[threeseed]

There is the theory. And there is the reality.

The theory says it shouldn't matter who you are it should only be based on your professional ability. And in theory it wouldn't make a difference to the ability of a company to function whether the gender or racial mix was one sided or not.

The reality is different. The reality is that having a uniform gender and race mix across a company causes all sorts of problems to the culture which in turn flows through to the companies actions and behaviours. And so if you want your company to be healthy you need to have at least some mix of men and women and races because the fact is that employees simply behave differently when there is a mix.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

How does this reality, this idea that companies are dysfunctional if gender and race are uniform, fit the data of the previous few thousand years of human progress?

Has the world changed? Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race?

[danhon]

Hold the front page, groups of uniform gender-race people have acted cordially to people who aren't the same gender race for thousands of years? Citation needed.

[aaron-lebo]

I believe what he's saying is that without the action of individuals within certain groups, it would be impossible for those in groups without power to progress. If they were uniformly racist and sexist, then progress could not have been made.

That's to say they are capable of it, not that it's ideal or that they were responsible solely for progress. Most abolitionists were not African-American.

[obstinate]

> Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race?

"No longer?" At what point did they ever?