[wccrawford]

I do think that pointing at someone's physical body and saying, "They bring diversity because they're X!" is wrong.

However, I do think that gender and race have an influence on your thought processes because of who you tend to associate with.

In addition, she spent 15 years in China, which is definitely not very common here in the US. That alone means she's going to think somewhat differently than the average engineer.

And finally, a lack of diversity in a group (all white hetero males, for example) indicates an attempt to exclude diversity, though perhaps subconsciously.

[jriot]

A group of white males can be diverse, we just don't accept it.

Do you think a group of white males who went to Stanford, MIT etc... right after high school, are the same as those who joined the military, yet now work in the same company?

[malcolmgreaves]

They will have a common thread: they all will be recipients of privileged treatment by society. That is indeed a crucially important fact that will share their attitudes and perspectives.

[briandear]

White male coal miners, it could be argued, have had a lot less privilege than a Bobo Stanford grad female accountant. Nancy Pelosi has had a heck of a lot more privilege than some laid off Detroit auto worker.

Elizabeth Holmes, who’s father was Christian Holmes IV, a former Vice President of Enron, was a lot more privileged than pretty much anyone reading this now.

The idea that gender alone determines privilege is ridiculous. It’s far more complex. Yet hiring a pedigreed Elizabeth Holmes would be “diversity” but hiring some West Virginia white male community college grad from a coal miner family would be “Privilege.” That’s ridiculous. Hiring a black Princeton grad is “diversity” but hiring a white University of El Paso grad is “privilege.”

If people really care about diversity, they’d hire for diversity of experience or diversity of thought rather than diversity of biology.

[malcolmgreaves]

Please do some.more reading on what white privilege is. You are confusing it for physical or financial comfort: this is not an correct interpretation.

White privilege is seeing that politicians are mainly white men, that the people often cast as the heroes of movies and TV shows and books are white men, that nearly everything in society characterizes the "good guy" or the ideal person as being a white man. (I also hope that you learned about the history of how people of color, especially black men, where presented in society.)

It's also why white people are not afraid of being murdered by cops as they reach for their car registration and insurance. Or as they answer the door to a belligerent, entitled, drunk, off-duty cop who attempts to B&E into their home. [1] (This sort of thing never, ever happens to white people.)

The privilege isn't something as superficial as more money: it's significantly deeper. It's summarized as the notion that being a white man means every opportunity is available to you and there are no closed doors.

Perhaps a better way to think about it is that white privilege is the absence of any systematic biases or abuses based upon your gender or skin complexion.

[1] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/24/dallas-police-...

[jriot]

White males who enlisted in the military were not recipients of privileged treatment by society.

[malcolmgreaves]

Yes they are. You don't understand what white privilege is.

[mantas]

Come to eastern europe and tell more about white privilege...

[malcolmgreaves]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18305769

[jriot]

Seeing that you grew up in Massachusetts, went to CMU, and now live San Francisco, I can see why you hold that opinion.

Come visit me in Louisiana and I will show its a socio-economic issue, not a race issue.

[malcolmgreaves]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18305769

[zhangela]

Yep I completely agree that gender and race have an influence on our thought process, and perhaps the title of "I'm not diversity" is a tad overdramatic, because I _do_ bring in a unique perspective.

My goal with this post is to convince people to not just limit their views of diversity to race and gender, but also look beyond those 2 to care about the other ways each of us bring in diverse perspectives as well.

[malcolmgreaves]

Certainly: the objective is to ensure that perspectives are not systematically ignored.

However, please don't ignore history. Reality is not neat and tidy: there's never a blank slate from which to build anew. Everything real exists in context and has a past, which constrains its possible futures.

Correlation is an important concept because it is evidence of association. And while it's true that associations can be non causal, many associations are causal.

For example, let's run with this description: a white, heterosexual man with XY chromosomes living and growing up in America. There are few absolutely correct inferences made from such a description (e.g. that the individual was and is still benefiting from a soceity built by and for people like him). On the other hand, there are a number of inferences we can make about such an individual that are likely to be true. Or that street true to a varying degree. E.g. we might say that such an individual is likely to view people of color with disdain. Or view women as sexual obejects that exist soley for his pleasure.

Certainly those last two inferences are only correlative. While many men are taught to view women as sexual objects and many white people are taught to believe that people of color are inferior, one can never make such an inference with 0 error.

Working our way back to the conversation thread: correlations are useful for decision making. If I'm hiring people for software jobs, I cannot exclude anyone for their personal, core characteristics of their skin complexion, sex, gender, nationality, ancestry, or age. I can, however, realize that due to the soceity we live in and how it treats people, it's likely that the men applying to my (fictional) company are likely to have some similar viewpoints. And that my woman applicants are also likely to have some similar viewpoints, which are going to be different from the men. Similar reasoning to all of those other characteristics I mentioned above. Knowing history and observing society, I would certainly use such society-level correlations to inform my recruiting strategy.

E.g. Do men take proactive steps to ensure they aren't victims of sexual assualt? On the whole, they do not. Conversely, women often think about this reality and plan around it -- "go out with a friend" or "call me when you get home" or "walk with your keys through the fingers of your hand when you go to your car at night" or "carry pepper spray on your bag". If I'm making a ride sharing service, I better take into consideration that a room full of white men probably won't think about drivers sexually assaulting passengers.

I sincerely hope that my writing here is insightful and informative as to why gender and racial diversity are important in cultivating intellectual and emotional diversity.

[lucozade]

So, to paraphrase, you believe it's entirely reasonable to hire based on stereotypes.

It's not clear from this whether it's just your stereotypes that are acceptable or can anyone join in?

As an aside, I happen to find your gross characterisations objectionable. And yes, I find your writing insightful and informative. But not in a good way.

[malcolmgreaves]

> So, to paraphrase, you believe it's entirely reasonable to hire based on stereotypes.

That's not at all what I wrote. I wrote that due to how society treats certian groups of people, there is a bag of correlated effects that members of said group have likely experienced. Therefore, it's also likely that those same individuals have had certian life experiences that members of other groups are likely to not have experienced. If you're for bringing different experiences to the table and you ignore this, then I'd seriously doubt your motivations.

[malcolmgreaves]

https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/30/technology/uber-driver-sexu...

[lambda_lover]

Absolutely agreed. However, I don't think spending 15 years in China is a particularly rare trait in tech work -- a very good chunk of the people I work with in tech on a day-to-day basis were born and raised in a foreign country (typically China, India, or Russia, though there's a very long tail there). In fact, my own background (that of a very, very, small rural US town) who went to a liberal arts college is extremely rare in my own experience in tech. Of course, I'm a white heterosexual so I'm considered a member of "the majority"...

Diversity metrics based on the color of your skin or the country where you were born are an awful way to assess actual diversity of thought. It's much more about your own personal experiences regardless of your environment. It's a shame that's hard to quantify so everyone ignores it.

[mantas]

Or perhaps they use a different metric of diversity and just hire regardless of popular physical groupings.