> What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!"
It's because we've been in roles in companies like these, dealt with diversity and hiring policies that seemed ineffective, counter-intuitive, and bureaucratic, yet there still always seems to be this cloud over us that assumes we're all secretly just racist.
It feels like we already bend over backwards to try to hire diverse candidates and comply with policies that suggest / require that. I'm sure Google, Oracle, and Palantir certainly have them. Yet these lawsuits have these big bold headlines basically implying the companies' policies are racist based on (if you think other factors are much bigger causes) unreasonable assessments. When we see it happen to them, we know it can happen to us, and it's easy to get defensive.
Everyone is carrying around unconscious biases in them. It's built into being human, so bullshit if you're about to say you're somehow immune.
We're also all biased to think the status quo is the way things ought to be, so when we see a company that's mostly white folks hiring a few more minorities, suddenly MINORITIES ARE EVERYWHERE.
Look, the problem isn't that you or I have unconscious biases. That's normal. That's human.
The problem is that we insist we don't, we're doing everything right already, and there's nothing wrong. That's where the problem is. That's how this shitty status quo that has effectively locked minorities into a second-class life gets perpetuated.
> Everyone is carrying around unconscious biases in them. It's built into being human, so bullshit if you're about to say you're somehow immune.
> Look, the problem isn't that you or I have unconscious biases. That's normal. That's human.
Agreed, and I don't think I am (or anyone else is) immune.
> The problem is that we insist we don't, we're doing everything right already, and there's nothing wrong. That's where the problem is. That's how this shitty status quo that has effectively locked minorities into a second-class life gets perpetuated.
I'm not insisting we don't. My point is that it's easy to get defensive when it's implied that you're racist over and over again regardless of the truthfulness.
It's not even good for the people allegedly being discriminated against. When focus and resources are put on the wrong area (e.g. tech company employee racial proportions), it just frustrates those of us in the industry and ignores the actual reasons for the issue (mostly cultural). We could be spending that money and resources toward getting girls into tech at a young age, or getting more computers into inner-city schools. Something that might actually affect the hiring pool.
But we don't have that discussion because the lawsuits imply the problem is with tech companies. Whether it is or not isn't even a discussion because it appears to be rampant if you've never been in a hiring role in the tech industry. If you have, you know what the hiring pool looks like, and you know you (and other companies) are being held to an unreachable standard if you're expected to align with racial proportions that don't apply to tech.
It's because we've been in roles in companies like these, dealt with diversity and hiring policies that seemed ineffective, counter-intuitive, and bureaucratic, yet there still always seems to be this cloud over us that assumes we're all secretly just racist.
It feels like we already bend over backwards to try to hire diverse candidates and comply with policies that suggest / require that. I'm sure Google, Oracle, and Palantir certainly have them. Yet these lawsuits have these big bold headlines basically implying the companies' policies are racist based on (if you think other factors are much bigger causes) unreasonable assessments. When we see it happen to them, we know it can happen to us, and it's easy to get defensive.