
Google Employee Writes Memo About ‘The Burden of Being Black at Google’ - lladnar
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-memo-about-being-black-at-google
======
zettatron
As a biracial and transgender individual working for a startup: I would prefer
(and am appreciative of my company's ability to) not discussing these things
at work to begin with.

I can't imagine why on Earth anyone would want to bring such a personal topic
into the workplace. As a matter of fact, it kind of disturbs the integrity of
a professional environment to have these kinds of discussions during working
hours anyway.

For the record, I have never felt discriminated against or left-out, or
anything other than being another member of my team in a meaningful way.

I think focusing on these kinds of sensitivities can pull a sense of mistrust
and underhandedness to the team. I'm not going to invalidate his feelings on
the issue, because we are all allowed to feel how we feel; but I would caution
anyone in engaging those feelings at work for the benefit of all parties
involved.

~~~
tryitnow
I honestly don't understand your comment.

It's pretty clear that the author is bringing these issues up precisely
because other employees at Google did not heed the advice you give: "“Over the
last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast
unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who
speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because
of ‘fit’ and so much more,”"

In other words, there were many Googlers who did in fact discuss these issues
at work.

Sure, it's nice to say, "I would prefer...", but honestly, we would all prefer
things to be different than they are. But they're not.

And this is where I really don't understand your comment. Your comment seems
to totally ignore the very issue that is explicitly mentioned sub-headline of
the article: Apparently, some people at Google not only felt free to discuss
these issues in the work place, they did so in a profoundly unprofessional
manner thereby creating a hostile workplace.

So stating that "I would prefer...not discussing these things..." doesn't
really address the issue that these things were in fact discussed.

That's sort of like saying, "I would really prefer it if my code always worked
the way I wanted it to..."

or.."I'd really prefer not to procrastinate so much on HN..."

Don't we all? Alas, that's not the world we live in. The crux of life is what
do we do when things happen that we prefer would not happen?

Controversial issues were discussed at work, the author of the memo
highlighted the problem and gave solutions, some of which I agree with, some
of which I don't, but I think it's important to move beyond just stating our
preferences.

~~~
JPKab
I grew up in a mostly black county, and attended predominantly black schools
my entire childhood. Something that the typical person on HN doesn't
understand is how implicitly absurd, and accidentally racist, it is to view
the comments of an individual black person to be representative of black
people in general.

We do this all the time, but would never accept a random white person to claim
they represent all white people.

Al Sharpton knows nothing about the lives of black people where I grew up.
He's never been there. My friends growing up were deeply resentful of his
constant claim to be "the voice of black America." He's a New Yorker, through
and through. And yet the media elites act as if he was an elected
representative of black America.

This Google employee is no different. How does he get to speak for all black
Googlers? Who elected him? How many black employees at Google think he's
correct, vs. paranoid and overly sensitive?

Show me an actual survey, and I'll open up on this. But this is anecdotal
bullshit, just like the placating white hosts on news channels signaling their
virtue by picking up the phone and bringing Sharpton on since they don't know
normal, non-celebrity black people.

~~~
skinnymuch
The Googler didn’t claim to represent everyone. That part and the rest of your
comment are arguing against things no one is against.

~~~
esyir
He might not be, but everyone else is treating it like it is.

------
keiferski
I can't help but feel like the continuing rise of situations like this will
end up in a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which
sociopolitical and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is
purely on the work. Most of these conflicts seem to arise because the line
between personal and professional has been eroded almost entirely in
contemporary American culture.

While in theory an organization that can openly allow its employees to discuss
and debate all of their strongly-held opinions, it seems to mostly result in
chaos, even somewhere like Google which ostensibly employs some of the
smartest people in the world. It would seem far more efficient for a firm to
simply ban discussion of controversial and personal topics. Of course, this is
entirely contrarian to the zeitgeist, in which local and familial social bonds
have largely been replaced by co-workers and the idea of a "professional" as
in "not personal" is perceived as an antiquated tradition.

~~~
core-questions
> a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which sociopolitical
> and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is purely on the
> work.

This (a) may or may not really have existed in the austere sense you're
describing it, and (b) if it did exist, it existed in a world where people had
much stronger community life than they do now. In a world where everyone is
atomized, where nobody knows their neighbours, nobody attends church (and if
they do, their neighbours don't, so it doesn't achieve the goal), and so
forth... is it any wonder that people have turned to those who they spend 8
hours a day with for some sort of socialization?

If we "return" to not discussing anything with our peers and just being
professional robots, to avoid 'chaos', we'll have lost our last healthy outlet
for this sort of thing. Expect more depression, more radicalization, etc. when
the only people who provide you with what feels like genuine social expression
are those you find online who agree with you already.

> it seems to mostly result in chaos

I attribute this far more towards the current climate of virtue signalling:
being outraged or outraged-on-behalf-of-others brings you social rewards,
stimulating the part of your brain that evolved to feel good when you are
socially accepted. We're abusing our own chemical reward mechanisms in an
unhealthy way; where in the past people used to have thicker skin and knew it
was unacceptable to get outraged in a professional environment, now people see
it as part of the package, and HR backs them up.

You want a return to professionalism, let's fix that, rather than stripping
work of its social components.

~~~
MockObject
> If we "return" to not discussing anything with our peers and just being
> professional robots, to avoid 'chaos', we'll have lost our last healthy
> outlet for this sort of thing.

Absolutely not. It means your healthy outlet will be with your friends, those
mututally selected for compatibility, and in contexts where such discussions
are presumably welcome.

As opposed to the workplace, with people brought together by happenstance to
cooperate productively, despite personal differences that are irrelevant to
the production process.

> I attribute this far more towards the current climate of virtue signalling:

In many a historical era, tiny theological or political disputes have set
neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother.

In the aftermath, the solution that civilized societies evolved was: don't
discuss politics or religion! It worked. Let's restore it.

~~~
tunesmith
I wonder if that was one of those solutions that only worked because of the
state of technology at the time.

We didn't need to legislate certain privacy guarantees because they were
simply expected and we didn't anticipate machine learning.

Similarly, we could rely on boundaried social contexts since we didn't have
the ability to look into each others lives through facebook, nextdoor, etc.

So that solution might more have been a stopgap coping mechanism to delay our
need to find another better solution, like societally learning to better
respect each others differing backgrounds and values.

------
SamuelAdams
From the original memo:

> Provide additional mental health support for Googlers of color — especially
> following critical moments impacting their communities

> Throughout my time at Google, my mental health has been heavily influenced
> by what I read in the news. And in America, that means frequently reading
> about innocent black men and women who’ve been killed by police officers.
> Whether the issue is police brutality, or mass shootings targeting the LGBTQ
> community, or racist comments from the President debasing immigrants, Google
> needs to provide mental health support equitably, which means making a more
> concerted effort to create opportunities for underrepresented groups to seek
> counseling and support.

With respect, I don't think this is an employer-based issue. Because this was
caused by a non-work related source [the news], I think it should be the
responsibility of the individual to seek therapy and other resources on their
own time and on their own dime.

Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result
of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide
support.

In fact, Google does provide free counseling for the staff who have to filter
through illicit images on Google's search engine. Since those employees are
regularly exposed to horrendous issues as part of their work, they get
company-sponsored help with it.

~~~
rhacker
> Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result
> of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide
> support.

I think you kinda nailed there - he was placed in awkward situations where the
other employees suddenly didn't have an opinion one way or another, whereas
they had lots of opinions about ebola, etc... I'm wondering if therapy is even
the correct word. It's more of a societal shield we all put up in various
circumstances.

Sometimes I try to imagine a world where women or men, other races, would swap
places with someone from an actual conversation I had to help me reveal my own
biases by trying to examine how things would go differently. We should be at a
place where the conversation doesn't really change.

For example let's say you're talking to your uncle about crime in the midwest.
Suddenly swap them out for a black person from Minnesota. Is that conversation
different now? Why? How do you internalize that so that when you speak you can
speak to anyone.

Another example - tradeshows. Sometimes I hear people talking about the
customer like they are a wallet - now pretend that those people are suddenly
talking TO the customer.

Not only do we have the ability to see how messed up our own actions and
language is, but you can now see it in other people.

I'm not saying doing that kind of thing is going to fix all problems, but it
is a very good thought exercise.

~~~
commandlinefan
> Is that conversation different now?

Well… yeah, but only because I’m going to be careful what I say to avoid
stepping on somebody else’s feelings. To dance around the point just a bit -
there are people who I can safely be completely honest with, and people who I
cannot safely be completely honest with. I’m not sure I’m the one who needs to
be doing the adjusting to change that.

------
cletus
One point: the memo mentions some person saying "these protests aren't going
to solve anything" and goes on to say how they're just blocking people from
getting home. I think it's inaccurate to attribute this to racism or lack of
diversity. It's something far simpler.

This person and many like them are just completely self-centered.

You'll probably fine the disruption just affected their commute home. Nothing
more, nothing less.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending it. In my time at Google I lost count of
the number of times that, say, some engineer 3 years out of college couldn't
afford a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto for them, their partner and their dog
and how they were underpaid and this was unfair and a problem (and I'm not
exaggerating as much as you might think) while not thinking twice about the
2.5 hour commute of the workers who prepare the free food and drive the buses
to and from SF.

It's actually infuriating how much people can buy into these things as being
"problems" while being completely oblivious to what's actually a problem right
under their noses.

~~~
dlivingston
I would like to add my (unwanted) two-cents: I'm of the (soft) opinion that
protests often cause more harm than good - or, will have a neutral effect - to
a cause, particularly when there is anything 'uncouth' to a protest such as
violence or obstruction of traffic.

As much as I hate to say it, I struggle to think of what the Women's March or
Occupy Wall Street tangibly accomplished.

Can someone provide studies or articles demonstrating the effectiveness of
large protests in changing the populace's views?

~~~
dudul
The Tea party, Gandhi and his friends, Protests during Vietnam war, the
storming of the Bastille.

Now, in "recent" History I tend to agree with you. My personal opinion is that
protests are not violent enough to cause real change.

Edit: I would appreciate feedback from downvoters. I think the few examples I
provided are valid to illustrate "protests that caused real change", but if
I'm wrong I'm happy to learn.

~~~
hnbroseph
wasn't the us involved with the vietnam conflict for the better part of 20
years? i was actually under the impression that the vietnam protests, while at
times quite noticeable, weren't all that impactful in-and-of themselves.

i think that, insofar as one might be inclined to point at "successful"
protests, it's often really an issue of achieving a consensus amongst a
plurality of those in power.

perhaps protests can work toward that (i'm not sure); but if so, they could
also work against it. i sadly doubt the protests in hong kong, despite their
scope and intensity, will change much at all when the powers-that-be neither
care, nor (seemingly) can ever be made to care.

~~~
dudul
Isn't it generally accepted that the US "lost" the war because of the violent
anti-war protests? I didn't say _one_ single protest changed the whole thing,
but these protests changed the attitude of the population towards the war,
made it vastly unpopular, and in the end the US had to give up.

------
SpicyLemonZest
The Vice article says that “he regularly encountered racism during his
experience as a Black worker at the company”, but the memo seems to just
contain proposed diversity action items and a story about how his coworkers
didn’t care enough about Eric Garner. Is there something I missed?

~~~
Miner49er
Yes. His co-workers reaction to the protest and the fact that he heard other
racist stuff during his time there.

~~~
dekhn
I think reasonable people can disagree about whether this is racist. I would
be very cautious bandying around huge accusations about racism like this.
Certainly it seems very different from actively going and taking actions
against people in a class you believe are inferior.

Many of us who are reasonable and rational come to different conclusions- for
example, while I fully support peaceful protests, I think any protest which
blocks traffic is unwise and likely to generate negative responses in people
who would otherwise be sympathetic.

~~~
will4274
> I think reasonable people can disagree about whether this is racist.

I disagree. Reasonable people recognize that being miffed that a protest is
disrupting your commute isn't racist. It's only the unreasonable people who
think it could be.

~~~
wilg
There's no point in debating what "reasonable" means here, since everyone
usually thinks they are reasonable.

I think you've reframed the situation so that it no longer sounds racist.
Obviously worrying about your commute isn't racist!

This is, of course, missing the point. I think the reason this bothered the
memo's author is because their coworkers had a strong negative reaction to a
hypothetical (and likely minor) change in their commute, but no reaction to a
high-profile pattern of racially motivated murder by corrupt police officers.

Is ignoring racism racist? I think so. Is prioritizing something super trivial
over racism racist? Seems close enough to me.

~~~
will4274
> Is ignoring racism racist? I think so. Is prioritizing something super
> trivial over racism racist? Seems close enough to me.

Assuming that silence represents malice is a classic example of totalitarian
group think.

And fwiw, you don't know that the co-workers cared more about the commute -
they could also be deeply concerned about racism and just not want to discuss
it with OP.

~~~
wilg
I wasn’t talking about silence, I was talking about the person who was
communicating their disapproval of the situation because of an extremely minor
personal inconvenience.

And of course we don’t know what the person cared about, we just know what
they said they cared about, which is all we can go on. They were happy to
discuss their political views by saying they thought the protesters were an
inconvenience, so it seems pretty unlikely that they did have deep concerns
about racism because that response makes no sense for someone who feels that
way.

------
neilv
Quoting "[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-
Weigh...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of-
Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf") (which I prefer to the vice.com
article):

> _As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working
> long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of
> protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat.
> Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit
> ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is
> ridiculous?"_

> _My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to
> see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms
> folded in exasperation._

> _" These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what
> are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do?
> Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they
> can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it."_

I think this could be a problem of sensitivity or awareness, rather than heart
being in the wrong place.

The person speaking might have felt they were aligned with the goals and
intended message of the demonstrators, and was only expressing frustration
with what they thought were ineffective or unwarranted methods, but...

I suspect that the speaker wasn't in that moment being sensitive to the
anguish and sense of urgency some people might've felt, over brutality and
related injustice. The demonstrators might've been crying "pay attention to
this", and then a coworker seemed to dismiss that.

It's too bad that the writer of the piece couldn't speak up in the moment.
Though they alluded to some of why, and I think I understand.

(I probably wouldn't have spoken up then, either, even with lesser stakes for
myself. I learned this from a workplace incident, when I was walking up to a
group of (presumably straight) coworkers chatting casually about some gay
issue in the news (this was before the first US gay marriage), and one of
them, who was normally thoughtful, started riffing glibly on how "it's
_unnatural_ ". I doubt this struck me as deeply as the writer had been, and I
hadn't really felt part of an oppressed group, nor had to fear anything around
that -- but I was still shocked in the moment, and speechless, as I felt like
my face flushed, and I walked away quickly. In hindsight, they were probably
within earshot of another coworker, who I knew to be secretly lesbian or bi,
but I don't recall whether that registered in my mind at the time. Elsewhere
in life, I try to do what I can, but I couldn't speak up in the moment.)

~~~
will4274
I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's the problem with what OP's co-worker
said. She didn't think the protests were effective or useful. Surely she's
entitled to feel that way?

Edit: the gist of your post seems to be that expressing political opinions at
work is only acceptable if you agree with them. That's obviously nonsense.
Either everybody can do politics at work, and you have to accept that some
people will disagree with you, or nobody can do politics at work.

~~~
dmamills
I imagine from his position it's very disheartening to see his coworkers have
a strong opinion about the protests, and the horrible injustice that is an
unexpected traffic jam. But have nothing to say about the wrongful death of a
human being. A human being who was murdered and the murderers saw now
consequences.

~~~
manfredo
Right, and I'm sure there are plenty of anti-abortion activists that genuinely
see terminating a pregnancy as murder and are disheartened by the lack of
response for what they are was widespread, systemic violence. I have as much
sympathy for those people as I do for the author: not much, because regardless
of how strong one's convictions are in a given political opinion the fact that
one's coworker do not share that opinion does not amount to disparagement,
racism, harassment, etc.

------
nilkn
Can someone explain why Google seems to be such a hotbed for stuff like this?
I ask this question in earnest. Perhaps this is just bias in what the media
chooses to report, or perhaps the cross-section of news that I read fails to
find other examples, but social uproar seems overwhelmingly more common at
Google than most other workplaces in both the software industry and most other
industries in general.

As for the memo itself, I do highly recommend reading it directly first rather
than commentary on it:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-
abo...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-about-the-
burden-of-being-black-at-google)

~~~
hguant
Google has long had a policy of 'bringing your whole self to work.' The
company actively encourages (or at least, encouraged) its employees to be
political, and to be 'true to themselves' in the workplace.

~~~
kgwgk
They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they choose
wisely what are their opinions.

~~~
josteink
They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they are
not republican views.

I think that more accurately sums it up.

Edit: Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google-
employees...](http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google-employees-
are-blacklisted-lawsuit-alleges-2018-1)

~~~
TomMckenny
Where the call for "diversity" is twisted to mean that more overtly bigoted
persons and statements should be brought in and entertained?

The call that claims "diversity" should include movements towards less
diversity?

~~~
Udik
\- The call that claims "diversity" should include movements towards less
diversity?

Of course it should. It's the diversity of opinions. Otherwise you're calling
for an exterior diversity (I'm black, you're Asian, she's transgender) but a
complete uniformity of opinions and worldviews.

~~~
TomMckenny
Then I imagine they are quite happy since their desire for less diversity
would be met by (the imagined policy) excluding those who want less diversity.

Unless of course the objection is not to diversity per-se but some particular
groups.

If the anti-diversity crowd are under represented in tech, it's probably for
they same reason the highest productivity areas are the most liberal in their
countries and formed mostly from those that left other areas.

------
ummonk
I was sympathetic until I read this:

 _“I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of
police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate
countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and
alacrity,” the memo reads. “From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the
spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I’d never heard
of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it
came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.”_

It is perfectly reasonable for employees to choose to abstain from discussing
fraught political subjects at work.

------
Mountain_Skies
This has a strong undercurrent of "you're either with us or against us" where
no one is allowed to simply be neutral. While I understand the theory that
doing nothing means you support the status quo, forcing people to explicitly
choose a side more often than not ends up pushing them to support the other
side, which as a result grows stronger in power. Forcing someone who doesn't
want to support you to support you generally breeds resentment and generates
negative value for your cause. Those who can be pushed into support tend to be
the first to abandon your cause when the opportunity arises. Welcoming those
who are leaning towards your direction instead of trying to force those who
are ambivalent has a much higher return on investment of your time and
resources.

~~~
MrLeap
The theory you mention is a koan MEANT to radicalize.

\- Support for any tenet of my opposition proves you directly support the
opposition's atrocities.

\- Moderate, centrist or apolitical people are responsible for ALL atrocities.

------
rdtsc
> I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of
> police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate
> countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and
> alacrity,” [...] particularly after big news events such as the police
> killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests
> against police brutality.

Is Michael Brown a good example of police brutality though? Maybe they didn't
have much to say because it turns out a lot of the facts there have been
twisted and embellished, to put it mildly. Maybe they just politely refused to
discuss it at work?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22Hands_up,_don't_shoot%22)

[https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-
releas...](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-
releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-
partisan/wp/2015/03/16/lesson-learned-from-the-shooting-of-michael-brown/)

~~~
benmmurphy
It is interesting he brings up Garner and Michael Brown. I think Garner was a
good example of police overstepping the mark that everyone could agree on and
Brown was much controversial. But weirdly enough it seemed that Brown was
pushed more than Garner by activists. I think this is quite common with
activist organisations. They seem to deliberately push more controversial
causes. I'm not sure if this is because more controversial causes are more
effective or it is because there are weird personal incentives in play.

Also, it could be that no-one wants to bring attention to negative effects
from a popular policy. Garner had the attention of police because he was
selling untaxed cigarettes. Taxing cigarettes is quite popular and I guess no-
one wants to explicitly bite the bullet that some people need to die to have
these laws on the book. In a country with a population over 300 million there
is a good chance people are going to randomly die from run-ins with law
enforcement over non-violent crime. All law is a trade off between the good
effects and the bad effects but a lot of people believe any serious bad effect
means the law is immoral.

------
40acres
There was a stretch from 2014-15 that made it really difficult to go to work
on a day to day basis for me. There is something psychologically triggering
about seeing people who look like you routinely killed by the state,
regardless of the circumstances or politics.

I began to feel some contempt for my white co-workers despite knowing that
they had nothing to do it. I did not expect nor wanted to have a conversion
with them about race and police brutality, and I don't know many of my black
friends who would to be honest -- perhaps Google just has an argumentative
culture.

~~~
username90
As a non-American I don't see this. The American police kills roughly as many
whites per day as the Norwegian police have killed during their entire
existence (it is 1 if you wonder). Making this about race only hides the
elephant in the room: the American police is extremely brutal. It shouldn't be
this way in a western nation, the police doesn't kill that many except for
third world countries and USA. Even if we eliminated the racism and thus
halved the number of blacks killed by the police it would still be a horrible
amount of blacks killed!

[https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-america-police-
killin...](https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-america-police-killing-
comparison?r=US&IR=T)

~~~
umvi
Easy for Norway to say. America is 60x bigger population-wise, 30x bigger
geographic-wise, and some order-of-magnitude more diverse (10x? 100x?)
racially.

While I agree America can do better, comparing the US to Norway is like saying
"Yeah, our Norway.com servers have only crashed once. Twitter.com would do
well to copy how we do things; they seem to have servers crashing way more
often than we do" which completely ignore issues that come into play at orders
of magnitude higher scales - for if you put Norway.com under the same strain
as twitter, Norway.com's servers would be crashing left and right as well.

~~~
username90
> America is 60x bigger population-wise

Right, so if they had the same level of police brutality you would have 60
deaths in the history of American police, or about 1 killing per year. Even if
the police were racists and killed twice as many blacks, that would still just
be one black dead every few years, then it wouldn't matter.

The rest of the differences are not important here. Racial diversity shouldn't
be related to crime or shootings.

~~~
umvi
> Right, so if they had the same level of police brutality you would have 60
> deaths in the history of American police, or about 1 killing per year

Only if problems scale exactly linearly and there are no side effect emergent
behaviors you have to account for. Otherwise when a big tech company goes from
1M to 10M users, they just need 10x as many servers, right? Problem solved.

Nope, in real life each order of magnitude has required serious, difficult
engineering to overcome the challenges, you should read up on how companies
like Amazon/Facebook have scaled with users. I'll give you a hint though -
they didn't just draw a line and extrapolate how many servers they would need
for each year.

Otherwise you could just say: "Oh, New Hampshire has a homocide rate of 1 per
100,000. New Hampshire has a population of 1 million, therefore that's 10
deaths per million, therefore by simple extrapolation, the USA should only
have 3000 homocides per year!"

~~~
KptMarchewa
This is a very narrow view of things. If scale in real life worked like that,
easy and obvious solution would be to break up US into 60 pieces and you'd
have 60 Norways, right? Nope. US problems are due to culture, not size.

~~~
umvi
In fact, the US is broken up into 50 pieces, and some pieces fare much better
than others in terms of violence/suicide per capita depending on the region.

> Nope. US problems are due to culture, not size.

Probably a combination of both. Culture isn't a thing that can be easily
changed, though.

------
VladimirIvanov
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable around people that talk about politics at
work? I would much rather talk about the latest sports balls games. There's so
many conversations that you can have and many different statistics. You can
even have sports balls debates that are enjoyable such as who is the best ball
thrower.

~~~
magduf
No, because that's even worse. Sports are incredibly boring and mindless; I'd
rather talk about paint drying than some stupid, pointless sports game. At
least politics is something that actually affects everyone whether they want
it to or not. Only a minority of the population gives a rat's ass about
sports, though the sports fans always delude themselves into thinking that
everyone likes them, and try to push sports on everyone constantly.

How'd you like it if I kept trying to talk to you about my favorite bands?

~~~
joyeuse6701
I had an opinion similar to you, I didn't care about the drama of one team or
another, what the significance of some move, or kick, or foul was. It seemed
like just an exercise in physical prowess, and just a matter of genetic skill.

It irritated me to be asked about sports or asked what I was a fan of...

I grew a respect for sports after trying a few of them. From martial arts like
Kendo or Jiujitsu, to high level chess, with enough practice you learn the
rules and get an intuitive understanding, and then you _see_.

You see the physicality of a sport and you know how amazing that physical feat
is, because you've tried something like it. You can understand on a deeper
level the drama of the moment between two opponents as they are deciding what
strategy, tactic and move to employ.

I may not always enjoy talking about some niche that someone else cares about,
but I am now at least somewhat aware that they are trying to connect with me
and they care about it because they probably know something that I don't.

~~~
magduf
>It irritated me to be asked about sports or asked what I was a fan of...

>I grew a respect for sports after trying a few of them. From martial arts
like Kendo or Jiujitsu, to high level chess, with enough practice you learn
the rules and get an intuitive understanding, and then you see.

Try talking to a football fan about jiujitsu or chess and see how far that
conversation goes.

I can respect the physical skill needed to play a sport, but that doesn't mean
I care to talk to someone about it, and it still irritates me to be asked what
sports I follow and get a weird look when I say I don't. I don't think people
are freaks if they don't listen to the same music I do, but sports fans
absolutely treat people like freaks if they don't follow any sports.

~~~
mcgrath_sh
I don’t listen to music. Let me clarify, if I need to drown something out I
put on the same half-dozen Classical music pieces that I can ignore while
working, but outside that I do not listen to music. I listen to podcasts and
audio books when commuting, playing games, cleaning, etc. I cannot tell you
the number of times I have been told I was insane, weird, a serial killer,
etc. all because I don’t listen to music. So, yeah, not just sports fans who
treat people like trash if they don’t partake in their hobby.

~~~
magduf
>I cannot tell you the number of times I have been told I was insane, weird, a
serial killer, etc. all because I don’t listen to music. So, yeah, not just
sports fans who treat people like trash if they don’t partake in their hobby.

I'm sorry if some music lovers treated you this way. But did this happen at
work? Musical tastes tend to be diverse these days, so I never hear people
talking about music at work unless they already know the other person shares
their particular taste. I talk about music with one of my coworkers, but
that's because we found out with our shared music libraries (we have music
libraries we bring to work and are then able to share with others on the
network) that we like a lot of the same stuff. We even ended up going to a
couple of concerts together. But again, this wasn't because anyone was
badgering anyone about talking about prog-metal bands, it was because we found
out through our music shares that we liked the same bands. Our coworkers
mostly listen to other music (a few don't seem to listen to any), so we never
talk music with them. In short, I just have a hard time imagining people these
days talking much about music at work.

------
cj
> Over the last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about
> immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly
> imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color
> without evidence because of ‘fit’ and so much more

This sounds more like a description of (the sad reality of) American society
than it does an anomaly unique to one company.

When a company reaches Google-size, I imagine the challenges of insulating the
company culture from the negative parts of broader society would become quite
difficult.

That's not to say that Google bears no responsibility for this. And it
definitely tarnishes the overwhelmingly positive hollywood / silicon valley
stereotype of Life As A Googler.

------
malvosenior
> _“I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of
> police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate
> countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and
> alacrity,” the memo reads. “From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the
> spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I’d never heard
> of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it
> came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.”_

I don't think it's reasonable to expect your co-workers to openly protest
_any_ issue. People have families to take care of, paychecks to earn and rent
to pay. They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama.
I'm sure there are a million issues that the memo author was not openly
protesting that other co-workers may have cared deeply about. I would hope
they wouldn't hold that against the author.

I'm not questioning whether this person experienced racism at Google, as that
seems likely in an organization of that size. I just don't think it's ok to be
upset about your co-workers not being openly vocal in the workplace about a
political issue you feel strongly about.

There seems to be a strong push to politicize silence that seems very
unhealthy. You don't know how people feel and act outside of work and the
public sphere. Silence on an issue _is not a political statement_.

~~~
Barrin92
>They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama

I think this here is the point where the author would disagree. Google
employees and the staff at many larger tech companies produces their fair
share of drama on virtually any political topic, and that's what makes this
more off-putting.

I'm not black but I come from a fairly poor background, and in the tech field
obviously that is rather the exception than the norm and I've noticed a
similar thing when it comes to class issues.

You have people who start political mailing lists on gender pronouns and
technicalities that nobody on the street has ever thought about, but then that
same person talks about homeless people in front of the office with a sort of
callousness and elitism that is pretty breathtaking.

If we were just talking about your random corporate culture where everybody
just sips their coffee and comments on nothing then in a way that'd make these
things much less noticeable. But when you have workforces that are hyper-
vigilant and politically correct show disregard on topics that touch a really
wide population, like the African American community in the US in this case,
that makes for a stark contrast.

~~~
malvosenior
I'm also from a poor background and agree with a lot of this. It was a _huge_
mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize the workplace.
No one will be happy in the end. They should have stayed focused on being
excited about making the best technology they can, background and politics
aside.

Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in.
Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies to
return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically quagmired
megacorp's lunch.

~~~
echelon
> It was a huge mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize
> the workplace.

I wasn't aware this was a thing. Did Google openly support one candidate or
party? How did they promote politics in the workplace?

> Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in.
> Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies
> to return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically
> quagmired megacorp's lunch.

How? What do new companies change or do differently? Are the FANGY companies
doomed by a toxic culture they can't undo? And why can't they?

I'm curious.

~~~
jiscariot
Some of the politicization at Google may have been born out of the "Bring your
whole self to work" philosophy playing out on their internal Google+ network
and "Coffee Beans" discussion forum. You can see many examples/screenshots of
what was tolerated internally in the Damore lawsuit[1]. I've worked
exclusively for large orgs (outside of the Bay Area) and it completely blows
my mind.

[1] [https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/04/201804...](https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/04/20180418-Damore-et-al.-v.-Google-FAC_Endorsed.pdf)

~~~
Rebelgecko
Wow, just from briefly scrolling around I'm appalled by the sort of stuff that
people are willing to put in writing and send to their coworkers at Google.
e.g. managers admitting to having shit-lists of people that they won't let on
their teams

------
DC-3
This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Every day we
get told that cis-het white guys should shut up and stop 'splaining
oppression.

------
nmc
The Memo [PDF] itself:
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-
Weigh...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of-
Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf)

~~~
jaclaz
Thanks for the link.

However I fail to understand two of the three points made:

1) Ok, fine

2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training"

3) I am failing to see how/why Google should be involved in the issue, I mean,
what about the mental health of all the other people (part of
"overrepresented" and "fairlyrepresented" besides "underrepresented" groups)
working for google and all the ones not working for Google?

They are all exposed to the same news.

And is it actually the news causing this influence on mental health (as
opposed to the way the news are reported or - sadly - to the terrible things
that happen in the world)?

~~~
elliekelly
> 2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training"

Empathy. Most people are selfish and it can be difficult for us to care about
an issue that hasn't impacted us directly. VR could give people the
opportunity to experience what it's like to be someone totally different and
"walk a mile in their shoes."

~~~
jaclaz
Yes about "walk a mile in their shoes" but I thought that the VR technology
allows to see/experience something "different", i.e. project yourself, as you
are, in an environment to which you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it
doesn't change "you" (which should be actually the objective).

Let's take as a counter example a hypothetical (very realistic and VR as much
as you want) shoot-em-all game, you may well play it at length and become
(inside the game) the toughest soldier/killer in the world, but it is not like
(mostly) you then go out and start shooting everyone.

But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality
and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of a
virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority if
you don't already have it, and that can do it more effectively than
traditional education/culture (lessons, meetings, books, movies, etc.)

~~~
elliekelly
> I thought that the VR technology allows to see/experience something
> "different", i.e. project yourself, as you are, in an environment to which
> you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it doesn't change "you"

Yes, I think that's exactly why VR would help with diversity training. A lot
of implicit bias comes from superficial differences in a person's outward
physical appearance. Age, skin color, gender, even height and weight. VR could
allow "you" (same skills, same knowledge, same capabilities) to experience the
frustration of knowing that you're more than capable yet held back by
something as silly as your avatars "skin."

> But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality
> and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of
> a virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority
> if you don't already have it

I can. A VR room escape game would be a good opportunity. You would be
assigned to complete ten room escape "levels" of approximately equal
difficulty with a team of four other participants. It would be a new team for
each level so at the end of the training you'd have worked on ten different
"rooms" with 40 different people. At the beginning of the session you would be
assigned one of a handful of generic avatars - whichever one most closely
resembles your gender & skin color. You'd play as this avatar and your
teammates will see and interact with your avatar.

At the end of each task you would quickly rate the group as a whole, rate your
own performance within that group, and individually rate each of the other
people on your team. I'm imagining five minutes to quickly respond to scale of
1-5 type metrics along the lines of technical skill, interpersonal skill,
leadership skill, etc. as well as another few minutes to journal personal
reflections - Did you enjoy working with that group? Did you feel like your
team listened to your ideas? Valued your input? Do you feel accomplished?
Frustrated?

But, unbeknownst to you, your teammates will only see "your" avatar for half
of the tasks. For the other half, they'll be shown a _slightly_ different
avatar. For example, if you're a white woman your avatar might appear as a
black woman for five of the tasks.

And you won't actually work with 40 different people, you'll work with the
same four.

At the end of the session you'd see how your teammates rated your abilities
for each level and how the ratings differed based on which of the two avatars
they were shown. You'd also see how your ratings of your teammates differed
based on the avatar you saw.

We all like to think we're immune to bias. We're not racist or sexist. We
don't discriminate. And we all like to think people will judge us on our
abilities. That it doesn't matter what we look like because we're smart and
capable and of course people will be able to recognize that. But I think it
would be eye-opening for people to experience the impact of unconscious bias
from both sides at once. Because whether we're willing to admit it or not,
none of us are immune. But the more aware we are of our bias blindspots - and
the _consequences_ of those blindspots - the better equipped we'll be to
recognize them (in our own actions and the actions of others) and react to
them accordingly.

~~~
jaclaz
I understand, thanks, and it seems to me like a nice approach, still I am not
convinced that it will be intrinsecally superior to more traditional
education.

~~~
elliekelly
That's nice, but you're wrong.

How do you feel right now? Frustrated? Annoyed? Do you think I'm a complete
and total idiot?

I don't blame you. I also know exactly how you feel and where you're coming
from. When I first wrote the comment you're replying to I initially had a few
sentences at the end about how I wish more people on HN would create usernames
that clearly belong to women so they could compare and contrast how they're
treated and experience the frustration of what I call the "casual dismissal."

There are a lot of things I love about tech and about HN but one of the things
that really drives me nuts is how often women's ideas and opinions are quickly
brushed off as unconvincing or not fully-formed without any effort to
articulate _why_. It's frustrating to contribute to a thoughtful conversation
only to be told your contribution is without merit by a person who can't even
be bothered to explain any further than a shallow and meaningless "I'm not
convinced."

And it happens constantly. I've seen it happen to others and I've experienced
it first hand. And it is so beyond frustrating to participate in a discussion
only to have the other person respond with "that's nice, but I'm not
convinced."

As you can see, you are not immune. But perhaps if you spent a little time on
HN as a woman you'd have a better understanding of what I'm talking about.

~~~
jaclaz
>How do you feel right now? Frustrated? Annoyed? Do you think I'm a complete
and total idiot?

Absolutely not.

You were so kind as to share your view on the matter and I thanked you for
your well-thought out and detailed reply/proposal.

And I had no intention to dismiss it in any way, if you felt like that I beg
your pardon.

That's it, before your post I couldn't even imagine a VR based kind of
experience, now you provided a good example, which doesn't mean that - as said
- it will be intrinsically better than more traditional non-VR methods, in my
opinion.

I already tried to explain the reasons why, a simulation is a simulation and
most people are aware of that, thus I cannot believe that an experience like
the one you described can actually "stick" in the minds of the participants, I
think that most of them will simply take it for a "game about an escape room",
unless they have a previous sensitivity to the racial or gender (or whatever
other) biases.

------
southphillyman
Google is only 2.5% black according to a quick search (and 3.5% Latino).
That's all employees, not just developers. I'm not sure how that's even
possible for a company of that size in America. AA may be underrepresented in
tech overall but they certainly aren't in business, HR, legal, etc in my
corporate experience so that number seems very low to me. I wonder if any
analysis has been to done to determine if any biases or recruitment strageties
resulted in those low numbers.

To Google's credit they are developing various pipelines to recruit
underrepresented communities.

~~~
tathougies
I'm guessing it's because Latinos and blacks in general are underrepresented
in the white collar labor pools that Google draws from. Most Google employees,
if not developers, are still in white collar office-type professions.

[https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks-
hispanic...](https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks-hispanics-
underrepresented-white-collar-jobs-tech-2518568)

According to that study, black people make up 2-3% of the white collar
workforce. This indicates that Google's diversity initiatives are broadly
working, but Google alone cannot overcome the societal issues that keep
various people out of these well paying career paths.

Hispanics represent about 5% of the white collar workforce, so again, the 3.5%
indicates that Google is not exactly where one would expect, but still not as
off as a naive analysis would seem.

The narrative that Google is not hiring people of certain skin colors because
of racism on their part falls apart the moment you look at numbers over which
Google has little control.

------
mrburton
I am lost at how we as a society are so quick to attack someone who has a
difference in opinion. Just because someone doesn't agree with your solution,
it doesn't mean they are opposed to resolving the problem.

The OP, in my opinion, does have a lot of internal anger they need to resolve.
e.g., how he expresses clenching his fist and not feeding into the rage.

After reading the memo, it's my personal opinion the OP has a lot of
unresolved issues and should consider speaking to a therapist. I feel like
they are projecting their hate those nearby him. That's unhealthy and also
very counterproductive.

I genuinely worry that socially, people are overly sensitive, and it's hurting
social progress. Instead of people learning to communicate with one another,
they label the "opposition". Instead of understanding someone's perspective,
they project onto them what they want to "fight against."

Now is this a direct result of social behaviors bleeding into "real-world"
interactions?

I don't blame Google _at all_. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of
effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.
It just feels like he doesn't care to understand the position of those around
him. Instead, he wants everyone just to accept his perspective.

All this being said, it's time for people to cut back on social media. I had
to do that because it's too easy to get sucked into arguments with angry
people. It's also easy and honestly fun to insult and trigger pointless
arguments to entertain yourself. Regardless, it's unhealthy.

~~~
linuxftw
> I don't blame Google at all. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of
> effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.

What's mature, healthy, and positive? Maybe it's society that is the failure?
Maybe the unending docility of modern life is creating emotional volcanoes.
Maybe some people like hostility, and maybe some people like confrontation.
Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs to
die.

~~~
mrburton
> Maybe it's society that is the failure?

That implies you have no self-control and require the government to tell you
how to think/behave.

> Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs
> to die.

Who said people need to be nice? I recall me saying:

> communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.

~~~
linuxftw
> That implies you have no self-control and require the government to tell you
> how to think/behave.

I don't see how that implies a lack of self control, and I'm not sure what the
government has to do with it.

> Who said people need to be nice? I recall me saying:

I guess I read 'positive' as 'be nice.' What's a positive way to deal with a
world that you hate (hypothetically)? Why should anyone do anything positive,
why can't they lash out as they see fit? Why should someone live by rules that
others created without their consent, and then be 'positive' about it?

Maybe society has failed. Maybe we're not living how we're supposed to be
living.

~~~
mrburton
What does 'failure' mean then? ;)

------
AimForTheBushes
There is definitely a problem with policing in the United States that needs to
be fixed and there are a ton of cases that illustrate why. But for the life of
me I can't understand why Michael Brown is championed as one of them. I don't
want to be crass but Michael Brown was a bully that got caught up in his own
anger and paid for it. Out of all the examples to choose from why would they
choose him.

~~~
i_am_nomad
There’s a theory that mainstream media outlets deliberately (or
algorithmically) select and highlight news stories that are maximally
divisive. The Eric Garner story got much less press than the Michael Brown
case did, because the Garner one was quite clearly a case of police abuse.
Only the most fringe elements would claim the police acted fairly in that
situation. Meanwhile, Michael Brown’s death was (at least at first) in a much
more fuzzy area. So, more controversy, more clicks and comments.

~~~
AimForTheBushes
"Riots are good for business" \- MSM

------
jorblumesea
> “I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of
> police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate
> countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and
> alacrity,”

I'm not surprised countless of other topics are far safer conversation topics.
They are here to do a job and not get involved with politics and touching
incendiary topics would be downright stupid. They certainly have an opinion in
some way. But they're not stupid enough to share it.

Why on earth would you ever expect your coworkers to talk about gun rights,
abortion, police brutality etc over Malaysia 370 in an office environment?

------
geckel
I think this article missed the mark by leaving out all context.

They don't mention the black employees role. Some roles at Google are
relatively more diverse. It would be interesting to hear if his peers were
diverse but not opinionated, or perhaps they were opinionated but not _as
much_ as he was. Or if his peer were not diverse and not opinionated, etc.

The article mentions a team but doesn't clarify if he was on a team or if it
was a team of subordinates. If my boss was black and the topic of police
brutality came up, I'd avoid saying anything as well.

Lastly, "And though I eventually grew more comfortable using challenging
moments to educate my co-workers..." comes across poorly. Depending on how I
felt a coworker was consistently trying to "educate" me regarding social
issues, I could see myself purposefully avoiding those topics around them and
not engaging.

------
JoeAltmaier
An important essay.

My takeaway isn't that Google is awful. It seems Google is just like every
other place, full of intolerant biased people. Which is a sadder conclusion
really.

~~~
malandrew
> is just like every other place, full of intolerant biased people

because that's human nature and it shows itself more acutely at scale when not
everyone can possibly be on the same page about things.

~~~
mikelyons
Collective ego is super fascinating when you're used to stepping back and
seeing how pervasive it is in our lives. That requires the mental tools and a
habit of picking it out though.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU)

------
downandout
_I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of
police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate
countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and
alacrity,”_

This is a nonsensical complaint. There are probably 10 topics that I am
interested in, that are important to me, that nobody I know would be
interested in discussing at length with me. I understand that police brutality
may be an important issue to him, but coworkers not being interested in
discussing it at length at work doesn’t seem like an indicator of racism or
bad company culture to me.

I wonder how much the current college environment has to do with graduates
ascribing things that seemingly have no connection with various “isms” to
them.

------
INTPenis
This isn't about Google, I'm not even sure it's about race or class.

This is just how people are. Put enough of them in a place and let them get
comfortable with each other and you will hear this.

That has been my experience in the industry for 17 years now. 8 years at a
very large company with plenty of employees.

Stressed and bitter employees tend to talk this way. Others don't. Some might
not feel comfortable talking about it, some might talk about it with their
other friends.

But in general I've noticed that people who are comfortable and being
themselves can vent racist and "class-related" opinons freely around the
office. In teams of 6-8 people there might be one or two of the types of
people who tend to take charge in these discussions. Or initiate them.

------
manfredo
I have increasingly noticed people categorize competing political or social
opinions as racist or disparaging. Many of my co-workers label support for
enforcing existing border controls as racist, opposition to affirmative action
or racial reparations as white supremacist. This memo seems to do the same:

> “These protestors aren’t going to solve anything, ” she said. ”Like, what
> are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do?
> Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they
> can’t get to Grand Central? It’s annoying . I just can’t stand it.” She
> rattled off a couple of other disparaging comments about the peaceful
> protestors I was preparing to join, repeatedly referring to them as those
> people before a chorus of my team’s nodding heads, each bobbing affirmingly
> behind their desks. With each nod, my co-workers validated my irate
> teammate’s frustration — and her disgust. How could the team I’d grown to
> trust and respect care so little about an innocent man who’d lost his life?

The fact that one's co-worker does not approve of protestor and thinks their
tactics are ineffective or counterproductive is not disparagement. Diversity
means there is going to be a diversity of viewpoints and opinions on
controversial topics. Lack of diversity is not the root of this employee's
distress. Quite the opposite, the fact that the author encountered people with
different viewpoints is the cause of this. The author later states that, "Over
the last 5 years, I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants,
boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people
who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence
because of 'fit,' and so much more." But in the absence of sharing the details
of those events, we're left to wonder whether this "hateful words" about
immigrants and "boasting unabashedly about gentrification" amount to genuine
harassment or differences of opinion that the author finds intolerable.

I think it's great that the industry is making efforts to become more diverse.
But that comes with creating an environment in which people are going to come
into contact with co-workers with very different views on controversial
topics. It seems to me that the solution isn't more diversity (although more
diversity is welcome in its own right), it's either curtailing discussions of
these topics in the office or establishing a set of approved viewpoints and
forbidding espousing or sharing views outside this set. The last solution is
to cultivate an environment where people respect each other regardless of
differences and do not treat encountering an opinion they find harmful or bad
as a personal attack - but this last solution seems increasingly difficult to
achieve.

------
neilv
Quoting the original PDF:

> _Over the last 5 years, I 've heard co-workers spew hateful words about
> immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly
> imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color
> without evidence because of "fit," and so much more._

Not to detract from this particular situation, but I've been thinking "fit" is
also part of a more general cultural problem.

At my first real industry job (software engineering of commercial technical
workstation software), shortly before dotcom gold rush, half my team was
female, the engineers were mostly 30s through 40+, and everyone was skilled,
but with no strutting.

I know not all places were like that, but "tech" hiring the last decade or two
has really seemed to operate more like a stereotypical frathouse, complete
with pledging and hazing (and sometimes even in-office frat-like parties, at
at least one prominent company, as a friend described it).

I suspect we've gotten very bad about "fit", using it to dress up old
exclusionary biases, and that a lot of people get an impression of our field
being like that, and are turned off.

------
hbosch
>In the memo, the former employee cites a few moments where he felt
uncomfortable at Google, particularly after big news events such as the police
killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests
against police brutality.

The Vice article, from what I saw, doesn't clarify if the writer themself felt
threatened by his coworkers, or if he/she just felt comfortable talking about
police brutality against people of color. Obviously, if the writer was
experiencing some hostility at work that would be one thing – and surely would
be a serious problem worth discussing. But I'm not a person of color, and I'm
very uncomfortable talking about police brutality at work. The topic is very
sensitive and I don't think it's appropriate to distract my coworkers from
their jobs by stressing them out. I work with some people that simply couldn't
finish their day if I started a discussion about police brutality, or the
murder of innocent people of color, or about X-phobic issues. Work is somewhat
of a social place, but it's not really acceptable _anywhere_ to just openly
discuss politics, gender, identity, violence, etc. in my opinion. I don't even
like talking about my music and movie tastes at work! Work is also, for me, a
place where I can come in and be good at what I do, separate myself from the
outside world, and have a little fun here and there (and get paid). My office
isn't really a place for activism, to me. Does that make me a racist? Or
classist? Or sexist?

About the only important things I'm willing to discuss that isn't work related
are my garden, my family, and where we want to eat lunch. Otherwise... it's
headphones on.

------
m0zg
This is what Googlers refer to as "my pony is overcooked" syndrome. It's when
the person detaches from outside reality so completely, they think Google is
somehow "bad" on any of these hot button issues. It's not. I worked there for
almost a decade, and I have not seen _any_ real racism, misogyny or
discrimination. You will retort that it's sample size of 1, to which I will
say that if the issues the authors of these memos describe were as pervasive
as they claim, I'd notice _something_ at least.

That having been said, I'm not black myself, and during my time at Google only
very few people around me happened to be black. I _could_ be they're
experiencing issues that are so unique to them I can't even grasp the extent
of their "burden". But knowing Google, I find it really, really hard to
believe.

I'd even go as far to say that if you're looking for a company that takes
gender/race discrimination seriously, for real, you'd have a hard time finding
a better company to join.

------
anon4lol
Wrong title. Should be "The Burden of Working in an Unprofessional Environment
with Jerks."

This is a natural outcome of promoting work, not as a job, but more of a
lifestyle to ring out as much as productivity as you can from young,
unattached people. There isn't a boundary between work/personal life like
there is everywhere else. I've seen different attempts at this on both the
west and east coasts. Forced communal lunches, free food, comfy couches to
sleep on "if you need to," game rooms, required outings, "bring you whole self
to work," etc.

Working in these environments is draining, because some people seem to take
pride in saying the most inappropriate and cringe-worthy things, and they go
unchallenged. When you work in that context where no one is expected to be
professional, it will cause problems; however, when you make the mistake of
believing your job is more than a job, you will end up angry and vengeful.

For some reason, this seems to be much more the norm on the north-east and
west coasts.

------
lacker
I'm surprised that "anti-immigrant sentiment" was a problem they observed at
Google. While I was at Google the sentiment was very, very pro-immigrant. The
company has a huge number of immigrant employees, after all, and Mountain View
is a very pro-immigrant area already.

------
xwdv
The burden this man suffers is self placed. Unless words are spewed in his
direction specifically or he is the target of some injustice personally, he
could simply ignore everything and just go on living his life happily and at
peace. I recommend it.

------
Mikho
There are more and more these strange cases when people for some reason think
that if everybody around are not cheering them and don't have exectly the same
personal opinions as to life, politics, or religion they are opressed in one
or another way. While in reality they just participate in a discussion where
people have different points of view. That reminds very much a victim
mentality and inability to cope with own emotions to have reasonable
arguments. People atribute regular behaviour of others that do not align with
their own to agression and suprisingly to some sort of discrimination.

------
firefleye
Any truly result-driven company's premptive measure for dealing with these
sorts of annoyances (for all employe*s), should be the solution of deeming
non-work-related discussion involving politics, religion, race and such
divisive topics as "unsuitable for the workplace". Discussion serious-enough
to spur opinionated ramblings and ideological smartassness, to say the least,
that's not work-related and that's conducted during working hours, must be
ideally stated in all employee contracts as a clear set of terms a prospective
candidate must comply with avoiding.

------
wyclif
Working at Google in 2019 is no fun. Political correctness seems to have
destroyed the whimsy that the company used to embody. Nowadays it's just about
stifling dictatorialism and thought policing.

------
rpmisms
So, it's not about being black at Google, it's about Google not doing enough
because the news spins everything into a racial issue?

------
gist
From the original:

> As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working
> long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of
> protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat.
> Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit
> ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is
> ridiculous?"

Valid question. And not everyone thinks the same way. And people should not
under any circumstances have to walk on eggshells because someone might be
offended. Where is the line drawn? By the person who is offended? We should
just all not open our mouths.

> My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to
> see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms
> folded in exasperation.

So what? So what??? (Not to mention that there could be many explanations for
'exasperation or even if it really was 'exasperation'.

> "These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what are
> those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make
> people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they
> can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it."

Perfectly fine to say and I would have said that. To bad most people are not
willing to admit that they either think similar things and/or don't think that
is bad to say under any circumstances.

Bottom line: Stop trying to make everyone stop voicing their opinion with your
thought police about what is acceptable.

------
cardiffspaceman
I'm surprised at how long it seems to have lasted, this idea that your
workplace is a giant encounter group. Is there evidence that this is a good
idea or bad idea? Is there evidence that leaving your sports interests, movie
interests, politics, and family problems at home is good or bad?

------
malandrew
> But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.

Because it's way too risky to have an opinion on that topic unless it
precisely tows the woke party line. It's a minefield. You'd have to be stupid
to touch that topic in the workplace in 2019.

~~~
tasubotadas
It's strange why are you downvoted because it's exactly this. Nobody wants to
risk being misunderstood and the get fired because he phrased his opinion
wrongly.

------
RickJWagner
First, Google (along with almost all big tech) needs more people of color. I'm
sorry this guy left.

Second: Michael Brown was not murdered. He was a bully who used his size to
intimidate people and the evidence shows he had his arm inside the cop car.
Everybody of every color should re-think that scenario and come down on the
right side of it. Facts are facts.

Third: I'm really sorry that guy moved on. Kelsey Hightower is a beacon of
hope in the tech community, we need more examples to encourage future
generations. I hope this guy lands somewhere good and finds success.

------
tgafpg
"I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly
about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different
languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit.’" A
company the heralds its Progressive values in one of the most Progressive
areas of the country. Yes, this is exactly what you should expect to happen.

------
herostratus101
Former teacher, so I'm guessing this employee was not a software engineer.

------
b_tterc_p
Does google insurance not provide for mental health care? I know it’s not
standard for many corporations but I’d imagine google’s healthcare is very
competitive. If so... idk what this person wants.

~~~
anon12345690
they want to complain more about being offended because they cant handle other
people saying things they dont like

if you downvote this then youre doing the same thing

------
shubidubi
I find other ethnics to be more discriminated nowadays. mostly Asians(that
include Indians) and Latin American.

------
40acres
Really frustrating to see this flagged: either we don't trust the moderators
to moderate or someone simply doesn't want to have this discussion. We're all
(mostly) technologists here, diversity in tech and the issues surrounding it
are not going to go away, as this post shows -- people ain't gonna talk about
this in the office, the least HN can do is provide a forum for tech workers to
discuss the issue with guardrails on decorum.

~~~
freehunter
Political topics on HN often get flagged because they tend to devolve into
flamewars pretty quickly.

~~~
umvi
Also it's largely pointless. Unlike technology arguments, where you can easily
convince me to try switching from Sublime to VSCode or to give Rust a try
instead of C++, etc. political beliefs are much more entrenched. Each side has
a very hard time understanding and empathizing with the viewpoint of the other
side.

~~~
magduf
Exactly, it's a lot like religion, except that at least with politics you can
at least attempt to bring facts and data into the discussion in an attempt to
disprove the other side's points. But people still treat it like a religion so
it generally just isn't productive to discuss it, unless you're among people
who are generally like-minded, and you're only hashing out finer points (e.g.,
would policy A or policy B be more fruitful for reducing global warming?
Rather than arguing over whether global warming is real or not).

------
whatshisface
Damore provided copious evidence that Google was hostile to his demographic,
those sexual assault protests showed that it was hostile to women, this shows
that it's hostile to minorities... It sounds like Google is a battlefield
where everybody is getting shot by everyone else. At least it's not divided
into perpetrators and victims along identity lines.

~~~
weberc2
Ironically this article is still referring to Damore’s memo as an “anti-
diversity memo”. What an overt falsehood. There are lots of valid criticisms
of his memo, but this isn’t one of them.

------
par
Apropos of nothing, I actually find myself using DuckDuckGo and Firefox a lot
more lately, over Chrome and gSearch. I also want to get to hosting my own
email, and move off of Gmail. Not going to lie though, I really like the Gmail
interface and would appreciate any good replacements.

~~~
malvosenior
I use Fastmail and while it's very different and not as "modern" as the Gmail
interface, I did end up getting used to it and enjoy the straightforward
control it offers.

I've also switched to DDG as my main search engine but often find myself using
`!g` as the results are quite as good in many cases. Still, it feels great to
be escaping Google's stranglehold.

~~~
par
ahh !g, thanks for that reminder. I find that DDG isn't indexing Github Issues
as well as I'd like, and for that I still found myself going back to G.

------
thepaperone
Daily reminder that Google and other "progressive" companies are eating
themselves alive.

~~~
malandrew
Which is why companies should start treating politics in the workplace as a
liability. You can't have a workplace where someone "brings their whole self
to work" at scale.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
It is strange that when I was going up companies were about the product they
make - not the perceived change they could be.

