[drew-y]

I see where you're coming from and it's clear you have strong feelings on this matter. However, I believe there might be a misunderstanding here. The goal of diversity initiatives isn't about devaluing any particular group, it's about ensuring that the opportunities and benefits are more equitably distributed across different communities.

When someone mentions a 'lack of Black representation', they're not saying that non-Black members are less valuable because of their skin color. Rather, they're highlighting that there appears to be a systemic issue preventing people of that particular race from participating or advancing in that space. By addressing these systemic issues, we can make organizations more inclusive and more representative of the broader community.

Nobody is suggesting that people are exchangeable units defined solely by their skin color. On the contrary, it's recognized that everyone is unique and has a diverse set of skills, experiences, and perspectives to contribute.

This does not mean discarding merit or reducing people to their race, but rather acknowledging that societal, cultural, and systemic barriers have created unequal access to opportunities. The ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their race, has an equal opportunity to succeed.

[slily]

When were these supposed "systemic issues" ever identified? In my experience "systemic racism" is a vague pretext to implement racist policies that push out white people (and sometimes Asians) in favor of black people (and people considered "brown enough"). I see this at my job and at conferences: people are explicitly promoted or selected as speakers in part because they are not white (or not male). This isn't just something I observed, they say it openly when the "diversity", equity, and "inclusion" strategy is discussed. I've also seen conference attendees openly say that there should be fewer white males at a certain event.

In none of those cases was a specific policy or practice identified that would explain the existence of "systemic issues" preventing minorities from getting hired, promoted, selected, and that would justify implementing discriminatory policies (aka "affirmative action"). So ironically we're discriminating against the "majority" (white males) over something that's mostly imaginary, at least in the US tech industry, based on nothing but demographic statistics. The fact that there's fewer qualified people of a certain color (proportionally to overall demographics) in the pool isn't evidence of systemic racism at the level we're operating. Meanwhile you would get laughed at for suggesting that we need gender parity in waste management jobs, or early childhood education.

[dagmx]

There are actually lots of initiatives to increase gender diversity in early childhood education.

Also systemic bias exists. That’s not an arguable point because the US has a history of anti-black rules like red lining that affect opportunities till this day. Or rules like how women could manage their funds that held women back. Other countries similarly had rules like that against various demographics.

Things are better but generational issues still exist. The history of these things isn’t even so far ago that most millennials would be somehow unaffected.

[slily]

I don't disagree that historical systemic discrimination has effects that lasts generations and I'm not against affirmative action when applied carefully, but I think it's presumptuous and counterproductive to try to "counterbalance" a perceived systemic bias that occurred in the past at one level (for example in education), today at another level (employment or public speaking opportunities).

Equal opportunity was the right idea and technologies like the Internet helped equalize the playing field to the point that socio-economic background matters less than ever. Now we're regressing back to judging people first and foremost based on their skin color, sex, and even sexual orientation. I see my company's DEI leader making shameless statements saying that they will make sure to promote more "people from underprivileged groups" (that means people who are not white or Asian by their own definition) with no apparent regard for performance or merit. It's racist to a comical degree.

[dagmx]

The internet doesn’t equalize things like hiring and conference representation though. Imho it’s a complete non sequitur to this discussion about the real world.

I think assuming that the anonymity afforded by the internet extends to real life is naive.

[slily]

What does anonymity have to do with this?

The Internet gives you unparalleled access to information. There's virtually no barrier to learn about a subject you're interested in, especially software-related. You don't even have to be able to travel to a public library nowadays, which is what I did as a kid, reserving time slots on public computers to access the Internet. It's easier than ever to teach yourself a skill like programming, as well as build a portfolio through open source contributions, and that certainly directly translates to work and public speaking opportunities.

[dagmx]

Having access to knowledge isn’t an equalizer in terms of biases in the real world though.

Have you been judged by the color of your skin and denied opportunities ? I have.

the internet doesn’t do anything for me when people can see me.

[AnimalMuppet]

> When someone mentions a 'lack of Black representation', they're not saying that non-Black members are less valuable because of their skin color. Rather, they're highlighting that there appears to be a systemic issue preventing people of that particular race from participating or advancing in that space.

"Appears to be systemic racism" might be half a step too far. I would say, "The possibility exists. We should look carefully and see if there is, and if so, what we can do to fix it." But we should not assume systemic racism every time there are racially unequal outcomes.

Asians get into top colleges out of proportion to their numbers. Should we say there "appears to be a systemic issue" in favor of Asians? Or should we, perhaps, not take disparate outcomes as prima facie evidence of systemic racism?

I'm not saying that we should sweep it under the rug: "Nothing to see here." By all means, when there are disparate outcomes, look carefully. It's just that the wording went a bit too far, in the absence of further evidence.

[jorenbroekema]

What makes you think speaker slots aren't equitably distributed? If there are 4 black Rust devs among every 100 Rust devs and there are 10 speaker slots, odds are there are no black speakers but that would still be an equitable distribution.

[commandlinefan]

> The goal of diversity initiatives isn't about devaluing any particular group

It is, however, always the result.