Would you rather them have less qualified speakers for the sake of equality? give it a rest.
If you could find someone beige AND fifty with 40,000 points on hacker news, a popular blog, and experience keynoting conferences, that would be great, wouldn't it?
Give it a rest.
Whoa, nellie!
That isn't the argument, not by a long shot. Let's take race out of this. I organize a tech conference. All the speakers are cyclists. Why? Because I asked everyone I knew personally to speak.
I am not prejudiced against non-cyclists, it just so happens that because I cycle, I know a lot of cyclists socially. There is no malicious intent, but the result is not representative of the world we live in, just of a small pocket of the world.
Furthermore, I have absolutely and positively overlooked speakers like Sandi Metz who are cyclists, but don't ride in Ontario, or Pete Forde, who lives in Toronto but doesn't ride. Whereas, if I sat down with the plan from the start to canvas the best speakers available, I would have cast a wider net than just my personal friends.
I have no idea what process those organizers used, but judging by the result, it did not include reaching out to a large number of qualified speakers.
Nobody is saying "Nominate less qualified speakers" but what this seems to be saying essentially is "Nominate women because they are women". And nobody is saying Don't overlook qualified speakers who happen to be brown, beige, female, and/or fifty years old they're saying look at your speaker lineup and balance it out based on race/gender and age. They're advocating a purely aesthetic exercise which unfortunately just further stigmatizes those it's trying to help (i.e. "She's here because they just needed some women to balance out the lineup").
You people make me despair. It’s always the same shit.
Whoa, nellie!
That isn't the argument, not by a long shot. Let's take race out of this. I organize a tech conference. All the speakers are cyclists. Why? Because I asked everyone I knew personally to speak.
I am not prejudiced against non-cyclists, it just so happens that because I cycle, I know a lot of cyclists socially. There is no malicious intent, but the result is not representative of the world we live in, just of a small pocket of the world.
Furthermore, I have absolutely and positively overlooked speakers like Sandi Metz who are cyclists, but don't ride in Ontario, or Pete Forde, who lives in Toronto but doesn't ride.
Whereas, if I sat down with the plan from the start to canvas the best speakers available, I would have cast a wider net than just my personal friends.
OI have no idea what process those organizers used, but judging by the result, it did not include reaching out to a large number of qualified speakers.
So I raise my hand and ask, "Could this process be improved?" No accusation of deliberate malice or even incompetence, just asking how we can do this better.
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You're missing the point. The concern expressed about the predominantly white-dude lineups at popular conference IS NOT that individual conference organizers are purposefully excluding non-white-dude speakers. The people talking about these issues generally go out of their way to explain the difference between INDIVIDUAL bias and SYSTEMIC bias. The latter is not a matter of a conference organizer saying, "Hey! Let's make sure we don't have black speakers!" Instead, systemic bias is the way the status quo of a particular group or culture leads members to make assumptions or automatic decisions that UNINTENTIONALLY exclude certain people.
Think of a web developer building a new site. All of their friends use iOS, they use iOS, and although they don't have anything against Android, their unexamined default assumptions will steer them towards building the mobile version of the site with iOS in mind. Some Android users might still use it, and even get a lot out of it, but many will also be lost to bad UX collisions, mistaken assumptions about browser feature support, and so on. The result can easily turn into a spiral: Android users don't use our site, so working to support them would just be platform zealotry!
A stretched analogy? Perhaps. But it's an example of how unintentional assumptions can leave important groups of people -- with lots of really valuable stuff to contribute -- out in the cold unless work is done up front. It's not about tokenism, or quotas, or assuming bad faith and evil intentions. It's about keeping our eyes open, and listening when people say we're missing something important.
That is the most offensively ignorant thing I've ever read on HN. And I've been around a good long while.
Anyone who asserts that the color of an individual's skin implies something about that individual is a quintessential racist. It implies nothing about you as an individual. Anyone who says it does (including you), accepts the premises that every racist accepts: that a color somehow defines the identity or nature of that individual.
"Offensively ignorant" #1) I can't control what offends you, that's your choice. If you are offended, then choose not to be. #2) Ignorance means lack of knowledge or information. What specific information am I lacking in this context?
"I've been around a good long while." Again, no (rational) person in this forum cares how long you've been around. What does that have to do with my argument?
The "We aren't racist or sexist, we're colour-blind and gender-agnostic, we're a meritocracy, and it just happens to be the case that our country club is full of white people isn't important, and you people are racists/sexists for constantly trying to disrupt our happy existence" is old. If you know that, you need to do more than whip it out, you need to acknowledge the many, many arguments against it and explain why you don't think they apply.
If you don't know that, you are ignorant of the subject matter. If you know it but do not address it, you are trolling. Some people call that being "intellectually dishonest," but I prefer to say trolling.
Of course I identify myself by all of the my characteristics that have a significant contribution to my life's experience. I have size 11 feet, but that has never meant much to me, so I don't think of myself as a "Size 11 Guy." I've been assaulted on the street and called a "Nigger" and "Spook" by strangers, so guess what? My skin colour does contribute to defining my experience.
When you call that racist, you're either ignorantly redefining the word "racist" or trolling me. I prefer to think you're ignorant of the implications. Conflating having a life experience that has been affected by his skin colour with white supremacism and Jim Crow laws is wrong. It's also deeply offensive.
I'm offended. I choose to be offended. I choose to speak out against it. That's not the same thing as being "Jerry Springer" angry with you, or curling up in a fetal ball and sobbing, but it is enough to motivate me to act.
And let me tell you flat out, this "I'm not being offensive, you're just choosing to be offended" argument is nonsense, it's like that Simpson's episode where Bart windmills his arms and says "I'm just windmilling my arms, and walking forward, if you get hit that's your problem."
Do yourself a favour, and remove it from your toolbox of arguments.
A group of white males that were picked soley based on their ability and nothing else.
Orrrr....Something like this: http://cl.ly/image/0X0r0D090l0X, recruit a minority female, give her a lower job title and lump her in with the white males to look diversity friendly. Yay!
And speaking of false dichotomies, it's INCREDIBLY sexist to suggest that if a woman was be chosen, she was of lower quality than the men and was only picked for her gender. You're implying that women are not qualified to speak at conferences.
Edit: Just want to clarify that I think diversity in this field is a huge problem, and I care a lot about it, but the author's tone (he was immediately critical of organizers who may be innocent) and suggestion did not sit well with me.
I’m sorry, but an all-male lineup really is not so great. It may not be literally ‘inexcusable’, but it’s pretty damn close. When you then get a hostile response that doesn’t even attempt to excuse (maybe there is a valid excuse of some sort), then that behavior is literally inexcusable.
Yes, I do expect conference organizers to put extra effort into making sure the lineup is at least somewhat balanced. Just not being actively sexist (by, say, denying qualified female speakers) is most certainly not enough. When an all-male lineup is the result of their normal process then I do expect organizers to go the extra mile, looking for qualified female speakers. That’s all, and it’s really not that much to expect.
I expect no one to relax their criteria for selection, but I do expect people to search harder. I think that’s very much needed.