> Much of the discussion seems to place a blame squarely on employers, describing a cabal of shadowy prejudiced men in the board room ensuring someone gets 30% less or 30% more just because

Nobody says that. It's the larger society, which also teaches black people and women to ask for less

it seems to me that if you spend all your time telling people they are oppressed, they'll believe you. There are certainly aspects of society that are unfair on women and racial minorities but hammering the idea of privilege and that as a person of group X you'll never be as successful as a white male you're just teaching people to accept and expect less.

I hear what you are saying. There have been tests on groups of student test takers:

group 1 is told they are talented and that the test is hard group 2 is told if they work hard they wil prevail

that was the gist, but I could be getting the wording wrong. The work-hard group did much better at the test than the talented group. I'm going from memory here and will try to find the test to post here. But don't you think it is valuable to prepare those who might have a tougher time with knowledge about how discrimination operates within our institutions that confer power for situations they may face and that certain strategies are better (based upon data from history) than others in understanding the basis of these? When one understands how the opposing army operates, one can create a more effective and hopefully victorious strategy. Especially if one is told that winning battle strategies productively use insider knowlege of one's opponents strengths and weknesses in an innovative and sustained counter-measure.

I think we agree that we should address it, but I have heard .... things. The understanding of this topic is a wide gradient, with lots of incomplete and incorrect information repeated by authoritative political figures including Presidents.

Genuine question: Where does that happen?

> The average of black candidates, and women candidates, simply asked for less than the average of white male candidates

I agree that the phenomenon is much more complex than conspiratorial movie villains, and it's unproductive to simplify things that way (often out of anger). But I'll add some complexity to what you said: They would be wise to ask for less because that is what the market will bear, due to widespread discrimination.

It seems beyond debate that discrimination is widespread, though again I agree we need to understand that simple statement in detail. The black, female, Latino, etc. candidates would have to be deaf and blind not to be aware of it, and would need unusual courage to try to ignore it.

Anecdotally, I was at dinner with a retired female biologist. She was discussing the challenges of being a female scientist in her generation, and how today's women in science take their opportunities for granted. Later in the meal, she told me that women are naturally worse at math and computer science, and that males of northern European ancestry are naturally superior (which flies in the face of even current discriminatory hiring in IT). It wasn't anything I haven't heard before, unfortunately; even in my personal experience, explicit discrimination is not so rare as to be shocking.

Good point. And those who have been discriminated against internalize it. It is the water they have been swimming in their whole lives, so it takes a concerted effort from everyone to become more aware of how these biases operate if we wish to turn things in a more egalitarian direction.