Comment by ltbarcly3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ltbarcly3 | Hacker News Reader

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I'll support your theory when I hear, even one time, a DEI leader mention poor white people. I grew up in a home with a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict, and who had a parade of abusive boyfriends. There were times we didn't have electricity or water because it was turned off. We never had a telephone in the house or a working car.

I studied Math in college. Literally every single other math major I knew had parents who were in the top 10% (or higher) in wealth. Every single one. About 1/4 of the majors went to the same magnet high school in the richest county in the state. Several of them had parents that were university professors. There was NOBODY remotely like me. I had to join the Army Reserve to even be able to afford to live and go to school since I had no family help whatsoever. DEI aggressively works against people like me, because I'm a heterosexual white male. I grew up eating government peanut butter and free school lunch and waiting for the day the foodstamps would come because then there might be some food in our house instead of none, but I'm told that I'm "part of the problem". They would very happily push candidates that come from wealthy backgrounds and have parents that are rich or professors so long as they aren't white or asian or jewish. There are many programs to back-door people that are black or hispanic into PHD programs (google pre-phd programs for under-represented), but when I tried to talk to and advisor about such a program they literally laughed at me - again because I'm white and a male which means I'm "part of the problem".

I'm a white male from a very similar background. The thing that separates us from black and hispanic colleagues is that the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate, regardless of where we came from, where we went to school, or how much money we had growing up. You might see a lot of diversity in PhD programs, but as soon as you step into a high paying professional role you're going to see maybe one black or hispanic colleague in 100. Now, I'll take any advantage I can get, but I also do my best to "hold the door open" for folks that face a lot more prejudice than I do; that don't get a carte blanche to reinvent themselves in an interview.

> The thing that separates us from black and hispanic colleagues is that the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate

I just don’t think that’s true. I spend a lot of time around elite whites, and I think being a poor white is just about the worst thing in their eyes. God help you if you have a hick accent or something like that. I think they’re much more likely to trust non-white people from the right social class.

This is supported with data https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-wh... if you scroll to the graphs.

But I think anyone who is elite thinks this way. This includes elite Asians, Blacks, etc. But elite is poorly defined so I am defining it as well-educated and left leaning

I think you're right about that situation in particular. I've had people look down their nose at me before, but I work in the energy sector now, and that's just not a thing that happens anymore.

> God help you if you have a hick accent or something like that. I think they’re much more likely to trust non-white people from the right social class.

That sounds right. Accent is often a (weak) signal of educational level.

> the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate

Doesn't help when you get filtered out from attending college. Poor white men is the least represented group at colleges among all race/class/gender combinations, it isn't a privilege.

> Doesn't help when you get filtered out from attending college.

Please provide evidence of high application rates for underprivileged white males and then abnormally low acceptance rates to support your claim of white men being turned away at the door.

My experience was that college was more than happy to sign me up for financial aid, due to my family's lower income, and then student loans, to boot. They don't even care what you major in. Since you can't get out of the debt, it's just cashflow from their perspective.

> high application rates

Unfortunately, for a lot of groups, low application rates are part of the problem. Not enough people are encouraging members of these groups to apply and not enough members of these groups figure out on their own that applying to things are worthwhile.

Everyone I met in college applied to college (of course!), but far too many had stories about how their high schools actively discouraged them from applying to fancy colleges.

Sure! But the GP was stating that unprivileged white males were applying, but being filtered out. There's a difference between being underrepresented due to a bias, and underrepresented because your cohort has opted out.

Frankly, with the rising cost of a college education and the stagnation of income in a lot of fields, people should think long and hard about where they go to school and what they major in.

I interpreted “filtered out” to mean that they weren’t making it from childhood to college due to any of a number of factors, not necessarily that they applied and were rejected.

I see that now. Sorry, they might have meant that.

> Please provide evidence of high application rates for underprivileged white males and then abnormally low acceptance rates to support your claim of white men being turned away at the door.

Why? The fact that they are under represented is enough evidence, at least according to the left.

Because this is forum that values critical thinking and productive discussion. When you present things out of context, cherry pick data, or make otherwise unrealistic claims, people will push back on you to support your claims.

It is you who make the unrealistic claim that the least represented group can't possibly be discriminated against. Provide strong evidence that they aren't discriminated against in education, then we can talk, until then it is fair to assume that DEI initiatives is pushing out poor white men in favor of other groups because that is what the statistics tells us.

It also tells us why rich people love DEI based on race and gender, it is because it only pushes out poor white men and not rich white men, rich white men are still there.

That’s because DIE is just apologetics for modern racism and colonialism:

Poor Whites, Jews, and Asians are acceptable sacrifices to the racists behind that movement — which resembles modern colonialism, eg, dividing a population by providing special privileges to an ethnic minority to ease your rule. Increasing rape and murder against natives in European countries is fine, as long as it disrupts their cultural coherence and makes them subjugated to groups like the WEF.

That’s why DIE was promoted by Wall St, WEF, et al: they wanted to end the class conscious discussion of their behavior, so they rebuilt the KKK, fostered grievance narratives, etc — as a way to bring the population to heel.

That’s frequently discussed in populist circles (eg, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, Vivek Ramaswathy) and why the working class is defecting from establishment politics (and particularly, the racist, neo-colonial Left).

This stuff you are saying is just ludicrous nonsense. The people you list are stupid assholes, especially Vivek who is a complete moron. There are plenty of reasons to worry about diversity, my point is it is done lazily as a game of 'less whites' because DEI programs are poorly run and it's easier for the low-iq, incompetent commissars who have been hired to run these programs to just go by what people look like. I don't think there is much of a coordinated agenda beyond incompetence.

I’m moved by your deep argument of baldly asserting things are “ludicrous nonsense” and calling people “stupid assholes” or “morons”. You’ve wowed me with the depths of your insight.

Never mind that there’s an openly stated coordinated agenda by the largest financiers, such as BlockRock, to promote exactly those ideas through ESG programs — or that large international gatherings such as the one in Davos happening this week pointedly discuss how they’ll coordinate to implement that agenda.

Your ad hominems clearly discount those facts with sophisticated argument.

Yes, the narritives pushed by right wing popular internet personalities is nonsense. Sorry to be the one to tell you.

I’m from very similar circumstances and I’m sure you don’t want to see that harm perpetuated on the total 11M poor kids in America.

The solutions to child poverty are a mindmap of unpopular and politically-difficult policies. Nowhere is DEIB mentioned as even partially helping any poor child, non-white or otherwise. Currently, DEIB serves a different purpose than rescuing vulnerable people.

As a university professor, I can assure you that, in fact, “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are both identities that are specifically listed in DEI programs I am familiar with, for example special NIH fellowships for PhD sty to promote a diverse academia.

I’m sorry that you were misinformed.

You are the one that is misinformed.

Here is the DEI dashboard for my university. Please point out where “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are mentioned? Because, very obviously, they only care about ethnicity and gender.

https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/Dashboard/Diversity-and-Inclusion/...

This is specifically what I had in mind: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-20-0...

Keep in mind that administrative programs like DEI offices are often unsupported virtue signaling. What matters is government and private funding, and there are absolutely opportunities in both arenas for support for “heterosexual white males” who come from unusual backgrounds.

In your case, I’d suggest NSF graduate fellowships and the Simon’s foundation.

> administrative programs like DEI offices are often unsupported virtue signaling

That isn't what it looks like from the outside. The explanation circulating for how Claudine Gay ended up president of Harvard is that Harvard's DEI office was allowed to veto any candidate who wasn't diverse.

Probably because universities promote those programs exclusively on protected class, not circumstance.

To the point that I believe claiming they’re focused on circumstance is a polite fiction to give cover for the institutional bigotry the Supreme Court condemned at Harvard and UNC.

Right on. Diversity is not about diversity.

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