A look behind the “White Men as Full Diversity Partners” re-education program | Hacker News Reader

A look behind the “White Men as Full Diversity Partners” re-education program

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24 pointsRed_Tarsius28 comments

If it's wrong to support this kind of training for <random-race> <random-gender> then it's wrong to support it for white men. If it isn't wrong then everyone should be trained, or not, equally. Collective guilt is one of the most evil ideas in the meme pool. No <random-race> <random-gender> is more racist because other members of that group are racist, and it is racist/sexist/prejudiced/bigoted to assume so.

There isn't an assumption that all white men are racist here. Instead, I think the reasoning is that the vast majority of white men have benefited (probably unknowingly) from structural racism to the detriment of other groups. The training is intended to make these men aware of that in an effort to chip away at structural racism and its harmful effects.

It has taken us millennia to understand that the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused.

To claim that someone benefits from Structural Racism is an accusation. Yet Structural Racism is poorly defined and is - in practice - used as a grab-bag to contain any disparity, any grievance, and any complaint. Thus, it is impossible to defend against. Indeed to defend against it is to 'benefit from White Privilege.' Hence the Kafka-Trap book, 'White Fragility.'

There is nothing good about this sort of stuff and it needs to go away.

>The training is intended to make these men aware of that in an effort to chip away at structural racism and its harmful effects.

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a middle-aged white man, I am well aware (and have been for decades) that I've been the beneficiary of white male privilege.

But aside from treating all humans equally, I'm not sure what else I can really do.

Should I interrogate potential employers as to their hiring practices and turn down job offers if the employer hasn't sufficiently included non-white, non-male candidates?

What does "sufficiently" mean in the context of the above sentence? And how should I interrogate potential employers about this?

What if I really need the job to pay my bills? Should I refuse to work at all and end up on the street so I can ensure that I don't receive any special privilege/treatment?

Should I give $20 to every non-white, non-male person I see to "pay them back" for the preferential treatment I (never wanted or asked for) received?

I'm not claiming that institutional and individual racism and sexism don't exist. Quite the opposite, in fact.

And I believe that folks should be (if they aren't already) made aware that these issues are real and negatively affect many people.

That said, unless I'm an employer/hiring manager, all I can do is treat all the humans around me with simple respect and judge people based on their actions, rather than their melanin content or type of genitalia -- traits which are irrelevant to the value of a person.

Edit -- I guess this isn't going to happen. More's the pity:

  Perhaps I'm missing something in this discussion.  
  If so, I hope someone will enlighten me as to 
  what that might be.

Additional Edit: Apparently, I was wrong. Thank you to those who chose to respond positively rather than just rejecting my point of view out of hand. It's appreciated.

You are lucky. Untold millions of whites do not live fortunate lives.

Good on you for judging based on actions. I believe it will come back in fashion.

> I am well aware (and have been for decades) that I've been the beneficiary of white male privilege

Excellent. Either you got this training at some point or you figured it out yourself. The point of such training is to make sure that all of us white men understand that benefits we've gotten from systemic racism.

This is not really different from other aspects of education. I spent plenty of time in computer science classes where I already understood the material. I had some exposure to this kind of education about systemic racism early in college, which I completely bounced off of and missed the point of. Future exposure eventually got the message through. Sometimes repetition is needed.

> But aside from treating all humans equally, I'm not sure what else I can really do.

That's a big "aside from". There are many times in my career where I have decision making power or influence on a decision that involves other humans. Being aware of systemic racism and unconscious and conscious biases help me make more equitable decisions. If you are doing similar things, then congratulations, you are probably helping solve the problem. I don't think anyone is asking you to do more than that.

>Excellent. Either you got this training at some point or you figured it out yourself. The point of such training is to make sure that all of us white men understand that benefits we've gotten from systemic racism.

No. No training about this except more than fifty years of living in this world.

I'll summarize in a negative way as that's generally better understood:

  There are assholes *everywhere*.
  They are men and women.
  They are of all ethnicities, creeds and levels of 
  melanin content.
  They are also a pretty small group compared to the 
  larger population.
  But they are well mixed within the population and 
  appear with some regularity.

Pretty much everybody else are decent, kind people. As such, I give folks the benefit of the doubt unless and until they show me they don't deserve it.

I think you're missing the audience of this training. This isn't about you (and I think that's another issue white men have to get over).

As a "nobody" :), you likely have no power to undo structural racism. Key executives of a company like Lockheed Martin, however, have some power in that regard.

>I think you're missing the audience of this training. This isn't about you. I think that's another issue white men have to get over.

Actually, I think it's about all of us. In the sense that as long as people ignore the issue (or insist upon being deliberately obtuse about it), we're not going to fix it.

I choose to do what I can.

As to whether or not that will make a difference that's larger than just my own personal interactions, I don't know. I'd like to hope so, but it seems pretty unlikely.

But that doesn't invalidate what I do or encourage.

I prefer to model the world as I'd like it to be and act accordingly.

>As a "nobody" :), you likely have no power to undo structural racism. Key executives of a company like Lockheed Martin, however, have some power in that regard.

As I said:

  And I believe that folks should be (if they aren't 
  already) made aware that these issues are real and 
  negatively affect many people.

No, I can't change the ideas and attitudes of everyone around me. And no, I can't make institutional racism/sexism go away all by myself.

However, I can continue doing what I already do (treat others with respect regardless of their immutable traits) and encourage others to do the same.

That's not the reality. Once they arrive, these kind of trainings become Compulsory for everybody. Those who refused are fired, with cause. Well, everybody "white", of course, thus worth being "reminded" of their "privilege". And also their flaws. I mean, if they are white, they are necessarily racist. If they seem not to be, they are just hiding it. If they defend themselves, it's a proof of their privilege, and by extension their racism. If you are a man, you are also a rapist in hiding. Etc. Just pass a few hours receiving such kind of "training", get it repeated every year just in case, and we'll see how you think about it afterwards.

When I start answering these hard questions about my ethnicity, one result is strong sense of white pride. It's hard to tell if that's the desired outcome or not; I'm skeptical of the sincerity of these people looking for "allies" through insults.

Perhaps 'pride' isn't a long-term useful label. I have chosen 'appreciation' for my ancestors that worked hard and contributed to our civilization.

Once viewed though that lens, you being to see kindred spirits in a lot of other races and cultures. For me, it came to a growing realization that as a white male, I often have much more in common with a new immigrant than I do with a trust-fund white kid that burning the downtown.

>>Instead, I think the reasoning is that the vast majority of white men have benefited (probably unknowingly) from structural racism to the detriment of other groups.

That's not reasoning. That's an unfounded claim or assertion.

I find it baffling to group white and heterosexual together when the minorities are often the most homophobic and LGBT-unfriendly. Here's an article for America https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2974805/. It's hard to find hard data for France since we don't do (or at least publish to the public) racial statistics, but I've got plenty of anecdotal data on that (and some hard data but it's about muslims https://www.ifop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/116079_Ifop_...).

No, they're REALLY not, and this trope needs to go.

All of these things confuse the visibility of the conversation with the actual underlying harmful tendencies; people with power are more effectively able to hide their problems. Moreover, when you hear about this supposed homophobia et al, what you're watching is a community working through it.

You're free to show me data that substantiate your claim. If you read my comment as "white men are not homophobic at all and minorities are all homophobic", that's not what I meant. What I meant is that on average minorities are more homophobic than whites. I also gave data to support my claim.

For example, in France, the difference of homophobia between catholics and muslims is really really big. That's not a "trope". That's something that I live daily.

Edit: I'll add to that that examples of overt racism that I've seen are extremly rare compared to examples of overt homophobia. I'm honestly fed up that people like you give a free pass to minorities to not work on themselves because "they're oppressed too". Since they have the right to be homophobes since they're racial minorities, do I have to be racist because I'm gay? Is that how you think? That's not how I think at all. We both have to work on ourselves to respect others more.

"Data" is but so useful here. I'll tone down my claim and say that, from my lived experience, it is generally untrue of Blacks in the United States, though to the casual observer it may feel this way because we're just constantly under the microscope, and our discussions/internal fights on this are just more visible.

So yes, if you rewind two decades or so, you'll see a lot of homophobia et al in our culture -- but what you'll ALSO see is that the huge majority of the same people who were pushing it before have mostly all changed for the better -- and in fact, I'll make the claim that a lot of those jokes and tropes within our community that from today's POV aged poorly, were actually really helpful steps in having people come around (I'm thinking of stand-up comedians and the like.)

I'll add my anecdotal evidence here: black people in France are also generally very respectful. Usually the homophobes I encouter are north africains/muslims/arabs, however you want to call them (edit: I realize that "however you want to call them" may not be the best way to put it. What I mean by this is that in my experience it's mostly north african people, however I have no evidence for this but have evidence for muslims. Still, not all north african people are arabs or muslims. I added "arabs" because the few kabyle people I know don't have this problem at all. It's hard to untangle everything here, and I don't want to pretend I know everything.). I also want to add that it seems that the first victims are LGBT people from these communities before white LGBT people, however they still suffer too.

The stats are what they are and I don't think it's healthy to deny them. However, just like minorities have to work on their homophobia, I have to work on my xenophobia, because applying my experiences to people I encounter would be unfair, and statistics shouldn't be used to discriminate on a person to person basic.

My main point is that I feel that "good thinking white people" have dropped the fight against homophobia like a hot potato because it became uncool, and talking about race and white privilege became cool, so now I can't even explain where homophobia comes from without being called a racist. Just like I would (and most/all white people would) benefit from anti racism training/interventions, I think most/all people from racial minorities would benefit from anti homophobia/LGBTphobia training/interventions.

I personally don't live in the United States, but the paper I linked seems to suggest that black people are more homophobic than white people. Of course black and white isn't the only thing at play here, class is also a big factor, but I don't think you're learning anything new here. Still, denying that there's a problem is unhealthy and insulting, just like if I would deny that there's a racism problem in the US or in France.

I find it more surprising that there is a consulting group with that name, and that big name companies and executives would sit through what looks like grade-school level exercises for this superficial amount of understanding.

Why don't these companies just contact major professors who work on this topic, legal scholars, african-american and black history scholars, American-history scholars, etc., and just run a "workshop" in the form of a university class discussion group? Get someone in the room who is an expert and have a conversation as adults, instead of a bizarro "re-education program".

Perhaps this program is actually part of a scheme to divert the company's money to an unqualified friend or relative. Or, perhaps it is the result of a superficial HR-driven attempt to be seen to be doing something.

Indeed the content of the course looks feeble-minded at best, and not grounded in any sort of study or academic basis.

Anything that singles out a single race for “education” or instruction is prejudice and wrong.

I appreciate the internal look at the whole thing. It's heavy-handed, it's ham-fisted. And it's definitely the sort of thing that needs to be examined and reexamined.

But at the end of the day, I'm VERY glad to see it. This is new territory and people are going to make mistakes, but as long as we ensure that it's a conversation, we need more of this sort of thing, not less.

Did you read the documents from the post?

Being forced to chant/repeat/internalize anything isn't a conversation.

"Forced."

Sigh, come on. Corny team-building things in big corporate spaces happen all the time. It's part of the whole deal. Most of these dudes are going to laugh over the corny thing they had to do at work today like happens all the time.

I'm fine if people don't think it's effective, but what's going to happen is a bunch of people are going to get triggered and then entirely overestimate the possibility that this will be dangerous.

It's not, no more than any of the other corporate team stuff that people do.

>Corny team-building things

I would not characterize mandatory redefinition of employees' personal identity based on their racial group as corny team-building.

Fair enough, I agree w/ most of that.

> I'm fine if people don't think it's effective, but what's going to happen is a bunch of people are going to get triggered and then entirely overestimate the possibility that this will be dangerous.

This will definitely happen, more divisiveness = more clicks.

You obviously haven't lived a single of these "trainings". Once they are in place, it's part of a broader culture. People receiving these mandatory trainings are afraid. During the training, they comply, and look at each other. After the training, they are still afraid. They know it's part of a general strategy to prey on the scape goats, so if any of them "laugh" about the "training", he risks being reported or complained about by another employee, even outside of working place and working hours, because mandatory Reporting of any Deviance under penalty of job termination is also Part of the Training !

But hey, I get it, as long as "others" have to suffer it, you don't care.

It's funny that you treat the tweet author as a reliable source of information about how the program was conducted.

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