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Comment by dextralt | Hacker News Reader

Are you:

- suggesting that Amazon is passing over better qualified minorities in favor of less qualified white men?

- bemoaning that Amazon is passing over less qualified minorities in favor of better qualified white men?

I mean, I already know the answer, as does everyone else who is paying any attention to the shift in the narrative, but I just want you to remind everyone else that meritocracy is fascism and people should be judged - accepted into universities, hired, and promoted, not by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin.

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I'm just stating the fact that the current societal status quo is such that no black person is part of the executive-team of one of the first biggest three companies in the world and that the women that are part of said team have been put in positions that have been usually associated with women, the positions usually associated with men are occupied only by, well, men.

I personally believe that all men and women are created equal, no matter their skin color, and when a society is "built" in such a way that only white men get to put their hands on the positions that "matter" then it means that no way in hell that society is meritocratic. Believing otherwise is believing that there are intrinsic differences between men and women, and more generally speaking between people of different skin colors. We both know that is not the case. Which leaves us with why do only white men get to "profit" from the current status-quo?

I suppose you have similar concerns about men occupying the overwhelming majority of physically taxing and hazardous jobs, correct? Obviously, we both know there are no intrinsic differences between men and women, so this is a great injustice that women's representation among miners, construction workers, metalworkers, truckers, heavy machinery operators, fishermen, foresters, waster disposal workers, and so on, is virtually nonexistent.

And of course you find it outrageous that in the entirety of Asia, Africa and Middle East, white people constitute nonexistent percentage of the population, and there are virtually no white men in the positions of power there.

Right?

[flagged]

Both of you sound silly. There is no meritocracy nor equality. People get what they get because they have something that somebody else wants: knowledge, skills, connections, whatever. How did they get it? I don’t know. Maybe by hard work, maybe by ingenuity, maybe by risk, maybe by birth, maybe by luck, maybe by theft, maybe by deceit. None of those things are or can be or ever will be equally-distributed.

I personally think that a society that encourages the first two tends to work out better than some of the others, but still probably unrealistic.

I agree with you in some points, but overall I do believe that a lot of progress is being made with respect to qualified POC and women rising ranks - it just takes time to reflect.

It's easy to dissect on one company and criticize them for their lack of diversity, but amazon is only a little over 20 years old despite its immense success and most of its S-Team has stuck around since its inception.

I'm reminded of a quote from 30 Rock about corporate structure, "When a big one falls, four little ones rise up". Its just the case that the 'big ones' have rarely fallen in the S-team. For positions like these, in the apex of the business world, only time will tell.

'I personally believe that all men and women are created equal' That's just plain false. Every individual is obviuosly unique, just have a look at all the people around you. I consider that just a false storytelling. I agree the everyone have the same dignity* as a human being, but that's another matter and has nothing to do with everyone being equal.

*Sorry I'm not native english speaking, and I'm using the word dignity in the same sense we - in italy - use the word "dignità", but I'm not sure those two words has exactly the same meaning.

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