> 72.4% of Americans are White, yet 61% of Google employees are White. Technically Whites are under-represented.
> Women earn 18% of computer science degrees, yet 30% of Google employees are Women. Technically women are over-represented.
How come you use "Americans" as the universe of comparison in the first sentence and "CS degrees" in the second? I suspect that neither is the universe of comparison that Google is looking at -- particularly the latter, given that one of their approaches for addressing diversity is to support programs that are designed to expand the number of women and underrepresented minorities graduating in technical fields.
> Another 10 years of this diversity mania propaganda and we'll have the same quotas for Whites as the ones that were used against Jewish high achievers.
No one is talking about adopting quotas, except for the reflexively anti-diversity crowd.
> Between the lines they are indeed hinting towards "soft quotas".
No, they're not. They're talking about increasing the number of qualified candidates in the recruiting pipeline. I've said it before in this thread and I'll repeat it here: Google wants to hire _as many qualified candidates as possible_. We've got a huge pile of money but not enough people!
You should be sorry for having such a persecution complex. How you can read the original article as an attack on white people is astonishing.
It is beyond question (although I'm sure you question it) that white people are by far the most privileged group of people around today. To see yourself is a victim because of your race and gender is simply an excuse for whatever insecurities you might have.
Most people in this world are born with a tremendous handicap. You had an advantage* . If you still feel threatened, then I'm sorry for you.
( * You may have been disadvantaged in other ways, but by being white you do have an advantage, whether you like it or not.)
> How you can read the original article as an attack on white people is astonishing.
He probably had that reaction because that's almost always the undertone in American discussions about diversity. It's never actually about reaching relative demographic parity.
Example: Google's charts show whites as slightly underrepresented compared to the working-age population at large and Asians as vastly overrepresented. Despite that, on their brand-new diversity-at-google page[1], what group do they choose to highlight? Asian Googler Network (AGN), under the banner "Connecting and advancing the Asian community at Google".
Interesting, huh?
I hate making comments like this, because it sounds like I'm resentful toward Asian people for their success. I'm not. I love it. Keep at it, guys and gals.
I'm simply pointing out the absurdity of the situation.
> It is beyond question (although I'm sure you question it) that white people are by far the most privileged group of people around today.
"Beyond question"? That's a quasi-religious thing to say. What about Asian-Americans? And what happens when you separate Jewish White Americans from non-Jewish White Americans? Do things change in your mind?
> You may have been disadvantaged in other ways, but by being white you do have an advantage, whether you like it or not.
It's complicated. In many ways, for a given income level, White American children do have it worse than American children of other ethnicities. One minor (but personal) example: They are the only children repeatedly and harshly conditioned to feel guilt and shame toward their ethnicity's success. That really messes you up as you're growing up.
Back to Google. According to your HN profile, you work there. What is the extent to which employees' lives at work are affected by Google's new-found focus on demographic diversity, and how has this cultural shift effected the company's output?
> African Americans (12% of pop.) make up 80% of NBA players". I am pro-diversity and I have no problem with this. I don't want to change this that 80%. That 80% is based on their ability. Which just so happens to be gifted to people of their race. Good for them.
Thanks white person for explaining what black people are good at. Nope, no blatant racism here at all.
Diversity programs are important because they uncover and fight discrimination, both explicit and more subtle.
A specific example: I once worked in a job where the team leader and hiring manager was looking at resumes, found one was female and put it aside saying "she'll just get pregnant and leave". That was an extremely explicit form of discrimination that a formal diversity program may have helped combat (eg: he may have said "oh she'll just get pregnant and leave but I have to interview her anyway to get diversity points").
Interestingly, his team was extremely uniform ethnically too, and after he was asked to leave it became much more diverse.
Edit: Oh, and to address your points about the success of Jews in the fashion industries and Blacks in the NFL: overrepresentation is not a problem except in the case of whites because of history. If it becomes a problem the other way, then yes, it should be dealt with then. It is very far from that point at the moment, though.
Firstly, I'd appreciate it if you could tone down the personal insults and inflammatory language. Discrimination is inflammatory enough on its own. Thanks.
What does white-guilt mean, exactly?
I believe that economic gains made by whites at the expense of other races because of past racist policies reinforced by a historical power imbalance should not be reinforced.
I believe it is appropriate for active steps to be taken to make sure this power imbalance is not reinforced.
I do not believe this is a zero-sum game.
As if that makes it less racist. You know the story you just told me about the hiring manager throwing out a female's resume based on assumptions about her gender? You should re-read it. It applies to your views on white people.
I don't believe it does. I cannot see anything in my story or approach that excludes anyone based on colour, creed or religion. Instead it is explicitly about making sure people are included, not excluded.
To be clear, I think the story would have gone like this: Hirer sees white person's resume, says "oh, this person is white. They will probably drink too much coffee (not sure of a racist stereotype for whites). Damn, we'll have to interview them anyway because of diversity policy and they are qualified"
Many White people are socially conditioned from a young age to reflexively feel guilt and disgust toward the success of White people.
> I believe that economic gains made by whites at the expense of other races because of past racist policies reinforced by a historical power imbalance should not be reinforced.
If you want to try to accurately and fairly "unwind" historical sins (good luck), don't just target White people. And certainly don't pretend that modern White people are the only people who benefit from the those past sins.
Regarding White people in the tech industry, here's something for you to consider: White people in tech are over-proportionally Jewish. As you approach the top of the industry, Jewish people become more and more over-represented.
At the very top of the tech industry, I'd be stunned if fewer than 40-60% of people were Jewish.
Mark Zuckerberg?
Larry Page?
Sheryl Sandberg?
Sergey Brin?
Michael Dell?
All Jewish. A quick Google search reveals countless others (and frankly, good for them).
With these facts in mind, do you think we should push to recruit more non-Jewish White people in tech?
do you think we should push to recruit more non-Jewish Whites in tech?
I don't think non-Jewish whites are discriminated against in hiring, but if promotion into management is a problem, then yes, management should reflect the population too.
I'd point out that it would appear there is less of a problem with discrimination against non-Jewish white men than against black females (for example), though.
I think prioritising is reasonable.
(I'd also note that in all those cases except Sheryl Sandberg they were founders, so hiring discrimination was a non-factor. I realise this wasn't your point though).
You're focusing on hiring discrimination, but the article's focusing on spending money to increase "upstream" tech interest in under-represented groups. That's because hiring discrimination isn't really the issue; upstream interest (and thus upstream qualification) is.
If non-Jewish White people are underrepresented among successful tech founders, does that not represent an upstream issue?
If non-Jewish White people are underrepresented among successful tech founders, does that not represent an upstream issue?
If that is the case, then yes.
But I suspect that even if you remove the white Jewish cohort from the white group then whites (and especially white males) would still be overrepresented amongst founders.
I don't see the overrepresentation of a minority group as a problem at all. Like you said: Good on them.
> But I suspect that even if you remove the white Jewish cohort from the white group then whites (and especially white males) would still be overrepresented amongst founders.
If the demographic data for founders looks anything like the demographic data in the linked blog post, White people would be almost perfectly(!) proportionally represented, given the percentage of working-age Americans who are White. White men would indeed be over-represented, and Asian men would be the most over-represented of all.
Bringing up quotas is a complete non-sequitur. They didn't mention quotas or any form of favoritism towards minority candidates.
What they did mention is trying to improve the quality of CS education available to minorities. For instance, helping Howard, a predominately black college, improve its CS program.
