I'd prefer to be called German Irish (or some other identifiable family history origin) or American. White or Caucasian isn't a nationality or race.
If your father is from Ireland, but you are dark skinned then you will suffer the same prejudices and abuses as anyone or your skin color. If your father is Kenyan and you are light skinned, you will smoothly fit in with the “white majority” without anyone digging into your history.
The context of US race questions is to counter US racism. Logical etymology doesn’t really apply.
If your ancestors came to America and were Irish, they faced discrimination just as much as other groups, if not more than most, even if they had a similar color tone as other Europeans.
What possible genetic diversity can be had from just 3 families [0]... (Shem, Ham, Japheth)
I identify most with Inyalowda [1], haha.
Some federal contracting also places requirements on a company's demographics.
You are correct that the government has started asking contractors for some of this data. But it is only a requirement for the business itself, not for their customers.
"Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid."
"Does the defense have a counter-argument?"
"Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..."
A really good defense would be to build a totally race and gender anonymized system of hiring. How could we have discriminated against your race and gender when your name was obfuscated, your voice was modulated, and we took very strict precautions to ensure nobody involved in interviewing or setting compensation even knew your gender? This was not feasible before remote interviewing became normalized during COVID, but I'm interested in seeing if it gains traction.
The evidence the plaintiff brings can be as simple as "I polled ten people with my job title in the company." If the company hasn't tracked this data at all and can't produce it in its defense, then in a civil case the plaintiff would have the preponderance of evidence on their side and the resulting resolution to make them whole could be all the back-pay they are owed between what they made and what their peers made.
So even outside of the need to file EEOC-1, companies are heavily incentivized to track this data (as any competent employment lawyer would indicate); you don't want to be scrambling to satisfy evidentiary burden in a lawsuit.
If someone complains about an orchestra that doesn't have the racial or gender makeup they want, but the orchestra points out they have blind auditions and robust systems to ensure that the identities of musicians aren't leaked to evaluators then it's tough to provide a preponderance of evidence of discrimination.
We'd have to wait to see what happens if someone tries it. Point is: in the average case, it's setting oneself up to spend time in court, and most companies optimize for staying out of court, not becoming a test subject on the path-dependency of novel caselaw.
The requirements to prove a discrimination suit are far more direct: you need to prove that the company directly used protected class to make hiring or compensation decisions. And if the people making these decisions were never even informed of the candidate's protected class status it's exceptionally difficult to make the case that this was affecting this decision making.
> for example, basing a candidate's pay on 110% of their pay at their previous employer can result in implicit wage discrimination because men tend to enter the workforce at a higher pay and catch higher pay bumps in promotions
Actually, this is a perfect example of something that isn't going to get the company into legal trouble. They didn't make this decision on the basis of race, gender or another protected class. They made this decision based on something entirely objective: the candidate's previous pay. If that employee's previous employer was engaging in racial discrimination, then that's the company that vulnerable to a lawsuit.
I'm interested in this notion that you can sue your current employer, because a co-worker's past employer potentially engaged in gender discrimination that bumped their salary, which in turn was used in negotiations with the current employer. Do you have an example of any such lawsuit succeeding?
Rizzo v. Yovino, 9th Circuit ruling, indicates that basing present pay on past pay may violate the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericbachman/2020/03/13/past-sal...).
... but more importantly, this case has entangled the Fresno County public school system for over a decade. That's expensive relative to the alternative of... Not doing that.
> "Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid."
> "Does the defense have a counter-argument?"
No. It should be more along the lines of "Prove it". To come forth with such a claim carries with it the implication that one actually has /evidence/ for it, however (in)substantial. The response is NOT to automatically deflect to the defense in order to prove innocence.
> "Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..."
Nothing wrong with that. Evidence can be procured on demand by court order. And even if it were discovered that this one individual female client were paid less than her male counterparts, you'd have to prove that it was because she was female. That means gathering evidence on what her female peers were paid, as well. This particular client could have been an anomaly (e.g. less hours worked, less responsibility, not exactly a peer to her counterparts, the lower pay was only temporary and/or due to some previous agreement, etc.) leading the courts to find nothing systemically wrong with this employer. Don't be so quick to judge, without evidence or context.
And the burden of proof is on the accuser. The court doesn't just say "we don't have the data, so we must assume it's what the accuser says".
> If you insist that the complainant is the one who has to investigate the salaries and work performance of all her coworkers, you’re immediately setting her up for failure.
Yes! And that's exactly how the court works: the burden of proof is on the accuser.
> Requiring the company itself to record this information can provide evidence that they’re abusing employees
And why on earth would the company want to do this, when it could potentially harm them?
It is so ridiculous that it gives the information to allow the company, manager, HR to discriminate (even unconsciously), exactly the opposite of what the legislation is trying to achieve.
What is worse from a cyber security perspective is that this information is now proliferated increasing the chances that it will be breached.
Golf clap US government...
For all the talk about it in this thread, we aren't moving to some kind of double-blind anonymous voice muffled 60 Minutes interview screening processes anytime soon. It's a goofy idea because once you hire somebody, people are going to work face-to-face with them anyway.
Note that the tracking is desired because a seemingly neutral policy can still be illegal; the EEOC gives the following example:
> An employer has a "no-beard" rule, which disproportionately excludes African American men because they have a higher incidence of pseudofolliculitis barbae, an inflammatory skin condition caused by shaving. The employer must be able to demonstrate that beards affect job performance or safety. Also, there must be no alternatives to a strict "no-beard" rule that would meet the employer's business or safety needs.
Those forms (nearly?) always include a "prefer not to say" option.
Of course there are multiple steps in there which can be criticized, but within the set of terms they've defined, it makes the language less ambiguous. It's like how astronomy often defines "metals" as "anything bigger than helium". The terms have a useful meaning in the proper context.
There might not be systemic anti-white racism in the US but there is certainly interpersonal racism against whites in the US. Insisting on dismissing that is not helpful to literally anyone: whites or people of color.
There is no systemic "ism" that is discriminating against white people.
Would you describe that as not systemic?
And I personally think your proposed alternarive just amounts to word games.
Some may not agree with the distinction, but the reality that racial bias without power and a system behind it is not really the same thing. Which is why there is not equivalent to things like the "n" word for white people.
Anti capitalism and pro economic redistribution?
> The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. [1]
That white people should radically support racial justice?
> I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice. [2]
That riots are understandable in the face of oppression?
> But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. [3]
The fact is that MLK was a radical who was opposed by most white people. When he died, 75% of the American public disliked him. It's only in retrospect that conservatives have tried to whitewash his legacy, pretending to support racial progress while opposing the very things he stood for.
[1] https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/mlk-quotes-too-radica...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/...
[3] https://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-the-r...
We don’t treasure everything even about the people we like. MLK was a man, and therefore it is safe to assume a complicated person who developed and changed his beliefs a lot throughout his life. When he seized the opportunity to deliver a speech to the nation, it wasn’t “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and it wasn’t sympathy for rioters, it was “I Have a Dream”.
This is an example of survivorship bias. MLK obviously didn’t anticipate when he made the “I Have A Dream” speech that he would have only a few more years to live. It’s seen as representative not because he thought it was a unique opportunity to make an impact, but because it’s what people chose to highlight once he was gone.
Yes.
> The reason that speech is cherry-picked to be the cornerstone of public school education — the reason it’s the “breakthrough hit” — is that it allows people to avoid confronting the radical and uncomfortable aspects of MLK’s demands.
Sure it’s cherry picked, but it was also the message he delivered with the most weight to the largest audience with the largest resonance to that audience that we valued enough to continue carrying forward.
We don’t carry forward every message by every person, and we don’t carry forward every message for every person we do carry messages forward for. This was what he had to say that we valued the most.
> This is an example of survivorship bias. MLK obviously didn’t anticipate when he made the “I Have A Dream” speech that he would have only a few more years to live.
It’s not just survivorship bias though. This was the culmination of the March on Washington. It was kind of a big deal. You have the biggest live audience you can ever expect to have in your lifetime, even if you’re Martin Luther King Jr, so what do you think he should have said instead with the fantastic advantage of hindsight that you possess? Nowadays we can post on YouTube and get tens of thousands of hits every day as long as we’re better than mediocre. Limited opportunities for engagement force you to focus on what you think is most important to say at that moment.
I agree, but I don’t think it reflects particularly well on the audience! Like, carry this one step further. Why is this the message that resonated with everyone? Why not white moderates being the stumbling block to racial justice, or capitalism being evil?
I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because people actually want or care about racial equality.
> You have the biggest live audience you can ever expect to have in your lifetime, even if you’re Martin Luther King Jr, so what do you think he should have said instead with the fantastic advantage of hindsight that you possess?
I have to imagine that, had he seen this future, he would not have said the line about judging people by the content of their character, because the result has been the co-opting of his image to undermine everything he stood for. Like, people will literally use that quote to argue that MLK would have opposed affirmative action, when the exact opposite is true.
I can think of several reasons:
1. It was sincere.
2. It was likely the only speech anyone had ever seen from MLK, statistically speaking. It’s not like they were serialized.
3. It was correct. If we are to judge people at all, we should do so on the basis of their character, not the color of the skin. One takes consideration and trust in one’s own judgment, the other you only need at least one working eye for.
4. It was non-confrontational: “I have a Dream” not “I have a Problem”.
5. It was the culmination of the 1963 March on Washington. Marching on Washington wasn’t exactly a common affair back then: it drew attention, as it was designed to.
6. It was the speech he chose to deliver to the largest audience he had ever had in his life and was likely to ever have as far as he knew. Basically in effect “do or die” for at least that set of participants. If it had been a failure, there were no take-backsies, no second chances, no just trying again next year. So the right message, at the right time, delivered to everyone he could to try and compel them to at least meet in the middle.
I mean, he could have said something else, but he also probably wouldn’t have been as effective and I probably wouldn’t have learned about him in school. Maybe you have a case to make that it would have been better that way.
> I have to imagine that, had he seen this future, he would not have said the line about judging people by the content of their character, because the result has been the co-opting of his image to undermine everything he stood for. Like, people will literally use that quote to argue that MLK would have opposed affirmative action, when the exact opposite is true.
Best line in the speech and you would want him to gut it! Who knows, maybe with foresight that matched your hindsight he would have. The problem isn’t that he said it, the problem you have is that people are citing that specific passage to make an argument about what his position would be.
He’s dead, and has been for a long time. He doesn’t have any arguments to make anymore, not against capitalism and not for affirmative action and not about how the moderate whites in his opinion just might on a bad day need some non-non-violent direct action shaped suspiciously like the good Reverend’s boot. The tradeoff against people misrepresenting his words to argue against something he probably would support decades into the future is that he got to be persuasive when he needed to be persuasive, but feel free to hop in the TARDIS and tell him that his needs at the time are less significant than your needs in the potential future. Only the living get to keep arguing, for everyone else the case is submitted.
Right now, though, right now some of us are moving at a good pace, while others aren’t even moving in the right direction. Some of us are incapable of moving on our own. Others are being held back. Helping those who are struggling most right now makes sense, right?
You wouldn’t interrupt a marathon to object that encouraging the slowest runner isn’t fair, since the dream is for everybody to have a medal and cake.
Curious why you described the speech as “notorious” rather than “famous”?
It's fine for that to be the thing you believe in, but that is not a reasonable interpretation of "MLK's values". MLK scholars, his contemporaries he worked with, and his successors within his organizations would nearly categorically reject your characterization of that being his values. Like this is an entire area of academic study: what MLK said, thought, and wanted done.
Again, it's fine to conclude that MLK has it wrong and the left is wrong about race and social justice warriors etc. etc. etc. I don't think you should be made to care about what MLK thought or to study him. I am not interested in telling you you are right or wrong about any policy issue. It's just incredibly flip to engage so superficially with a guy who left such a voluminous archive of writing and thought and use him as a prop in the argument. I think if you are going to assert yourself as understanding what his values were, you owe it to him to spend a lot more time and effort trying to understand what they were.
This is sort of the equivalent of thinking you understand Nietzsche to be anti-religious because you half-remember the quote "God is dead" and although you've never read him you feel confident you know what it means.
Several South American countries have more European ancestry than does the US.
Hispanic/Latino (and not-Hispanic/Latino) are the only ethnicities in that context, and it exists specifically to enable categorization that reflects the social construction of Whiteness at the time it was created while not obviously breaking the (bogus, in any case) biological rationale for the construction of “racial” categories.
> Don't they call you "white hispanic"?
Usually they ask me to check a box, and as a Brazilian I don't ever really check "hispanic" as I don't feel that is a term that applies to me.
I’m committed to anti racism but the US approach is charlatanism all the way down. The esteemed Dr King and Mr X would be rolling in their graves.
No, it doesn’t. In fact, most of the time in the US, “skin color” is code for race/ethnicity. Light-skinned Black people, White non-Hispanics, mostly-White Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians can have very similar or even identical literal skin colors; but the Black person is still Black, the Whites are still White (except maybe the Hispanic ones), and the rest are neither White nor Black.
For instance, if you see that applicants that are otherwise equally qualified are getting rejected on recruiter screen disproportionally by race, you may have an issue with how your screening is done. And yes, this happens: https://eml.berkeley.edu//~crwalters/papers/randres.pdf
A reasonable goal is that race, gender, and sexual orientation should have no bearing at all on how likely it is that you get hired, promoted, or fired. So these inputs are typically blinded to hiring managers but available to HR in aggregate to let them perform these kinds of analyses.
I'll acknowledge this approach leads to some very odd interactions, like my school district asking what the sexual orientation of my five year old is. But it's not clear how else one can build a credible gauge for measuring and eliminating *isms from a system. (Open to hearing ideas!)
There being more male construction workers doesn't make it a sexist system.
There being more female teachers doesn't make it a sexist system.
There being more asian doctors doesn't make it a racist system.
Let people do what they want to do, you can look at demographics but stop trying to read racist tea leaves with it.
If it doesn't, you have an issue. The only way to know for sure is to measure.
E: To be clear, assuming equally qualified candidates, you would want expect hiring proportions to match the same A:B ratio as you get from applications.
No, I wouldn't expect this at all as I do not expect the height distribution of basketball player to reflect the height distribution of the general population. As I do not expect the personality trait distribution of pop stars to be the same of programmers, and again I do not expect the latter to be similar to the general population. Personal inclination, innate intelligence, talent, conscientiousness, and of course demographics, parenting, generational wealth all play a role.
Skin color is not an advantage when programming. It is also a characteristic by which it is illegal to hire a programmer.
That can be measured (imperfectly, but well enough), by filtering only for qualified candidates and then comparing the rate at which both A and B are hired and the rate at which they appear in the filtered list. E: This of course requires the filtering to be done _only_ with knowledge of a candidates skills/accomplishments, and association with demographics (including name, location, etc.) to be done only after the sorting.
If you also collect demographics of applicants, it may tell a different story.
If your employee demographics look skewed, but they're consistent with applicant demographics, you have an easy out when accused of ism.
Of course, if you collect the information, you might also use it for ism purposes. Or you might just lose or discourage applications from non-favored people. It's hard to show.
(It also doesn't help that the federal categories feel poorly chosen and ill-defined)
Are you sure? There being more male programmers is widely used as evidence that it's a sexist system.
How about the mostly male homeless population that live on the streets?
If females don't want to go into programming then don't make them.
There are really good female programmers, but males tend to be more frequent.
We all have different traits that make us good at different things, that's the beautiful thing about humans.
But if there is something to address, address the pain points specifically and directly.
Don't try to guess a "correct" ratio and work backwards with affirmative action (denying one race to boost up another).
For all you know the current ratio is the realistic ratio and where we should be.
In reality, the proportion of women in STEM directly matches the proportion of women in STEM majors, which directly matches proportion of women who say they're interested in STEM.
Maybe institutions can afford to leave sexual orientation out of it until you’re talking about a body of people that is firmly within the age of consent threshold or has at least hit puberty. A lawyer might disagree but for him the remedy is to bend him over and remove the stick from his ass.
Some people think that affirmative action isn't racist.
But tell me what it is when you think like: "hey we have enough asians, exclude that person, let's find a black to get our quota"
Some people will defend it like a user said below:
"By engaging in deliberate anti-racism efforts to counteract subconscious racism."
But what is "anti-racism"? It's being racist in the opposite direction. You think Y group is being oppressed "subconciously" so you oppress X group as much as you think you need to, to "even" it out.
We should strive for equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.
Everybody agrees that the US was hugely racist to start out and for centuries thereafter. The main dispute is over whether or not that has diminished or has been totally obliterated. If you'd like to claim the latter, I'm interested to see your data. E.g., what is the precise date where you think the last traces were destroyed?
> Everybody agrees that the US was hugely racist to start out and for centuries thereafter.
I don't. If anything we were the colony to finally collapse the system after many centuries of it being standard across the world.
For those more reasonable who want to know about what anti-racism is opposed to, I'd suggest reading Loewen's Sundown Towns, Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, and Mills's The Racial Contract as beginner-friendly looks at the system of racism, its historical and intellectual roots, and how it all played out historically.
Many people were involved in this system, from the warring tribes in Africa selling prisoners, to countries like the UK setting up colonies with slaves for cotton, tobacco, etc.
We were the colony that finally stopped the system. It took a long time and a lot of blood because it was the system, but it was ended.
Given that the enslaved had been so subjugated by others of the very same race, how could the institution itself possibly be called essentially racist?
Or if you'd like a quick answer from the Confederacy's Vice President, you might read the Cornerstone Speech, which includes these words: "Our new government['s]...foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
If you're having trouble seeing the racism there, I'm not sure how else I could help.
If even you could somehow make a convincing argument that the pre-war system was not inherently racist (which you cannot), the post-war system of neoslavery would put the final nail in that coffin.
Even an answer of zero doesn't address or contradict my original point.
There's no such thing as "neoslavery". Racism was certainly used after the war to reduce labor solidarity between the white working class and the newly-freed black laborers, however, that fact also doesn't address or contradict my original point.
Maybe try suggesting some serious historical scholarship instead of ideologues.
It's a bit disingenuous to put words in my mouth.
> > Everybody agrees that the US was hugely racist to start out and for centuries thereafter.
But your bio says you are a deliberate troll, so presumably you knew that.
You don't think it's me saying that the US was part of a system that had existed long before it was even a country, even though I said just that?
BTW my bio is a homage to Socrates being persecuted for asking questions and going against the mob.
USA was very late ending slavery, most European countries had already outlawed it long before the American civil war. USA was the colony that required a war to stop treating people like cattle, that is its history.
They were also buying those slave made goods, continuing the triangle, even well after they abolished it in their homeland.
So yes, they may have "ended" it at home, but they basically just outsourced their slavery to colonies they had setup.
This isn't true, if the American revolution hadn't happened then those slaves would have been freed peacefully already by 1833:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
Or maybe that would have triggered an American revolution again because Americans love their slaves, I mean it happened that way as is...
But the UK still continued to buy US cotton, knowing full well it was enabling the slave trade to continue.
And the most important point was they had setup all of these colonies with these systems in the first place.
> we were the colony to finally collapse the system after many centuries of it being standard across the world.
That is blatantly false. That was my point. You are right the Europeans weren't angels, but you were absolutely wrong there, America was the colony that was dragged kicking and screaming to abolish slavery long after everyone else had already done so, it absolutely wasn't the colony that finally collapsed the system of slavery it was pushed by everyone else to end it and then still had to go through a civil war doing it.
The UK even continued slavery in Indian colonies until 1843. They only abolished sugar plantations because it was not profitable anymore.
If the American colonies didn't rebel from the UK, they may have not abolished the cotton plantations themselves because they highly depended on it.
This is a definition of racism, and the one currently in vogue, but just want to point out that it's not the only one. Racism can also denote individually held prejudices, or isolated discrimination based on race.
> Anti-racism seeks to end that system.
This is indeed the stated goal, but (at least to me) seems to be self-defeatist. For instance, when reading through Ibram X Kendi's work, a number of ideas that seem flat-out wrong popped out:
* Racism against a group in power can't exist (because the redefined version of racism requires group power), as if racial power exists in a monolith.
* The only cure for past discrimination is present discrimination. (!)
* Thedesire for race neutrality is racist (not just its flawed applications)
* The idea that biology influences behavior is racist (not just the standard racist claims that some groups are inferior biologically)
I realize that these terms can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but the above ideas of "anti-racism" definitely lead to more stifling of discussion and outright acceptance of discrimination than I've otherwise experienced.
It is the one anti-racists are using, so if one is trying to understand the term, that's the right place to start.
I get that people disagree both on whether it should be ended and if so, what the right tactics are. My goal here is not to have that incredibly deep and nuanced conversation, but just to clear up this particular point.
Racists are calling themselves anti-racist.
It's branding, not an actual descriptor. It's an effective political technique to present it as the opposite.
Yeah totally agreed, it's important to call out the definitions of terms used in any context.
The main thrust of my post was similarly to point out that if you're using definition X, you may justify some action which doesn't conform to definition Y.
In the same vein as "Patriot Act" or "People's Republic", good branding on the part of "anti-racism" can help nip naysayers in the bud. (Are you anti-patriot? Are you against the people or democracy? Are you pro-racist?)
Knowing who means what when they use terms, and being willing to differ from someone else's definition clearly, is pretty much the only way I know of to have these deep conversations with civility.
Or in your terms of branding, it shouldn't be a shock that the dominant racial group would have established a definition of "racism" that is one more convenient to them than to the dominated groups, because that branding serves to prevent challenges to their power.
How many grains of sand does it take to form a big pile?
Not measuring something doesn't make it go away.
Ideally the race information you input would only be given to HR and not shown to anyone involved in the hiring process. It would then be used to identify anomalies indicative of bias occurring.
[1] https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/18/name-discriminati...
I'm just suggesting we let this same process unfold naturally. And that affirmative action, by placing emphasis on superficial differences between people, takes us in the wrong direction.
I don't doubt that some companies use this data to drive quotas but that isn't something inherent to collecting and analyzing race/gender info in hiring.
On top of that, something being impolite to mention doesn't mean it's not driving discrimination.
You seem to be avoiding the question. This process clearly works, and doesn't require any metrics collection or monitoring. Furthermore, DEI initiatives are clearly harmful to organizational goals[1] and clearly disenfranchise people who are just interested in colour-blindly carrying on with their work. Why do we need them?
PS. I'm hoping to preempt a no true Scotsman style reply about DEI. The example below was undertaken at a major corporation with the world-class consultants.
1. https://www.cspicenter.com/p/what-diversity-and-inclusion-me...
Across what time scale? Exactly how long is acceptable to you to wait as things work themselves out? Surely 400 years would have been enough time for this to really kick in.
> PS. I'm hoping to preempt a no true Scotsman style reply about DEI
I'm not defending DEI as practiced, I'm merely defending the idea that 1) racial discrimination in hiring happens, and 2) it's possible to do stuff about it faster than letting this work out "naturally".
I'd say ~80 years is about an appropriate amount of time. It's about how long it took antisemitism, anti-Irish and anti-Italian sentiment to die out. No amount of metrics will change the minds of adults who grew up in "a different time". Your only option is to wait for them to die.
> it's possible to do stuff about it faster
My point is that by attempting to address the concern faster than "naturally" you are almost certainly prolonging the "natural" time actual integration takes.
Org A) 10% of applicants are brown, 9% of hires are brown
Org B) 10% of applicants are brown, 0% of hires are brown
Org A might be close enough to a rounding error you can call it good. Org B likely has some issues.
Hard to fix what you don't measure.
"So which report makes an organization less racist"
So that implies that org B is more racist(because it hired zero brown people) - is that not the conclusion the author of the comment wants us to reach?
Do you or do you not think it is incredibly likely this is an unfair die.
That's Company B.
But hiring isn't random. Maybe all the "brown" candidates lacked necessary qualifications. Or needed visas which they couldn't get. Or a million other reasons other than "org B is racist".
My point is: you need further context. To look at that one stat as given above and conclude org B is racist is....unwise.
I am not sure I have ever been on a team without some kind of like-me bias. It's real hard.
Or in the exact time slice you got the data there weren't any brown applicants.
> Org A) 10% of applicants are brown, 9% of hires are brown
That means nearly all brown applicants for got hired. You're probably thinking this is a "good stat" and therefore a "good employer". But what if the rest of that company's stats were "90% of applicants are white, 80% of hires are white." Is that still a "good stat/good company"? According to you, it should be (and I would tend to agree.) In both cases, we're pretty much showing "If you apply for a job here, you have a ~90% chance of getting in, regardless of skin color." Not bad!!
But wait. What if the demographic of applicants is more like 50% white and 50% brown. (Assume a non-remote workplace). Now, one has to wonder why, in a demographic where half the population is brown, why only 10% are applying to this organization? Could be many reasons. Culturally, maybe the brown folds simply choose not to apply here. Or maybe the organization has a history of mistreating brown folks, abusing them, paying them less, etc. That could explain the low rate of applicants here. Your good example of a "less racist" org doesn't look so good anymore. Many factors could be a play; some less intentionally-evil than others. Hard to draw conclusions simply by reporting on one stat in isolation.
> Hard to fix what you don't measure.
Yes, but harder to think critically about the data you do gather.
Nope, the denominator is different. If you select the same percentage from each category the proportions stay the same.
If there are 100 fruits where 10 are apples and 90 are pears and each fruit has 10% chance to be selected then you get on average 1 apple and 9 pears => 10% of the selected fruits are apples.
And I consider almost all "anti-rqcism" to just be racism but against groups it's permitted to.
For example, asians and higher ed.
To answer your question - if there is such a complaint made, I'd appoint another qualified hiring manager(or HR person) to sit in on any future interviews with this person and give me their report on the situation.
Tl;dr: it is less about the company being less racist on their own by knowing the race, it is more about the company having to report those numbers so that others could hold them accountable (in case there are any arising concerns about racism).
But is the race of someone voting really useful, or is it just a fairly good proxy for other demographics. And at what point does this use of race as a demographic in itself become a societal pressure for blacks, latinos, asians etc to fit into certain stereotypes?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/politics/joe-biden-poo...
But of course, some people are so coddled by modernity and their social media bubbles that they implicitly think racism is all about choice of vocabulary or other completely superficial things.
This preoccupation with race as a demographic discriminant is pretty uncommon in Europe.
Perhaps Europe would benefit from more data in this regard?
If we could guarantee that another genocidal dictator won't come to power then I might be OK with it. Couple that tracking with the surveillance and one might be able to ensure few slip through the cracks.