Why do you feel this is? I'm pretty sure the industry skews liberal-to-progressive so I would assume there aren't that many racists in software development.
You may not see it, others may not see it, but that's why people talk about unconscious bias a lot. You're just not attuned to it. The posts in this thread alone should indicate to you that there are common experiences you aren't aware of.
I agree that unconscious bias exists.
I agree that work needs to be done to smooth race relations and unconscious bias.
That said, I think it's worth considering whether constantly talking about race is doing the job of smoothing race relations, or alienating others to the cause.
"Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)
If you look hard enough for anything, you will find it ... whether it's there or not.
When you empathize with him and understand that he comes from a different background you can begin to understand why he expresses difficulty in understanding.
I am brown, i never really hear race discussed much in my social circles in a comedic theme, not a racism theme.
There's another data point.
My poiny is that people are diverse, have different perspectives, and having an open mind facilitates dialogue
I see a lot of the progressive flag waving in tech as "protesting too much." Here's an almost exclusively white male industry whose main pay check today is mass surveillance and manipulation. It's based in a city with a cost of living so high that only six-figure professionals can afford to live there in anything more than a bunk bed. Helps to cover it with a lot of faux-progressive window dressing.
I grew up in the Midwest and lived in the South for a while. I know people from many different regions and walks of life. The most ardent, ideological, committed racists I've ever encountered are all in tech. Tech circles are the only place I've had multiple people try to evangelize me with what amounts to neo-Nazi ideology. Even putting those extreme cases aside I don't really see tech as very progressive. It's certainly not progressive in deed, and that's what matters.
This is such a weird time politically. Politics is increasingly bullshit and the more irrelevant it becomes the more emotional and combative people become about it.
Are you sure that's accurate? It's well known that tech circles have a left-leaning social ideology, particularly in the bay area.
Hell a lot of it incubated right here on HN before the de-facto policy became to flag/shadowban that stuff. Go back to HN circa 2010-2011 and the site's full of it. I'm pretty convinced that if the admins hadn't banned that stuff HN would be a highbrow 4chan /pol by now, since everyone else would have bailed when it got increasingly hard-core.
I've encountered casual racist attitudes elsewhere, but tech circles are the only places I've found significant numbers of true believers in the Bell Curve and people who think a single number (IQ) quantifies the worth of a human being. It's also, like I said, the only place I've had people try to evangelize me to hard-core fascist ideology.
There's a world of difference between having casual negative attitudes toward other races because your family held them when you grew up and having an explicit ideological belief system that advocates racism, totalitarianism, and hyper-elitism. It's the difference between an un-examined bias and an examined, affirmed bias. I've found the former in places like Ohio and North Carolina. I've found the latter primarily in tech.
It does surprise me to find these views in tech. It surprises me because tech is all about changing the way things are, so I wouldn't expect to find total commitment and capitulation to the naturalistic fallacy. But here it is.
Activists target an organization for not having a proportional representation of Group X, and claim this must be solely due to racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and so on. The most effective argument against this claim is that the skill distribution of Group X is different. Activists claim this argument is itself racist or white supremacist, so the only people making it publicly are fringe racists.
There is plenty of peer-reviewed research suggesting IQ differences between racial or ethnic groups. Cultures are different too. Groups of people differ, on average, in every other aspect, why would intelligence be any different?
Does this mean we should deport all immigrants, refuse to interview certain races, judge people collectively rather than as individuals, speak hatefully about them, or bar them from our neighborhoods? Of course not.
Does this mean only high IQ people are valuable and deserving of respect? No way. Every human deserves dignity and equal treatment.
Does this mean I'm a white supremacist or misogynist? I'm a woman from a WASP family. I used to work as a quant, a perfectly meritocratic job: Either your ideas made money or they didn't. The market doesn't know or care what color your skin is, which gender you prefer dating, or what's between your legs.
My best colleagues weren't the country club elite. They were disproportionately Eastern European Jewish, Chinese, and Indian immigrants. And when you look at the data, those are the groups that perform best on standardized tests, on average. People from my background are pretty average in that regard, nothing to get supremacist about.
I do have some issues with what you wrote.
My first problem is with IQ tests in general. Psychology is a soft science. It's recently been revealed to be even softer than we thought. The replication crisis in psychology and other soft sciences has made me very skeptical of science that's not hard enough to be tied immediately down to physics, math, and logic. In softer sciences the beliefs of the researchers seem to have a disturbing amount of effect on the outcome.
My second and larger problem is that racism and sexism are extremely common. Years ago I would not have said that, but the recent outpouring of overt hard-core racism and misogyny has convinced me that the activists were right. Either a huge number of formerly not-racist and not-misogynist people suddenly underwent a mass conversion, or the taboo on openly discussing these topics was broken on social media and people suddenly started saying what they really thought. I lean toward the latter, since the explosion of this stuff was just so fast and so extreme.
Given that huge numbers of people are racist and sexist, it's extremely hard to untangle any biological a priori differences from outcomes owing to prejudice.
Personally I think both you and the activists are right in that both causes are in play, but the only way to find out what percentage is due to what is probably to attack prejudice as a potential cause and then see what residual remains. Prejudice is easier to address than genetic differences since ideas are not encoded in DNA and we don't really have the technology (yet?) to boost intelligence physically either through genetic engineering or augmentation.
I do not personally support heavy-handed imposition of quotas as advocated by some activists, but I do think something ought to be done. Again I wouldn't have said that years ago, but the explosion of racism and misogyny on social media changed my mind significantly on this issue. I've been driven a lot further to the left on numerous issues in recent years from being just so shocked and appalled at ideas that are apparently much more common out there than I would have thought. I thought that stuff was dead.
But I've been in tech all my life and I haven't experienced any neo-nazi ideology within it. Neither have any of my friends. Sure you're not exaggerating?
I do have to add though that all human experiences suffer from the curse of small sample size. I guess a more rational takeaway from my comments would be that the liberal bias in tech is not as universal as some people would think, and that the extreme hard right does have a presence in tech.
And while mysogyny, sexism, racism, and even hardcore violence "exists" in tech, it is FAR more prevalent in hip hop circles ( http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/ ).
So you're going to be just as hard about this with rappers, right?
As for rappers-- you're right, but rap doesn't have a progressive public image at least insofar as womens' issues are concerned. As far as I can remember the rap scene has always been criticized as full of misogyny.
1) IQ is a good measure of aptitude
2) White people have higher IQs
Congratulations you are a white supremacist.
Certain groups of black men are taller and stronger, on average, than any other sub-population of humans. When I watch the NBA, which selects for the far-far-right tail of the distribution in height and strength, it's not surprising that an astonishingly large majority of players are drawn from those groups. I'm not surprised to see zero women. I'm not surprised to see very few white men, and even fewer Asian men able to compete at that level.
Does that make me a black supremacist or something?
I think the recent rise in online fascism and racism is because activists force normal people to deny the reality they see and live every day. Otherwise they're shouted down as racist, white supremacist, misogynist, have their jobs threatened by online mobs, and so on. Like Captain Picard defiantly insisting there are four lights, they seek places where they can speak their truth.
When everyone who speaks against blank slateism, cultural relativism, and white privilege gets shouted down, these places only exist underground, in unmoderated spaces. They're quite seductive and even reasonable at first: Men and women are a little different; Unlimited unskilled immigration can hurt a country; Cultures that engage in female genital mutilation are bad; Nuclear families produce better outcomes for children; Being overweight is unhealthy and unattractive; It's not a problem if Google has a lot of Asian men working there.
"Wow, I've finally found a place where people aren't lying to my face all day" they think. But since they're unmoderated, things quickly take a more sinister turn: [Race or religion] is responsible for all our problems; Gays are degenerate; All women are whores; Build the wall; Naziism gives your life meaning; Violence is the answer.
I think if we let up a bit on the over-moderation, online mobbing, calling people racists thing, most sane people would never seek those spaces to begin with.
FWIW, I've really enjoyed discussing this with you. Most people who disagree with me are very aggressive and resort to insult rather than an honest two-way conversation. The thing you said about eliminating prejudice is especially important. Even though I believe people in America enjoy some of the least biased treatment in all of human history, there are still problems like corporations shielding executives from serious sexual harassment claims and police brutality against unarmed minorities. We can, and should, do better.
Anyway I still have a hard time buying that tech is a prejudiced place run by privileged, straight, white, Christian men: Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are Indian, with tan skin and a totally foreign culture to most Americans, yet they run Google and Microsoft. Larry and Sergey are descendants of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Sandberg is a Jewish woman in a high-level, power position at Facebook. Tim Cook is openly gay. These people are in the highest level positions running some of the most valuable companies in the entire world.
What qualifies these groups as tech circles? Sure 4chan is a website, but there's nothing that seems to indicate that it's primarily populates by tech workers. It seems just as [un]justifiable to point at Tumblr, Jezebel, etc. and claim that far left progressives "came out of tech circles".
It seems like it has more to do with one's views of the relative position of cultural values ("America is pretty good at equality of opportunity" vs. "America has some important systemic challenges around race that compromise equality") rather than level of racism on either side.
Unfortunately that difference seems to get misinterpreted both ways - with one side thinking (and saying) the others are racist because they don't support various race-targeted policies (or talk about systemic racism all the time), and the other side accusing the social-left of creating divides and problems by stoking race issues.
> one side thinking (and saying) the others are racists because they don't support various race-targeted policies (or talk about systemic racism all the time)
This completely ignores the actual racism that exists, and makes the social left out to be some group of insanely judgemental people that are so furious for reasons as small as "[people don't] talk about systemic racism all the time"
I don't know anyone who's mad about people not talking about systemic racism all the time. But I do know a lot of people who are furious about racism, and they talk about racism much more than "omg can you believe that someone doesn't support Affirmative Action" Or "wow, this person isn't thinking about systemic racism 24/7? How racist of them!"
Yes, people do discuss "race-targeted policies", and people can get judged for not agreeing with them. And although a certain degree of tribalism definitely exists (on both sides), if someone could provide me a good, clear argument against a "race-targeted policy" that also accounts for the issues that policy seeks to fix, then I'd happily agree with them (and not think they were racist). It's a shame so many discussions about those policies end up being arguments over the definition of racism (instead of, you know, how to lessen its extent and effects), and that is the problem with both sides.
You may agree with that - if you do, I'll turn it around on you and ask - if what I said was a blatant strawman, why does it seem like the majority of the social-right in America think that the social-left automatically consider them racists? That's a message I hear continuously from the American right-leaning press. Either there really is something there; or the media is misrepresenting how the right-leaning community thinks; or the right-leaning community thinks that but are flat-out wrong.
I also hear all three things when discussing systemic racism - it is really there; the media and academics are whipping up a problem where none exists; or the people in question do think there's a problem, but they're wrong and should get on with life.
You seemed to take offense at what I think was a pretty gentle characterization the tribalism seems to dominate discussion nowadays. (Well, offense at my description of one side of it, anyhow.) I think there's a parallel between your response to me and the response many socially-right people have toward systemic racism. I don't think either are helpful to discourse or solutions.
> media and academics are whipping up a problem where none exists
TL;DR: a large number of social-right people say very racist things.
Here's the long version. I feel like you're completely ignoring the fact that racism exists, and ignoring all of the racist comments made by social-right. It feels disingenuous, but if you honestly don't see the social-right making racist comments, please look into what Republicans in America say. Here's an example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018...
Of course, that's not representative of all Republicans. For example, read the first and third paragraph of this: https://politi.co/2xDyEqc and you'll see an example of one republican being very racist, and another (DeSantis) denouncing that racism. But here's a list of things DeSantis has also said: https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/eight-times-ron-desantis-...
While you might not consider all of those things racist, I'm sure you can agree that some of them are. You aren't outwardly denying that social-right people say racist things, but you aren't factoring it in either.
> You seemed to take offense ... I think there's a parallel between your response to me and the response many socially-right people have toward systemic racism
I agree tribalism is bad. In hopes of not being tribalistic, I'm providing you with lots of clear explanations and evidence so that we're on the same page. I'll explain my offense again. You said this:
>>> one side thinking (and saying) the others are racists because they don't support various race-targeted policies (or talk about systemic racism all the time)
If you read through my links of racist rhetoric Republicans use, you should be able to see why it's outrageous to say that people of the social-left are mad about social-right not talking about racism all the time. Social-left people are mad about the racist things social-right say.
TL;DR: you are incapable of separating minority views that tend to choose one party from the views of people in the party in general.
>what Republicans in America say. Here's an example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018....
What a Neo-Nazi running as a Republican says != "what Republicans say". Someone can piss on the subway but that doesn't mean all subway riders piss on the subway nor does it make the description accurate.
Are you comfortable with the everything a few Democratic party members say being associated with the entire party? Cortez claimed that unemployment is low because people are working multiple jobs[1]. Do you think it's now fair to claim that "Democrats have no understanding of economics"?
>I'm providing you with lots of clear explanations and evidence so that we're on the same page.
Once you are convinced of something, it's easy to go through and find anecdotes to support your views like you have. But that doesn't make your broad claim any more true.
>If you read through my links of racist rhetoric Republicans use,
Again, that's not what you provided. You provided links of some Republicans using racist rhetoric. Until you understand that distinction and stop making conclusions based on that confusion, you are part of the problem.
It's unlikely you would be convinced all Democrats are racists if you were provided with anecdotes of Democrats being racist. Why are you so happy to accept that logic for Republicans (other than them being the out-group of course)?
1. https://www.factcheck.org/2018/07/ocasio-cortez-wrong-on-cau...
Racism has been talked about for decades, centuries, yet we still haven't realized people are tribal. People are apprehensive against those not in their tribe. If I were in a position to hire someone and I had two equal candidates but one of them was a veteran I am going to hire them because we share a common tribe - we will understand each other better. Does this mean I am against the other person? No it just means I stuck with my tribe, and I won't apologize for that, its animal nature. It could come down to race, where they are from or any number of points that allow me to connect with them on a more personal level.
A large chunk of the racism talks I see come from the west coast (maybe biased as I live on the west coast and I am in tech), but the biggest thing I've seen is the most of them have never actually lived around a majority of black people. Originally, I am from the New Orleans (yes there are race issues there) so being around black people is quite natural. More importantly, I've lived in other countries, traveled through Europe and Asia, and lived/travel through the US. So being around other non-white folks is quite natural. Do I seek people like me to be around, yes. Does that mean they are white? No. Could they all be white? Yes, but that might be due to the demographics of where I am at the time.
Though most importantly, race issues have exploded due to the media, social media and politicians. Talk to REAL people and get to know them (talk to them as an equal) and you will see most people aren't racist, sexist or any other form of ist, we are people trying to make it in this world.
Lastly, I don't believe anyone in America is oppressed due to their race. Socio-economic status is far more oppressive and harder to get out of. For me it was the military along with a good portion of others I served with. One thing the military teaches and shows you is that race is not an indicator of how well you will do, it is your work ethic and commitment. Those who see this do well.
Are those, where the military is not an option, left without options? I couldn't say but its not do to race but their socio-economic status as I said above.
You must have not read enough of the article to see that the Neo-Nazi was polling second (first was the incumbent). Also, I didn't say the party in general was racist. I had a very simple thesis that you were mischaracterizing the social left!
> You provided links of some Republicans using racist rhetoric
See, you do understand my links - those are (some) Republicans using racist rhetoric. But why don't you get my thesis that "it's outrageous to say that people of the social-left are mad about social-right not talking about racism all the time"? It's very simple. The social-right does say racist things (NB: I'm not saying "everyone in the social-right does it") and clearly what social-left is mad about.
Your comment implied the social-left is mad about the social-right not talking about racism all the time, when really, it's because the social right says racist things (again, I never said "every social-right person does this").
> It's unlikely you would be convinced all Democrats are racists
I'd like to point out that I'm not a Democrat, nor am I defending Democrats. I'm pointing out that you're mischaracterizing the social-left big time when you say that what we care about is "everyone must think about racism all the time!" Also, I know tons democrats who make all kinds of racist remarks. I never said (nor do I think) that being a democrat == not being racist.
> What a Neo-Nazi running as a Republican says != "what Republicans say"
He's a Republican. Look up other Republicans and you'll see similar (although not always as inflammatory) racist quotes. I'm not saying "every Republican says racist things".
No it doesn't, but nice way to land into the left stereotype that the poster identified. Both sides can easily believe racism exists but have pretty wide gaps on how it should be addressed.
>if someone could provide me a good, clear argument against a "race-targeted policy" that also accounts for the issues that policy seeks to fix, then I'd happily agree with them (and not think they were racist).
Sure, any policies that give preference to a race that create an "equality of outcome" instead of "equality of opportunity" environment are just trying to offset racism with more racism and are inflaming divides.
Example: Stanford choosing black students over equally (or even more qualified) Asian students due to race-targeted diversity policies. This leads to Asian students doubting the black students are as qualified as them, which leaves a lot of pressure on black students to prove they are there for the right reasons.
Sorry, but that post did completely ignore that racism exists, and it made the social-left out to be people who are mad about others who don't "talk about systemic racism all the time", which is outrageous. If you re-read that comment, you'll see that they did ignore the racism that occurs, and focused on the idea that social-left people are just complaining about stupid things.
> Both sides can easily believe racism exists but have pretty wide gaps on how it should be addressed.
Agreed, and that's not what I was talking about. The comment made social-left people out as caring about stupid details like "YOU MUST TALK ABOUT RACISM FREQUENTLY" instead of caring about things like actual racism
> Stanford choosing black students over equally (or even more qualified) Asian students
I'd like to say that while we disagree about how to "fix racism", this is a perfect point. You aren't picking white people like most people do, you're picking Asian students, who make the highest scores of all demographics.
> leaves a lot of pressure on black students to prove they are there for the right reasons
Talk about hitting the nail on the head! This is a serious problem. I totally agree. We have different ideas of how to solve the problem, but we can both agree that this sucks.
The poetry is about her being held down by the way she talks. The poetry isn't the thing holding her down.
I vividly remember the time I went to In-N-Out with a group, and took a seat at a table after ordering, but the group ended up moving to a different table. I asked the person who wanted to move the group "Why do you want us to sit over there?" She said nothing, but lifted her hand up and pointed a finger, and I looked over and there wasn't anything wrong. But there was a group of black people there. This was a time when racism was clear as day and right in front of me. But hearing many stories of racism from my friends who are black is a different feeling - instead of feeling like there's an isolated incident, I see how common it is, and how easy it is to just not see it. And that's scary. Scarier than the NSA and Facebook, because instead of losing privacy, people are actively harmed and you can easily not even see or hear about it
I agree. And it probably explains phenomena like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/white-liber...
As a black guy from a military family (though I wasn't in the military myself) my folks for the most part told me they tended to deal with racism quickly and quietly by pulling someone off to the side and either explaining what was wrong to them or fighting them (I have uncles that did one or the other). I think that is kind of how you have to deal with it as well as a lot of other problems in the military because of social pressures towards cohesion. I say this to say that maybe you didn't see it as much when you served because you never did anything to warrant a stern conversation or confrontation yourself and your fellow soldiers or sailors nipped it in the bud before it became a problem within ranks. But that's just my speculating because, again, I've never been in the military, but my uncles, cousins, and great grandfather were and talked about their experiences.
White liberals are racist.
OTOH, I have been with a couple companies and seen racism and sexism in the form of jokes and comments that were done in poor taste, but it was just a group of white/asian progressive males so no harm? Again, all anecdotal. I'm sure other people have had complete opposite experiences, and thats to be expected. Racism is not always about hate or politics, it can show its self through ignorance and unfamiliarity.
I've been a lurker for almost the entirety of HN. I created an account just to post this because I believe politics, especially political stereotyping has no business on HN. I would hate to see this forum burned out like Reddit.
Someone has lied to you about the differences between liberals and conservatives. A non-negligible portion of the left think more discrimination is the answer to discrimination.
No community is THIS defensive about something that's a non-issue.
It's not like, once in every blue moon, someone says 'tech has a race problem'- people say things like that all the time. So, even if it was a non-issue, the fact lots of people are saying it's an issue makes it an issue for people in tech, for obvious reasons (nobody likes being called evil.) Maybe people are defensive because they do see racism and ignore it- but maybe people are defensive because lots of people say there's racism they're ignoring, and what those people say can affect their jobs. Whether there's a race problem or not, there's a race problem.
Yes, surely protesting their innocence is strong evidence that they are, in fact, guilty as charged. /s
When did you stop beating your wife?