Exactly. That's what the parent comment is saying. But they are thinking about the entire funnel, not just the end of it. By the time a slate of candidates reaches a company's hiring process, there has already been an immense selection bias against minority candidates.
Two people growing up in different places (not different cities, but different neighborhoods within the same city) have lived in completely different worlds. Their schools are different; their health care is different; their safety is different; their opportunities are different; the people they know are different. And much of the time there's a stark racial difference in the makeup of those places. Historically this was very much intentional; but even if it were no longer intentional, the effects won't dissipate for a long time.
So when you get a slate of candidates that all happen to be white, it's not just a random coincidence. Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right?
Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate. But that's not going to happen any time soon. So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out. In other words, candidates that are strong, but, say, don't know anyone that works at microsoft (no surprise there... two worlds) or perhaps don't think they're good enough.
The article points to a rising black employee population has some kind of evidence of injustice, but, if the company works harder to find qualified black candidates then obviously the percentage would rise. Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does) then improving a hiring process would result in an employee population that more closely matches the demographics of the population at large.
But at the end of the day, it's still evil racism.
Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty.
So if you apply a racist filter on top of the (implicit) wealth filter, you're just being racist against poor Asian & white people.
This is false. But let me charitably engage your argument and ask you the following -- if your premise is correct, that means that lower access to education and economic attainment among under represented people of color has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with...something. What is that thing? Why would it be the case that, as Philosopher Liam Bright says, "the people who have the stuff still tend to be white, and blacks must still sell our labour to them if we are to get by"?
The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). The main difference seems to be cultural values that prioritize the nuclear family and educational attainment. The SAT isn't racist, poor black people who study do far better than rich white people who don't.
If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with.
Wasn't there a Harvard study that concluded the biggest factor was a 2 parent household?
Do you have a source for this? Not for debate, I'm genuinely wondering where the information comes from. From time to time I've heard things about people from Nigeria being hardworking - haven't looked into it very deep though.
This might actually be the best plausible argument in favor of affirmative action and D&I policies targeted towards these folks. By making it easier for them to enter especially high-skilled industry sectors such as tech we strengthen their incentive for adopting more effective cultural norms, which has significant benefits in the longer run.
(Unfortunately, this won't do any good if the educational system as a whole is not up to reasonable standards - if you're uneducated, you're still practically barred from the most productive and lucrative careers. And U.S. K-12 public education sucks.)
Edit: according to this study, there is no race achievement gap—it is entirely accounted for by poverty
https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-dete...
But you're not arguing that we give opportunities to people without good access to education and poor finances. You're arguing we give opportunity based off race. In fact, there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education. If you really wanted to increase opportunities for such people you wouldn't accomplish it by judging by race.
More total or more per-capita?
Wealth, Poverty, and Poltics reads like a textbook, but provides a wealth of information about causes of disparity that have nothing to do with racism. Similarly, conquest and cultures talks a lot about disparate impact throughout history.
One of the foundational tenets of CRT is that all racial disparity is caused by systemic racism, and, therefore, that all racial disparity must be addressed by systemic change until there are equal outcomes. This idea is fundamentally wrong on a billion levels, and also insanely harmful to society. It is one of the main reasons, if not the primary reason, why CRT is so wrong and so dangerous. When you diagnose the illness so completely wrong, and then diagnose the cause of the alleged illness so completely wrong, then, your prognosis is not only going to fail to improve anything, it's going to make things worse for everyone!
No.
So it's not about race. (I just gave you proof.)
It's about wealth and social class. Sure, those might correlate with race, and even be caused by racism (past or present), but virtually all real world consequences are downstream of wealth (in particular the ones mentioned: where you live, what you can afford, the amount of free time you have, your health, your nutrition, access to education/jobs, ...).
If you ignore wealth and focus on race, you're racist.
Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US. If we are trying to give opportunity to impoverished people we would judge by poverty. If we want to live in a racist society then we would judge by race.
Where are you people getting these stats? This is being repeated elsewhere and is not based in reality at all.
These things aren't mutually exclusive, stop trying to project them as such.
I agree, it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, but blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair.
>So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel
With racism... and honestly this entire process is annoyingly indirect... just apply a racial quota and don't BS me.
> Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate.
People sure are obsessed with this narrative that affirmative action is all about preventing too many whites from getting jobs. This isn't the 60s, most of the people who are getting the bump are asian not white and it's not even close. This narrative doesn't work because it's nearly impossible to explain how asians ended up in the span of around a century ended up way behind whites and getting discriminated against to shooting past them in income.
> Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does)
If you claim that people can get worse healthcare, worse schools, worse safety, worse opportunities, and know less connected people and still think they perform equally at a job? Well you actually are still predicting performance, you're predicting that certain groups are stoic supermen. Whereas other groups are a bunch of losers who couldn't even be better at their job despite growing up with every advantage in the world. So not only have you not gotten away from predicting performance based on skin colour, now you're also predicting privilege based on skin colour, so you've doubled your race based assumptions.
Personally I'm just so done with the racist theories and the mental gymnastics people play around this data. If people want to reserve jobs for people of different identity groups, fine, lets do it for the sake of racial harmony so we can all sing songs together holding hands interracially in a circle.
Incorrect, for these aren't the same thing: one has existed for a long time and the other is a sudden change. The latter begs an explanation, and it's there: deliberate management manipulation of the candidate pool. It's therefore understandable that co-workers will see such hires/promotions as based in part on factors beyond performance.
In which direction was the manipulation? How do you prove that the pool manipulation was neutral before and is now favouring blacks, rather than it was disadvantaging blacks and has now moved to a more neutral postion?
"has existed for a long time" is just an appeal to tradition. It says nothing about the validity or correctness of the previous situation.
Anonymize the applicants. You can determine what a neutral pool is by removing the ability to discriminate between applicants of different race, gender, etc.
Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they).
> So a good thing to do is apply some pressure
Why is it good? Author talks about not being able to hire for several months due to lack of DIE candidates in the pipeline.
Of course a giant like Microsoft can afford to waste resources, but for a lot of startups doubling down on DIE means to literally die.
In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
Why would that be odd? You just quoted the author as saying they looked for months to find non-white candidates and failed. Do you work in tech? That's the norm. If someone tried to hire for a tech position and got a slate of entirely non-white candidates, that would be entirely remarkable.
> Why is it good?
It's good because if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased and therefore sub-optimal. It's good because we enslaved a population for generations and then tried as hard as possible to keep them out of the middle class, and I think that's a bad thing.
So 0.1% of engineers in the funnel should be Amish and 18% should be younger than 14.
There might be a flaw in your logic.
Jokes aside, this is maliciously reductive. There's too many factors contributing to the funnel (location, sourcing channels, employer, job preference, hiring market state) that makes predictions about funnel virtually impossible. But you already know it. You're not here for the truth, you're here to push your ideology.
> It's good because we enslaved a population for generations
My ancestors were thousands of miles away from US territory when slavery happened. In fact, it is quite likely they were slaves themselves. And yet you're saying I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes just because of my skin color.
That sounds quite racist to me. Luckily, my skin is not only white, it's also thick.
> I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes
Whose crimes, the person you're replying to? Do you believe in some sort of original sin handed down by your ancestors? Your blood is pure because your ancestors were victims, but GP's blood is tainted because their ancestors were slave owners? You're making some seriously insane judgements based on a person's ancestry.
And who's paying any price anyway? Hiring from a limited pool of candidates is sub-optimal. What price are you even talking about?
Or perhaps it is not your business to decide what blacks should think?
Imagine if you're hiring in a region where blacks are 10% of the population, but only 1% of resumes you receive are black folks (and if your pool of candidates is low, 1% can literally mean zero candidates).
Your mindset seems to be "those poor blacks don't understand which jobs they should apply to. I know better than them, I'll help them". You still think you are superior to them. You're not a hateful racist, you're a virtuous racist. Still a racist though.
Maybe, maybe not. In either case, two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to eliminate discrimination then you need to stop discriminating. The solution is not to counter-discriminate, it's to remove the discrimination further up the funnel, to use your analogy.
In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
It doesn't help when students are under-qualified for the schools that they get into. It hurst every party.
In the end black people with diplomas end up college educated with fancy but useless degree, still underemployed, with giant student loans accruing % every day and living paycheck to paycheck.
Literally modern servitude reinvented, what an irony
The top comment doesn't care about that at all, skin color is all that matters. It's about group identity, not differences in backgrounds. They'd give Obama's daughter "a foot in the door" over the daughter of some white hillbillies that is the first in her family to finish high school. Because obviously: group identity is paramount.
"So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out."
Imagine you're one of the non-minorities who worked hard and misses out because of an artificial pressure. How do I explain to my kid that all else equal they will lose to another candidate because of not being a minority (assume this is similar to minorities of the past; however the results are mixed)? What's the point of trying hard in school? What's the point of working hard at work? These are the types of questions I'm starting to struggle with in real life. Teach the kid the same stuff I was taught (lies), or disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc?
They'll pick it up all on their own.
I have seen exactly zero people suggest that. That's how I know it's made up.
https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp...
https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow...
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell...
https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell...
The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. In fact, all of history, as well as the state of the universe itself, testify that this should not be the case! Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. The world is complex, and the causes for disparity are too numerous to list and impossible to even attempt to measure or tease apart in their impacts. Sowell has written about numerous causes of disparity between groups that have nothing to do with racism or any societal injustice, and the above book examples are just a small portion of what he has written.
What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Therefore, we must fix it through systemic racism in the opposite direction! This kind of thinking is broken, flawed, and completely incorrect to the core, and acting on it simply leads to more injustice, more unfairness, and more disparity of different kinds. It is an ideology born of intellectual pride, moral vanity, and an utter lack of wisdom.
Actually it has as much evidence as you have time. Take a big bag of fair dice, and split them randomly into two groups. Actually, split them however you want, whatever "lines of demarcation" you choose. Then roll them and apply literally any measure of literally any statistical outcome you want.
Oh shit, it turns out: in a just world, outcomes along arbitrary lines of demarcation are roughly even! Every time!
> Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history.
So? You need to assert that history has been just to different groups for this to be evidence to support your statement about what happens in a just world. Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one.
> What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions.
Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others, and you need to split the groups based on this reason. Remember: any arbitrary split must necessarily have roughly equal outcomes in a just world. If the world is just, any clear variance from equal outcomes must be due to some intrinsic differences in the dice themselves.
Let's say we split humans into two groups based on whether their birthday is an even or odd number (day of the month). This is a line of demarcation between groups of humans. Let's use your first sentence here:
> The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it.
So this is where we disagree, right? I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure. It's a clearly arbitrary line. But you say there's no evidence to support that. Really? Really? Do you really believe that the odd-birthday group would be significantly different in outcome than the even-numbered, in any way? Of course not. In literally any "outcome" measure you could come up with, these two groups are indistinguishable.
Let's say we split humans into two groups based on biological sex. Would we expect to see any differences in any outcomes? Of course: there are differences in average height, muscle mass, sexual preferences, arrangement of sex organs, etc. There are actual intrinsic differences between these groups that account for some differences in outcomes, even in a just world.
Now let's say we split humans into two groups based on skin color. Uh-oh. We see huge differences in outcomes here. Can we explain it by intrinsic differences? Careful. There are really only two options here: either the world is not just, or skin color is not arbitrary. Asserting the second is literal racism: you're saying there's something naturally different about people with black skin that accounts for their vastly greater rates of poverty even in a just world. That's textbook racism, and, even worse, plain-old incorrect. It's also simply not logically necessary, because we know the world has not been just. Very, very not-just to that particular group, in fact.
> If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism!
Such a vapid strawman argument. This bullshit only works if we've never actually observed systemic racism. Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe. Systemic racism did happen, and in many cases is still happening, and then later we observe that there is also racial disparity. These "leftists" go "hey, maybe the racial disparity we see now has something to do with all that systemic racism that was going on for hundreds of years" and you pretend like this is some unfounded conclusion-jumping?
Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened. So many of your points sound completely asinine when you re-read them with that in mind.
You aren’t wrong to think black Americans are the victims of systemic racism; the problem is that most the “systemic racism” that operates today is an unintended consequence of well-meaning liberal policies, as Sowell has discussed for decades now.
If you think human outcomes follow a simple normal distribution in a just world, then you are making the exact prime mistake I already pointed out; which is dramatically, and I mean dramatically, over-simplifying the world. Seriously: read some Thomas Sowell. Nothing about this world or this universe is normally distributed.
> Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one.
What is "just"? Think hard before you answer that one. Actually, read "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" and the "Intellectuals and Society" by Sowell. You'll find that the social justice version of justice is vastly different from what people have historically thought of as justice. It is also, in my estimation, far more unjust, unfair, harmful, and evil than the traditional view. It is an arrogant ideology based on a belief that one has the power to shape the world, and all of society within it, according to one's whims, rather than a proper respect for the fact that we are brief sojourners in a vast, complex, and powerful universe, and a planet filled with billions of complex individuals.
> Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others,
You should read "Discrimination and Disparities" By Thomas Sowell, where he quickly crushes the normal distribution hypothesis for economic outcome. He shows through very simple examples, which are still dramatically over-simplifying the world, where there are multiple preconditions for success, and where missing even one precondition results in the same failure as missing all of them. This model alone completely disproves a normal distribution hypothesis, even in a world where the preconditions are distributed randomly. And, not to sound like a broken record, the preconditions are not distributed randomly or evenly in any way, not by nature or time themselves.
> I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure.
Nice assertion, but do you even have any scientific data to back it up? And, even if it you did, and I actually can't find any by searching, it would simply provide evidence that your birthday modulo 2 likely doesn't impact economic outcomes. But we can, of course, find economic disparity everywhere for a thousand different reasons. Firstborns on average have higher IQs and better economic outcomes than all other-borns. There is not random economic outcome distribution even within the same household and within the same genetic pool: http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/53/1/123.short.
In a world of universal economic disparity, the burden of proof is on you to show why things she be different and how. But, like your leftist forebears, you have no proof, only words and religious beliefs packaged into an ideology.
> Can we explain it by intrinsic differences?
You can explain it a billion different ways. The question is: who is right, and how do you prove it? Read "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Sowell, and "Intellectuals and Race" while you're at it. You'll find plenty of explanations that have nothing to do with either racism or of innate genetic differences. It is proponents of CRT who need to prove themselves, but because they are in vogue culturally, they get away with their evidence-less assertions without any pushback.
> Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe.
It's good leftists didn't make them up, since leftists, namely, the democrat party, were primarily responsible for all of those things over the past 200 years. They didn't make it up because they mostly caused it! And again, correlation does not imply causation, such a basic statistical truism that CRT theorists love to ignore. Just because there was racism, even just because there still is racism, doesn't mean that racism is the primary cause of economic disparity, or, even a major cause at all! Sowell has written about multiple minority groups in different countries, who, despite being oppressed by real racism, and not the made up CRT kind, managed to prosper economically far above and beyond the majority population.
> Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened.
Go read "The real history of slavery" and "Conquest and Cultures" by Sowell. In fact, we are probably more educated on slavery than you are, judging from your performance in this debate. The only racists are people like you who think that the appropriate reaction to disparity is real, explicit racism against those with "privileged" skin color. But, really, you're just following a long tradition of the political left being racist.
I realize this conversation is a waste of time, but maybe one day you'll listen, educate yourself on reality, and develop a better-functioning moral compass.
Edit: I just want to take a moment to point out how unscientific you are with your statements, like: "Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to provide a reason why...."
I don't know what leftist education you paid for or in what university, but in a just world you deserve that loan forgiveness Biden is offering. Science is about making a hypothesis, and then, you yourself objectively gathering evidence that could either support or refute that hypothesis, and only then making a conclusion that is backed by your data. You, of course, did the opposite. You made a hypothesis, that economic outcomes between humans "should" be normally distributed, concluded it must be true, and, finally you put it on other people to disprove it. That's, anti-science! And, no, comparing human beings to six-sided dice is not scientific evidence. You might have missed that in your education as well.
Similarly, you assert that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome, yet fail to provide any scientific evidence. Yours is a world of cult-like ideology and secular religion, where evidence is irrelevant, or an afterthought.
Like this one:
> since leftists, namely, the democrat party, were primarily responsible for all of those things over the past 200 years
That is so inane it does not even deserve a response. You've given away that you're not arguing in good faith.
> Similarly, you assert that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome, yet fail to provide any scientific evidence
This comment illustrates this well. You know that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome. You know that that's the case. There is not a shadow of a doubt in your mind that that is obviously correct. But of course whoever you're arguing with must provide mountains of scientific evidence (at which point you would undoubtedly move the goal posts), whereas you're allowed to get away with "simply" making semi-rational arguments and quoting, over and over, literally one source, who (according to wikipedia):
> Sowell was an important figure to the new conservative movement during the Reagan Era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Oof. Double-oof. So this singular person you're relying on for all your backup was an important figure to the most awful presidency of the modern era, the start of an economic plague that has allowed the rich to loot and ransack this nation's prosperity and dramatically worsened the very racial and socioeconomic disparities at the heart of this argument, and a corrupt Supreme Court justice who is a major leader in a movement to destroy democracy in the U.S. and replace it with a peusdo-Christian Theology. Yikes.
I came here prepared to reply with more rational discussion, but like always, the longer you talk to racism-apologists, the more you see the facade unraveling, the bad-faith arguments, and the goalposts moving. It's not worth it.
