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Comment by breakyerself | Hacker News Reader

There's no such requirement to hire proportional amounts of every ethnicity. There are requirements not to discriminate. Which isn't the same thing.

When companies do make an effort to give everyone a fair shot there's a tendency for mediocre white men to lose out to more qualified minorities. The companies get better employees and more diverse perspectives.

Then those white men feel spurned. They imagine they weren't hired because they're white. It's an easier pill to swallow and then the next thing you know DEI is the great Satan of low IQ white men.

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Can you show me where the “mediocre white men” are on this chart?: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/med-1.png?x97...

Are the “mediocre white men” the ones with a 27-29 MCAT/3.4-3.59 GPA, who have a 21% chance of admission to medical school whereas a hispanic student in that same range has a 61% chance? Are those the “mediocre white men” you’re talking about?

> The companies get … more diverse perspectives

That makes no sense. The premise of non-discrimination laws is that someone’s ethnic background doesn’t affect their “perspectives” in ways that are material to employment.

That isn't the premise. The premise is that discriminating is morally wrong.

Also when did we change the subject to college admissions?

> The premise is that discriminating is morally wrong

Yes. And the clearest evidence we have of anyone doing that at scale in modern times is DEI programs in college and medical school admissions.

So why is it unreasonable for the people you call “mediocre white men” to conclude they’re being discriminated against? If Harvard and other elite universities are willing to go to the Supreme Court to defend such discrimination, doesn’t it stand to reason—absent data to the contrary—that the myriad companies and institutions run by graduates of those universities are doing the same thing?

[1] Those numbers are medical school admissions, but the numbers for college admissions is similar: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti...

>the clearest evidence we have of anyone doing that at scale in modern times is DEI programs in college

Congratulations you found the one place where a black person might have an advantage. Meanwhile virtually every other aspect of American society disadvantages black people and the supreme court ruled against those colleges.

http://www.racialdisadvantages.com

College admissions and the job market are apples and oranges. It isn't actually safe to assume the same thing must be happening in both. It isn't. There's an unofficial affirmative action favoring white people across much of the job market.

> Can you show me where the “mediocre white men” are on this chart?

I think you will find that they tend to be at home, according to this graph https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/2023-demograp....

From the report 'Specifically, Black males received sentences 13.4 percent longer, and Hispanic males received sentences 11.2 percent longer, than White males'

So, based on your own logic, you would argue for higher prison sentences for whites? It's all well and good to whine about 'discrimination' in one narrow area, but few have the courage to oppose discrimination when it benefits them.

> So, based on your own logic, you would argue for higher prison sentences for whites?

Yes. Your report shows that white men are more often given probation, which explains much of the difference. That should stop. Throw those fuckers in prison.

Your report also shows that black women received 6% shorter sentences than white women. So there seems to be more at work here than black versus white. We need less discretion in sentencing across the board.

> It's all well and good to whine about 'discrimination' in one narrow area, but few have the courage to oppose discrimination when it benefits them.

That describes people who point to sentencing disparities to justify affirmative discrimination in school admissions and employment.

> That should stop. Throw those fuckers in prison.

And yet, if I look at your comment history, you seem hyper focused on discrimination in admissions. I don't see a single instance where you even attempted to advocate for broader elimination of discrimination. It has always been a few narrow instances where whites were on the receiving end.

You’ve got it backwards. There’s 19 million people in college and graduate school, compared to under 2 million people in prison. And my contention is that the discrimination in admissions carries through to the workforce, at least to white collar jobs. There’s 70 million people in white collar jobs.

Agreed, but wouldn't you also say that being in prison has an arguably greater impact in later life?

> There's no such requirement to hire proportional amounts of every ethnicity. There are requirements not to discriminate. Which isn't the same thing.

How will you prove and prosecute supposed discrimination?

> When companies do make an effort to give everyone a fair shot there's a tendency for mediocre white men to lose out to more qualified minorities. The companies get better employees and more diverse perspectives.

I just don't agree with this idea of "giving a more fair shot" if it's enforced because what it really is is slowing down hiring processes and second guessing people's judgments. I don't like it to bolster diversity and I don't like it to cut diversity (what many white nationalists in the US wish would happen in industries that hire from abroad like tech).

It's also not even defined what a fair shot means - once you discard merit and start trying to counter for all kinds of past or inherent disadvantages there is really no end to it.

A fair shot would be hiring based on qualifications and not race, relion, etc. There seems to be no end to people wanting to perpetuate a status quo that advantages themselves. You might feel differently if you were part of a group that faces discrimination at every turn.

How will you prove and prosecute supposed discrimination?

Usually someone who feels discriminated against will get legal representation, file a lawsuit, and use the discovery process to strengthen their case. They can compare their treatment to that of people who don't share their minority status. They can show internal communications. Call witnesses. compare the companies workforce to other similarly positioned companies.

> because what it really is is slowing down hiring processes and second guessing people's judgments

1. So what?

2. People's judgement should be second guessed if they're racist.

3. One of the easiest ways to reduce discrimination in hiring is to replace names on resumes with numbers before letting hiring managers access them. Which barely slows down anything and eliminates a variable that isn't relevant to the candidates qualifications.

Wow that’s racist

How?

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