As a Hispanic man, I can say that I don't care about whether I earned my spot or lucked into it through my ancestry. Life isn't fair, and I'll gladly take whatever advantages I can scrounge up.
The software interview process in particular is already so capricious that I feel absolutely no shame in tilting it in my favor in any way that I can.
Would you be okay with white and Asian people similarly applying in-group advantage towards their own races to the detriment of ours? The software interview process is capricious, but this doesn't justify racial discrimination. If we're so nonchalant about racism favoring us, we're hypocrites for criticizing racism favoring other groups over us.
I am deeply troubled by racial discrimination favoring Latin people, despite benefitting from it in a narrow and immediate sense, because it makes people justified in carrying out their own discrimination potentially to my detriment.
>Would you be okay with white and Asian people similarly applying in-group advantage towards their own races to the detriment of ours?
This isn't a great take because there's tons of in-group advantages going on today that are deeply rooted in racial discrimination.
The U.S. is still reeling from its deeply racist housing policies. What does this have to do with this DEI thread?:
- Wealth is the highest indicator of educational attainment, and in turn education is a high indicator of wealth. [1]
- Zoning laws were explicitly racist and meant to keep out certain races from white neighborhoods. My parent's home built during the WWII era in the SFBAY had covenants attached to it that stated under no uncertain terms that no PoC may live in the home (No longer enforceable of course). The racist roots of these laws is not a matter of speculation.
- Most household wealth is through homeownership. [2]
- High quality education is tied to housing via school districts, more expensive houses are located in schools with better funding and higher quality education.
- Many zoning rules such as absurdly large minimum lot sizes, high setbacks, height limits (Designed to make it more expensive to buy for PoC in particular) remain in place today. It's a positive feedback loop where those who had an advantage are more likely to retain that advantage.
As OP stated, life isn't fair, and the rules are indeed rigged to favor those in power. Rebuking a group for using their limited advantages while ignoring the plethora of advantages for those up top isn't very equitable.
There's different reasons we design different systems to combat discrimination or lop-sided outcomes. White and Asian people, if that is their only identifying class characteristic, are not discriminated against generally. An argument could be made that white and Asian people from poor backgrounds don't make it into programming as much, but again - class lines. We probably should compensate for class more in discrimination laws.
Black and Hispanic people do face more active discrimination. That has to do more with outward appearance and last names.
Vets on the other hand are an example of a lop-sided outcome. It was discovered a while back that most vets often went into blue collar professions and didn't really climb that many ladders. They instituted a rule where campaign badge holders and disabled vets must have their resumes reviewed first. Working on the west coast I can attest it's rare to see vets at all. I've met more vets from non-US military in the tech world than I have from my own country (not complaining, but worth noting). There's definitely a small contingent of people who would put their political disposition into hiring if they saw a candidate was a vet, but military are coached to chop their military experience from their resume once they have a stack of experience to avoid this.
All that to say, if I were OP I would not be okay with what you proposed just on a facade basis. If it incorporated class distinctions I might agree.
I don't think I've ever been discriminated against for being Latin. Quite the contrary, I likely had significant advantages on account of my race in university admissions. I'm not sure if I've had such advantages in tech hiring, as I don't outwardly advertise my Latin identity precisely because I don't want progressive race-realists to use it as a factor in hiring, but if they did find it it probably did help.
Unlike military service which has a discrete set of experiences and criteria, race is just something you're born with.
Every story is going to be different I think. Having tools that marginally shift our statistical outcomes makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is the people who propose specific proportions as a set of diversity criteria, as it's difficult to determine what those proportions should be. At the moment I think most people are comfortable saying, "better than what they are".
It also stands out in my mind that most of these statistics rely on self-identification. I don't know if anyone's dug into the validity of self-identification.
> Asian people, if that is their only identifying class characteristic, are not discriminated against generally.
Harvard would like a word with you.
But in all seriousness, Asians face the discrimination of being perceived as foreign and “the other” more so compared to other racial minorities. So the claim that they generally don’t face discrimination is not true.
Ah, well, I didn't want to go on some long tangent. I'm sure elsewhere in the thread people are hashing out the pros and cons of giving underrepresented people an unfair advantage.
I just wanted to say that I don't think anyone should feel bad or like an impostor if they manage to get their foot in the door some way other than the traditional routes: you get lucky on a coding quiz, your dads meet at the country club, you bust your hump for 10 years in crappy jobs to work your way up to a good one, etc.
You didn't "earn" anything if it was due to skin color and that's the point. I've gotten plenty of breaks in my life but I'm aware of what is earned and what isn't. It's one thing to be ok with the fact you got in but you need the awareness to understand the negatives of a system that gives you chances due to an innate characteristic you have no control over.
The irony here is that if we all just accept the line of thinking you're using our society will go back to the exact "white male patriarchy" this DEI stuff is supposedly trying to fight. The only difference is that BiPOC or LGBTQ will replace the white male as the superior class. The next step is we can just ensure white males don't get a vote and can't own land or credit cards right?
Man, it's really weird to find myself on the SJW side of this argument for once. I'm usually the token brown guy in Libertarian circles.
Despite what you might've read on Tumblr or Fox News, I'm not planning to oppress anyone or commit white genocide.
When I'm doing interviews or looking at resumes, I'll give an extra moment of consideration to anyone born in the USA who seems to have pulled him/herself up by their bootstraps. I personally think that's enough DEI from me, and I don't think it's something you should be too incensed about.
My comment is just about what it leads to if we have a society that bases their hiring on specific skin colors. It seems like you're failing to differentiate between exactly what you're personally doing and the society wide affect of sitting back and accepting race based hiring.
You're talking about how we're on a slippery slope to creating "the superior class" and then try to claim that I'm being combative? Comeon man.
To attempt to salvage this subthread: What I'm personally doing is exactly what DEI is for the most part. BigCo gives you a yearly training that says "Make sure you give someone a fair shot even if they don't wow you with their resume". BigCo sends out a slideshow with some examples of certain minorities succeeding at their jobs. Done.
"What I'm personally doing is exactly what DEI is for the most part."
No, it's not and if you think this is true you've been burying your head in the sand for the last 5 years. Companies don't create specific Diversity/Equity coordinators and entire DEI departments just to tell you to occasionally look closer at some people you think aren't getting a fair shot.
You're just gaslighting now or blissfully ignorant of the current state of things. The OP is black man literally telling everyone this isn't the case for him and there are multiple other commenters saying the same.
The concern is that there are places where minority hires are explicitly a lower bar, so those people get junk jobs and layoffs, regardless of ability.
Personally, I think the problem should be pushed upstream whenever possible. (More funding for minority elementary and high schools, and candidate quotas for recruiters but not hires both are good examples of effective approaches).
I agree 100%. I know many white and asian people who didn't get their foot in the door or opportunity solely because they had amazing skills and talent.
Get in however you can and then work your ass off so no one doubts you.
The software interview process in particular is already so capricious that I feel absolutely no shame in tilting it in my favor in any way that I can.