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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

People get defensive because the image presented is precisely that there's a problem with demographics being "too white" and "too male". For instance, today CNN presented this:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/technology/google-white-male... ("Google: Overwhelmingly white and male")

> I don't think Google was trying to shame itself over its own white male percentages

I'm not sure what other conclusion you can draw when Google says "we're not where we want to be" and the giant pie chart slices are 70% male, 61% white. They were apologizing and acting contrite about _something_, don't you think? The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

It absolutely is an attack -- not by Google directly, but by our culture which strives to make whites feel ashamed about who they are. I don't blame Google, they're looking out for their best interests. They don't want to get slammed for having too many white dudes in their ranks.

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Poor white males, when will they ever catch a break in our culture?

> The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY you're ignoring the "attack" perceived by minorities who see things like 1% black tech employment rates and see mainly systemic bias. It has the appearance of avoiding the issue experienced by minorities.

I'm basing it on the mainstream media's coverage of the announcement honing in on "too many white guys" (when in reality whites are under-represented at Google and the male percentage is in line with candidate demographics, if not skewed more towards females) and ignoring the fact that Asians are incredibly over-represented at Google. One thing is seen as a "problem", the other isn't. You must have blinders on if you're not paying attention to how this announcement has been interpreted.

This has to be addressed at the middle school and high school level. Could Google do a better job, probably, but they are picking from a tiny pool of black CS grads.

> By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY

Come on, man! He's not doing that! He was responding to this claim you made just two posts above:

> I don't think anyone is saying that white men are a "problem". There's so much defensiveness in these counter-articles coming out as though this is some specific attack on white males.

Despite Asian people being overrepresented and White people being underrepresented—in fact, despite Asian men being the most overrepresented of the demographics listed by Google (honestly: congrats!)—CNN and other media go for the fashionable target: White men.

It's interesting: When Asian people succeed, White people admire their hard work and determination. When White people succeed, White people feel shame and guilt.

> When White people succeed, White people feel shame and guilt.

I think that's an exaggeration. When's the last time whites felt shame about Buffett's or Gate's success?

The problem for minorities or women is that it seems like every time race or gender is brought up in tech, the majority comes out in droves to steer the conversation into a discussion of white male hardship while also completely avoiding or the dismissing the original issues brought up about minorities and women in the workforce.

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