Begging your pardon, I grew up in South Africa during apartheid and feel very much the same as the OP. I recognize that these groups have value for victims of racism and are done with good intentions. However, I also feel that if they are over-done or are started with more of a pride about one's (traditionally persecuted) race than the humble intention to serve others, they are only breeding animosity between races and keeping race as a "big deal" in our minds.

I'm sorry if my opinion offended you. It's not that I feel yours is a terrible opinion to have, I believe Morgan Freeman shares it.

I just think that positive energy put towards solving problems minorities are having can be a good thing. And that energy should not be tossed aside for the idealistic idea of ignoring racism to death.

Also, I think it's wildly speculative that these efforts breed animosity. I would ask you to reconsider if that idea has any base to it, perhaps a call for evidence is in place.

Your opinion did not offend me, but the phrase "It's easy to not think about racism when racism isn't an issue in your environment" strikes me as a No True Scotsman argument. "Think we should ignore race? You must not be around racists". My environment was world-famous for it's racists.

The only evidence I have to offer is purely anecdotal, but I've found with people I know who got involved with political activist groups in southern Africa just got more bitter and contentious on the subject the longer they were in those groups. I've had some Hispanic friends join cultural groups and then begin to focus more and more on the differences between themselves and the Americans around them. I've also noticed in some groups I've visited for South African ex-pats that people get together and just complain about all the things they miss about the culture they used to enjoy. I can think of a couple of groups I've seen (most notably, a polynesian dance group) where people genuinely just got together and had a good time celebrating the culture, and that was positive. But I think I've seen more negative results than positive ones.

Come to think of it, the polynesian dance group did a lot to invite non-polynesians to join in. It was a celebration of that culture, but it was very focused on including everyone - not just helping one group catch up to another.

Jeez, talk about unhelpful and condescending.

Condescending maybe but GP has a point. If racism is already a big deal, ignoring it isn't going to help. Explicitly addressing it and helping out the less-privileged group will.

Doesn't really address the point at all. Maybe racism is best solved by treating all as equals instead of creating further insular groups? It does seem logically absurd on its face.

The first step is to stop snarking at people who dare to ask.

> Maybe racism is best solved by treating all as equals instead of creating further insular groups?

Straw man argument, your 'creating further insular groups' representation of the original idea is not at all obviously equivalent, and you make no effort to support the representation.

> The first step is to stop snarking at people who dare to ask.

It's really not.

It's not "further insular". It's a group that already exists. Treating people as all equal is fine. Pretending that all people are treated as equal in society is not helpful.

I'd argue that perpetuating the problem of people being treated different in society is even worse.

But middle-class white men are disproportionately encouraged to be programmers. As the article points out: "There were very few women and nobody of color. I found that puzzling since the startup industry was obviously booming." So to be fair, we should either stop encouraging them, or start encouraging people who are outside that group.

Seems to be it would be more productive to try to encourage more than a minority of a minority, as it were. Female programmers are already rare, blacks more so just by statistics. What about other races? Hispanic women are out of luck? Asian? Native?

That isn't a singular problem. Helping a group is not just another way of discriminating against them. Just as slapping someone's face is not just another way of kissing them.

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be condescending, I was trying to make a point about what I think is wrong about his/her way of thinking.

It's not a terrible opinion to have, it's just that I think it's counterproductive, for the reasons the other replier(s) are trying to point out to you.