The premise is that there is a set of acceptable ideas and people who disagree are unwelcome. Obviously people are going to want to talk about specific examples. Half this thread is about Damore, which is directly on point.
I admit that the line is hard to draw and the root comment there had a foot on both sides of it. But we've learned that ideologically inflammatory threads do much better when they stay grounded in the specifics of the current story. If we end up with a bunch of angry flamewars burning in separate places about veganism, Stalinism, etc., all at the same time, that's one of the worst-case scenarios for this forum.
It's easy to hand-wave other's hardships away when one doesn't experience them first-hand, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
(a) political action (voting, city council meetings, writing to a congressman)
(b) civil action (rallies, protests, community organizing, civil disobedience)
(c) work action (send an email, post on internal slack channel)
(d) public relations (letter to an editor, an op/ed in local paper, getting a local news station to cover the issue)
is (c) the most effective for achieving the desired results?
It's not actually "hundreds of times" more. It is, however, more than 10 to 1, which is more than the ratio of black to white inmates (even accounting for proportion of the general population).
When -those- are your daily experiences with the police, the fact that non-violent, un-resisting black males are killed by the police without repercussion in your city (see: Eric Garner) is terrifying, even if the absolute risk of your being shot by an officer is low.
The reason Brownsville exists in this way, is because other parts of the city have created it the serve thusly. Spend enough time in NYC, and you gain an affinity for the equillibrium that fixtures on its map have acquired, in order to persist for decades and generations.
Brownsville is a landlocked pocket of subway-accessible pavement, about an hour from Manhattan.
Inside the footprint of the city limts, things exist as a matter of human will. The more powerful forces at the top tend to have stronger influnce over the sequence of events, than those at the bottom.
What was going on with the walled city of kowloon? Was it there because people aspired to that, and it was a reflection of their intent?
When you are legally barred from say, having power of attorney when your loved one of decades is on their deathbed, or, say, unable to find a landlord that will rent to you, because some asshole politicians fought on behalf of their asshole constituents against your right to do so simply because you do not conform to the idea they project onto their god as holding as to what constitutes a "proper" family unit, politics very much happens to you.
Anyway, the answer is no, because the discussion is about the impact of denigrating political stances on individuals generally. My example is one of many illustrating the importance of a greater principle: a workplace that supports the parties that work to forward such legislation supports the dehumanization of individuals. That is intolerable.
When human dignity hangs in the balance, politics matter.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-acros...
[2] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-...
Per 2016 US Census [1]:
> Black or African American = 40,241,818 (12.6%)
If you really believe that under-represented minorities are not at a major disadvantage in our society, facing multiple layers of explicit and implicit discrimination against them, then, in my opinion, you're part of the problem.
> the lack of female representation in tech...
Likewise, if you took the pseudo-science [3] by disgruntled engineers for granted, and believe that the lack of female representation in tech is due to some ridiculous genetic predisposition, ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes, on top of open sexual and moral harassment, then you're part of the reason for the divide. It's exactly this kind of thinking that creates gender stereotyping and legitimizes the systemic sexism in our industry.
If you're interested in understanding more about the true root causes of our gender disparity, a good initial read is "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley", by the amazing Emily Chang [4]. No pseudo-science required.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
[3] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-me...
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley...
Your point is obviously that the percentage is higher for black people. But the percentage is higher for black people for a wide variety of causes of death, like exposure to toxic substances (due to living in high risk areas), which actually kill more people. So why is this one in particular the subject of a national campaign?
> ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes
The "tech industry" (meaning the likes of Google) wasn't possible before the internet was a thing used by the majority of the population. It hasn't even existed for 50+ years.
And the predecessor industries you would have to include to get back that far had a much less skewed gender balance.
Whatever this is, it doesn't have a 50+ year history.
> on top of open sexual and moral harassment that created a toxic environment for women
Studies have shown that the degree of sexual harassment in gender balanced industries like medicine is atrocious -- significantly worse than it is in tech. Attempting to use that as an explanation for the gender balance fails because the relative difference is in the opposite direction.
> then you're helping to increase the gender divide.
...unless you're wrong about the causes, in which case we need to understand the real ones in order to do something about it. And for that we need to be able to talk about them without slamming the door in the face of anyone who questions the prevailing narrative.
And Damore was clearly wrong about some things. But if you don't allow people to speak at the risk of being wrong then they'll say nothing even when they're right. When someone is wrong you don't eject them from the community, you explain why and have the debate.
Let me quote the title of the link above: "Number of people SHOT TO DEATH BY THE POLICE in the United States in 2017-2018, as of June, by race".
Exposure to "toxic substances"? I don't think so.
Also, tech industry != "the internet".
If you're really interested in having a debate, go ahead and read Emily's book. Seriously.
While you're at it, "The Innovators" [1] is also a good read, and it'll be helpful to understand that the roots of our "tech industry" really started 100+ years ago, with a disproportional growth starting several decades before Larry and Sergey even got admitted to kindergarten...
The gender disparity we're seeing today is the consequence of several decades of systemic and widespread conscious and unconscious biases, that have shaped the perception of an entire generation.
Once you refine your understanding and start paying attention, you can see it everywhere. And unfortunately it'll take decades to fix.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-R...
> 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem.
Perception doesn't make a political experience any less valid. You don't have to have lived a traumatic experience to be afraid of it, and the records of bad encounters with police from black people are plenty even though they aren't counted in your stats. It is of course the same with women and sexual assault etc. I suggest you listen to the stories of people around you as they probably have many to tell, and if they don't, here is a very good read that someone posted here on HN: https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/
>Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense.
I don't believe that was the fireable offense, although the statement itself is no less ludicrous. If I remember well, the letter made a clear distinction between the abstract wishy-washy evopsych stuff and the clear implication that Google's current diversity policies were lowering the bar for hiring and thus that his female colleagues were less capable than average.
Being shot by a police officer is a symptom of the disease, but you can see the effects on a daily basis if you take time to notice.
[1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/1...
Why do you think that your opinions about other people's feelings and experiences are more valid that their actual experiences?
(When answering, please be aware that that your statistic about police killings does not single-handedly invalidate black Americans' daily experience of racism and discrimination.)
I have read countless articles and posts at this point claiming that "America doesn't care about black bodies" and that black people in America should "fear for their lives every day," all in regards to the perceived danger of police shootings. In that example, despite this perception by not only those populations themselves, but a large majority of the population at large, the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem.
I actually think that this is a central theme to many of these discussions, where one population is claiming that there is a substantial disadvantage to having a certain characteristic, whereas the counter states that there is either no such disadvantage, or its magnitude is misrepresented.
In any event, I think that there is often merit to both cases, and I think what you're seeing with the Facebook group here is simply a response to the growing perception that the conversation has become increasingly one-sided in the large SV corporations. Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. That's not okay.