Gigablah• 10 years ago

As someone from SE Asia, I find it mind-boggling that just about all of the comments here lump "Asians" and "whites" into the same category.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

Welcome to the weird politics of the diversity discussion

jxramos• 10 years ago

I wonder how folks respond to the following attitude

"The key word among advocates of multiculturalism became 'diversity'. Sweeping claims for the benefits of demographic and cultural diversity... have prevailed without a speck of evidence being asked for or given." https://youtu.be/H6ImP-gJvas?t=941

I've recently been exposed to the above sort of thoughts that criticize the whole notion of diversity. I have to admit I'm still taken aback and caught off guard by it. Apparently this Sowell guy is all over on YouTube sneering at the idea of diversity in one way or another. He's a very unusual and startling figure to listen to, challenging a ton of beliefs and things I've been exposed to growing up.

I’m a Latino in Tech, and I Think the ‘Diversity’ Discussion Is Utterly Broken

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