Any company that has diversity hiring numbers that they are supposed to hit is discriminating based on factors outside of performance if it influences their hiring process at all.
Companies make hiring decisions based on all sorts of factors that have nothing to do with performance. Two extremely problematic ones are:
1) soft “skills” like charisma, rapport, etc, which are much more about social identity than social ability, and in particular discriminate against nonwhites, women, and many LGBT people
2) Unvarnished and criminal Klan-style racism, such as turning down a well-qualified job applicant because his name is Jamal, or assuming a black woman must have lied about her 3.9 GPA, which is still rampant in all 50 United States, and an enormous reason for the black-white wealth and income disparity. This sort of blatant discrimination has been repeatedly observed in the 21st century and is a plain fact.
These two practices are not only widespread and illegal, they also deprive companies of good talent. The reason for diversity quotas isn’t to distort a (nonexistent) meritocratic hiring process, but instead to correct grotesque violations in actually existing hiring practices.
"Affirmative action" isn't a thing. It never really was. All it ever meant was ensuring that opportunities were offered to minorities to interview, but those opportunities still paid out at a below-average rate relative to straight / white / male people. Your company won't share diversity numbers outside of HR, but if you have a friend you can usually get them off the record. They don't share them because the numbers are bad.
March 2020, results from a field experiment demonstrating persistent unambiguous racist discrimination: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26861
This is a recent example of a famous series of experiments, where otherwise identical fictitious resumes are given “black-sounding” or “white-sounding” names (or addresses, alma maters, etc), and the researchers count how many callbacks the resumes get. If the black resumes get significantly less callbacks there is no alternative explanation than illegal racism. The classic experiment is “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” from 2003: https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
A 2016 retrospective of similar labor discrimination field experiments: https://www.nber.org/papers/w22022
Evidence of improving but ongoing racist discrimination against black business owners seeking credit: https://www.nber.org/papers/w13972
2011 paper estimating that 1/3rd of the black-white wage gap is due solely to employment discrimination: https://www.nber.org/papers/w17462 (it has been established elsewhere that about ~1/2 the wage gap is due to the education/credentials gap)
An interesting 2019 paper finding virtually no discrimination against Native Americans and Hawaiians: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25849 (this is relevant to the sociological view that American racial stratification is anti-black more than pro-white, or rather that “white” really means “not black”)
This is just from one google search of the NBER archives on my phone. This evidence exists in spades.
Just based on current events, even many dense non-Whites (myself included) have just started to realize how deep the problem goes when it goes to both conscious and unconscious bias.
We can definitely do better, and I hope the trends do indeed show that we're heading that way.
To be clear: I believe OP is not just ignorant, but is being a bad person. OP's point was not simply that anti-black discrimination is no big deal - which would be reprehensible enough - but that the opposite is happening, to the detriment of whites. It doesn't matter if OP is parroting racist propaganda or creating it themselves: it is highly potent racist propaganda, designed to convert whites into overt racists by playing on their resentment.
OP isn't "less racist" if they sincerely believe the propaganda due to misinformation: racism is racism and OP is perpetuating it. "Just because he's repeating a racist lie does NOT mean he is a racist" is unfortunately a common line of thought in the US. But this only assuages the feelings of whites, and does not accurately describe racism in America.
I can't disagree with that. Thanks for making the effort to explain.
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EDIT (5 minutes later): Man, now that you put it that way I can't stop thinking about how obvious that is.
"Just because they're repeating racist things doesn't mean they're a racist" Is a pretty weak line of thought, since that's quite literally the definition of racist. It's alarming what you internalize living somewhere for long enough. Sorry ojnabieoot, I've got it now.
> OP's point was not simply that anti-black discrimination is no big deal - which would be reprehensible enough - but that the opposite is happening, to the detriment of whites.
You.
That sounds plenty racist to me*
* two can play this game
Two can play a game indeed if both know what they're doing.
Hiring or not hiring based on a protected class in the US is illegal.
I don't think people realize how important this is. I certainly didn't until I had a random meeting with the recruiting team at $OLDJOB.
It's basic statistics, when you think about it. By the definition of "under-represented group", you know that there is a much higher likelihood that the over-represented group will make up the majority of the first X resumes you receive. This means that even if you're completely unbiased and will hire based on merit (whatever that means), simply choosing the best of the first X applications will lead you to fail at diversity hiring anyway.
Companies say they want to hire the best person but this is subject to reality and part of reality is wanting to hire this person as quick as possible. So it really is paramount that the pipeline is front-loaded, or you'll be thwarted by the reality of statistical majority.