Item — HN Reader

>>It's kind of missing the point if your diversity initiative is being run by white people.

How can anybody who advocates equality say no white person can lead a diversity movement? Just because somebody is white doesn't mean they aren't an oppressed minority (female, transgender, Jewish or some other oppressed group like a furry).

I think we collectively need to declare it's not okay to say "people with skin color ____" cannot possibly understand Y or have an opinion on Y. To do so is institutionalized racism.

edit: typo

3 comments

Who said anything about equality?

When the discussion is about "social impact", the conversation is about diversity. Diversity != equality. In the view of many, equality isn't enough, because the "un-oppressed" are fundamentally privileged. The concept of "reverse racism" is there to deflect the inevitable awkward questions that arise, when clearly biased statements are made and practices get institutionalized.

IMO, all this stuff is problematic. I wish we could all embrace the golden rule and move on.

I don't understand what you're arguing. Equal opportunity will lead to diversity. Equality is about removing processes that look at privilege (e.g. your rich father donated X dollars so welcome to our college).

If your idea of fairness requires we become systematically biased against certain majorities (white, heterosexual, male, cis-gender) for your cause then I don't want to be part of your cause, and moreover I find that cause discriminitory and dangerous.

> If your idea of fairness requires we become systematically biased against certain majorities (white, heterosexual, male, cis-gender) for your cause then I don't want to be part of your cause, and moreover I find that cause discriminitory and dangerous.

Exactly. As mentioned earlier, in the case of Github the cultural transition appears to be from prioritizing meritocracy to codified diversity for the sake of diversity.

"In the view of many, equality isn't enough, because the "un-oppressed" are fundamentally privileged."

Then that's not equality - equality is, or should be enough, because if the issue of diversity and equality is 'minimizing / eliminating privilege' then by definition, equality is that privilege is the same for all (or zero).

For many though, this becomes a good cover for 'preferential treatment above and beyond equality, in the name of 'compensation'.'

I'm sorry to move the discussion to politics, but such affairs trigger sentiments among White people which end up in favor of Trump, if I understand politics properly. So would it be clever for the Trump team to highlight and exaggerate such stories/Is this article the result of it?

Who is saying they can't have an opinion?

To be prevented from participating in a process is to be prevented from having a meaningful opinion about that process.

I don't agree that if they can't lead the program, that means they are being prevented from having a meaningful opinion about it. That's all they're talking about, right? Who leads the program?

Yes, presumably the leaders are to issue orders and everyone else is to follow them. That is not the kind of participation that allows opinions.

You may be saying that the non-white leadership is the kind of leadership that allows collaboration and influence from followers, which is what I would do, but the evidence in the Github case is to the contrary.

Yes, presumably the leaders are to issue orders and everyone else is to follow them. That is not the kind of participation that allows opinions.

This sounds excessively harsh, do you really think that's how GitHub will run the program?

Considering that they are moving to a more enterprise-y management style where there are lots of middle managers, I would imagine that that is a very real possibility.

Race is a goofy power structure which puts certain people ("whites") on top of others.

Whiteness changes with political needs. Hilariously, Irish-Americans, Jews, etc weren't always considered white. They had to become white. Nowadays, certain Asians are held up as model minorities and may get some honorary whiteness.

With children getting murdered by the state for being black, it's obvious race is about white supremacy. (Analogously, sexism is about male supremacy, also known as patriarchy.)