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Comment by strikelaserclaw | Hacker News Reader

and they get there through working their ass off but that is totally off topic as far as what op was asking.

Or in the case of [big tech company] interns, getting matched to a team purely for being Chinese. For a while there was a big Mandarin-only mailing list that coordinated this type of ingroup selection within [big tech company]. HR found out and shut it down. It was unclear whether those running the list realized what they were doing was highly illegal.

If they had just waited a few years it would still be illegal, but also the open practice of nearly every big hiring department. "We especially encourage AAPI, BIPOC, neurodiverse, nonbinary and LGBTIA+ candidates to apply." That's quoted nearly word-for-word from job listings I'm reviewing. Wonder what that means for my application, as someone who falls outside those boxes and didn't go to an Ivy. Really gets me thinking about politics.

Why don’t you fit in any of those groups?

You could easily declare yourself “mildly autistic” and “agender” and become neurodiverse and queer.

Which is what every entrenched group of racists claims is the reason for their control over an entity. The 'other' is lazy and we're hard workers. Nope, no bigotry involved, just our innate superiority over other groups.

Similar claims that are used a lot, except for by cis-straigh-white-men (for now), is that their favoritism is a form of "Robin Hood" behavior (Literally referencing Robin Hood). Basically, they feel that their particular identity group has been discriminated against in the past, and justify their otherwise unethical behavior as "restoring justice" by "stealing from the rich/those that have much" to "us that have less". A similar statement I've seen is "It's our turn now!"

You will find this everywhere from pickpockets in Thailand, credit card scammers in India all the way to top universities.

Do they? Or do they arrive due to denial of opportunity for equally or greater hard working folks?

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