For those who don't want to click: this is about Damore. His message/article did not address efficacy of such training which is the topic of this post.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Members of the majority group are told to listen to, and validate, the perspectives of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups — even as they are instructed to submit their own feelings and perspectives to intense scrutiny.
A common effect I've observed is that diversity training often seems to trigger defensive behavior. People of the majority group perceive that the organization cares much more about the feelings of the minority group than their own, and so members of the minority group become dangerous. For example, you might be willing to tell Steve his new hairstyle looks stupid, but wouldn't say the same thing to Shanice.
The response to this change in perception is defensive disengagement. The majority begins restricting their interactions with the minority. They don't make idle conversation with them. They avoid joining projects with them. They don't become friends with them after-hours.
Now, the opposite certainly exists. I've been in companies that were a pure good ol' boys club that would say the most outrageously racist things standing five feet away from a coworker of that race. As far as my experiences have gone, though, the middle ground is dead. There're very few companies where you can just treat all your coworkers like people.
I can relate, somewhat. One particular training video we were required to watch, not on diversity but microagressions, left me with the takeaway "say nothing to anyone, ever."
Ha, this is like the corporate version of "don't talk to the police." I've been in awkward situations where a pretty female colleague was annoyed by my dry professional attitude despite her making obvious signs, so she approached me and said point blank that I should take her somewhere on a weekend. The awkward part was that I had to maneuver from that situation out, because you know, the risk profile of that weekend trip would be strongly not in my favor in the long run.
While certainly a problem you may find little sympathy from the legions of less hansom, tall, and or muscular men. Most of them have to hustle quite a bit to get any attention from any potential love interest.
I think the point is that if your career (and life) were to be unexpectedly destroyed months or years down the line as a result of this (even if you were acting both in the spirit and within the letter of company regulations at the time), you would be in a strictly worse position than if it had never happened.
Actually... I've been recently through sexual harassment training which explicitly said that asking another employee out, going with them for a weekend and making compliments is not harassment, unless either (1) the recipient unequivocally said "no" or (2) there's some quid-pro-quo involved such a promotions or pay raises.
So you've probably missed your chance to have a nice weekend.
I think GP's concern is legit, especially if the colleague was a subordinate, or could become a subordinate in the future.
Not only could the colleague bring a claim of harassment if things didn't go well, but other colleagues could as well — on the grounds that this female colleague received special treatment as a result of her relationship with GP.
Training videos aren't legal documents: they say one thing, but fine print says something different. What matters is how the rules are applied in practice. And the practice is that women are given the upper hand in nearly all situations. This means that if I took that offer and the colleague changed her mind a year later, the harassment rules wouldve been applied retroactively because it helps the company's image. And if they later found out she was lying, then the arbitration clause would apply that would bar me from seeking a legal action (which wouldn't fix my reputation regardless of outcome). This is why that opportunity was more like a cop asking "Hey, I'm in a good mood today, if you wanna test drive my police dodge, keys are on the table - just bring it back tomorrow morning."
No, making unwanted complements on physical appearance is considered harassment. Knowing how to politely comment on someone's appearance is a learnable skill. (granted there's an assumption that certain kinds of comments on physical appearance are presumed unwanted, but I think that's reasonable.)
Let's agree that anyone who is concerned about workplace sexual harassment should do their own research and not rely on an internet forum for legal advice!
What seems to go with this sort of thing is the temporal uniformity. Events of all history are reflected in the current valuespace. Therefore, whatever you say to anybody can potentially go against the future set of values and thus cause you harm.
Activists rarely care. They enjoy the power they can exert on others on the basis of their moral authority, and feel self-righteous about doing so. People who actually care about effective outcomes are generally not welcome. They get labeled a racist/sexist for trying to discuss solutions. The treatment of James Damore is a prime example.
Interesting you mention this. We just went through a round of D&I training and the bright spot in it for me was a short section with tips on how to have some of these tense/high-stakes interactions.
Sorry to kind of jump off of you here, but what do you mean by "diversity is good"? Diversity of what? If we have 5 people that all think the same but they're all different races, is that good? Is that better than or worse than 5 people of the same race with diversity of thought?
From my point of view, I believe diversity of thought enables groups of people to consider new ideas and positions that wouldn't be considered, i.e. thinking outside of the box, but I don't understand why this is extrapolated to different races, gender identities, immigration statuses, sexualities, etc. I am not claiming you brought them up but they tend to be common "diversity" points the modern populace loves to clamor around.
Why do any of those imply anything about how people will think? We've all seen some creative people that are of our own race, or that were also our own sexuality, etc.
All of this is of course at the expense of speed, in that greater variance in thought/ideas leads to slower movement, which I think is important in business (a solo or very tight knit organization can move much faster).
Many (but not all) diversity advocates are looking for evidence to back up their preference for racial, gender, and other forms of non-ideological diversity, so they make the (often true) assertion that people of different backgrounds bring different perspectives. This is ideology searching for evidence (often known as 'motivated reasoning').
I can accept ideology seeking evidence, as long as everyone is clear about that. If it results in good evidence (either way) that holds up to critical analysis, all the better.
I think at a high level they are right. It probably is true that being a different race or sex or whatever results in different experiences on average which inform worldview. The problem is that any differences that might arise are largely out of scope of work. My domain knowledge, acuity, communication style, and professionalism really have nothing to do with experience relating to race, sex, orientation, or any other factor these people are concerned about.
In reality these diversity programs are basically societal anti-discrimination programs in disguise. While those types of programs aren't necessarily bad, proponents know that if they pitched them purely in this way they would never get management buy in because that's largely not work related; hence all the ill supported talk about diversity automatically yielding better teams.
I remember when this was known as ‘prejudice’, in the strict sense of pre-judging aspects of a person (such as their perspective) based on e.g. their race.
It was considered to be a bad thing, so it’s been very strange to see it used as a premise by diversity advocates.
I've seen it justified as every single member of the marginalized group has some life experience that no member of the majority/powerful group has. So although it's a prejudice, it's a correct one. That's different from traditional prejudices that aren't true for every individual.
Just to note, it is possible for an academic who is not part of a group to interview many members of the group, and combine other sources of information, and end up knowing more about "the experience" of that group than most individual members of that group. Because it's not a single experience.
It is even possible that, say, the black son of a black doctor, raised in a rich neighborhood, knows less about the plight of blacks in ghettos than the white son of a white janitor, raised in a ghetto with lots of blacks—even if the latter made no deliberate study. One could also consider Africans who immigrated to the United States as adults. They do have the experience of being a certain race, but that may not imply nearly as much as people seem to think. (In fact, I would hazard a guess that the members of "marginalized groups" that do get hired for the highly professional jobs that diversity advocates talk about, are very disproportionately likely to have come from well-off backgrounds, and to have no direct ghetto experience.)
> Just to note, it is possible for an academic who is not part of a group to interview many members of the group, and combine other sources of information, and end up knowing more about "the experience" of that group than most individual members of that group.
This is a common fallacy. Statistics don't substitute for qualia. (much as we say the plural of anecdote is not data, it is also not firsthand experience or even necessarily understanding)
Further, "Having experience with the ghetto" isn't what people are discussing when we discuss the importance of diversity. There are still common experiences between wealthy racial minorities and poor ones, that white Americans don't experience. Try reframing this fallacy in terms of say, women and men, or gender minorities. It doesn't work.
Nor do qualia substitute for statistics, or for different qualia. Almost every woman will have the experience of menstruation, yes, but, for example, how many of them have been sexually harassed by a man? Some of them have never had that experience, others have had it dozens of times. If you have a woman in your group and you assume she knows what it's like for women in general, you may be very wrong. Yet that assumption seems pretty common—I've seen a decent number of accounts of people who belong to some group, complaining that progressives assume they speak for everyone in that group. There's an example upthread.
I'm not saying everything can be gotten vicariously through research, but a lot of things can be. And then the question becomes, which specific things do you want, and what's the best way to get them? I think the diversity discussion rarely gets that far—and if it did, strategies would end up very different.
> for example, how many of them have been sexually harassed by a man? Some of them have never had that experience, others have had it dozens of times.
How does knowing that 80% of women will be sexually harassed in their life substitute for having had that experience? Speaking for myself, a man, I've been sexually harassed before (not in the workplace), and it's absolutely not an enjoyable experience, but my qualia, and the qualia a woman who is sexually harassed has are still going to be different.
And yes not every woman has the same experience. That's obvious. But who is more likely to have qualia that are more representative of woman's experience? A man who studies women, or a random woman? There is indeed the place for expertise (and similarly: data), but neither expertise nor diversity is a substitute for the other.
> I'm not saying everything can be gotten vicariously through research
Qualia cannot be. If you entirely discount the value that qualia have, that may not matter to you, but there are good reasons to believe that that's a bad idea.
> I've seen a decent number of accounts of people who belong to some group, complaining that progressives assume they speak for everyone in that group
Indeed, but this isn't unique to progressives. It's just a problem that minorities have to deal with. And that's absolutely not a good thing (and awareness of this is good!). But again, it's not a progressive attribute (or one caused by diversity initiatives) to assume that the "other", whatever group it is, is cohesive in ways that the groups you are familiar with aren't. (e.g. When a member of a minority group commits a crime, you have reactions and narratives that minority crime is on the rise, or that this specific minority are criminals etc.)
A great way to fix this, by the way, is to interact with various people who are members of the other group, and see them disagree and debate. This can only really happen if you have a diverse enough group that you have multiple people of whatever minority to interact with. And this is good for everyone! It broadens majority perspectives and reduces microaggressions.
> And then the question becomes, which specific things do you want, and what's the best way to get them? I think the diversity discussion rarely gets that far—and if it did, strategies would end up very different.
I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Whose goals'? The business? The employees? The minority's? To explain why I'm dubious of the whole "data can solve the problem", someone has to drive the research to gather the data. By and large, if you want this to be done reasonably, you need to have input from the group under discussion. There's tons of hilarious-if-they-weren't-horrible examples of this if you're willing to look. The ML community is full of them (Gender Shades is perhaps the seminal example).
That is, with relatively few exceptions, for research to be done correctly, or in many cases, to be done at all, you need someone who is like the people being researched in important ways to be able to champion, contextualize and guide the research. Without that, a culturally unaware researcher is, if history is a guide, more likely than not to misconstrue cultural signals or make harmful and long lasting mistakes.
but on the other extreme you have a different common fallacy: Here meet Person A! Person A shares a couple of macrodemographics traits with Person B so they are automatically and authority on B's experience (and probably already friends)
something to consider is that in most demographic groups there is a similar internal diversity than the entire population. so yes there are many experiences shares mostly by only women and also by most women, but this does not mean that many will be completely alien to that experience.
in my opinion any kind of diversity effort needs to be based on our shared humanity and a belief that we can learn from each other (without treating the other neither as a saint nor an enemy)
I find that claim very implausible. I would also be very concerned as an anti-racist if I found myself sharing a premise (e.g. black people just have a different perspective to white people) with racists, no matter what the rationalisation. Particularly since it would legitimise discrimination in contexts where that perspective was seen as undesirable.
Also, the act of prejudice was seen as wrong, not particular prejudices.
They invoked experience to support a claim about perspectives.
I consider racism morally wrong and therefore people who act in a racist way are acting in a way that is morally wrong. This is a valid inference, not prejudice. Prejudice might be if my inference was not valid, e.g. that racist people are sexist. That would be wrong.
> I consider racism morally wrong and therefore people who act in a racist way are acting in a way that is morally wrong.
But note you are now projecting a belief to an act. Are you claiming that someone who believes that "people of different backgrounds will provide different perspectives" (I chose this intentionally here) will undertake racist acts 100% of the time?
Otherwise as far as I can tell, you're being equally prejudicial. You believe that there is a high likelihood that these people will act in a specific way based on a belief they hold. That's no different than believing that people will with a high likelihood act in a specific way (or more precisely, a nonspecific, but different way) based on differences in their experience.
Perhaps I misunderstand you here. Let me instead ask a different question: Why do you believe that "black people have a different perspective than white people" is a premise shared with racists?
Usually, at least from what I've seen, racism is rooted in a belief that the other group is lesser in some way, or occasionally that the group is dangerous, etc.
The idea that a white person and a black person could, theoretically, have exactly the same life experience is probably true, but do you really think it's possible for that to happen in (presumably) the United States? Can a white child and a black child come out of a class on slavery with the same perspective on it? One of those people has the perspective of "I would have been the oppressed" and one does not. Those are different. And I don't see how one can say otherwise, nor do I see how recognizing that is a concern.
> They invoked experience to support a claim about perspectives.
And? It's not possible, a-priori to construct a group of people who will have different perspectives on a problem. Selecting for diversity of experiences as a proxy seems reasonable, but I'm open to other suggestions.
To jump back a bit, I think there's a bit of a mismatch here:
> Particularly since it would legitimise discrimination in contexts where that perspective was seen as undesirable.
I'm not suggesting that there is one black perspective on things, much as there isn't one white perspective on things, that would be reductive. Perspectives are more complicated than that. So the idea that "the black perspective" could be labelled undesirable doesn't really make sense to me. I certainly would find it suspicious if someone labelled all of the minority perspectives as undesirable though.
> Perhaps I misunderstand you here. Let me instead ask a different question: Why do you believe that "black people have a different perspective than white people" is a premise shared with racists?
You've misunderstood me. My concern is that a premise held by diversity advocates ('people of different races have different perspectives') could be used justify racist acts (e.g. not hiring a person from a given background). Assuming that people who want to justify racist acts could be referred to as racists, this would mean that diversity activists share a premise with racists - which would be a concern for me. Nowhere in there is a claim that certain people will undertake racist acts 100% of the time.
> Usually, at least from what I've seen, racism is rooted in a belief that the other group is lesser in some way
If we are suggesting that different races have different perspectives, then this becomes an easy belief to support. Presumably perspectives differ in some ways which can make some more valuable than others in some contexts.
> I'm not suggesting that there is one black perspective on things, much as there isn't one white perspective on things, that would be reductive
You may not be suggesting this, but it often seems to be put this way, including by the comment I replied to, which stated that:
> every single member of the marginalized group has some life experience that no member of the majority/powerful group has. So although it's a prejudice, it's a correct one
If 'perspective' here is understood as the thing arising from the single life experience shared by a social group, then it seems like a natural reading to see it as a single thing. But part of the problem with this discussion is that the claim that 'people of x race have a different perspective' is assumed rather than argued for. I am not at all clear on what is shared by black people from all walks of life all over the world and not shared by white people from all walks of life all over the world (who have their own version of it) - and how that thing is relevant to hiring an intern at BigCorp so it would be nice to see the idea expounded on a little more.
> Can a white child and a black child come out of a class on slavery with the same perspective on it?
Possibly not, but would two white children or two black children come out of it with the same perspective on it? What prior judgements can we make on those individual's perspectives based on their race? It may be the case that the white children would feel tremendous empathy with their fellow man and campaign vigorously for reparations. Similarly, the black children might come out of it thinking (like another prominant black man) that 300 years of slavery sounds like a choice. In my view, there is very little we can say in advance about the views of those children based on their race, and we should wait until we have the child in front of us so we can ask them about their perspective. And when that child is older, and applying for a job at BigCorp, we should extend them the same courtesy.
> My concern is that a premise held by diversity advocates ('people of different races have different perspectives') could be used justify racist acts (e.g. not hiring a person from a given background).
I don't really see how this follows without some other premises. Let me illustrate:
Two people, equally qualified, differ in race. Both apply to a job. Is it racist to choose between these people based on the algorithm "pick the one who will result in the more racially diverse group"? I don't see how it is. As far as I can tell, this is the only kind of action it is reasonable to take based on the premises "different races have different perspectives" and "we value different perspectives".
If you start switching the causality around and start saying that we value employees of a specific race more highly because we find their perspectives more valuable, that's problematic, but this doesn't follow. I do think it's easy to get the idea that there's extra murkiness here. For example if you need insight into a culture/race for business reasons (say you want to appeal to them more), I'd argue that having someone who has a lived experience does make them more qualified for that position. That's not the only thing that can make one qualified for such a position, but I don't think it makes sense to discount that value. That's a very particular case though, and not really generalizable.
> Presumably perspectives differ in some ways which can make some more valuable than others in some contexts.
Qualifying this as "in some contexts" is, I think, the undoing here. There are contexts where the perspective of someone of a specific race is more valuable. This is demonstrably true. If I'm doing a study of the experiences of people of a certain race (gathering the data), the experiences of a person of that race are contextually more valuable than the experiences of a person of another race.
Now there are contexts where presuming that racial background makes one's perspective more valuable probably is racist, but just because that is true in some contexts doesn't make it true in all contexts.
> You may not be suggesting this, but it often seems to be put this way, including by the comment I replied to, which stated that:
I read what you quoted as something like "there is a group of experiences that is exclusive to each race". Perhaps let me make the argument more clearly: "Every member of the minority group has the experience of having lived as a minority in the united states. No member of the majority group shares that experience". When stated this way, it's pretty obviously true. You can debate whether it's useful, but I don't see how recognizing that could be racist. I think this also makes more sense if you assume that the person suggesting such things assumes that systemic inequalities exist. Then you can start to see why those experiences do differ.
Even if two people experience different particular inequalities, they still experience racial systemic inequalities that the majority group doesn't.
> I am not at all clear on what is shared by black people from all walks of life all over the world and not shared by white people from all walks of life all over the world
When this kind of thing is discussed, it usually isn't a global thing. It's almost always black people in the US, or races in the US, or specific to a geographic region. A person in Uganda who never steps foot in the US probably doesn't have much in common with a black person who lives here. But, and this is the important bit, if that Ugandan person does ever come to the US for an extended period (and likely even if they come only briefly), they will share some experiences with Black Americans that I will not.
That is, the judgement isn't based on a person's race alone, but based on the person's race interacting with the locally domin...
>> My concern is that a premise held by diversity advocates ('people of different races have different perspectives') could be used justify racist acts (e.g. not hiring a person from a given background).
> I don't really see how this follows without some other premises
You don't see how the idea that different races have different perspectives could be used to justify racist acts?
How about this? "We don't hire black people because a black perspective would not be a good 'culture fit' at our organisation" or "we feel that a white perspective is necessary for the kind of work we do".
Typically, racist people like to seize on the suggestion that there are intrinsic differerences between people of different races to justify racist acts, so I'm surprised you see it as a stretch that a racist would readily agree that people of different races have different perspectives and use this to justify their behaviour in much the same way that white supremacists now talk about 'incompatible cultures'.
> Now there are contexts where presuming that racial background makes one's perspective more valuable probably is racist, but just because that is true in some contexts doesn't make it true in all contexts.
No-one has claimed it is true in all contexts. I said that presuming (or pre-judging) someone's perspective based on their race used to be called prejudice and was seen as a bad thing. Are you disagreeing that pre-judging someone's perspective used to be called prejudice? Or are you disagreeing that prejudice used to be seen as a bad thing?
Diversity of everything: race, age, sex, alma mater, native language...
I think the key message is: limiting your hiring to a specific race is equally as stupid as limiting it to MIT graduates or to people who grew up in Queens.
You seem to be talking about diversity in the hiring pool being good whereas your interlocutor was questioning whether diversity in hirings was a good.
This is a motte. "Limiting your hiring to a specific race" means excluding everyone outside that race because of race. I think everyone here agrees that's stupid, and today almost no one is openly doing that. It's not the "key message" because 99% of those hearing it already agree, and the 1% who disagree probably aren't changing their minds and don't have much power anyway.
The key message (the bailey) that diversity advocates tend to push these days is that, if you just go about hiring in what you normally think is the best way, and you end up with hires of only one specific race (or of a few races, but none of a certain few other races), then you are doing something wrong and bad, and you should change your hiring process so you end up with people of more races, even if that means sacrificing some of the goals for which you originally optimized your hiring process.
> This is a motte. "Limiting your hiring to a specific race" means excluding everyone outside that race because of race. I think everyone here agrees that's stupid, and today almost no one is openly doing that.
Intentionally perhaps not, but that doesn't mean that they aren't doing so unintentionally. As a silly example, if you restrict yourself to hiring Stanford CS grads, you'll have a hard time hiring more than a few Black people each year. If you aren't offering the best possible offers, and going out of your way to court those handful of students, you may not end up with any.
> then you are doing something wrong and bad
This isn't a bailey. To continue the above example, you have a few options. You can court those specific students, maybe that's a bad idea. Alternatively, you can look in more places. Hire from other schools, like state schools especially in the southeast. You'll find a ton more candidates, many of whom are just as qualified as those from Stanford. And you'll end up with a more diverse workforce along just about any axis you could pick.
You didn't sacrifice anything except the ability to say "we only hire Stanford grads", which isn't really a sacrifice.
Companies outsource work to foreign countries in a heartbeat and did so for decades and you have to search very hard to find a company that hires by race.
Your education needs to fit reality at least somehow.
Diversity of thought isn't really something we do anymore. If you pay attention you'll notice how you always have to put things in a particular way depending on the group you talk to. You have to avoid mentioning certain other groups. You have to couch your position in friendly terms, or talk about a problem that primarily affects one group as if it affects everyone equally, or vice-versa. People have a laser-focus on whose flag they perceive you to be flying and it's almost impossible to get anything done when they decide you're playing for the wrong team.
> Sorry to kind of jump off of you here, but what do you mean by "diversity is good"? Diversity of what? If we have 5 people that all think the same but they're all different races, is that good? Is that better than or worse than 5 people of the same race with diversity of thought?
Some people got fired for framing the problem exactly as you framed it:
In system architecture, there’s entire fields of research exploring ways to expand the space from which we pick our solutions. It is not about variety of opinions but about a variety of ways of thinking about problems. More options means more creativity, more chances of a novel approach, better chances of standing out. Having a culturally (gender, race, native language, education, age, you name it) diverse team is a really efficient way to gain that. So diversity of perspective is directly financially beneficial for certain organizations.
As someone who has pretty much discounted diversity training initiatives as a class, this actually intrigues me on account of the first point. It runs pretty contrary to the Critical Race Theory (CRT) based training materials that I've seen.
We had a DEI workshop at a previous workplace. The presenter suggested that {minority group members} typically don't feel comfortable speaking up in meetings, so I kept track of how many times each person spoke and got interrupted.
Then halfway through, I proposed an experiment -- for the rest of the meeting, we leave a full second, by the clock, between when one person finishes talking and the next person starts. The presenter thought that would be interesting so we tried it. I tracked which people spoke after that (and how many times the rule was violated).
If you ever try this experiment, be aware that maintaining a 1 second silence is very uncomfortable.
The results were pretty unexpected, but perhaps the most surprising thing (although it shouldn't have been surprising in retrospect) was that the group that benefitted the most in this experiment -- most underrepresented in the meeting before, and proportionately represented after -- was a minority group whose existence wasn't even mentioned once in the entire DEI presentation. Can you guess who it was?
That's right: English-as-a-second-language immigrant employees, who were fluent but needed an extra ~0.25s more than the native English speakers to compose their thoughts. Coincidentally this group was mostly composed of {members of groups classified as majority by more common axes of classification}, who unlike other {members of their group}, almost never had their voices heard in meetings because they were ESL.
> you might be willing to tell Steve his new hairstyle looks stupid, but wouldn't say the same thing to Shanice.
anecdotally, I have been Shanice and see Steve get told his new hairstyle sucks and they all laugh together but not risk it with me. makes me feel like favoritism when its my coworker and boss, so it certainly has created a lot of tension within the team.
Here's your inclusive diversity training in a nutshell: How about not being mean to either Shanice or Steve? Nobody asked you about a fashion opinion, and everybody would be happier if you didn't say things that might be hurtful to another person.
That's it. That's the whole thing. The request is "don't be an ass to anybody". One would think it's not a high bar to clear.
So this happened at Northwestern, my alma mater: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator.... During a Zoom meeting with hundreds of students, the interim dean and dozens of other faculty and administrators each declared they were "a racist" and "a gatekeeper of white supremacy."
What struck me when I read this article was how uncomfortable I would personally be, as a non-white person, sitting in that meeting. Like, what am I supposed to do with that information? Is that how I want to begin my law school experience? My first year was a decade ago, before this stuff, but I'm having a hard time imagining how I would have developed the close relationships I did starting things off on this foot. Like, how do you go and talk about getting a recommendation from a professor after that?
In the last year or so, I have also had people stop in the middle of a conversation to "defer to my lived experience." This happened yesterday in the middle of discussing bribery culture in Bangladesh. Literally, the conversation ended with the other person saying "you must be right because of your experience."
I know the academic sources of these concepts and appreciate their value in the appropriate contexts. And I really do appreciate the need for diversity training in general, objective discussions about implicit bias, looking at recruiting pipelines to enhance diversity, etc. But does anyone actually want to be subjected to treatment like this in day-to-day settings? People of color want to live normal lives too, and fit in just like everyone else. To me, this comes across as hostile and alienating. (I showed this to my mom, explaining to her the context. She responded: “It is scary totally, to see people are writing it on the paper. Means There is no breaking point anymore. This America is not that same America when we came.”)
Nothing exists in a vacuum. For example. if you create a system that weights student university acceptance by race you create a student body full of asian kids who know they're probably smarter than their peers and black kids who know they probably scored academically lower than their peers. I can't imagine how intimidating and isolating that knowledge would be. I was no academic star in college but at least I knew I passed the same standards as everybody else.
I have a stronger opinion on this. I think "diversity training" to be very counter productive. I belong to a minority by ethnicity but I don't give a shit about it. I wuold just swallow crappy training like this, proponents just seem to live in a different reality and lack perspective and experience in my opinion so I would indeed disengage them.
No real patience for people trying to make being oppressed a virtue, when people could have the ability to just leave that baggage behind. Not really interested to pander to mid-life or teenage crisis of some people that think they need to educate the peasants.
These people are not an inch less dogmatic than some priests, so I don't see much room for discussion. I do think they are even a factor in rising right wing parties.
> A common effect I've observed is that diversity training often seems to trigger defensive behavior.
> During a Zoom meeting with hundreds of students, the interim dean and dozens of other faculty and administrators each declared they were "a racist" and "a gatekeeper of white supremacy."
Historically, accusing a whole ethnic group of being inherently guilty of some great evil (e.g. racism), has worked out less than great for that group, so it's hardly surprising they'd be defensive.
I'm a little offput by diversity training that, to me at least, essentially challenges folks on a spiritual and moral level. I think everyone should challenge themselves spiritually and morally, but I think the power imbalances inherent in work and academic training contexts make that kind of content patronizing or even inappropriate. I could see it being counterproductive in many cases.
It's probably true that employees, faculty, and some kinds of student leadership should be aware of ethical and legal obligations when it comes to diversity, though. So I think it would be hard to argue against all categories of diversity content.
It's just many (most?) recent forms of anti-racism content crosses the line from "meet these expectations about professional conduct" and into "proactively improve yourself as a person". I don't think it's appropriate for superiors to mandate the latter. A spiritual advisor, counselor, mentor, or mental health professional? Absolutely.
To be fair, I do think it's appropriate for employees to face consequences of their own racist behavior. Even, in many cases, when that behavior is unintended.
It's just many (most?) recent forms of anti-racism content crosses the line from "meet these expectations about professional conduct" and into "proactively improve yourself as a person". I don't think it's appropriate for superiors to mandate the latter.
Can you give an example of what kind of content you think is common that is crossing this line?
Content that advocates for a particular moral framework. For example that outcomes matter more than intent. This is an area of philosophy that has been under continual discussion for thousands of years.
In addition, curriculum that has participants take some sort of personal inventory. Also having them go through some sort of confessional process.
Again, these are all healthy things to do. In the right context.
See my link above about faculty and staff at a university Zoom meeting going around in a circle and each saying they are "a racist" and a "gatekeeper of white supremacy." There are ways to talk about implicit bias and systemic racism, but the confessional format crosses the line from providing information to something else. I go to church to be told I am a sinner and how to find redemption. Just give me the information and let me fit that into my value framework.
Christian bosses and managers in certain parts of the country a couple of decades ago firing you when they find out you don’t fit their morals. Now, the same people fire you if you’re not woke enough. It’s good, it’s progress.
Dividing people based on immutable characteristics, fomenting resentments based on these characteristics and establishing a hierarchy of victimhood is un-American.
I've done a number of diversity & inclusion trainings and I'm always confused by the opposition to them. Being more aware is generally useful.
As a hiring manager, it's been helpful for me to be thoughtful about asking things like, "how did you get here, car, train?" - as this implies socioeconomic status, and if you reflect on why you asked that, what you wanted to know about it, and how it affected your thinking in general, and were honest, there's a chance it might have affected your opinion of the person in a way that has nothing to do with their ability to do the job. This opinion could be either good or bad, and isn't necessarily dependent on whether the person you're interviewing is from a marginalized class.
I still have bias, everyone does, these trainings do not aim to eliminate bias, they aim to inform people that it exists, and to offer them tools to be thoughtful about those biases, and to challenge folks to question the biases that potentially harm others, even if unintentionally.
I think it's important to be open to the possibility that these trainings are in fact counterproductive, even if it is hard to intuit why that might be the case.
It's benefitted me in many ways, both professionally and personally to be open to the idea that I could be wrong - and I don't feel like anyone has ever forced me to believe that.
I'm open to the science here, so will keep an ear to the ground.
Everyone struggles with being selfish. It's good to be aware of our own self-interested impulses and work towards counteracting them. So why not have mandatory training at work that teaches us that we're all selfish at some level and that we need to address that character flaw?
Sorry but that's just a completely baseless assertion. Not everyone is selfish, nor is it a struggle for everyone to not be selfish. Assuming that others think as you think is what we call in poker, "first level thinking". The same concept can be extended to those who obsess over "diversity" and insist, "everyone is racist". Its flatly wrong, and frankly, idiotic to make such an assertion. Saddling everyone with the insecurities and deficiencies carried by a few is counterproductive and wrong.
Your employer has every right to be concerned with your behavior at work, and take any sort of punitive or corrective measures that your misbehavior may merit. Your employer should have no role making sweeping judgements about your beliefs or personality traits that have not been manifested in the workplace, much less mandating Soviet-style re-education which hinges on their baseless (and flawed) assumptions about human nature.
If you equate judging people on their actions rather than making sweeping judgements about them to being selfish, then your problems extend far beyond selfishness.
Ironically your trite answer exposes the substance-free nature of this argument. If eating when you are hungry makes you selfish, then what is your anti-selfishness re-education supposed to accomplish? Are you going to stop eating? Defining "selfishness" in such an absurd, all-encompassing manner renders the term itself meaningless. This sort of mania reminds me very much of the idea of "original sin" put forth by the Catholic Church. You can spend your life repenting, but you can never wipe away the stain on your soul! Reasonable people can skip this sort of faith-based nonsense by avoiding church but its becoming more and more difficult for reasonable people to avoid this kind of nonsense at it seeps into the workplace and every other facet of society.
If you disagree we might be using the word selfish to mean different things. That’s also possible, and normal, these conundrums can only be discovered and addressed with communication, and a willingness to listen.
I don't think it's correct or helpful to use the term "selfish" to describe rationally self-interested behavior which does not impinge upon the needs of others.
> Everyone struggles with being selfish. It's good to be aware of our own self-interested impulses and work towards counteracting them. So why not have mandatory training at work that teaches us that we're all selfish at some level and that we need to address that character flaw?
A for profit corporation is the very definition of selfishness. And you think that a corporation can teach you "not to be selfish" when the entire goal is productivity in order to make someone a whole lot more money that you will ever earn? You don't see a contradiction in what you are saying?
It can't get more hypocritical like that. These trainings only exist to benefit the corporation, not the individual subjected to these. The perfect alliance between soviet style propaganda techniques (struggle sessions to break the individual) and hyper capitalism.
And no, everybody does not struggle with being selfish. Everybody isn't selfish.
By victimizing their employees with "diversity training" on the other hand, corporations have found the perfect way to break them, with the approval and moral support of the left. In fact, many corporations known for their anti-union schemes do also force their employees through these "diversity training" sessions.
> Sometimes they even implant new stereotypes (for instance, if participants didn’t previously have particular stereotypes for Vietnamese people, or much knowledge about them overall, but were introduced to common stereotypes about this group through training intended to dispel said stereotypes).
Have you considered being more aware might have made you behave in a more bias or stereotype assuming way?
The question should be are these programs achieving the goal of making an inclusive workplace or not?
Yes, I've considered that. And it's great to be able to be open about it and talk. If you are unaware of a subject, it's much more difficult to speak about it.
I think a lot of the problems with diversity training, and reasons it may not work - are that it's not actually bought into by those participating - and by bought into, I don't mean believing everything you hear - I mean participating, active listening, asking questions, being open to the idea that one is wrong, and that you can improve and help make your workplace one which feels good to be part of.
It took me 20 years in my career, and most of the bad workplaces I had were a result of careless / unempathetic leadership. Once I actually had that, and saw that they were better at running a business than those without deep empathy and thoughtful reflection, I am not going back.
I'll never work for someone who isn't at least open to the ideas of transparency, open communication, and psychological safety, while at the same time, driving a business forward - these are not contradictions.
Last: The training can't make the workplace better - the people must. If they are unwilling to listen, or behave differently based on signals they are now trained on, or at least know why they are continuing their current behavior (an option) - it won't work, these things fall apart when there isn't widespread participation.
Diversity training and leadership environments seem like 2 separate discussions. Many types of leaders will do diversity training for their organization for various reasons. I too prefer leaders of organizations who have the values you are espousing.
Based on the article I do wonder if the approach of the training can make people more or less willing to create an inclusive environment. The way you approach someone to do something is definitely a factor in whether they will do it. If training approaches like these are making folks more likely to be biased, I think that is cause for introspection.
I agree the approach had a huge impact - I wouldn’t argue against that as I’ve had diversity trainings that were better than others - this isn’t some finalized and well understood science so that is expected. We should always be trying to improve.
One of my objections to most of the HR training I’ve been to is the pacing. Some tech training videos are a little slow-paced, but nearly every HR training I’ve been to has felt like 30-45 minutes of content crammed into 4 hours.
Agree. This is a huge thing in general relating to pedagogy and how people learn and internalize things. You need multiple approaches to be successful.
Empircally, diversity training does not work (at least according to this article).
If you are pro diversity, you should therefore be against the current iteration of diversity training; and instead advocate redirect that effort into either experimenting with new approaches, or following other approaches that might work.
Aren't these two distinct things? The fact that one could be pro-diversity, while science says the way diversity training is being done so far is not effective, is not incompatible. It might mean that the way diversity training is being delivered and its content need to change, but not that pro-diversity "is wrong".
Imagine flight had not been invented yet. You wouldn't say that the Marquis de Bacqueville [1] attempt is the proof that flight is a bad idea or wrong. We continually improve and strive to find better ways to achieve goals we define as desirable. You might disagree with the latter, but this is a different point.
> I've done a number of diversity & inclusion trainings and I'm always confused by the opposition to them. Being more aware is generally useful.
Because they are based on a racist ideology, "'critical' race theory" and they are more akin to soviet style struggle sessions than any sort of actual training. In fact what is practiced in US would be probably illegal in a number of European countries.
Furthermore it's lower level employees that are subject to these "indoctrination" sessions, not higher ups that often treat low level employees like shit, no matter the race or sex.
So on one side, you are for victimizing low level employees, on the other, controversial management techniques that totally lack of any human empathy are never questioned.
> Because they are based on a racist ideology, "'critical' race theory" and they are more akin to soviet style struggle sessions than any sort of actual training. In fact what is practiced in US would be probably illegal in a number of European countries.
It might not be legal in the U.S. either, at least some of the stuff that's going on. TBD.
What do you believe critical race theory is? I don't see any relationship between it and struggle sessions.
What trainings are you talking about? (my experience is that the extent of these trainings are that everyone must take the same thing, yes including the C-suite)
How about a null-ish hypothesis: most people I know are opposed to mandatory company-wide training in general.
Health and safety training, for example. And I can talk to people who were around before that was a things, and count the number of limbs.
It's not entirely unjustified. Mandatory company-wide training probably is irrelevant to your specific role. It's also usually delivered by the lowest bidder, which is the strongest possible true signal I could receive. It's often not even attended by leadership - the people whose role is setting the culture!
I get a long (charged by-the-hour?) lecture from HopefulSlogan Consultants about ethics and integrity? I think the same thing as I would walking past the slogans on Enron's lobby walls. The top is almost certainly corrupt.
I find these approaches to be borderline abusive. I understand the desire to attempt to put people in another persons "shoes", but I find that this makes a broad assumption that the minority members "shoes" are in the worst state. That is, not being able to voice opinions while also being criticized is the worst state. It is a terrible generalization. I would only feel comfortable with this training if listening was the only requirement and reflecting and sharing opinions was encouraged for all.
If you have seen some of the videos of the older white woman (whose name escapes me) that used to give the blue eyed/brown eyed experiment her approach strikes me as being abusive. I understand what she is attempting to teach, but I deeply dislike her delivery. I feel that she is trying to scar (not scare, scar) people into compliance.
> I find these approaches to be borderline abusive.
They are not only abusive but based on a racist ideology, since these "training" sessions are often racially segregated therefore imply that some races are inherently racist. It builds up resentment and division, which is exactly what corporations want, employees at odd with each others so they won't question actual abusive management techniques designed by the higher ups. This is cunning.
I read earlier this year that Whole Foods were calculating the risk of unionisation across their stores and that they believed that this correlated with factors within a store including lower levels of ethnic diversity.
Whether, with all other things taken into account, this remains a factor, and whether there is causation, I don't know, but they did see fit to mention it specifically as a "Store Risk".
Much more realistic perspective. I don't think increased ethnic diversity must play a role in inhibiting formation of unions, but it can be.
If I would need to implement a divide and conquer approach to any group, I certainly would start with benefiting certain members above others. Conflict is almost guaranteed this way. Oldest trick in the book.
Some diversity proponents try to mandate solidarity will indeed undermine efforts for workers rights. That approach might even be more subtle.
I wonder if corporate D&I initiatives would be more successful if they allowed for genuine debate. When no debate or challenging of the initiative's assumptions is allowed, I suspect that:
- Intelligent employees become cynical, and assume a hidden agenda.
- The opportunity to change the minds of employees with reasoned doubts/objections to D&I claims is squandered. In fact, it raises (reasonable, imho) suspicions that the D&I proponents know that some of their stated positions are weak, and don't want them subjected to scrutiny.
- Proponents of D&I may remain sheltered from valid counterpoints. So they lose an opportunity to refine their positions based on productive discussion.
This is based on my experience working in corporate environments for a few decades. And IME, the problem is definitely more pronounced at large companies than small ones.
Some employees may hold materially prejudiced/discriminatory views. It isn't the companies role to morally educate people/employees in general nor may it be possible for it to do so, and any attempt to do so might itself be morally and legally fraught. ("Accept our position on right vs wrong or lose your job" can become awfully close to "become $religion or get fired").
Rather, the companies obligation is to provide a safe environment for workers and customers and to uphold basic standards for non-discriminatory professional conduct in the at-work activities of its employees and the orginization as a whole. It doesn't matter if people think some harmful stuff, so long as they leave that thinking outside of the office and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.
Inviting debate might help set some people's moral thinking straight, but it has the much larger risk of inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police.
We very much shouldn't want corporate HR forcibly imposing their concept of right and wrong onto people outside of the extremely narrow confines of work interactions: A millennia of debate by philosophers and religious leaders world wide have failed to settle innumerable moral questions. FooCorp HR-- which has almost every ethical incentive set in the wrong direction (e.g. maximize profits for FooCorp), and wields more power over people's lives than all but the most abusive cults-- simply isn't qualified or appropriate for the task of controlling people's personal moral compasses.
>inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police
I don't necessarily disagree with your general sentiment -- I would actually prefer to keep all of this out of the workplace entirely. But I think this sort of behavior is already happening in companies, and it is exacerbated by the fact that there isn't debate.
I think it is difficult for a company with an open culture to keep politics away from work. And if we suppose that politics will inevitably find their way into work, I would much rather have debates than not.
In a company setting, debate more often than not actually exacerbates the issue. You don't want the conversation in that setting because the relationship in the company hierarchy is inherently negative for moral debates.
To be fair, it's always in the peons' interest to agree with upper management's proposals. And upper management presents a unified front, keeping internal debate hidden except to people of sufficiently high social class. Like, has any lower-level person ever benefited from challenging a corporate initiative?
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but I think you're saying that you'd condemn them for admitting to hold that viewpoint. I think many of us would as well.
It seems to me a downside to that approach, though, is that we'd never learn why they had those views, and probably never get a chance to reason with them about why they should believe otherwise.
Perhaps I'm too optimistic about the possibility of talking things out. It's hard to tell.
I think the problem with your approach is that no sane person would publicly defend racism. Because they would be outing themselves as a racist to all of their co-workers.
I believe that I understand very well WHY people have racist points of view. Racists are incredibly common and their motivations and beliefs aren't a mystery. I'm not sure what you would hope to change by talking things out.
Prejudice is by definition irrational, because it involves pre-judging. You can't really reason with someone about an irrational belief.
Most of your co-workers hold at least some "racist" views. It's a really wild assumption that even one intelligent person has such a sterilized mindset that would make the most radical activists happy. For lulz, you could list here ten pints that you deem racist and we could answer with numbers.
Mandatory diversity training divides and weakens the country. For their revolution to succeed Communists need everyone - especially Party members - walking on eggshells. That way a politically incorrect look or word is enough to justify cancellation.
The problem with the mandatory diversity training is that it does very little to win hearts and minds. Refuse to go, dare to say anything that isn't 100% in support of it etc. and you will be targeted to be purged from the organization and possibly publicly tarred and feathered.
Sure, some people, who tend to respond better to negative re-enforcement will be convinced to change their ways using that technique. That said, an arguably larger number of people will respond better to the carrot. Thus, they won't be convinced via the negative re-enforcement, but do not want to lose their job, be put on a secret whisper network "do not hire" list etc.. So, they pretend to play along and then find groups of people where they can let their hair down. It is not un-like the secret clubs that would break off from super conservative church groups to do some drinking (which usually ended up as binge drinking), speak easy's during prohibition, underground sex clubs etc..
Many of those groups experienced a litany of un-intended consequences from rigid views about alcohol, sex etc.. Un-surprisingly, the same appears to be happening with diversity efforts as well.
Every single time the Global LEFT attempts to get Equal OUTCOME it fails
because
Male and Females ARE DIFFERENT
Diferences between Jews, Asians, White and Blacks EXIST
The only way Left wing Zionism, Marxism and Commisism can be reached
is lowing everyone down to the lowest common doninator
Real differences between
* IQ
* Agression
* Phsyical
* exist between Male and Female
* and different races
Once you allow your
Hobby
Group
Business
platform
to have admins, ceo, management that are Global LESTIST
they will turn your group into a poltical activist outlet
to use power and funnel resources (Look up DIVERSITY CIRCLE)
What the Global LEFT refuse to admit is its all a scam to push for their goal
which is Agenda 21 2020-2030 , Global single goverment, no freedom
no nations, no borders, run by Zionist Jews in ISRAEL
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A common effect I've observed is that diversity training often seems to trigger defensive behavior. People of the majority group perceive that the organization cares much more about the feelings of the minority group than their own, and so members of the minority group become dangerous. For example, you might be willing to tell Steve his new hairstyle looks stupid, but wouldn't say the same thing to Shanice.
The response to this change in perception is defensive disengagement. The majority begins restricting their interactions with the minority. They don't make idle conversation with them. They avoid joining projects with them. They don't become friends with them after-hours.
Now, the opposite certainly exists. I've been in companies that were a pure good ol' boys club that would say the most outrageously racist things standing five feet away from a coworker of that race. As far as my experiences have gone, though, the middle ground is dead. There're very few companies where you can just treat all your coworkers like people.
So you've probably missed your chance to have a nice weekend.
Not only could the colleague bring a claim of harassment if things didn't go well, but other colleagues could as well — on the grounds that this female colleague received special treatment as a result of her relationship with GP.
The OP absolutely did the right thing. Romantic fraternization should not be initiated in the workplace.
[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment
The training commonly in place today seem to hurt that goal and this is backed up by research.
However any discussion about this is extremely difficult to have. To be honest it feels like no one cares about making a welcoming work environment.
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communicating-about-cultur...
- diversity is good - it increases a pool of workers and ideas to pick from
- we all are minorities in something, so please be nice. We're in this boat together
- everyone has unconscious bias. Including you. Beware
- please make an effort to be inclusive: being the only black/white/green person in the team sucks
- don't do anything illegal
Kinda reasonable approach, I'd say, but I doubt they do it anymore.
From my point of view, I believe diversity of thought enables groups of people to consider new ideas and positions that wouldn't be considered, i.e. thinking outside of the box, but I don't understand why this is extrapolated to different races, gender identities, immigration statuses, sexualities, etc. I am not claiming you brought them up but they tend to be common "diversity" points the modern populace loves to clamor around.
Why do any of those imply anything about how people will think? We've all seen some creative people that are of our own race, or that were also our own sexuality, etc.
All of this is of course at the expense of speed, in that greater variance in thought/ideas leads to slower movement, which I think is important in business (a solo or very tight knit organization can move much faster).
In reality these diversity programs are basically societal anti-discrimination programs in disguise. While those types of programs aren't necessarily bad, proponents know that if they pitched them purely in this way they would never get management buy in because that's largely not work related; hence all the ill supported talk about diversity automatically yielding better teams.
It was considered to be a bad thing, so it’s been very strange to see it used as a premise by diversity advocates.
It is even possible that, say, the black son of a black doctor, raised in a rich neighborhood, knows less about the plight of blacks in ghettos than the white son of a white janitor, raised in a ghetto with lots of blacks—even if the latter made no deliberate study. One could also consider Africans who immigrated to the United States as adults. They do have the experience of being a certain race, but that may not imply nearly as much as people seem to think. (In fact, I would hazard a guess that the members of "marginalized groups" that do get hired for the highly professional jobs that diversity advocates talk about, are very disproportionately likely to have come from well-off backgrounds, and to have no direct ghetto experience.)
This is a common fallacy. Statistics don't substitute for qualia. (much as we say the plural of anecdote is not data, it is also not firsthand experience or even necessarily understanding)
Further, "Having experience with the ghetto" isn't what people are discussing when we discuss the importance of diversity. There are still common experiences between wealthy racial minorities and poor ones, that white Americans don't experience. Try reframing this fallacy in terms of say, women and men, or gender minorities. It doesn't work.
I'm not saying everything can be gotten vicariously through research, but a lot of things can be. And then the question becomes, which specific things do you want, and what's the best way to get them? I think the diversity discussion rarely gets that far—and if it did, strategies would end up very different.
How does knowing that 80% of women will be sexually harassed in their life substitute for having had that experience? Speaking for myself, a man, I've been sexually harassed before (not in the workplace), and it's absolutely not an enjoyable experience, but my qualia, and the qualia a woman who is sexually harassed has are still going to be different.
And yes not every woman has the same experience. That's obvious. But who is more likely to have qualia that are more representative of woman's experience? A man who studies women, or a random woman? There is indeed the place for expertise (and similarly: data), but neither expertise nor diversity is a substitute for the other.
> I'm not saying everything can be gotten vicariously through research
Qualia cannot be. If you entirely discount the value that qualia have, that may not matter to you, but there are good reasons to believe that that's a bad idea.
> I've seen a decent number of accounts of people who belong to some group, complaining that progressives assume they speak for everyone in that group
Indeed, but this isn't unique to progressives. It's just a problem that minorities have to deal with. And that's absolutely not a good thing (and awareness of this is good!). But again, it's not a progressive attribute (or one caused by diversity initiatives) to assume that the "other", whatever group it is, is cohesive in ways that the groups you are familiar with aren't. (e.g. When a member of a minority group commits a crime, you have reactions and narratives that minority crime is on the rise, or that this specific minority are criminals etc.)
A great way to fix this, by the way, is to interact with various people who are members of the other group, and see them disagree and debate. This can only really happen if you have a diverse enough group that you have multiple people of whatever minority to interact with. And this is good for everyone! It broadens majority perspectives and reduces microaggressions.
> And then the question becomes, which specific things do you want, and what's the best way to get them? I think the diversity discussion rarely gets that far—and if it did, strategies would end up very different.
I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Whose goals'? The business? The employees? The minority's? To explain why I'm dubious of the whole "data can solve the problem", someone has to drive the research to gather the data. By and large, if you want this to be done reasonably, you need to have input from the group under discussion. There's tons of hilarious-if-they-weren't-horrible examples of this if you're willing to look. The ML community is full of them (Gender Shades is perhaps the seminal example).
That is, with relatively few exceptions, for research to be done correctly, or in many cases, to be done at all, you need someone who is like the people being researched in important ways to be able to champion, contextualize and guide the research. Without that, a culturally unaware researcher is, if history is a guide, more likely than not to misconstrue cultural signals or make harmful and long lasting mistakes.
something to consider is that in most demographic groups there is a similar internal diversity than the entire population. so yes there are many experiences shares mostly by only women and also by most women, but this does not mean that many will be completely alien to that experience.
in my opinion any kind of diversity effort needs to be based on our shared humanity and a belief that we can learn from each other (without treating the other neither as a saint nor an enemy)
Also, the act of prejudice was seen as wrong, not particular prejudices.
> Also, the act of prejudice was seen as wrong, not particular prejudices.
From your statements you appear to be prejudiced against people you judge to be racist. Are you saying that is morally wrong?
I consider racism morally wrong and therefore people who act in a racist way are acting in a way that is morally wrong. This is a valid inference, not prejudice. Prejudice might be if my inference was not valid, e.g. that racist people are sexist. That would be wrong.
But note you are now projecting a belief to an act. Are you claiming that someone who believes that "people of different backgrounds will provide different perspectives" (I chose this intentionally here) will undertake racist acts 100% of the time?
Otherwise as far as I can tell, you're being equally prejudicial. You believe that there is a high likelihood that these people will act in a specific way based on a belief they hold. That's no different than believing that people will with a high likelihood act in a specific way (or more precisely, a nonspecific, but different way) based on differences in their experience.
Perhaps I misunderstand you here. Let me instead ask a different question: Why do you believe that "black people have a different perspective than white people" is a premise shared with racists?
Usually, at least from what I've seen, racism is rooted in a belief that the other group is lesser in some way, or occasionally that the group is dangerous, etc.
The idea that a white person and a black person could, theoretically, have exactly the same life experience is probably true, but do you really think it's possible for that to happen in (presumably) the United States? Can a white child and a black child come out of a class on slavery with the same perspective on it? One of those people has the perspective of "I would have been the oppressed" and one does not. Those are different. And I don't see how one can say otherwise, nor do I see how recognizing that is a concern.
> They invoked experience to support a claim about perspectives.
And? It's not possible, a-priori to construct a group of people who will have different perspectives on a problem. Selecting for diversity of experiences as a proxy seems reasonable, but I'm open to other suggestions.
To jump back a bit, I think there's a bit of a mismatch here:
> Particularly since it would legitimise discrimination in contexts where that perspective was seen as undesirable.
I'm not suggesting that there is one black perspective on things, much as there isn't one white perspective on things, that would be reductive. Perspectives are more complicated than that. So the idea that "the black perspective" could be labelled undesirable doesn't really make sense to me. I certainly would find it suspicious if someone labelled all of the minority perspectives as undesirable though.
You've misunderstood me. My concern is that a premise held by diversity advocates ('people of different races have different perspectives') could be used justify racist acts (e.g. not hiring a person from a given background). Assuming that people who want to justify racist acts could be referred to as racists, this would mean that diversity activists share a premise with racists - which would be a concern for me. Nowhere in there is a claim that certain people will undertake racist acts 100% of the time.
> Usually, at least from what I've seen, racism is rooted in a belief that the other group is lesser in some way
If we are suggesting that different races have different perspectives, then this becomes an easy belief to support. Presumably perspectives differ in some ways which can make some more valuable than others in some contexts.
> I'm not suggesting that there is one black perspective on things, much as there isn't one white perspective on things, that would be reductive
You may not be suggesting this, but it often seems to be put this way, including by the comment I replied to, which stated that:
> every single member of the marginalized group has some life experience that no member of the majority/powerful group has. So although it's a prejudice, it's a correct one
If 'perspective' here is understood as the thing arising from the single life experience shared by a social group, then it seems like a natural reading to see it as a single thing. But part of the problem with this discussion is that the claim that 'people of x race have a different perspective' is assumed rather than argued for. I am not at all clear on what is shared by black people from all walks of life all over the world and not shared by white people from all walks of life all over the world (who have their own version of it) - and how that thing is relevant to hiring an intern at BigCorp so it would be nice to see the idea expounded on a little more.
> Can a white child and a black child come out of a class on slavery with the same perspective on it?
Possibly not, but would two white children or two black children come out of it with the same perspective on it? What prior judgements can we make on those individual's perspectives based on their race? It may be the case that the white children would feel tremendous empathy with their fellow man and campaign vigorously for reparations. Similarly, the black children might come out of it thinking (like another prominant black man) that 300 years of slavery sounds like a choice. In my view, there is very little we can say in advance about the views of those children based on their race, and we should wait until we have the child in front of us so we can ask them about their perspective. And when that child is older, and applying for a job at BigCorp, we should extend them the same courtesy.
I don't really see how this follows without some other premises. Let me illustrate:
Two people, equally qualified, differ in race. Both apply to a job. Is it racist to choose between these people based on the algorithm "pick the one who will result in the more racially diverse group"? I don't see how it is. As far as I can tell, this is the only kind of action it is reasonable to take based on the premises "different races have different perspectives" and "we value different perspectives".
If you start switching the causality around and start saying that we value employees of a specific race more highly because we find their perspectives more valuable, that's problematic, but this doesn't follow. I do think it's easy to get the idea that there's extra murkiness here. For example if you need insight into a culture/race for business reasons (say you want to appeal to them more), I'd argue that having someone who has a lived experience does make them more qualified for that position. That's not the only thing that can make one qualified for such a position, but I don't think it makes sense to discount that value. That's a very particular case though, and not really generalizable.
> Presumably perspectives differ in some ways which can make some more valuable than others in some contexts.
Qualifying this as "in some contexts" is, I think, the undoing here. There are contexts where the perspective of someone of a specific race is more valuable. This is demonstrably true. If I'm doing a study of the experiences of people of a certain race (gathering the data), the experiences of a person of that race are contextually more valuable than the experiences of a person of another race.
Now there are contexts where presuming that racial background makes one's perspective more valuable probably is racist, but just because that is true in some contexts doesn't make it true in all contexts.
> You may not be suggesting this, but it often seems to be put this way, including by the comment I replied to, which stated that:
I read what you quoted as something like "there is a group of experiences that is exclusive to each race". Perhaps let me make the argument more clearly: "Every member of the minority group has the experience of having lived as a minority in the united states. No member of the majority group shares that experience". When stated this way, it's pretty obviously true. You can debate whether it's useful, but I don't see how recognizing that could be racist. I think this also makes more sense if you assume that the person suggesting such things assumes that systemic inequalities exist. Then you can start to see why those experiences do differ.
Even if two people experience different particular inequalities, they still experience racial systemic inequalities that the majority group doesn't.
> I am not at all clear on what is shared by black people from all walks of life all over the world and not shared by white people from all walks of life all over the world
When this kind of thing is discussed, it usually isn't a global thing. It's almost always black people in the US, or races in the US, or specific to a geographic region. A person in Uganda who never steps foot in the US probably doesn't have much in common with a black person who lives here. But, and this is the important bit, if that Ugandan person does ever come to the US for an extended period (and likely even if they come only briefly), they will share some experiences with Black Americans that I will not.
That is, the judgement isn't based on a person's race alone, but based on the person's race interacting with the locally domin...
> I don't really see how this follows without some other premises
You don't see how the idea that different races have different perspectives could be used to justify racist acts?
How about this? "We don't hire black people because a black perspective would not be a good 'culture fit' at our organisation" or "we feel that a white perspective is necessary for the kind of work we do".
Typically, racist people like to seize on the suggestion that there are intrinsic differerences between people of different races to justify racist acts, so I'm surprised you see it as a stretch that a racist would readily agree that people of different races have different perspectives and use this to justify their behaviour in much the same way that white supremacists now talk about 'incompatible cultures'.
> Now there are contexts where presuming that racial background makes one's perspective more valuable probably is racist, but just because that is true in some contexts doesn't make it true in all contexts.
No-one has claimed it is true in all contexts. I said that presuming (or pre-judging) someone's perspective based on their race used to be called prejudice and was seen as a bad thing. Are you disagreeing that pre-judging someone's perspective used to be called prejudice? Or are you disagreeing that prejudice used to be seen as a bad thing?
I think the key message is: limiting your hiring to a specific race is equally as stupid as limiting it to MIT graduates or to people who grew up in Queens.
The key message (the bailey) that diversity advocates tend to push these days is that, if you just go about hiring in what you normally think is the best way, and you end up with hires of only one specific race (or of a few races, but none of a certain few other races), then you are doing something wrong and bad, and you should change your hiring process so you end up with people of more races, even if that means sacrificing some of the goals for which you originally optimized your hiring process.
Intentionally perhaps not, but that doesn't mean that they aren't doing so unintentionally. As a silly example, if you restrict yourself to hiring Stanford CS grads, you'll have a hard time hiring more than a few Black people each year. If you aren't offering the best possible offers, and going out of your way to court those handful of students, you may not end up with any.
> then you are doing something wrong and bad
This isn't a bailey. To continue the above example, you have a few options. You can court those specific students, maybe that's a bad idea. Alternatively, you can look in more places. Hire from other schools, like state schools especially in the southeast. You'll find a ton more candidates, many of whom are just as qualified as those from Stanford. And you'll end up with a more diverse workforce along just about any axis you could pick.
You didn't sacrifice anything except the ability to say "we only hire Stanford grads", which isn't really a sacrifice.
Your education needs to fit reality at least somehow.
Some people got fired for framing the problem exactly as you framed it:
https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-j...
The irony is that the person that was fired was part of that "minority" the ideologues who wanted her head are supposed to support at first place.
What I think avoids that are these principles from Chloe Valdary's Theory of Enchantment: https://theoryofenchantment.com/
- Treat people like human beings, not political abstractions.
- Criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down, never to destroy.
- Root everything you do in love and compassion.
Pretty sure that would pattern-match to "all lives matter" according to those currently running the show.
Then halfway through, I proposed an experiment -- for the rest of the meeting, we leave a full second, by the clock, between when one person finishes talking and the next person starts. The presenter thought that would be interesting so we tried it. I tracked which people spoke after that (and how many times the rule was violated).
If you ever try this experiment, be aware that maintaining a 1 second silence is very uncomfortable.
The results were pretty unexpected, but perhaps the most surprising thing (although it shouldn't have been surprising in retrospect) was that the group that benefitted the most in this experiment -- most underrepresented in the meeting before, and proportionately represented after -- was a minority group whose existence wasn't even mentioned once in the entire DEI presentation. Can you guess who it was?
That's right: English-as-a-second-language immigrant employees, who were fluent but needed an extra ~0.25s more than the native English speakers to compose their thoughts. Coincidentally this group was mostly composed of {members of groups classified as majority by more common axes of classification}, who unlike other {members of their group}, almost never had their voices heard in meetings because they were ESL.
anecdotally, I have been Shanice and see Steve get told his new hairstyle sucks and they all laugh together but not risk it with me. makes me feel like favoritism when its my coworker and boss, so it certainly has created a lot of tension within the team.
That's it. That's the whole thing. The request is "don't be an ass to anybody". One would think it's not a high bar to clear.
"Come have a beer with us!" "My hydration levels are already at an acceptable level, stop harassing me."
What struck me when I read this article was how uncomfortable I would personally be, as a non-white person, sitting in that meeting. Like, what am I supposed to do with that information? Is that how I want to begin my law school experience? My first year was a decade ago, before this stuff, but I'm having a hard time imagining how I would have developed the close relationships I did starting things off on this foot. Like, how do you go and talk about getting a recommendation from a professor after that?
In the last year or so, I have also had people stop in the middle of a conversation to "defer to my lived experience." This happened yesterday in the middle of discussing bribery culture in Bangladesh. Literally, the conversation ended with the other person saying "you must be right because of your experience."
I know the academic sources of these concepts and appreciate their value in the appropriate contexts. And I really do appreciate the need for diversity training in general, objective discussions about implicit bias, looking at recruiting pipelines to enhance diversity, etc. But does anyone actually want to be subjected to treatment like this in day-to-day settings? People of color want to live normal lives too, and fit in just like everyone else. To me, this comes across as hostile and alienating. (I showed this to my mom, explaining to her the context. She responded: “It is scary totally, to see people are writing it on the paper. Means There is no breaking point anymore. This America is not that same America when we came.”)
No real patience for people trying to make being oppressed a virtue, when people could have the ability to just leave that baggage behind. Not really interested to pander to mid-life or teenage crisis of some people that think they need to educate the peasants.
These people are not an inch less dogmatic than some priests, so I don't see much room for discussion. I do think they are even a factor in rising right wing parties.
> During a Zoom meeting with hundreds of students, the interim dean and dozens of other faculty and administrators each declared they were "a racist" and "a gatekeeper of white supremacy."
Historically, accusing a whole ethnic group of being inherently guilty of some great evil (e.g. racism), has worked out less than great for that group, so it's hardly surprising they'd be defensive.
It's probably true that employees, faculty, and some kinds of student leadership should be aware of ethical and legal obligations when it comes to diversity, though. So I think it would be hard to argue against all categories of diversity content.
It's just many (most?) recent forms of anti-racism content crosses the line from "meet these expectations about professional conduct" and into "proactively improve yourself as a person". I don't think it's appropriate for superiors to mandate the latter. A spiritual advisor, counselor, mentor, or mental health professional? Absolutely.
To be fair, I do think it's appropriate for employees to face consequences of their own racist behavior. Even, in many cases, when that behavior is unintended.
Can you give an example of what kind of content you think is common that is crossing this line?
In addition, curriculum that has participants take some sort of personal inventory. Also having them go through some sort of confessional process.
Again, these are all healthy things to do. In the right context.
As a hiring manager, it's been helpful for me to be thoughtful about asking things like, "how did you get here, car, train?" - as this implies socioeconomic status, and if you reflect on why you asked that, what you wanted to know about it, and how it affected your thinking in general, and were honest, there's a chance it might have affected your opinion of the person in a way that has nothing to do with their ability to do the job. This opinion could be either good or bad, and isn't necessarily dependent on whether the person you're interviewing is from a marginalized class.
I still have bias, everyone does, these trainings do not aim to eliminate bias, they aim to inform people that it exists, and to offer them tools to be thoughtful about those biases, and to challenge folks to question the biases that potentially harm others, even if unintentionally.
I'm open to the science here, so will keep an ear to the ground.
Sorry but that's just a completely baseless assertion. Not everyone is selfish, nor is it a struggle for everyone to not be selfish. Assuming that others think as you think is what we call in poker, "first level thinking". The same concept can be extended to those who obsess over "diversity" and insist, "everyone is racist". Its flatly wrong, and frankly, idiotic to make such an assertion. Saddling everyone with the insecurities and deficiencies carried by a few is counterproductive and wrong.
Your employer has every right to be concerned with your behavior at work, and take any sort of punitive or corrective measures that your misbehavior may merit. Your employer should have no role making sweeping judgements about your beliefs or personality traits that have not been manifested in the workplace, much less mandating Soviet-style re-education which hinges on their baseless (and flawed) assumptions about human nature.
A for profit corporation is the very definition of selfishness. And you think that a corporation can teach you "not to be selfish" when the entire goal is productivity in order to make someone a whole lot more money that you will ever earn? You don't see a contradiction in what you are saying?
It can't get more hypocritical like that. These trainings only exist to benefit the corporation, not the individual subjected to these. The perfect alliance between soviet style propaganda techniques (struggle sessions to break the individual) and hyper capitalism.
And no, everybody does not struggle with being selfish. Everybody isn't selfish.
By victimizing their employees with "diversity training" on the other hand, corporations have found the perfect way to break them, with the approval and moral support of the left. In fact, many corporations known for their anti-union schemes do also force their employees through these "diversity training" sessions.
> Sometimes they even implant new stereotypes (for instance, if participants didn’t previously have particular stereotypes for Vietnamese people, or much knowledge about them overall, but were introduced to common stereotypes about this group through training intended to dispel said stereotypes).
Have you considered being more aware might have made you behave in a more bias or stereotype assuming way?
The question should be are these programs achieving the goal of making an inclusive workplace or not?
I think a lot of the problems with diversity training, and reasons it may not work - are that it's not actually bought into by those participating - and by bought into, I don't mean believing everything you hear - I mean participating, active listening, asking questions, being open to the idea that one is wrong, and that you can improve and help make your workplace one which feels good to be part of.
It took me 20 years in my career, and most of the bad workplaces I had were a result of careless / unempathetic leadership. Once I actually had that, and saw that they were better at running a business than those without deep empathy and thoughtful reflection, I am not going back.
I'll never work for someone who isn't at least open to the ideas of transparency, open communication, and psychological safety, while at the same time, driving a business forward - these are not contradictions.
Last: The training can't make the workplace better - the people must. If they are unwilling to listen, or behave differently based on signals they are now trained on, or at least know why they are continuing their current behavior (an option) - it won't work, these things fall apart when there isn't widespread participation.
Based on the article I do wonder if the approach of the training can make people more or less willing to create an inclusive environment. The way you approach someone to do something is definitely a factor in whether they will do it. If training approaches like these are making folks more likely to be biased, I think that is cause for introspection.
If you are pro diversity, you should therefore be against the current iteration of diversity training; and instead advocate redirect that effort into either experimenting with new approaches, or following other approaches that might work.
Imagine flight had not been invented yet. You wouldn't say that the Marquis de Bacqueville [1] attempt is the proof that flight is a bad idea or wrong. We continually improve and strive to find better ways to achieve goals we define as desirable. You might disagree with the latter, but this is a different point.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Boyvin_de_B...
Because they are based on a racist ideology, "'critical' race theory" and they are more akin to soviet style struggle sessions than any sort of actual training. In fact what is practiced in US would be probably illegal in a number of European countries.
Furthermore it's lower level employees that are subject to these "indoctrination" sessions, not higher ups that often treat low level employees like shit, no matter the race or sex.
So on one side, you are for victimizing low level employees, on the other, controversial management techniques that totally lack of any human empathy are never questioned.
It might not be legal in the U.S. either, at least some of the stuff that's going on. TBD.
What trainings are you talking about? (my experience is that the extent of these trainings are that everyone must take the same thing, yes including the C-suite)
Health and safety training, for example. And I can talk to people who were around before that was a things, and count the number of limbs.
It's not entirely unjustified. Mandatory company-wide training probably is irrelevant to your specific role. It's also usually delivered by the lowest bidder, which is the strongest possible true signal I could receive. It's often not even attended by leadership - the people whose role is setting the culture!
I get a long (charged by-the-hour?) lecture from HopefulSlogan Consultants about ethics and integrity? I think the same thing as I would walking past the slogans on Enron's lobby walls. The top is almost certainly corrupt.
You cannot defend identity politics or critical race theory without making wildly racist statements, that are somehow OK because you mean well.
If you have seen some of the videos of the older white woman (whose name escapes me) that used to give the blue eyed/brown eyed experiment her approach strikes me as being abusive. I understand what she is attempting to teach, but I deeply dislike her delivery. I feel that she is trying to scar (not scare, scar) people into compliance.
They are not only abusive but based on a racist ideology, since these "training" sessions are often racially segregated therefore imply that some races are inherently racist. It builds up resentment and division, which is exactly what corporations want, employees at odd with each others so they won't question actual abusive management techniques designed by the higher ups. This is cunning.
https://archive.is/zqIGa
Whether, with all other things taken into account, this remains a factor, and whether there is causation, I don't know, but they did see fit to mention it specifically as a "Store Risk".
If I would need to implement a divide and conquer approach to any group, I certainly would start with benefiting certain members above others. Conflict is almost guaranteed this way. Oldest trick in the book.
Some diversity proponents try to mandate solidarity will indeed undermine efforts for workers rights. That approach might even be more subtle.
- Intelligent employees become cynical, and assume a hidden agenda.
- The opportunity to change the minds of employees with reasoned doubts/objections to D&I claims is squandered. In fact, it raises (reasonable, imho) suspicions that the D&I proponents know that some of their stated positions are weak, and don't want them subjected to scrutiny.
- Proponents of D&I may remain sheltered from valid counterpoints. So they lose an opportunity to refine their positions based on productive discussion.
This is based on my experience working in corporate environments for a few decades. And IME, the problem is definitely more pronounced at large companies than small ones.
Rather, the companies obligation is to provide a safe environment for workers and customers and to uphold basic standards for non-discriminatory professional conduct in the at-work activities of its employees and the orginization as a whole. It doesn't matter if people think some harmful stuff, so long as they leave that thinking outside of the office and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.
Inviting debate might help set some people's moral thinking straight, but it has the much larger risk of inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police.
We very much shouldn't want corporate HR forcibly imposing their concept of right and wrong onto people outside of the extremely narrow confines of work interactions: A millennia of debate by philosophers and religious leaders world wide have failed to settle innumerable moral questions. FooCorp HR-- which has almost every ethical incentive set in the wrong direction (e.g. maximize profits for FooCorp), and wields more power over people's lives than all but the most abusive cults-- simply isn't qualified or appropriate for the task of controlling people's personal moral compasses.
I don't necessarily disagree with your general sentiment -- I would actually prefer to keep all of this out of the workplace entirely. But I think this sort of behavior is already happening in companies, and it is exacerbated by the fact that there isn't debate.
I think it is difficult for a company with an open culture to keep politics away from work. And if we suppose that politics will inevitably find their way into work, I would much rather have debates than not.
For example in some cases the best solution might be too reorganize company values.
It seems to me a downside to that approach, though, is that we'd never learn why they had those views, and probably never get a chance to reason with them about why they should believe otherwise.
Perhaps I'm too optimistic about the possibility of talking things out. It's hard to tell.
I believe that I understand very well WHY people have racist points of view. Racists are incredibly common and their motivations and beliefs aren't a mystery. I'm not sure what you would hope to change by talking things out.
Prejudice is by definition irrational, because it involves pre-judging. You can't really reason with someone about an irrational belief.
clearly your statement is appropriate in some cases but here is just strawmanning the position of many people that criticize many ineffective efforts.
To be fair, murder has not been established. Journalists typically say "the death of George Floyd"
Sure, some people, who tend to respond better to negative re-enforcement will be convinced to change their ways using that technique. That said, an arguably larger number of people will respond better to the carrot. Thus, they won't be convinced via the negative re-enforcement, but do not want to lose their job, be put on a secret whisper network "do not hire" list etc.. So, they pretend to play along and then find groups of people where they can let their hair down. It is not un-like the secret clubs that would break off from super conservative church groups to do some drinking (which usually ended up as binge drinking), speak easy's during prohibition, underground sex clubs etc..
Many of those groups experienced a litany of un-intended consequences from rigid views about alcohol, sex etc.. Un-surprisingly, the same appears to be happening with diversity efforts as well.
because
Male and Females ARE DIFFERENT
Diferences between Jews, Asians, White and Blacks EXIST
The only way Left wing Zionism, Marxism and Commisism can be reached is lowing everyone down to the lowest common doninator
Real differences between * IQ * Agression * Phsyical * exist between Male and Female * and different races
Once you allow your Hobby Group Business platform to have admins, ceo, management that are Global LESTIST they will turn your group into a poltical activist outlet to use power and funnel resources (Look up DIVERSITY CIRCLE)
What the Global LEFT refuse to admit is its all a scam to push for their goal which is Agenda 21 2020-2030 , Global single goverment, no freedom no nations, no borders, run by Zionist Jews in ISRAEL