> Over and over in my career I was amazed at what happened when I just bothered showing up.
Just remember to acknowledge how exceedingly well this works for white guys and the uphill battle faced by others.
Just remember to acknowledge how exceedingly well this works for white guys and the uphill battle faced by others.
If you're not surrounded by people who have had success in their careers / education, it's hard to know which opportunities are available to you. Often, you only know about your parents and their career choices.
Also, the problem isn't entirely that some people don't understand the value of "showing up". It's that they don't always where and when to "show up" in the first place. For instance, I know a first-generation college student whose parents, while he was in high school, didn't even realize college was an option for him until his teachers started pestering everyone about college apps. He was lucky to attend a school where most students go to college, but I can imagine that in a poorer area he would've missed the opportunity entirely, thinking that he's not smart enough (which he certainly was!).
It comes to mind an experiment carried in France where they sent fake housing applications where the only difference between two sets of applicants was a Muslim-sounding name vs a Christian one. The results showed a much higher response rate for the latter, despite everything else being equal. I can't find the original, but found this similar one working with job applications (https://www.pnas.org/content/107/52/22384).
Not to negate the main point about "showing up", but there's more to it. When I've had the chance to hire someone and there are two similar candidates, I preferred to choose the one with the lower ranked school credentials. My thinking is that if this person has reached the same level of achievements with less environmental help, they probably have more grit and get-it-done in them than the candidate from the top school. Much more than that can be done in a systemic way, but it's a start.
Consider East Asians, a minority who have historically been victims of racial injustice in the U.S. As recently as 1945, Japanese people were placed in internment camps in the United States. Despite all of this racism, they have better economic and health outcomes than the white majority. Why? I believe it is due to class.
If we were to spend more energy fighting economic inequality I think we would see better outcomes for racial minorities. That is not to say that racism doesn't exist today, and that it's not important to fight against racial injustice. Both are important, but I tend to see much more discussion of race than class.
As far as resume studies go, here is one that shows significant bias based on class: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000312241666815... .
This isn't as straightforward as you make it sound.
It definitely isn't straightforward for white guys with poor parents either.
And unlike certain other groups there aren't anyone standing up for them. If they cry out they'll only make it worse for themselves as people will laugh at these "insanely privileged white guys whining".
So can we stop this, or at least be a little more nuanced; stop pretending that just because someone is a white male they are automatically playing life on easy mode as someone said? Because it isn't true.
"Just a reminder" isn't a good way to start such a conversation. It implies that there is already a consensus on the issue when there isn't.
A version of the comment excluding that ("Acknowledge how exceedingly well this works for white guys and the uphill battle faced by others.") sounds like an aggressive accusation.
ISTM a general statement about the world accuses no one in particular of anything.
> Just remember to acknowledge how exceedingly well this works for Jews and the uphill battle faced by others.
The above comment doesn't sound good and shouldn't be accepted by the community. Neither should the comment against whites.
The centuries-long struggle for increased equality in USA has little to do with whom one "likes" or not. Your fixation on personal preference shows how little of this you understand.
It's racist and discriminatory, I just didn't deem it necessary to use such direct, harsh language about what many consider a touchy subject.
it's ridiculous to suggest I "like" Jews more than I "like" white people
I used Jews as an example because Post-WW2 teachings of Jewish suppression would make the comparison more relatable to most people. That plus their relative per-person power distribution is more comparable to whites than, say, African Americans, making the comparison more fair. Use whatever group you like in substitution. The point is that you interpret such messages differently if the person is part of your "tribe."
Your fixation on personal preference shows how little of this you understand.
This moves into personal attack. That's unproductive.
You write as if the worst thing one can do when one observes racism is to call it by its name. In fact that's just about the only good response we have. If you think someone is being racist then tell them about it. Just be prepared for laughter when they discover that what you're really whinging about is being reminded that privilege exists. If you really were e.g. a white handicapped high school dropout from eastern Kentucky, you wouldn't be surprised, because you'd see thread parent's privilege just as clearly as any minority sees it.
Sure, but the way to do it isn't to scream "You're privileged!!!" That's not productive and makes people defensive. Same for the poar above. The way they presented it was unproductive.
Just remember to acknowledge how exceedingly well this works for white guys and the uphill battle faced by others.
The delicate flowers who are made defensive about that completely reasonable and unremarkable advice are terrible people, and this nation is worse for their continued presence here. Such people should take a long look in the mirror, and they should try to be better humans.
By 2048, whites will be the minority in the US. If our culture allows anti-white discrimination between now and then, then there will be major conflicts within the country. I think it would be good to try to avoid that.
Jeez wow, I didn't realize that the existence of white privilege was so hotly controversial here on HN.
With all the bonus programs and scholarships for women and minorities, this is probably even more true for them.
For example, the top 5 women graduating each semester in informatics from my university receive a grand of 5000 Euro. We do not have more than five women graduating each semester (it's a small faculty, to be fair). Just showing up once after completing your bachelors degree can net you 5000 Euro.
I experienced agism for the first time when I turned 40. What used to be pretty much a guaranteed first interview after applying, turned into getting lost in the stack of resumes and never getting callbacks.
I decided to take a break from tech a year and a half ago after the worst burnout of my life. And with COVID-19, I've decided to extend that another year or two. There are just too many systemic problems in tech and I don't like the direction it's all going (survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, hyper-competitive, etc etc etc). So I've decided to do service work in the meantime in the areas that I've neglected, which right now is handyman work, moving towards renewable energy. I've always felt inspired by Jimmy Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity.
I knew about the various forms of prejudice in tech (that evolve from a feeling of being a reject growing up) but hadn't experienced them personally yet. So many young men especially have this feeling that everyone else is mistaken, and that they can do no wrong because they are the uber geek. Which clashes with their real-life experience of never being able to get a date, being broke all the time, working dead end jobs, etc. So they tend to overlook people who don't fit their expectation of what an expert looks like. Some of them grow out of it, but sadly a lot of us get trapped perpetuating the same patriarchy/misogyny/bigotry and similar systems of control without even realizing it. That's why I think it's so important to actively work towards justice and equity once we become aware of these issues.