Hacker News Reader

Comment by doodyhead | Hacker News Reader

Although it's fairly straightforward to distinguish between gender and sexual orientation, I disagree with these traditional US categories of ethnicity.

Take a 'White' person, for instance: is a White American the same as a White Englishman, or a White Australian? What about a White Frenchman? These are all classified as 'White' but could potentially be vastly different in terms of diversity.

The same argument could be made with the other ethnicities. The 'Asian' category -- are they Chinese, Japanese, Filipino..? Or an American Asian immigrant -- Chinese-American, etc.

If you're aiming for diversity that's representative of your customer base, then surely your measure of ethnicity has to be more granular.

View on HN

Yes, race and ethnicity are socially constructed and are fluid.

No, however much you try to whitewash it, 70-30-3-4-5 is as shitty as it gets outside of legalized segregation.

Whites are 78% of the US population, so being 70% of Google's population is a pretty fair representation. Asians are over-represented though. What exactly do you think is "fair"? I'm guessing having fewer than 50% whites at Google.

Why would you guess that? Clearly the non-asian minorities figures are abominable.

Because "diversity" is code for "there's too many white people here." I highly doubt anyone would complain about diversity if Google were 61% black (just like no one complains about the NFL and NBA's appalling lack of diversity).

Either way, to boost non-Asian minority percentages you've got to take away from the white or Asian percentages. Hmm... who do you think's gonna be on the receiving end of that rebalancing?

The point is that in reality Google is not 61% Black. If it were, you'd have a point.

And people do complain about lack of diversity in the NFL/NBA, on both sides.

These are such small percentages that you wouldn't even need to reduce head count to increase representation, just hire a few more workers. But even if they did have to replace, why are you so focused on saving every last White or Asian soul to the detriment of addressing the problem?

> why are you so focused on saving every last White or Asian soul to the detriment of addressing the problem?

Because I take offense to people saying that having a majority of white workers at a company located in a white majority country is a "problem".

Well, minorities take offense at having a 2-5% rate of employment in a 37% non-White country so you can pick your problem, but don't just assume your personal concerns trump all others.

What do you think the 99th percentile of SAT scores look like race-wise?

Before decrying lack of diversity in field X, demonstrate presence of one in the pool of qualified candidates.

> Before decrying lack of diversity in field X, demonstrate presence of one in the pool of qualified candidates.

No, after identifying the lack of diversity in field X (or, in the case, Company G), finding the lack of diversity in the pool of qualified candidates tells you where you need to work if you care about diversity. But it doesn't mean "there's no problem to do anything about" -- as Google recognizes, hence whey they point to the steps they are taking to address the problems of lack of diversity in the pool of qualified candidates.

Your comment presumes that diversity is something that is axiomatically desired. I don't - just like I don't order my bookshelf based on gender/race of the authors and decry lack of diversity there.

I personally only care about it as far as principle of fairness. Ie if one can show that company X discriminates against persons Y (by demonstrating that sufficient number of qualified candidates Y are turned away) - then it would register on my radar. Otherwise I consider 'diversity' as a tool to push through quotas that I personally detest.

No, it doesn't presume that diversity is axiomatically desired. It has as an explicit condition ("if you care about...") that it is desired, but whether such desire is axiomatic or a consequence of an a posteriori conclusion about instrumental utility of diversity makes no difference.)

And, while your statement of your personal biases about quotas are, I suppose, revealing of just that - your personal biases - I am not sure what you think they add to the discussion. Certainly, you can't think that a statement of what you consider diversity to be an a secret code word for unaccompanied by either evidence or logic justifying that consideration says anything about anything other than your own bias.

Your numbers add up to 112%. I'm also a little concerned that you can't think of something shittier than 61% white when it comes to diversity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com