

Diversity? That's for racists. - luigi
http://jamellebouie.net/blog/2013/1/6/diversity-thats-for-racists

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caseysoftware
I think it's fascinating how people can claim that a group is homogeneous from
skin color and genitalia alone. What about diversity of background, view
point, education, job experience, etc?

I wonder how they choose books to read..

~~~
geofft
First, there are lots of types of diversity of background, viewpoint,
education, experience, and the like that you can't get without making sure you
have diversity of race, gender, class, and so forth.

Second, there's a question about what the point of diversity is; nobody is
claiming that reducing homogeneity is, in and of itself, a worthwhile goal. In
CS at least, it's obvious to me that there's no particularly good (in the
sense of intrinsic) reason that there are way more male than female, white and
Asian than black and Hispanic, etc. people in the industry. This means that my
industry is missing some two-thirds of the people who could be in it --
drawing from a pool that's artificially limited to maybe a third of what it
could be. I work for a company that's having trouble hiring, and I use and
contribute to several open source projects that are having trouble finding
volunteers. If we can triple the pool of involved folks, my life gets
personally better.

Meanwhile, it's not at all clear to me that it's the case that CS as an
industry (or design as an industry) is missing a bunch of folks who are
perfectly capable of contributing except that they have the wrong background
or viewpoint. Background is very easy to fix (if you're motivated and have the
right opportunities available to you); work-relevant viewpoints tend to
actually be important, like whether you value being a stickler for style, and
I think there's plenty of diversity in work-irrelevant viewpoints.

Relatedly, there's a question of accounting for privilege. It is entirely too
easy for me to geek out with people who have all been programming since middle
school, which can be legitimately intimidating to someone who's just picking
it up and afraid of asking dumb questions (instead of merely seeming
precocious). Class, and to a lesser extent race and gender, influence
privilege and what opportunities are available to people. Things like
viewpoint, not so much, and things like education are an effect, not a cause
(since they're fixable, and since it's a good thing not to have diversity of
education and merely to have everyone well-educated -- tying back in to what
the point of achieving diversity is). Going out of our way to include people
who didn't have the opportunities we had is a good way to counteract the
effects of that unfairness.

~~~
caseysoftware
Yes, it's possible to self-select into a group of people who seem the same
now, but that's still based on assumptions.

For example, until graduating high school, we were one of two "white" families
in the entire neighborhood. Further, I didn't get my first computer until I
was 16.. when I had saved up enough money at my minimum wage job to buy it
myself. It only took two years. Finally, I was the first in my family to
finish a full year of college and then the first to graduate. Only a few have
followed me since.

Assuming you know who I am and what I am because I happen to look "white" and
be male is insulting.

~~~
drivebyacct2
And you have no idea what it would be like to go through day-to-day life as a
black woman. If your response to "You have privilege" is "I had it hard"
you've already failed to even understand what the conversation is about.

------
benjohnson
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the word racist meant someone who
classifies people based on race?

That racist could be using their classification in a 'positive' or 'negative'
way depending on your viewpoint or desires.

Personally, I'd rather classify people based on decency, skills, and other
material differentiators and leave both the 'positive' and 'negative' racists
to the dustbin of history.

~~~
raganwald
I'll correct you. That is wrong. "Racist" is a negative term. If it meant
"classifying people based on race," then the word loses all meaning unless you
are completely blind and never notice any of the physical or social
characteristics that tend to cluster in human beings.

Historically, people who defend the status quo have tried to broaden the word
as much as possible, because one way to "win a debate on the Internet" is to
move the goal posts. e.g. If Alice brings up a subject about racism that Bob
finds uncomfortable, he asks her if she considers herself Black. When she says
"yes," Bob accuses her of being a racist. Alice now spends a frustrating hour
debating the meaning of the word "racist" and Bob has neatly eased out of
discussing her original disquiet.

~~~
benjohnson
It see.

Then, I agree that 'racist' is a negative term, in that the motivation to
segregate groups of people is usually to derive a undue benefit for either
themselves or a particular group of people.

What is odd to me is that some people can engage in racist behavior, and yet
feel the label doesn't apply to them because they are 'positive racists.'

------
geofft
I'm quite glad to see that the "uh guys, you might be privileged" meme is
attracting enough attention and mindshare to draw this sort of opposition. It
shows that the efforts of the parties that have been pushing it are successful
at reaching the people they need to reach, and more importantly, working to
change the shared perception of standards in various communities. You'll note
that he speaks as a minority viewpoint trying to claim that the majority is
crazy, not like a person in line with the prevailing views of the community
who's quieting a lone crazy voice.

~~~
nateabele
_Note: Due to the highly charged nature of the subject matter, and likelihood
of readers already having strongly entrenched positions, I realize that it
will be anywhere from difficult to impossible for some people to 'hear' me on
this. All I can ask is that you keep an open mind, and try to see it from the
other side._

There's a negative and a positive way to approach the diversity problem, and
unfortunately, the "uh guys, you might be privileged" camp have decided to run
with the negative way, hence the (quite understandable) backlash.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and share the sentiment, but the inescapable
fact is that saying "you're privileged" is not only inherently accusatory, but
does more to emphasize (and reinforce) that which divides, rather than that
which unites.

On the other hand, I've been very fortunate to be involved in advocacy groups
like PHPWomen, which provide mentorship opportunities for female (PHP)
developers, and connects them with conference organizers and major Open Source
projects. They've been doing this for years (i.e. well before hating white
male privilege was en vogue in the tech community), and they've been
tremendously successful.

Guilt-tripping and divisiveness are toxic. If this is a problem you genuinely
care about, the above might be a model to follow. Don't be reactive, be
proactive.

~~~
nollidge
> inherently accusatory

It unequivocally is not. It is pointing out a fact: I am a white, upper-
middle-class, English-speaking, computer-literate, straight, cisgendered,
first-world male with a supportive family unit. These are all descriptors
which lend me advantages--on average and in the long run--that people
exhibiting other available descriptors do not have. No one has ever told me
that I am a bad person for having them (or if they did, I probably brushed it
off as a ridiculous notion), but they have asked me to _recognize_ that it is
so, and incorporate that understanding into my critical view of our culture.

That some take offense to _facts_ would seem to me to be out of the hands of
those pointing them out.

~~~
nateabele
'Hey nollidge, the sky is blue.' Seems silly to point out, no?

That's because nobody points out facts in a vacuum; people point out facts
because of things like _meaning_ and _implication_. The purpose of
communicating new knowledge, or old knowledge put into a new context, is to
produce a change in thoughts, actions, or behavior. This is not a complicated
idea.

As an individual, operating under my own idea of what it means to be a 'good'
person, I try to do my best to judge people on their character, not on
superficial characteristics. Also, I feel like as a person, I have fairly
healthy boundaries.

So, when someone communicates to me through implication, by emphasizing a
series of facts, that I have a duty to violate my own sense of fairness and
morality to rectify a broad, amorphous social problem of arbitrary criteria,
yes, I consider that an attempt to violate my boundaries.

~~~
nollidge
> people point out facts because of things like _meaning_ and _implication_.

Yes, great, thanks. Now please explain how that _meaning_ and _implication_ is
"inherently accusatory", rather than pointing out non-obvious facts to people
who don't seem to believe them (cf. evolution, the big bang, etc.).

What is it that you think is being implicitly asked of you?

~~~
nateabele
> What is it that you think is being implicitly asked of you?

Well, that's the real trick, since it's been hard to pin down to any level of
precision.

But then, I'm not one of the people going around, sanctimoniously passing
judgement on those who don't conform to my personal moral code.

But if you can find one of them, and get them to give you an unambiguous,
noncontradictory explanation for exactly what they expect of everyone, I'd
consider it a favor if you passed it along. :-)

~~~
nollidge
So you can't even define what it is people are "implicitly" asking of you, and
yet you're convinced it's "inherently accusatory", would "violate your own
sense of fairness and morality", would "violate your boundaries", and the
asker is being sanctimonious.

Pardon me if I do not take your Real Important Concerns seriously.

~~~
nateabele
My apologies, I can see you don't appreciate being toyed with. ;-)

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antihero
This Andy Rutledge fella seems like just the type that has an overly
simplified, reductionist point of view, which is akin to a child's mind.
"Capitalist idealists" are too often blind to the reality of the world, seeing
privilege as some made up idea because they don't understand their own.

------
j45
This is kind of disappointing that rather than looking at ourselves as part of
a society and many communities, there is passive aggressive, smarmy, drivel
like <http://conferencequotas.com/>.

I'd dare this fella to have a conversation with Eric Ries or Vivek Wadhwa and
others. He'd get dummied into the next century, if this isn't a poorly thought
out clumsy attempt at caricature/satire/parody.

~~~
nateabele
> [...]if this isn't a poorly thought out clumsy attempt at
> caricature/satire/parody.

From the footer: " _This site is satire. It pokes fun at the destructive idea
of arbitrary diversity, or tokenism, and the people who promulgate it._ "

~~~
j45
Didn't finish my sentence, if this isn't a poorly thought out and clumsy
attempt at caricature/satire/parody, I don't know what is.

To have the right to free speech, we also have the responsibility to learn how
to use it.

It's easy to be tounge in cheek biased/degrading towards others and say it is
a joke.

------
recursive
This post seems to have been removed from the front page.

~~~
temiri
I wonder why. (Not sarcastic, btw.)

~~~
wmil
Articles like this don't promote healthy discussion. Achievement gaps between
races in different areas are a huge social taboo.

It's just not something that can be discussed calmly and openly in a semi-
professional forum like this. So you get nothing but on side spouting
politically correct cliches and the other side claiming that they are the
truly politically correct ones.

------
detcader
People like this are obviously blind to the sort of misogyny and racism that
still permeates human culture, especially U.S. culture, today, and don't
realize what considering the people affected by these social diseases can do.
When you consider the marginalized, the marginalized will get a voice, and
this demonstrates that people besides white cissexual men can have a place in
the community (in this case tech communities).

But then again, we're talking about adults who still use 4chanisms like "o
hai!" (see: the footer of conferencequotes.com), so it's possibly just a
matter of waiting for these people to grow old and get out of the way of more
progressive-minded individuals who are building communities that can afford to
value sensitivity and skepticism, without egos and masculinity complexes
keeping love and rationality at bay.

------
drivebyacct2
I wanted to not post, but this was too much greatness:
<https://twitter.com/andyrutledge/status/288048242590101504>

This is beyond great too, stick around for the quiz:
<http://capitalismis.com/>

~~~
eru
capitalismis.com is satire, I hope?

