[wtflmaohnisdumb]

Anecdotes:

Claiming racism and sexism will put off anyone in the center who may be convinced that there is a diversity problem. I would prefer the term "subconsciously biased against". It's not so much a concentrated group effort by everyone who hires to keep minorities down, but a subconscious effect caused by the media and constant anti-minority propaganda (only a few decades ago). Even minorities themselves are influenced by this (see: confidence issues).

It's not conducive to growth as a society or as individuals when you attack people who may otherwise be convinced to help you. The ones that are just blatantly racist are fair game (imo), though.

[weberc2]

I mostly agree, but the media (and a slew of other industries) are pro-minority, not anti-minority, so if the media are undermining minority confidence, it's not necessarily intuitive. Further, even the implicit bias theory has a lot working against it; chiefly, it is utterly dependant on the principle tool for measuring implicit bias, the IAT, which fails to actually predict bias or even return consistent results (in short, it fails basic psychology tool standards). Implicit or explicit bias may well be the cause of these disparities, but we shouldn't punish skeptics as severely as we have been doing given the dearth of supporting evidence.

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/psychologys-racism-meas...

[weberc2]

How prescient. WSJ published this the same day as my previous comment: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-false-science-of-implicit-b...

[wtflmaohnisdumb]

I can't see why you would be skeptical about bias given studies (not relying on IAT) showing that -- all else being equal -- people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks? The same goes with subtle class cues and identification. If IAT is broken, it's a broken tool. Not every bias test uses it.

The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over kneeling in protest is silly. Also when Fox News is still watched by a significant portion of Americans. Also when the media constantly shows minorities in negative situations (yes, it's reporting, and information, but that creates biases as well). I mean it's easier to internalize a minority doing a violent crime as "terrible" than it is a white male embezzling funds or something. In addition, a few decades ago the story was not the same. The people who grew up then have developed a bias due to the media and the people who are raised by the people who grew up then will also internalize some of it. Discrimination is not something solved in a generation.

EDIT: Edited my post a bit because I completely misread your comment.

[weberc2]

> Edited my post a bit because I completely misread your comment.

No worries. Sorry if I was hard to understand.

> people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks?

Assuming this is a consistently-reproducible finding (I'm aware of at least one study that finds no disparity), how far can we extrapolate this finding? On this basis alone, can we conclude that pay is lower for employed minorities than otherwise equivalent whites/males, or that workplaces are more hostile? Is it sufficient to change policy? Can we extrapolate this to tech specifically? Should we fire people who openly question our extrapolations?

> Not every bias test uses it.

No, but most do, and it's considered to be the best bias test in social psychology (a very low bar, due to the difficult and complex nature of divining motives). If you throw away the racial-bias research predicated on the IAT and other unreliable tests, what remains is largely anecdote.

> The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over kneeling in protest is silly.

I don't see why; rightly or wrongly, most of the media is sympathetic to the BLM side of the issue. Media reporting is widely considered (by the left and right) to be socially left-leaning, and it's self-evident that the media goes to great lengths to show minorities in the best-possible light. Of course some outlets are exceptions--like Fox News--but exceptions don't disprove the rule. Even if the media are horrible racists (90% of journalists are Democrats, so we should expect them to favor a pro-minority narrative, but even assuming this isn't the case...), they are compelled by self-interest to at least appear pro-minority (in which case, they are still pro-minority for all relevant purposes).

With sincere respect, if you really think the media is anti-minority, I don't see how you and I can have a reasonable, agreeable, productive conversation about bias in tech, and maybe we should just let this thread die.

EDIT: Some edits made to improve clarity/organization.

[SamReidHughes]

> I can't see why you would be skeptical about bias given studies (not relying on IAT) showing that -- all else being equal -- people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks

Studies like that generally tend not to replicate, including at least one specifically about race and names on resumes.