Microsoft probed by US government over aim to double black staff numbers

Setting quotas/goals doesn’t seem like the right approach though. We can try to correct for the biases you name without setting numerical targets. The thing is, there isn’t any correct number to aim for. For instance, some cultures emphasize STEM education/careers and it isn’t surprising or incorrect to see them represented in tech at numbers higher than their makeup of the general population. Setting targets like proportional demographic representation for blacks or any other racial group ultimately amounts to racist discrimination against those other races.

> but not all such discrimination is illegal or morally wrong.

Tell that to the Asian kid that just learnt that he now has to slave away at his studies because of his skin color.

> So the racial equality movement has been hijacked by politicians that offer a short-term solution: divide people by the most visible factor, such as skin color, then take from the overrepresented and give to the underrepresented.

I think this is totally backwards. If anything, the U.S. government takes from the underrepresented and gives to the overrepresented. This is achieved through gerrymandering districts to dilute minority votes, limiting voting sites, and asking "concerned citizens" to "monitor" voting locations. Our social welfare programs pale in comparison to the subsidies and tax cuts given to big businesses, and other overrepresented groups.

"Many of these cultural differences are crucial to getting high-paid positions. Like nagging on your kids to study. Like making sure their role models are scientists and inventors, and not gang leaders. Like stressing out delayed gratification and showing how planning and persistence pays off in long term."

Haven't you heard these are racist values? Seriously, many of these values are frowned upon, and deemed "white", even though it's what has worked for so long across the world.

I'm afraid this equity, as best-intention as it might be, will make the problem worse by creating a dependency that will further define the culture as needing this form of victimhood status.

Imagine the year 2143, people will have digital assistants, flying cars and also diversity and inclusion training will tell you how oppressed some people still are. It's easier to blame history than to admit you are stupid and need to make better decisions in life.

> The elephant in the room is that due to rather dark times in the U.S. history, there are cultural differences between an average Black and an average White family. It doesn't mean that every family of a certain race will fit the stereotype, but if you look at numbers, they do check out. This isn't fair, this isn't nice, but it's a very important piece of the puzzle and you cannot solve the problem without admitting it.

I am loving this utter shit assumption that is clearly being taken as gospel given the upvotes.

Do you actually believe the AVERAGE Black person you describe is not only engaging in tech with gusto but also good enough to get an interview for a senior staff position at Microsoft?

Ah, but the assumption is not only that this will be the case, but that Microsoft will also just blindly hire said person to "satisfy quotas"... WHEN HAS THAT EVER HAPPENED!?!?

You don't even have a personal anecdote of seeing this happen, and I doubt few of the people upvoting this dribble actually have, and more than likely not to any significant degree in the aggregate either.

Like, holy shit, if your description of an average Black is true, that entire curve on the bell don't even COME CLOSE to participating in tech AT ALL. Good job on the completely un-contextual resort to "statistical reasoning" to dunk on Black people.

Not to mention you show your colors when you fail to account for the children of African immigrants rather than the descendants of slaves in the US. But no, let's believe there's a line of unwashed Black masses, brutish and poorly educated, standing in an employment line that wraps around the Redmond campus waiting to get that hand-out job.

Fuckin hell, what is really happening in the tech industry is that a number of you aren't hiring perfectly qualified people because their afro or some such made you uncomfortable so they were told they weren't hired for "culture fit".

Race is very strongly correlated with culture. And many cultural traits are crucial to doing work that companies need. It's just very hard to measure one's culture and it's very easy to measure their skin color.

I don't think forcing companies to be diverse per skin color is a good idea. A much better way could be finding aspiring people from underrepresented populations and removing roadblocks on the way of specific people.

Verified.

The thing is, Affirmative Action is one of those topics where having a "wrong" opinion is seen as treason by these in power. And far too many people here had the "wrong" opinion. The good news is, the tide is turning.

Discriminating which schools you hire from based on racial demographics of said schools just seems like racial discrimination by proxy

> Interview training to minimize implicit bias in the interview process. Interview training to minimize acts that make certain groups uncomfortable.

I would like to see some evidence that this actually achieves the desired outcome.

Interview training does nothing. The people who are pushing affirmative action are doing it on purpose because of their political ideology. These people think that if they have more women, LGBTQ, and minorities in the company, those people will support them politically and they will have more power. There is no way you can train away that. Second, you can't remove employees when their bias is in support of the managers and the company board members. Managers are selectively choosing interviewers because of their racial bias. At a previous job managers would have new hire LGBTQ or minority junior employees conduct interviews instead of senior employees who had been at the company for years. Activist board members set CEO bonus goals that scale with race and gender quotas as well. Resume doesn't matter because they recruit through special minority, women, or LGBTQ invite only recruiting events where SWM's are not even allowed in.

If you are recruiting at colleges you’re going to have a hard time getting many black candidates, since only 7% of STEM majors are black. Which is an under representation based on their proportion of al college students.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/african-american-majo...

If discriminating on the basis of race is morally incorrect then discriminating (collages) on the basis of race is also morally incorrect.

I think you put it very succinctly. In reality this could be as simple as diversifying the people interviewing candidates and getting down to objective hiring criteria. Negative bias is hard to spot and harder to acknowledge. Making an effort to minimize and eliminate negative bias doesn't mean reducing standards.

Come to the South: affirmative action isn’t a thing here. It’s a breath of fresh air. You’ll find that there are other freedoms that have been taken away from you in the north. All of them are alive and well here.

I can't tell if you're being intentionally ironic or not.

    Imagine telling an Asian child that they have to work way harder because of their race.

You do realize that this is exactly what marginalized races have to tell their children, right? "You will have to work harder because of the color of your skin, and it might not matter at all."

I don't know how to change the fallout of centuries of race-based slavery and the immediate drop into generational poverty, outside of trying to elevate people who don't quite deserve on merit alone over others perhaps more fit for the job.

If you don't value diversity, maybe just say so, but let's not pretend that there's an empathy or morality to dropping affirmative action because doing so decreases competition for great jobs among the privileged classes.

Caltech, like other private schools such as Harvard, absolutely does discriminate in the admissions process. They are a fervent advocate of “holistic admissions”, which is modern activist speak for “process involving discrimination, most often against Asian races”. Take a look at http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/apply/first-year-freshman-..., which says “We have always reviewed students within the context of the opportunities available to them, and we will hold true to that practice.”

Unlike Caltech, public schools in California are not permitted to discriminate and have different student demographics from private schools for this reason. Prop 209 from 1996, which banned affirmative action in CA, is unfortunately on the current ballot for a potential repeal as part of Prop 16.

For context I'm European but I did live in the US (TX) for 5 years. I need to go get some sleep, but very briefly:

I would say that the focus on race is a real problem over there - there's discrimination, hate, taboo topics and excessive PC, affirmative action, it's a political talking point, you have to identify as one of a few races in all kinds of forms (which is ridiculous - is a Portuguese person white or hispanic? What if they are black or mixed?)... The list goes on.

Minorities are generally of a lower socioeconomic status than the majority. People of a lower socioeconomic status are less likely to get a proper education (particularly in the US where university is super expensive). People without an education don't get white collar jobs, and thus have more trouble moving up the societal ladder. Therefore, there's less role models. I think you see where I'm getting at - it's a vicious cycle and I think ensuring everyone has access to proper education should be one of your top priorities.

Real racism is also a problem there, of course. But I fear that quotas will not help with that and just compound the problem instead.

Maybe I'll blog about this stuff one day.

That's fair. I think my point is that a statistical representation allows you to see if one race is being favored over another one. But of course it's not a straight forward analysis as you correctly pointed with the WA black population example.

Yes, read my comment as it seems that nobody is fully reading it. I'm saying that if the final proportion doesn't reflect the demographics proportion then there's a bottleneck somewhere down the line that produces less black professionals.

Well that's exactly what I meant. I said that something in the downstream equation is broken if the outcome doesn't reflect a similar proportion.