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Racism At Microsoft?
chandas sent in linkage to a story running at ZD Net about
rascism at Microsoft. Apparently seven former and current black employees want $5 billion, saying that Microsoft fosters a hostile work environment. Is racism an issue in the tech industry? I've been reading Chuck D's autobiography (He is smart as hell) and he talks a lot about racism in the sports and music industries so this subject has been on my mind a lot lately, but it never even crossed my mind that it might be an issue in the tech industry. Of course, as a pasty white boy I probably wouldn't even notice even though I've always thought of the internet as colorblind.
Thank got the Univ oc Calif. regents and later the state voters voted to simply remove "race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation" from consideration criteria for all jobs, student applications, etc.
An end to racism is a good thing, right?
Guess who is most against and want these laws repealed and the affirmative action programs and admissions rules put back to favoe [ethnic flavors of the day]? It's the ones who run the race based programs, i.e., The minorities who profit from racism (getting state/federal dollars) and don't want it to end. Face it, without hate and racism, what would Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan do for a living? They'd be out of a job, so naturally they don't want racism to end. They need "hate", for their continued existance. And it it's not there anymore, they'll create it themselves.
Your post may be an example of the kind of racism that goes on in companies. It is hard to tell from just your post but do you think that whites are better at engineering in general? Do you think that this is the way it should be? Do you think that an aspiring black engineer should have to prove himself (or herself) more than a white one, or be at a disadvantage?
And, most importantly, are you completely sure that your conviction that "Engineering is largely the sport of white males" would never influence your judgment if you had decide between hiring a black applicant and a white applicant who looks like what you think an engineer or project manager should look like? (I don't mean to accuse you of racism; this is just something to think about. Also consider how this question applies to the judgment of other people you know in your company or in the industry.)
The point of the lawsuit is that those blacks who do decide to become engineers should not be discriminated against. (Just as it would be unfair to deny a white guy the opportunity to become a rapper if he wanted to.)
Whites score on average about 30 points below Asians on the SAT I math, and blacks score on average about 106 points below whites. If you look at the distribution curve, it's even more striking. Only a few hundred blacks per year have SAT I math scores above 700. A 700 Math SAT is about the minimum for a serious CS degree.
That's reality, like it or not.
It seems the general consensus among white, male tech workers is that they belong in the industry. If they are up for a promotion against an equally skilled minority, of COURSE they should get the promotion, because they're automatically more skilled. Because the majority of tech managers are ALSO white, this attitude is perpetuated.
I don't really think this is limited only to white males. Frankly, most of the american bred high tech workers I've met, especially the really good ones, are not the most modest people in the world. The basic fact of the matter is that when you have an inflated ego, a sense of entitlement tends to follow very closely. This seems to be especially true if you were brought up with a limited exposure to culture and cultural values from outside the US.
Now it may be that on average, more white families maintain less of their cultural heritage and therefore breed children which surrender themselves to the ego monster more easily. I know this is true at least in my own case and I'm sure the sense of entitlement I project to others has a lot to do with how they treat me.
Even back to college (University of Michigan), I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
So my big question is, how do you know your felow students were sure they were smarter than you? How do you know what they assumed? The biggest problem I think that exists is that as long as no one stands up and says something, an act that I might view as perfectly benign may to you be a deeply hurtful thing and the behavior will simply continue.
A lot of the descrimination I have read in these postings is someone's interpretation of a look or a feeling that someone else gives them. No real blatent descriminating. The problem is that unless you can read minds, the view you take upon a look or an act will be completely tainted by your past dealings with whatever group you've generalized the person into.
So the next time you feel that you've been descriminated against, no matter how minor, you might want to think about calmly and politely explaining to the person how that act made you feel or what you thought it was motivated by instead of trying to figure out what the other person is thinking.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
I can't accept need to redress damages for the acts of the dead. If I never hurt anyone, I hardly see any responsability to repay -- it's as bad as the concept of original sin. I'll be responsible for my own actions, but not for those of others. What's even worse with this concept is that you're making me (because I'm white) responsible for the actions of other white people I never even knew, and who aren't even related to me! (My family came to the States quite recently).
Your "guilt by color" is every bit as racist as those evils you propose it as restitution to. Since when did two wrongs make a right?
Finally, ignoring the status quo does not perpetuate it, simply because the link between parents' and childrens' financial wellbeing is imperfect. Even if 90% of a child's financial wellbeing as an adult is determined by his/her parents, that remaining 10% permits racial (and other group-specific) differencials to smooth themselves out over time.
This is completely normal computer-instilled arrogance though. Every single computing student or worker I've ever met has been like this. The average IT worker has to be the most ego-driven person on the face of the planet.
I honestly think you're overreacting. I don't have the first-hand knowledge that you've had to your own encounters, but I do know that what you have said so far sounds exactly like what I have experienced as a middle-aged white male.
And how old are you? How do you dress? Do you have punk style hair? Is your speech "refined" or do you speak l337? Do you sport a goatee or some other form of "irresponsible" beard? Do you have annoying habits like shifting your feet, picking your nose, using huge hand gestures, putting your hands in your pockets, scratching your crotch?
I've seen exactly the same situation you have just described, only it happened to a young white male who happens to like his hair coloured blue and studs in his lips. On the phone he sounds not at all unusual. When customers meet him face to face they fully freak out.
And I don't see how this particular situation is caused by skin colour. Of course, if you come from a privileged family then you'll have a 1st rate head start in computing. If you come from a poorer family then you'll need to work your ARSE off to get anywhere in computing. But this is an economic situation and it applies equally to all people of all skin colours.
Though I don't often say this, it seems to me you've got a great big chip on your shoulder.
This is not strictly relevent, but it reminds me of a story one of my professors at grad school told me. A few years ago, she was responsible for dividing the class into small groups to carry out case studies, so she simply made an alphabetical list of the students in the class, drew a line across it every 5 or 6 names and those were the groups. Now, there were a whole group of African (Nigerian, I believe) students in the class, who complained that she'd placed them in a group to segregate them from the class. When it was investigated, it was found that all their surnames began with an O! It wasn't racist at all, just a coincidence.
Incidentally, if anyone, black or white, described themselves to me as a "pimp ass perl hacker" I would immediately assume they were less than competent. Maybe you need to stop using your skin color as an excuse and pay more attention to your professionalism.
I agree (disclosure: I'm neither black not white :0) ). For example, when white TV executives are casting a black man, they create a character like Dr. Benton on ER - a successful, talented professional. When blacks portray blacks in the media, think about Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre boasting about pimping, dealing crack, stealing cars and whatever.
I see a lot of people stating that $5B is too much. This is number is nothing to do with what those 7 people might have earnt. This is about punitive damages. If there is racism, then the damages must be large enough to hurt the company and make them change their ways. It also a warning to other companies. MSFT can easily afford $5B damages without going under.
I won't comment on the validity of the claims: I don't know the facts. This could be a genuine case of racism, or it could be useless and disgruntled [ex-?]employees trying to play a race card and get money out of MSFT. I think that this is an important case as it will set precedents for the size of future claims. I hope that the trial doesn't turn into another BS circus.
I don't want to discount your experience, but...
White males don't have life easy either. I've frequently had to fight with people to make it clear that I was right and they were wrong. This is very common within the tech field, and unfortunately the more incompetent the person they more firmly they believe they are correct. One sees this on slashdot all the time, even.
There is also a lot of discrimination based on age, not so much within the tech community, but if you are dealing with people outside.
Unless someone is specifically calling you racial names, I do think you need to step back and evaluate the situation on whether the person is really being racist or just being an ass.
There are a lot of assholes and incompetent jackasses in this world and they don't discriminate based on the color of your skin.
The idea is to PUNISH Microsoft for what they did. $5,000 or even $5,000,000 is pocket change to them. Lawsuits tend to be for amounts in proportion to the company you're suing, not the amount of damage actually caused to you, for precisely this reason: if you don't sue them for enough money that it shows up on the books, they won't get the hint.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
That's because you can! The amount you sue for has very little to do with the amount you get if you win. Just because you ask for something doesn't mean you get it. And the US court system isn't an all-or-nothing gamble. The judge can say he agrees with the people suing, but give them less than they are asking. In some cases, the judge will actually give them more than they ask for.
Also remember that a large portion of lawsuits are settled out of court before they go to trial, and the amount is almost always less than was initially asked for.
Some of the money requested is also meant to punish Microsoft to prevent them from doing things like this again. Also remember that people are greedy, especially lawyers.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Sounds like a good case against Affirmative Action. It causes minorities who actually tried hard, excelled, and earned their position to be looked at as if they don't belong there. It seems like a disincentive to even try, thus repressing the minorities it was supposed to pull up.
I'm not saying that ending Afirmative Action would make white people respect minorities. And I don't know if there's anything that will really help, except for time, and people trying to respect each other. I'm just saying that Affirmative Action has negative consequences as well as positive, and we should question its effectiveness. It sounds like you would be where you are today without Affirmative Action, and would be able to command more respect.
That said, I try to practice my own "affirmative action" and give women and minorities a bigger benefit of the doubt, because I know that others have held them back or otherwise looked at them as less than they are. Also as a conscious effort to possibly offset any sexism/racism within my own mind. Actually, I find it nice to see some diversity in the field, and try to encourage it as much as I can.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
As stated in several other threads, most of the damages are punitive, to punish Microsoft and to make them remember not to do it again. Also, it will probably turn into a class action suit.
I wonder about such high punitive damages though. Why should the lawyers and plaintiffs receive all that? I'd like to see the judge give the majority of the punitive damages to some non-profit organization that helps minorities. (Assuming the plaintiffs win, but I doubt that they have a leg to stand on.)
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
A non-degreed candidate would need to have years of experience within a single company, to show the endurance. A lot of experience doing lots of little 2-5 month things then moving on to some other company rather than sticking around and at least supporting those who have to maintain what the programmer worked on does not impress me at all...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Of course, even thinking back to college there weren't that many of either demographic (and i _hate_ that word, mind you) in my CS classes...tho one of the best programmers i knew during college was black. if i could get a hold of him now, i'd yell at him to get a resume over to my company...
Now here at M$ we have a case where blacks were hired, and felt that they were being mistreated after getting the job...while i think its entirely possible that they weren't being treated any less favorably than others of their position -- I'd not be surprised to find that M$ treats ALL of its employees in that manner.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Not just easy to say - it's easy to do. I make it clear from my first contact with a prospective employer that, barring crisis, I do not work more than 40 hours in a week. I also make it clear that I know how to work such that those crises do not arise often - and that it's not how many hours one works, but the results one achieves that matters.
The most productive programmer I ever met worked exactly 40 hours each week. He easily outcoded any other two people in the building. He showed up well-rested, took regular breaks, didn't socialize while in the building, and produced line after line of bug-free code. If you can work even half that well, you'll find all the work you can stand.
-- Jeff Paulsen
-- Jeff Paulsen
Speaking as ANOTHER Black Man I have to agree whole-heartedly with this poster. While I work in an industry only tangentially related to tech (a public policy/R&D thinktank) I too have experienced the second-guessing and the seemingly constant justifications I have to go through to get usually older caucasian staff to follow clear direction.
I also do not agree with the $5 billion law suit. When are Americans going to realize that suing over everything is not the answer?
Anyway. I would like to see some other remedies used to correct any localized abuses. Suggestions ?
I doubt that Microsoft has a corporate wide racist policy. Just look at the varied ethnic makeup of their workforce. Such a policy would be unimplementable!!
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
"it never even crossed my mind that it might be an issue in the tech industry"
Good God 'Taco, read any busy thread here at -1 and you'll see just how ugly people in this industry are.
How can this surprise anyone? Let's see, we now have a lot of spoiled white fresh college grads who see themselves as being replaced by cheaper H1-B immigrants (many of whom will be working a lot longer hours) - you don't think those people are going to start fostering thoughts of "those dirty immigrants stealing our jobs"?
Oh right, our workplaces are diverse because of all those Indian and Asian employees. Funny, in my last office building (shared by a multitude of dotcom companies), I saw one black guy. He was the janitor.
Um, Dennis Green (coach of the Vikings) is black.
Gee, I dunno. Here in Silicon Valley, those 40 acres are worth about $35 mil. Whereas 40,000 options in, say, pets.com wouldn't cover the costs of feeding the mule.
(I don't mean to make light of your argument -- I just thought that last part was kinda ironic.)
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
Two reasons...
1. The "Reason we're telling the public" -- It's punitive damage. If Microsoft only gives the defendants the money they might have earned anyway, Microsoft really hasn't learned much of a lesson.
Think of it this way... if you cheat somebody out of $50, you get caught, and the only punishment you receive is that you have to give the $50 back, would this really deter you from trying it again in the future? Probably not -- the worse-case scenario is that you have a net profit of zero. But if you had to give the $50 back, plus pay a fee of $200, then you might be more inclined not to try it again. It's the same idea with Microsoft -- except that it needs to be an amount of money that actually hurts them and makes them think, "Gosh. We'd better make sure this doesn't happen again." Hence the $5 billion.
2. The "Real, secret reason" -- Microsoft's a big rich corporation. Juries like taking money from big rich corporations and giving them to normal people. And $5 billion dollars sure would be nice...
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
I can just picture their bald, white labcoat wearing lawyer hold his pinky up to his mouth as he exclaims "Five Billion Dollars"
Finkployd
It's extremely difficult to legally prove discrimination occurred for a particular individual or a few individuals, for some of the reasons you mention. But that's not what this is about. This is a class action suit, that claims that Microsoft discriminates in general.
That's also difficult to prove, but if the numbers given are correct, it looks like Microsoft employs less than half the percentage of blacks than the tech industry does as a whole. (2.6% vs 6.3%) That's not "proof", all by itself, but it's not at all unreasonable to look at those numbers and get suspicious.
Given the size of Microsoft, it would be unreasonable to look at those numbers and not get suspicious. (Yes, the size of Microsoft matters. If this was a small company, the difference between those percentages would be less meaningful. Ask a statistician.)
Compared to 2.6% of Microsoft's employees? Black employees are less than half as common at Microsoft than they are in the tech industry in general. Given that Microsoft employs ~22,000 people that's actually a pretty significant difference. (It would be less indicative if we were talking about a small company. Ask a statistician.) Is it proof? Nope. Is it suspicious? Definitely.
Oh and to be politically correct I think the term is "African Americans"©
When I was going to school the African Americans CHOOSE to go to a different school© There were very few African Americans in my school, not cause they could not afford to go there, but because they choose to go somewhere else© I don't think that the tech industry is racist as I see MANY people of different races other than white's©
Most African Americans I have meet don't want to go into computers, they go into humanities or business is the most common one©
Oh please stop talking about how repressed you are and this and that© The Hebrews/Jews have had it MUCH worse than the African Americans ever had, and they don't go out killing each other in gang related warefare©
If you really want to help the African Americans start by stop killing each other and work together as a people© Push for education, and push for more African Americans to go into the tech industry©
The real reason that they are not here is that they do not want to be here©
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Well, obviously that would be the rational way to approach it, but not the only way. The damages they seek are punitive. When I hear that word I hear "puny" but what it of course actually means is "punishment".
In other words, their message to the court is "we're mad, and Microsoft has to be hit where it hurts. They're big and rich so we'd like, uh, 5 billion..."
Translation: "We are shameless and greedy, so why not sue the biggest company around for lots and lots of cash"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
And have you seen the salaries for those atheletes? If I was making that much money, I wouldn't be complaining
really? I mean $150,000 is decent money but it's not going to set you up for life, especially if you only go pro for a few years.
Not many athletes make those $500 million dollar paydays -- Jordan could buy a team if he wanted, no doubt, but your second-round draft pick will never see that kind of cash...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
They certainly can, and should.
The only point I was making was that most pro athletes don't make obscene amounts of money, just the very top performers...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Funny that with such a high number of athletes that are black, you have to search long and hard to find a head coach or team owner who's black. That's the kind of racism people generally talk about in sports -- its okay for them to PLAY well, we just don't want them up in the clubhouse...
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Most "autobiographies" (really biographies written by an unnamed writer) by famous people are crap. Those that are (1) written by the person who gets credit on the front of the book and (2) worth reading are few and far between.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I've worked in the Toronto area for many years in various tech industries, but primarily the financial industry. I can honestly say that I did not experience any discrimination in terms of peoples' dealings with each other nor in terms of promotion (in my limited world of course). Toronto is a very multi-cultural city and I've worked with most racial and religious backgrounds as well as sexual orientations. And more often than not I have reported to women in management positions.
The only place I've ever seen any discrimination is once you get to the very senior positions in these institutions (not necessarily in technology but overall). Then you'll find a predominance of over 50, white, males running the show.
This is changing however as I look at the tech industry outside of financial institutions. A great many tech startups of 2 and 5 years ago are now large players in the area and the CEO's, CIO's, VP's, partners, etc. are of various racial backgrounds. They have gotten to where they are because the ideas and skills they could contribute were more important than the colour of their skin or their religious beliefs.
Just my two cents.
Now I'm not normally one to defend Microsoft, the Ultimate Source of All That is Evil In the Computer Industry (TM), but give me a break.
First of all, African Americans only make up 12% of the U.S. population, not the 50% or more some people seem to think, even though it might not seem that way if you either A) live in a big city (like I do) or B) watch lots of movies. Secondly, a large portion of those African Americans live in disadvantaged neighborhoods and don't think they have access to education.
BTW--Notice that I didn't say they DON'T have access to education. The reader in doubt is referred to "The Ten Things You Can't Say in America" by Larry Elders, an excellent Libertarian African American gentleman who has a radio show out on the left coast.
In any case, for whatever reasons, the college-educated African American is a rarer bird than one might think. You have to give credit to those who work hard and manage to get their degrees, because they are really a very small percentage of the overall population.
My journal has hot
As a Stanford graduate student, I would say, sadly, that that is not true. Certainly at the graduate level, at least, and probably at the undergraduate as well. People may be accepting once a person has demonstrated competence, but like the original poster hypothesis (and demonstrated for his particular case), a black student is likely to have a "prooving" period that the Asian student, for example, may not be subjected to. This is based only on my personal observations and gut feeling, of course, as I've never discussed it with the black students in any of my engineering classes.
In fact, at Stanford Graduate engineering schools, american students seem to be the minority. These days, most of the students come from countries other than the U.S. I'd say (as a guess) roughly 75% of the students are from China, Taiwan, India, Isreal, Europe, etc. The few black students I have met personally are from African countries, not the U.S. I've been in classes of 30 or more students, where I was the ONLY U.S. student!
I point his out to show that at some schools at least, it is hard to make comparisons of student population ethnicities, withn the surrounding workplace. I assume, with the economy around here being so good, many U.S. students are NOT going to graduate school (since they can make lots of money anyway); the undergrad populations seems to have many more U.S students.
Anyway, my point is that I'd have to agree with the original poster; black students are a minority here, and accepting one as an equal in a group project, for example, won't be as automatic as, say, another asian student.
In fact, as another anecdotal data point, having traveled to South East Asia, and growing up in areas of large asian populations (Hawaii and the Bay Area), I can say that many asians have severe prejudices towards blacks (sorry for the flamebait; my comment implies mainly those who are non-U.S. born). In Thailand, I was asked a couple times by locals I met if black people are all violent, poor, etc. (in the U.S.), or whether I was afraid to live with black people. It seems that having only the U.S. media to go on, that is what many of them perceive. Ironically, that was just before Mike Tyson bit Evander's ear, and it was splashed across the papers throughout the world. I can assume some of these attitudes carry over with all the non-U.S. students (even though they are, without question, extremely intelligent and well educated)
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
I think there is a more serious point to be made here.
While other minority groups (japanese/various asian/indians/bangladorians) are becoming well represented in the CS field, this has not cut over to the african american minority.
In my mind, affirmitive action has hurt this field because it gets people entry level jobs, without forcing them to learn the fundamentals, thus restricting them from rocking as a programer/sys-admin whatever.
We need more people with thoose kind of skills. Is it becaue people don't usually envision a african american programmer the reason why there are not alot? Or is it some other demographic trend?
Before we judge microsoft, lets find out what really happened. The amount asked for is extremly absurd, but adjusting the amount of money by a factor of 100 (5 million instead of 5 billion) is probibly in range. Each person probably walks away with 10x there salary.
This also brings into question when you can fire people. If you are afraid to fire a guy because of his ethnic minority status, they will never hire him in the first place.
But if "you'll get the same kind of cross section of people there that you get anywhere", then you should get the same proportion of blacks that you'll get anywhere. And that doesn't appear to be the case.
Racism?! I find that hard to believe!
Now intelligencism....?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
>> It seems that the players will be >= 80% black, but certain roles are almost always white, quaterbacks, are almost always white, coachs seem to be nearly 95% white. owners are probably 100% white.
Tell that to Jordan, Isaiah, Magic, Culpepper, King, Banks, Batch, Cunningham, Moon...
>>unfortantly, there arn't to many rich black folks out there.. huh, does this sound racist?, naww, must be my white liberal guilt
no.... its your lack of understanding that in black culture, its more important to play ball, wear the right shoes, and get phat props than to study, work hard, learn to code, build networks, read O'Riley books or other Oreo type things.
Its more important to "be real" than to "act white" for many young blacks.
Fortunately, that stereotype is starting to break down... the kinds of today of all races are starting to see that the mantra of their predesessors is bogus, that its not "selling out" to not gang bang, make babies at 14, and instead stay in school, work hard, and be responsible.
No thanks to the likes of Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farakhan...
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I'd not be surprised to find that M$ treats ALL of its employees in that manner.
Yeah... I'm waiting to see the defense on this...
MSLawyer: "Your honor, I am prepaired to show that Microsoft does not descriminate against Blacks. In fact Microsoft discriminates against all its low level employees equally. In FACT, we have recently been involved in a class action suit to this end, where it was proven that Microsoft treats its employees as scum. In view of these facts I move that the court immediately dissmiss these absurd charges."
Judge: "So your saying that because Microsoft treats all of its employees equally as garbage, there is no discrimination based on colour?"
MSLawyer: "Yes your honor."
Judge: "I am ready to render a summary judgement against the Defendent based on the grounds of Absurd Stupidity."
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I fit many of the qualifyers
<ol>
<li>I live in a poorer neighborhood.</li>
<li>I have undereducated parents.</li>
<li>I go to public high school.</li>
</ol>
<p>Does this mean I am less likely to go to college? And what do these factors have to do with racism?</p>
"People suing over job discrimination can sue for actual damages (lost wages, promotion opportunities, backpay, etc"
So they each could have made $714 million dollars if MS wasn't so racist? Hope they can prove that. If I had 100 lifetimes I doubt I would make that much over all of them combined.
"If you are forced to work a 60 hour week, you should go seek employment elsewhere"
Easy to say 'move on' .. best of luck to anybody out there who can actually thinks they can find a professional IT job with less than 60 hour weeks.
I think you've been lucky. I think most employers, if they have a decent programmer, will try to get as many hours out of that as possible. I could also only work 40-hour weeks if I was just left to do my work, and I would do a good job. But my boss has a "last-minute" attitude. So if delivery is still a few months away, he seems to think "theres still plenty of time" and comes up with a bunch of other things for me to do, that are suddenly higher priority.
I think most employers in the engineering/programming world are like this, but then, I can only speak from experience and what I've heard from others.
Sorry, I misunderstood. My mistake. Who gets the money awarded from punitive damages?
I think their point is to have punishment microsoft feels, not that they lost 5 billion because of microsoft. Just like car manufacturers have to pay kazziollons for their mistakes.
If they would ask for somthing like 50 million, It would be just a scratch in their quarterly report.
signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
It seems the general consensus among white, male tech workers is that they belong in the industry. If they are up for a promotion against an equally skilled minority, of COURSE they should get the promotion, because they're automatically more skilled. Because the majority of tech managers are ALSO white, this attitude is perpetuated.
Let's set the record straight: My racial group does not choose to be less educated...we simply don't always have access to the same resources growing up as whites. That can't possibly be understood by someone who's never attended public school in a major city (I'm from Detroit). I took freshman EECS with 3 hundred white guys that had been taking C classes since the 9th grade, and the only exposure I'd had to any form of high-level programming was self-taught. Poor K-12 education == Poor SAT/ACT!= quality higher education. This uneven playing field is the reason for the small numbers of us in the tech industry.
First you complain that racism comes from white people's misguided assumptions, then you argue why those assumptions are true. I don't get the promotion because they think I'm not as good. That's wrong. I'm not as good because I didn't have enough of a chance!!
I'm American Indian. My race has no political power and almost no representation anywhere other than Alchoholics Anonymous meetings. In high school I was ostracized by both white and black groups, and that didn't leave much to choose from. Yes, I'm discriminated against. My name went to the top of most companies hiring list since my race looks very good on their quotas.
Yes, that's right quotas. All the race mongers claim that no one wants to enforce quotas, it being a diry word and all, but here we see the lawyers using a percentage of workforce in a court case. Companies see this and realize that if they are to survive such lawsuits they have to make sure that they have that percentage in the workforce. Hence, quotas.
I went to a 'historically black college'. It was the most pathetic excuse for an educational institution that I had attended (I attended 4 post high schools institutions). Grades were given out, and professors fired for failing students that deserved it. Incompetent 'teachers' were retained because they had once been tight with Martin Luther King. Academic standards were a joke. But everyone who graduated got a job. Why? A black man with a degree is a valuable commodity. They may not ever be promoted, but they are on the roles and help to ensure that the company has a shield against $5B lawsuits.
This is the reason that 'white, male tech workers' feel 'they're automatically more skilled'. They don't know you, but they know the group that you identify yourself with. Since birds of a feather flock together, they assume that you are as pathetic as a large percentage of the people I graduated with. The assumption is that you were given the job to meet a percentage.
If you don't want to be associated with these people, do like I do and lie about your race...a different lie each time someone ask...and don't ever tell the truth...and act like you're upset if someone guesses the truth...keep them guessing, and make sure that they know that you are lying. The point being that you don't let anyone associate you with anyone but yourself. Eventually no one will care about what you are and will start concentrating on who you are.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
That said, aren't damages assigned by the JURY? It's up to them to decide damages, not the plaintiffs. Plus, the Judge can set aside the judgement in favor of a lower amount if need be.
The tech-industry is NOT just the Internet. There are a lot of sectors in the tech-industry, and the internet is a fairly small part of it. Everyone seems to have the opinion that if you're high-tech, that means you're a dot.com, and that's just not accurate.
That's probably why the NASDAQ as a whole tanks when a dot.com goes under, even thought many companies in the exchange don't do "business" over the internet.
Of course, I wouldn't expect a pasty white boy to know the difference. :)
who can pass as white, most people are incredibly stupid when it comes to race.
I'm in my 40s, and interracial marriages were very rare when I was born. When people learn that my father was Chinese, you can see all the cognitive pieces drop into place: you must be so smart because..., you are good at academic things because...
It's pretty insulting that people attribute my accomplishments exclusively to my dad's genes. There's also a bunch of negatives too, like the assumptions that Asians are not creative or do not have leadership qualties. Fortunately, most folks are over this by the time they find out my parentage.
Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that stereotypes are so deeply rooted in human consciousness that we probably will never be free of them. The best we as individuals can do is, over time, to raise the image of our race with positive examples, and to be a counterexample against the negative stereotypes; and to question the assumptions we make about all people, not just based on race but other kinds of categories (gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, accent, geekiness).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"More likely" doesn't mean squat in an individual case. Joe White Boy who's from a poor family might not give a damn about how anomalous or improbable he seems to you. What you have expressed is simply a stereotype, not morally different from any other stereotype. Judge Joe White Boy on what Joe White Boy does, and don't assume anything because he's white.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
The lawyers cite statistics showing that just 2.6 percent of Microsoft's approximately 22,000 employees, and just 1.6 percent of its 5,155 managers, are black. "The numbers illustrate that Microsoft is guilty of some of the most egregious discrimination in corporate America," Hoffler said.
;).
The numbers don't illustrate a gawdamn thing!
Where are the numbers for what should be the qualification for managers, like education/experience? It could be that it so happens that the black people that M$ is employing have a lower educational/experience level on average.
Yeah yeah, I'll prawly be flamed for that statement, and I really don't mean to suggest that black people have lower educational/experience levels. I'm just saying that we are talking pretty small numbers here, so the differences shown by the lawyers may be explained by some other factors than racism.
What baffles me is, say these people where making $100K a year, I don't really understand why they want 10.000 years of compensation. It's not like they missed out on that many years because of M$.
I remember that M$ was the first company that I saw to use the term 'equal opportunity employer'. It would be sad if that wasn't true. And obviously the claims have to be taken seriously and be investigated. I think the $5B doesn't do a lot of good in terms of public opinion tho.
Anyways, working in Sillicon Valley, I feel our industry is one of the greatest because of it's lack of discrimination. You simply wouldn't get a damn thing done if you are discriminating. It's like practically everyone has something that (s)he could be discriminated for
I really hope it stays that way, and all I can say that other industries should take the hi-tech industry as an example.
Breace
I won't quote - please go back to the parent post and read it in full. It deserves your attention.
Now, the whole problem is precisely this: Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action ensures that blacks will never be treated equally. It's entirely valid for co-workers to suspect you might be in the office because of AA, or for other students to consider whether AA might be what put you in school.
So long as there are government-mandated percentages, no minority will ever have a fighting chance of getting the dignity it deserves.
Hi. I don't understand the American legal system when it comes to suing people and companies. It seems like you can sue for any amount of money that you like!
yeah you can sue anyone for any amount. it really doesnt mean anything unless you win. you have to look at what they are suing for. one guy states that he was passed up for promotions which would have lead to stock options. if he has been with ms since the early 80's i could see how he could have missed the opportunity to get a crapload of money.
the good ole' boy system is still in full effect. not so much racism, but rather hiring your friends. the only difference now is that it is called networking. i have personally seen people passed up for promotions and those who had relatives/friends in athoratative positons get them.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Honestly, in this labor market I have a hard time believing that anyone with *PROPER QUALIFICATIONS* would have trouble finding employment.
We look all over the world for employees, so I don't think that the local city demographics necessarily define the ethnic breakdown for software companies.
In the development side of software shops now, it's sometimes the 'white male' that's a minority. But nobody's worried about that, except that we need more H1B visas.
Technology-enabled companies are probably the *least* discriminatory.
fyi, as a canadian it would be very difficult for you to comprehend just how fucked our school system is down here.
... if enough people were somehow denied enough stock options over a long enough period of time, it could add up. but my understanding is that everyone gets the most options upon hire (with a 4 year vesting schedule) and that any later bonus options would be significantly smaller. moreover, any recent MS options would be underwater.
if you live in an affluent neighborhood, your children attend schools that are comparable to $10,000 a year private schools. the schools will be well funded and the results are excellent: 90% or more of the students will go on to a 4 year college, many of which are Very Good Schools (tm).
if you live in a poor neigborhood, the schools may be little more than a means of keeping kids off the streets so the seinor citizens can do their shopping without harrassment. the schools will be grossly under funded and ill-equipped to deal with the problems that come with a student body that lives in severe poverty. for example, young children tend to be dicipine problms when they don't have adaquate food. the schools may even need metal detectors. most of the students won't go on to college, and those that do will usually go to community college.
while there may be cases where affermative action would give preference to someone who is not the most qualified, remember that "not the most qualified" != "incompetent". you can have a pool of applicants, some of which are qualified and some of which are not. within the group of qualified applicants, only one can be the best, but is it always important to get the very best applicant? we usually do a cost benefit analysis where we may opt for the 2nd best drywaller if he/she is cheaper, but may opt for the very best heart surgeon we can possibly get.
schools have always been willing to admit students who don't have the best acedemic criteria if they are the child of an alumni or a great athlete or come from a really interesting background or are the child of a VIP. this is common and acepted practice and no one screams at the injustice of these students getting spaces that could be filled my smarter kids, even when these "less qualified" applicants truly are incompetent (although most schools won't admit anyone if they feel that the person truly can not do the work). Just something to bear in mind when you hear all the shrill rhetoric.
btw, i don't know the details of the MS case, but it would take more than a statistical analysis of the racial makeup of the company to mount a successful suit. 5 billion sounds high
- bridgette
I find that quite a few of their complaints aren't discrimination based on color...they're things that Microsoft does to ALL of their low-level employees.
This is a political technique. You have to be a member of a PC "minority" to enguage in it though.
The other part of it would be to label anyone pointing out that Microsoft does these things to all employees "racist".
Either way, there's no analysis of the available pool of workers vs. workers hired so I don't know how much of a case they've got.
Does the analysis need to be against "available pool of workers" or against "general population". The former making more sense than the latter, but since when were lawyers logical?
So we shouldn't be saying "Oh, we screwed black people for decades and decades, let's give them a free ride for a while".
Especially since at best this won't help the people concerned, at worst it will create a group of people dependant on "affirmative action".
You can't end discrimination by mandating discrimination, however noble the original motives might be. Make it easier for people in a specific group to gain qualifications and the qualifications of all those people become suspect, including those held by the people who didn't need the "help" in the first place. Which is one of the things which the original poster mentioned.
Also it's quite possible for any klind of racial quota system (which is how AA ends up working) will make the real racists look good. Since they can find enough token "yes men" to ensure their work force has the right ethnic makeup to never be sued. Remember a racist has a "head start" when it comes to knowing how to select employees by race...
>I'm not trying to be a bigot, but in sports I think it's almost detrimental to be white nowadays.
I don't think you are being a bigot but there are some misconceptions about race in sports. For starters, it's hard to say whether or not it's better to be of any race whatsoever in anything. That's dangerous territory. Modern cultural criticism has shown that racism/sexism/heterosexism, etc is just as damaging to the dominant group as it is to the subordinate group (check out _Gender Trouble_ by Judith Butler and numerous works by Michel Foucault). Furthermore, can you point to one instance where a player experienced reverse discrimination?
As far as owning teams goes the overwhelming majority of teams are owned by white men. In basketball and football this should seem odd since so many of the players are Black. Coaching staffs are usually predominantly white as well, though this is changing.
I am not in a position to say whether or not there is "reverse discrimination" in sports or an advantage to particular races. A very well-written article in The Village Voice actually addresses this issue in the context of Venus and Serena Williams (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0045/noel.shtm l).
I am, however, in a position to say that people should back up their assumptions and actually investigate them rather than perpetuating these half-truths.
-a
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
For starters, they make you use crappy in-house software.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The lawyers cite statistics showing that just 2.6 percent of Microsoft's approximately 22,000 employees, and just 1.6 percent of its 5,155 managers, are black...
the very first thing that popped into my head was...what are the actual race demographics in the Redmond area? I mean, if the pool of employable minorities in the local area is 1%, then Microsoft should be lauded, not sued!
SuperID
The idea that the adaption (via selection) of populations of people to different environments may have included different proportioning of fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers is controvertial, but seems to still be within the realm of legitimate speculation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Just one quick point...There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. Racism is Racism, no matter if it is black on white, white on black or blue on green. It is racism.
You're right, it's not a race issue. It's a class /socio-economic status issue. It just seems conservatives like to label is at a race issue so they can make the obvious argument that minority preferences are just as bad as racism in the first place. As conservatives clearly point out by picking well-to-do, business-owning, minorities, as examples, it's all about class, not the color of your skin. Unfortunately, there is a great correlation between being a minority and being poor. So we shouldn't be saying "Oh, we screwed black people for decades and decades, let's give them a free ride for a while". We should instead be observing that, despite a healthy sized middle class, there is an increasing polarization and gap between the extremely wealthly and the extremely poor in this country. The salary gap between head of company and lowest worker has been growing in orders of magnitude in this century. For the wealthiest country in the world we have a startling amount of poverty, child poverty, poor education, and poor health care. All these factors filter up (poor, unhealthy, uneducated people, regardless of skin color, have a hard time moving up). We can't just slap an affirmitive action bandaid on the top to hide the symptoms. We have to heal the disease.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If being white means you suck, relatively, then you deserve not to be hired. Nobody wants to watch a whole bunch of white guys play a game poorly.
But anyway, I think sports figures get insanely exorbitant amounts of money, regardless of their race. I just can't fathom giving somebody an amount of money larger than some small countries' GNP, just to run around a field or bounce a ball. Only in the USA.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
And have you seen the salaries for those atheletes? If I was making that much money, I wouldn't be complaining.
I feel that the amount of miniorities in Microsoft compared to "white anglo saxon males" is because simply; there aren't that many minority techies. Myself being (afro-american) I haven't really found any racism in the tech industry. I'm 20, and am the system administrator for a couple big name web sites but I've been using Unix ,Solaris, Linux (since 1.2.13 Dec 94). So for me maybe I haven't noticed it as much but alot of my "Afro-American" friends aren't really into computers; why? Some don't own one and the ones that do aren't really into "techie" realms. Some do web design and others just chat. I think that the void will change as the industry starts to even out.
As a black male I think the lawsuit is for money and thats about it. If these people really felt as if there was a glass ceiling at Microsoft this suit would of came about long before now. However I don't know their individual situations and it would be stupid of me to say that it isn't possible.
If it were me though I'd probably sue, to get some extra money so I can buy a lambhorghini diablo 6. More power to them, everyones suing Microsoft anyway why not its own employees? =)
As for slashdot; I hope someone does something and does something fast. It is honestly going down the tubes. I'd recommend the powers at be stop catering to non-shalant "jump on the bandwagon" users and cater to the audience that has been here and hopefully will continue to read and submit stories to slashdot; Amen.
There's no way you can know if this is true or not. And what gives credance to the idea that it's false is that of all the black people in america, just 1 (Tony Dungy) is talented enough to coach an NFL team? That seems incredibly far fetched to me.
Now, of course, it doesn't prove a thing. But it certainly makes me wonder.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Well, it all depends a bit on the sport in question. A read an interesting article in Runner's World Magazine several years ago that examined the dominance of several east African countries in running events. It seems that persons from this area of the world have a rather unique shape to some of their leg muscles which appears to be an advantage in running and jumping.
It seems fairly apparent that skin color is not the only genetic difference between people from different areas of the world. For example, I would be rather surprised to see a large increase in the number of Asian players in the NBA or NFL despite the population of in the US being made up of an increasingly large Asian minority. Is this because the NBA and NFL are racist organizations? No, it's because persons of Asian descent are usually shorter and slimmer than persons of African or European descent. This puts them at a disadvantage on the basketball court or football field, however it's not a particular disadvantage on a baseball diamond and we are seeing an increasing number of Asians in the Major League.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Actually, no. There are situations where racism is not bad for a company - for instance, when there is a plentyful pool of suitable talent to draw from, so that the racist organisation is no worse off for its refusal to make use of certain qualified groups.
Also, sometimes it is conceivably better for a company to be racist/sexist, from a purely economic point of view. The depreciated cost of obtaining the alternative talent could excede the economic benefit. Culturally coherent groups communicate more effectively with each other, so decision making is easier, cheaper and arguably better.
Racism can be quite economically rational, as opposed to merely irrational bigotry. This is, to my mind, not an argument in favour of racism, but rather an argument against unthinking libertarianism - which will happily leave serious social problems alone in the mistaken view that they will simply sort themselves out.
And what makes you think that Indian or Asian managers are less likely to discriminate against African-Americans than "whites"?
Kook9 out.
No, you haven't been allowed to say that in at least 12 years, as Jimmy The Greek found out when he was fired by CBS in 1988 for saying that blacks were better athletes because of genetics.
Well, Microsoft's attrition rate (9.6%) is about half the industry average (18.1%), so I think that speaks for itself.
I am quite interested to see how the attrition rates at Micro$oft and other companies hold up with their share prices dropping so much. A big reason many of the folks I know at Micro$oft stayed was the ol' "Golden Handcuffs" - every year they had so many more shares & options, etc.
Does anyone know where we can get access to attrition rate information for Micro$oft and other companies?
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
What bugs me is that so many people can't see that this is racist. Because there was an explicitly racist period in our history and the damages done were never properly redressed, there are disproportionately many disadvantaged African Americans in this country. To ignore this status quo ("Hey! We're not racist, we're just in it for the money!") is to perpetuate it, and that is an act of racism.
Because as young folks, you aren't really encouraged to go into the engineering field. At my high school we had SECME - South Eastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering. I was one out of about 10 blacks in the program. The other 40 was a mix of mostly white and a few Asian and Hispanic. The Black community still stupidly puts more emphasis on singing and playing basketball than fundamental work skills...
--
OliverWillis.Com
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
I don't see the tech industry, or ANY large industry as being racist in and of itself.
One person can be racist -- but is that the fault of the company? No. Its the fault of the managers.
But it becomes the fault of the company when they are made aware of the behavior and do nothing to correct it...
--
OliverWillis.Com
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
I listen to Larry's radio show, and while I disagree with around 65-80% of what he says, I do agree with his disdain for the "world owes me a living" attitude that is so prevalent in the black community. Instead of trying to fix community-based problems, the easy way is to "blame the white man".
--
OliverWillis.Com
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Now, the way class action suits normally happen is that *some* of the alleged victims, or a party representing the victims launch the suit, but if they win, the money is split among *all* the victims.
So that means it isn't just the 5 victims who get the $5 billion, but rather the money is split among *all* black employees at Microsoft.
When you think of a racist what is the first image that comes to mind? A mean ugly middle aged white man, right? You hardly think of a black, indian or korean racist when you think of racism, specially in the workplace. Its always the bad white suit/manager that only promotes his white boys and enslaves the rest of the employees. That is sad. That image is a prime example of exactly what racism is today. And I am a racist. And so are you!
Racism has changed shape. Today it would be hard to find a white man that hated all african americans or asians. Almost as hard as it would be to find a black man that hated all whites. What percentage of black men alive today were enslaved? Does that justify old school racism? I don't know... I've never been enslaved. But I can understand their point of view.
Old school racism, as I called it, is the immediate judging and sentencing of people, or categorizing them in your head and hating them for being who they were born as, not hating them for how they act. Today racism has changed. Even racism in prison is no longer based on hatred, but more on self defense and protection via gangs. We treat people differently based on how they act and a little what they look like, no longer the color of their skin but probably more how they dress.
Why do we judge people and categorize them? Does it really matter? You don't have to like everyone. You don't have to talk to everyone or be friendly to everyone. If you think someone is racist ignore them. They won't hurt you or say bad things to you or about you. They are probably just scared of you. But don't call them racist, because in doing that you are being hypocritical. How would you know if they are racist. Maybe they just don't like YOU!
just a thought.
According to Yahoo
Mmmm.. Donuts
Do you even know what disenfranchisement is ? I may be stupid, but you're even more so. You yourself used the word 'deserve.' So are you implying that the asian students who hypothetically will be nudging their caucasian peers out of the running with presumably better marks and more extracurricular activities don't 'deserve' to go to the higher tier schools ?
Is this a joke ? Do you honestly believe that legacy schools like Yale and Harvard don't favor the progeny of alums or less academically qualified athletes ? And you completely ignore the pocket book factor which trims the pool of applicants quite a bit.
True, the official race caps ended with the 80s, but if you're so ready to believe discrimination (via relictual AA) works against you, why do you find it so hard to believe it works the other (original) way too ? I'm not saying I agree with affirmitive action. Like others, I believe it's the wrong bandaid for too complex a problem, but to claim asians (or other minorities for that matter) unfairly benefit from such a system is ludicrous. Nationwide they _are_ a minority, and I doubt you can complain about them not being academically qualified. Also, financial aid is based on _need_. Most caucasians applying for college tend to be more well off than their non-caucasian peers. Blame not being dirt poor for your loan woes, I didn't get squat either.
Well, people don't generally beat up girls in predominantly white (I was 1 of about 5 non-whites in my class from K-12), upper-middle class (snotty spoiled rich kid) schools...but for you to assume I've "never been truly discriminated against" is just laughable. Sorry, but I find it hard to be sympathetic with someone whose group is still in power complaining about losing power. I'm not saying you can't experience racism/bigotry because you're white, anyone can which universally sucks. But don't expect much sympathy if you declare that you agree with someone who says people who have to cope with being hated like to perpetuate being hated. Since you've experienced discrimination yourself, would _you_ want to continue being discriminated against just to get a few crumbs of financial aid, or would you try to go for the whole pie and try to level the playing field for a better standard of living overall ?
And what exactly is it that freaks you out so much about being one of two white people in a store ? Welcome to the life of most non-white people in America.
I find it ironic that some of the presumably caucasian posters here complain about non-whites being paranoid about racism, yet when they find themselves in the same situation suddenly it's an earth-shattering occurence.
P.S. Anonymous cowards don't 'deserve' responses. There are quite a few nice pastures in the Central Valley if you want to be an anonymous sheep.
"A variety of societal reasons" is right. Ultimately, we are going to continue to see instances of racism until society as a whole changes. And of course there's no simple answer because there's no single cause. Many women and many people of color don't make into the tech industry or the sciences because they are actively discouraged all their lives by peers as well as educators, they receive poor schooling, they simply can't afford college, etc.
And, look, to hold up Asians as some sort of model minority (Asians=honorary whites) is disingenuous at best, since it ignores a plethora of factors. Consider the fact that most (certainly not all, though) Asian Americans resident in the United States are 1st or 2nd generation residents. That makes a big difference for, again, a variety of reasons. Many Asian immigrants arrive as members of the middle class already and don't face as much of an uphill battle as, say, many African-Americans. On the other hand, consider the fact that many Asian Americans don't fall under these circumstances, and, like other people of color, don't have many economic opportunities and face (and have faced throughout history) withering discrimination at the cultural as well as personal level. I mention that because many folks like to hold up "the Asian example" as proof that racism no longer exists. Not true.
Okay, I wanted this to be more coherent and better supported, but it's time for lunch.
(Incidentally, I don't think anyone reasonable believes that MSFT has a corporate racist policy, but it's plausible to think that certain managers discriminate against African-Americans, whether out of consciously held racist beliefs or otherwise, and if it's true, guess what? Microsoft is responsible for its managers' actions.)
Why don't you learn how to read? After the quoted sentence, I said,. "and punitive damages". Punitive damages can be of any amount the jury feels is justified to punish the offense, as opposed to actual damages or statutory damages (legislated fines).
Obviously, punitive damages. People suing over job discrimination can sue for actual damages (lost wages, promotion opportunities, backpay, etc), and punitive damages (ow).
That said, how is this insightful? How many posts can get moderated to 4+ for screaming "$5B??!#" incredulously?
And surely if Microsoft's practice is worse than that at other companies then those employees could find work at a company that would realise their true worth.
---- SIGFPE
C|Net had a video interview with Wooly Gary (the attorney defending the plaintifs). This that interview, Gary makes it clear that the percentages are not enough to say "discrimination", but that the people there have testimony that their white counterparts do the same jobs but get more promotions and bonus. A woman told that she will never get promoted out of her cubicle, etc. There are actual cases of discrimination, in addition to the skewed proportion of workers.
-no broken link
If you think about it, its like saying that Microsoft have made $5 billion out of these people, and that these people have lost $5 billion because of Microsoft. Maybe these are exceptionally talented individuals, but surely they should only ask for how much they have actually lost?
in lawsuits like this it's 1,000,000 for actual salary injustness. and 4,990,000,000 in personal (mental, ego, whatever) lose.
The legal justification is that if you "stick it to the corperation" big time, they'll actually change there policy. the jurors (spelling?) will see a large rich corperation that can offord it on one side, and vicumized people on the other, so they might not care how much the penalty is.
-Jon
this is my sig.
Microsoft likes to really grill job applicants. Applicants get interviewed by multiple people, many of whom are just ordinary developers such as I was. The HR department gave us a little seminar on how to conduct ourselves when grilling applicants; there were many subjects we were not to ask about or discuss, and race was one of them.
(Another was "Do you have kids?" While this might be intended as a friendly question, we were told this could be used as a lever to sue Microsoft and us personally if the applicant was not hired, reasoning goes like this: they asked if I have kids and I said yes, therefore they assumed I would not be available to work really long hours, therefore they didn't hire me, therefore I was discriminated against because I have kids. I'm pretty sure that actually happened at least once for them to be so nervous about it...)
Microsoft's recruiting literature is loaded with pictures of happy Microsoft employees, and about half of the people in the pictures are minorites, some of them black. While I was there, I worked with people from India and Pakistan, Asians, white folks, black folks, females, a few queer folks I knew about, and a few pagans I knew about. I didn't see as many black folks as the recruiting brochures might imply, but on the other hand I saw a higher percentage of black folks than I generally see walking around in shopping malls nearby.
It is inevitable that with so many people working for it, Microsoft has to have someone racist somewhere in the chain. But to claim institutionalized racism at Microsoft and ask for $5 billion? I don't see it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I'll give you this advice for free: When you have this much resentment and hostility towards whites, it is externally obvious and visible, within 30 seconds of your talking to a white person. In other words, the person you are talking to can sense you don't like them. And once they sense this, they are not going to be comfortable with you, they are not going to want to be around you, work with you, talk to you.
If you want to be treated like everyone else, then act like everyone else. Get rid of the chip on your shoulder, rid yourself of hate and jealousy for those who "had it easy". Talk to whites like they are YOUR equals, not some group that is "out to get" you.
Cause you know what? 99% of whites don't care what color you are. But 100% of whites can sense hostility, and will react to it in some way- fight or flight.
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
That's what they will get, after the lawyers take their fair share.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Bill Gates just gave a billion or so bucks to the NAACP, right? Such an organization is built on the assumption that special barriers exist. Bill must have thought these barriers exist elsewhere, Texaco, Shoney's, older low tech places. Surely Bill could have fixed the problems in his own company without their help.
Wrong! Most of these suits are just so much judicial extortion.
Suck it up Bill!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You haven't looked at a software EULA recently, have you?
Now hold on a sec. The lead attorney on the case was on FOX News lastnight (Neil Cavotto's show) and guess what? Besides haveing already done this successfully to CocoCola, GM, and a few other companies the firm kicks out over 25% of thier fees to minority charities and the like. The attorney seemed to be cogent as to the real issues at hand and guess what? He is Black and he made his way to the top the hard way. He worked in the cane fields in south florida to pay for his education. I have seen cane workers doing thier job and imho it is one of the most labor intensive back breaking jobs a person could do.I don't particularly agree with the basis of the suit and the $5 bil they are asking for. The other companies that this firm has done this to have all knuckled under and settled out of court. I think this is tantamount to legalized extortion because mostly these companies settle to avoid having thier names in the media with the word 'RACIST' attached to it. Trial by media is what is really at stake here for them. The damage to thier brand is name very high and even if they win they still lose. For once I am on M$ side: they have the money and power to really take this case on. Worst case scenario for them is to lose out on some sales in the US as globaly no other country will likely even hear about this case never mind care as they all know our letigious society is sue happy. One potential benefit people should realize here though is that fighting this will hurt the M$ name and potentially send more folks to the linux world. As long as there is a requirement or quota in place (like affirmative action) there will never be an incentive for minorities of any kind to really try to excel in the work place for a multitude of reasons. Primarily, its easier for a company to fire a non-minority and not fear repercussions (short of former employees going postal, i digress...) via legal action. Second, the quota system hurts them by promoting employees who don't deserve the promotion over those who do because a particular group is not represented in promoted positions. When a person is promoted for the wrong reasons (not skills or performance) this has a negative effect on the company as a whole and eventually will snowball.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
I can't speak for Microsoft but I know that where I am employed that there is no problem. I work in an office of about 13 - 15 people. The majority are asian but we also have whites, blacks, etc. Everyone is treated witht he same amount of respect. It's actually a great environment to be in.
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Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
hahah! The only thing that I can say is, Amen! I have an uncontrollable urge to go rent 'Office Space'
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Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
Heya, I think we misunderstood each other. After reading your most recent post I agree totally with what you're saying. I think you though I was saying that racist practices don't exist. I wasn't trying to say that at all. In your example above, if person 'B' got hired simply because the more qualified person 'A' was a minority then that's a _BIG_ no-no. I would like for you to e-mail me, if you don't mind, so we can talk over this. I don't want any hard feelings to exist. Anyone else that disagrees or misread what I was trying to say please e-mail me as well. I'm on my lunch break at the moment. Aftrer I eat I'll go back over what I wrote to make sure that I didn't word anything to make my comments mean the opposite of what I was trying to say. Hey, it was morning when I wrote it, leave me alone :-P.
Anyways, please fire off an e-mail to me if you get a chance. rob at tgflinux dot com should work fine.
Have a nice day.
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Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
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very sad when anything negative happening to non-whites is called racism, and makes them rich, while real racism and discrimination is not only tolerated but encouraged as long as the skin color of the victim is acceptable.
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Actually, the discrimination has more to do with the management positions. Not too many african american head coaches in the NFL (dennis green at Minnesota is the only one I can think of right now), only a couple hispanic and black managers in baseball. Same with the NBA. As you go higher up, into positions such as General Manager, or any sort of business operations, the amount of minorities are even less. Basically, most of the time that people are talking about racism in sports, its about the fact that the managerial positions dont reflect the racial balance of the players in the league.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
It also sounds like this person pursuing the lawsuit might be kind of a jerk. "I didn't get what I deserve; therefore, I am going to sue for way more money than I would ever make at MS!" If they are a jerk, then I could understand why they got passed over for promotion. Promotions not only depend upon skill level and experience, but also on interpersonal skills, knowing the right people, and being in the right place at the right time. Maybe this guy just pissed of the wrong person at the wrong time and sees it as "racial discrimination".
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Many of the people here went through the problem of being thought a geek by your peers in high school. This fact would go on to color the majority of your adolescent existence. You were probably marginalized and belittled, not to mention victimized for your second class stature. It seems that the same is not true (i think) for Asians and Indians. So that would probably explain why there seems to be more indian and asians techs as a percentage of middle class individuals than even whites. However, for a black student in the inner-city (or probably any poor american student in a rough neighborhood) being labeled a geek (rhymes with weak) can get you hurt. So if there is some other label that you can assume (jock, tough guy, church kid, etc.) it makes sense to do so. I grew up in a middle-class/upper-middle class home. Between 8th and 9th grades we moved to a different city and I went from a majority white school (actually the percentages were probably representative of america as a whole) to a majority black school even though my new school was part of a magnet program I was far more ostracized and far more of an outsider than I had ever been at my previous school. In retrospect, I can see that my Jr. High friends were all geeks and my Sr. High didn't have enough geeks to fill a mid-sized sedan. I am not apologizing for blacks. But given choices like those. How many kids are going to explore their technical leanings? Or would the better choice be to try REAL hard to be "normal"? Most geeks I know know, technical or otherwise tried the normal thing but it just didn't work for them. The thing was though, there was no serious downside to choosing to be different. Not really. However, most poor kids (i mean real poor) don't feel that they can afford to make that choice. Just my $.02.
I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
:)
Well, if you take the chip off your shoulder for just a second here and look at this objectively, the effect of affirmative action more often than not IS that the affirmativized individuals are qualitatively inferior to their peers, so this is not a racist presumption, this is a rational presumption.
So it seems to me that the obvious thing for you Americans to do here is dump affirmative action, all it does is reinforce stereotypes when it promotes the incompetent and call in to question the abilities of those that are competent when it doesn't, and fix your schools so that poorer people of WHATEVER race can compete equitably with people who get a decent education. Now wouldn't that make a whole whack more sense?
'Course, I'm in Canada where we have schools that don't suck so I may be being a trifle naive about just how utterly fucked up the American system is, so please don't flame me TOO hard if this is a bit too logical for Americans to be able to handle
Hi. I'm a person from a non-US country desperate to get karma by exploiting the 'I'm from a different country/you americans are so wacky' meme!
... it wouldn't work if it wasn't true, would it? :)
Hey, I'm capped and I keep right on using that one
I have to agree it has long been common knowledge that low level types get treated like dirt. But the tech fields do make a easy target for this kind of thing. For whatever reasons most people working at any tech firm are going to tend to be white and male or h1b visa types. Therefore it is very easy to claim that they are behind the curve in the race area. There may or may not be more that the firms can do about this but I don't think it is really their fault. Also keep in mind m$ has *very* deep pockets and are kind of hated by alot of people. I don't at the moment see alot of substance to this one, but with more info my mind could change.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
As for "Blacks are naturally better athelets than whites" I think it's a bunch of bunk. Take a look at World soccer, rugby or cricket leagues. Or even baseball. Are Cubans more "naturally" more athletic just because a large number of them excel in baseball? Are Indians more "naturally" athletic because they excel at cricket? No. Its because its entrenched in their particlar (sub)culture. Sports participation tend to be more influenced by socio-economics.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, I would say thats not true for several reasons. Of the major four sports in the US (basketball, football, baseball and hockey) most of the people that control the teams at a higher level are white from the owners all the way down to the coaches.
So while the mix of races in the players themselves is closer to equal (except, as you mentioned, in hockey), the people who control the purse strings and run the show are almost exclusively white, and I'm sure this has lead to more racism than is apparent to outsiders.
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Microsoft's policies always reminded me of the worst in Steven Seigal movies... It's him against the world, and even his closest partners are like wolves under his pecking order.
Look at the bundling agreements, the EULAs, the cryptic product key codes, etc. They regard us as guilty until proven innocent. When employees, OEMs, VARs, and especially customers are viewed as adversaries, what do you expect? It's not hard to prove Microsoft takes advantage of as many as they can... But it's hard to prove driscimination when they're abusing everyone!
Okay, so this is different from normal business practices how? And since he left Microsoft, doesn't that make his claim on discrimination moot, as he chose to leave?
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
Yes, a random sampling of college applicants will show blacks and hispanics to be less qualified than whites, but that's because they come from broken school districts that are all fucked up and run more like jails than schools, and staffed by teachers who were transferred there as a "disciplinary action" for screwing off on their job at a better school, or are in the poor school district until they "build up enough seniority" to be able to transfer to teach at their choice school.
Fix the academic problems in primary and secondary schools, and by the time the kids get to college, no one will need differing admissions standards based on race.
Racial quotas or lessened acceptance standards for minorities is a band-aid solution. It's like turning up the stereo louder in your car so you don't hear the water pump squealing anymore. You're just (1) masking the problem, (2) not fixing it, and (3) headed for real disaster down the road.
When I interned at Microsoft in the summer of '99, I received a junkmail flyer about the Seattle school system. They had a racial breakdown on the flyer and, if memory serves correctly, blacks only represented 2% of the student population. I admit that my memory's not the best (and I might be misremembering details; it's possible it was a flyer for a private school), but I do remember such a low number sticking out in my mind.
I tried to dig out the appropriate 2000 census figures, but had trouble navigating the census site. I did, however, manage to find some 1990 census figures mentioned in http://www.cityofseattle.net/seattle/spd/stratpln/ ch2.htm, which indicate that blacks represented 10% of the Seattle population a decade ago.
2.6% still strikes me as rather low, but I honestly couldn't tell you how much of that is something Microsoft-specific, how much of that is Seattle-specific, how much of that is the IT field in general, and so forth.
Chuck D could ask the same questions of hip-hop. Why is it so predominantly a "black" art form? Is it racism or just the makeup and backgrounds of the individuals that make up the group? It just so happens that hip-hop is an expression of a culture that is largely non-white.
Engineering is largely the sport of white males. There are certainly many Asians and Indians represented, so I don't think it's purely a race thing. The problem with geeks is that they are not the types likely to reach out to any group that is not like themselves. Is this racism? I think it is more the introverted nature of geeks. If anything the geek love of knowledge and new ideas makes them more able to bridge the race gap. You just have to figure out how to get these divergent groups together to be able to share the resource of these ideas.
The real question is not about Microsoft but why black males are so underrepresented in engineering across the board. What is it about the culture and economic situations that make this so. This is where the real problem lies and where any solutions will come from.
It's not about stopping discrimination - it's about money. This is happening in America, here on Planet Earth. This is not about some idealistic notion of ending racism at Microsoft.
Uh, you must mean reverse discrimination right? Clearly there are no absence of blacks in most of the major sports (except for ice hockey). I'm not trying to be a bigot, but in sports I think it's almost detrimental to be white nowadays.
Look at their front/back offices. Few coaches are black, few, if any, owners are black, etc, etc. And except for the lucky few major stars, most of the players (who are minorities) are used/abused for a couple of years and then let go for a younger, cheaper player of equal ability. This happens especially often in football, where most rookies get $150-$200k per year, and players with 3+ years of experience have a minimum of $300k or so. Doesn't make sense to keep those guys around.
So you let them go without any sort of safety net, and hire your white buddy for the managing/coaching job. These guys have gone through HS and colege with football as their meal ticket and have no other skills. Now they have to pick up and start over from nothing at 25-30 years old.
That's unfortunate. It's race-related since so few of the minorities get a chance to be involved in sports off the field. And it's not reverse discrimination. People love a white star, but they aren't excited to see a black coach.
The lawyers have used percentages to justify their claims (2.6% employed, 1.6% in management). As others will probably mention, this means nothing, unless you compare it to the percentage of black employees in the tech world in general. As many of you may be aware, U.S. minorities are under-represented in the tech world, below their percentage in the population. This is the so-called digital divide.
(Forget for a moment those working under H1-B or green cards, since it is questionable whether management could say, look at all these foriegn-born minorities, some in management! We're not racist! It could equally support the claim that management likes indentured servitude)
Now, why is this the case? We all say that we are in a performance-based industry, where the best rise to the top. But why is it this way? I say that one factor in how far you go in the industry is how early you were exposed to tools of the trade. For my part, I had a computer and modem ($2000 or so at the time) when I was 10 or so. I also was given a C++ compiler ($500 or so), my dad had a fairly complete computer library ($500 or so), and I got help purchasing books in subjects that interested me.
I know that when I reached college, many of the first-year CS courses were too basic for my needs, but I know many who struggled. It is my assertion that someone who has studied computers at an early age will get more out of college when he or she gets there, no matter the natural talent, and that some may be unable to complete a CS course without prior knowledge.
So, in my opinion, one of the pre-requisites for doing well in the IT world is early exposure, which is fairly expensive, but within the middle-class household's budget - if the parents believe that it is important. So, the IT world will probably look like society in general - rich kids at the top (including those from other countries), and the poor mostly left out.
Do I have a solution? Not really. Microsoft (i believe) once had a mission statement of a computer in every home. They are doing their best by making a lowest-common denominator operating system, as well as making huge contributions to non-profits that are trying to get computer access for the poorer folks. Hopefully, these efforts will come to light during the trial, and be expanded.
Maybe there should be a social project to make cheap computers (Pentium 100, or 250, or something that is now cheap and easy to make), with Linux or BSD pre-installed, so that poorer folks can jump on board. If they get cheap enough, maybe we can even have a public subsidy (maybe a 1% tax on broadband services to pay for them). Of course, that smells of big government and socialism. But capitalism just seems to be making it worse, by only looking for candidates availible today (H1-B), rather than doing something to cultivate candidates 10 years from now.
Sorry, had to rant since I think this is a more important issue than "Does Microsoft Disciminate?"
For an interesting insight into how perceptions can be shattered, read Jon Entine's book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It. After I finish with our back-end coding project, I'm going to review a sports book a month at TOTK.com Sports. Entine's book is first on my list.
I've appreciated all the comments from my black friends here on /. on this issue. I think they're making the white folks think on this some. -g- Growing up in Mississippi, I've seen racism, and it ain't pretty. But I saw it in Ohio, too, and it was more oppressive there [in Dayton's suburbs] because of the paucity of non-Europeans.
The only beef that I have ever had with AA has been the fact that it is only a temporary solution. AA attempts to fix the end-product of generations of discrimination by giving opportunity to the disadvantaged after the fact. This is fine to an extent, but at some point, you have to accept two things:
As with any problem, it is much better to fix root causes than to try to make amends on end products. If you start building code and watch bugs from the beginning, you build better code. As a society, we should work to build better people by providing quality education along the entire educational track, focusing on improving standards and giving assistance to the youngest among us, regardless of socioeconomic status.
And yeah, there's racism in sports, people. Consider Scot Pollard's hair and Allen Iverson's. With Pollard, most folks think, "Dude, this guy's got style." With the Answer, most folks think, "Dude, this guy's a thug." Yet we don't know diddly shit about either one really.
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-- Geof F. Morris
But I'm betting that you've noted that the way you fight this type of racism--the personal, prejudice-based sort--is person by person. It's like the old saw about saving starfish: you saved that one.
It's the same way with me when I work hoops camps with inner city kids--they don't think a short fat white guy can ball. I can, to a certain degree, and once they realize that, they have fun with me. I'll ignore the fact, though, that the kids routinely beat me off the dribble.
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-- Geof F. Morris
I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
I am all for the completely fair treatment of all humans... thus I am against affirmative action, which promotes one group over another based solely upon unimportant criteria. And here is yet another reason why I'm against it!
This is the price minorities must now pay for promoting affirmative action (the majority of minorities support aa). Yes, you get better access to jobs and schools than before, but you bring this stigma onto yourself that you're perhaps not qualified for the position.
It's a trade-off, and a poor one.
At least before affirmative action, if someone saw a minority in a high-level classroom or job, they knew they had earned it (and then some). Now you have people that naturally hesitate, because of affirmative action.
-thomas
(A member of the HUMAN race.)
"And like that
So that big businesses could hire huge, expensive, unstoppable armies of lawyers, knowing that the risk of losing will stop any lawsuit, frivolous or not.
Look at it from the other angle. You're a tiny company, and a huge competitor comes along and decides to bury you in a frivolous lawsuit (patent infringement, trademark infringement, whatever). In a libertarian society, as long as you are RIGHT and win the case, you don't have to be robbed of all the money spent defending you. It is therefore less likely that you will be sued in the first place.
In regards to your view, either you're going to sue a company, or you're not going to sue a company. Whether or not they have a huge team of lawyers that will defeat your lawsuit is beside the point. You will not bring the case to court if you don't want to risk paying the cost of the defendent upon losing the case. Obviously their would need to be reasonable limits to how much the defendent can be reimbursed, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current system, where a huge corporation can bury somebody with no risk whatsoever.
-thomas
"And like that
with the idea behind the lawsuit, but is the amount justified? 5 billion dollars divided 7 ways comes out to ~$714,285,714.28/person. If this were any other company, would the amount be as large, comparitively? Even if you looked at it on scale, this is still a large sum.
How Jaded Are You?
No latinos? Where the heck are you writing from, Maine? Latinos are all over the place in High Tech, particularly in SV. Everywhere I've worked out here there are latino admins, coders, network gurus. Does the name Hector Ruiz even ring a bell with you? (Pres. of AMD)
As I've said before, the opportunity is here. If people are stigmatized then odds are they're doing it to themselves. The have to get their butts in gear, stand up, get counted. The credibility of arguments, such as are sparred with (by lawyers), increasingly fall on deaf ears. If people want to feel disaffected, marginalized or stigmatized, fine. But that's their own doing. When we hire, we want people who work, not people who through around how they're in the mintority, not enough in high places, blah, blah, blah.
You do the work, you don't like the place, leave. The average time in a job out here was 2 years, and it's been falling. People jump onto different horses at the drop of a hat for a better deal, better position, etc. Sit and winge and you lose. The sharks out here are not just a hockey team.
The percentages, treatment issues, etc. are thrown around by lawyers as they spar for position. They are out to win. They get a significant percentage of any award. Consider even 30% of 5 billion and you know why lawyers engage in slash and burn tactics as these. Coca Cola settled rather than have their reputation soiled. As suits of this ilk appear they sulley the legal profession and do no actual good for the plaintiffs, other than make a few wealthy. One reason many businesses move offices, etc. off-shore is to avoid this extortion. Go ahead, tell me about justice.
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+++ Out Of Cheese Error +++
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
8 months ago I went to a Westech (now called something else, like Brass Ring Carreer Fair or something equally stupid, considering name recognition--but I digress) and though there were thousands of applicants showing up to sling rez, you could stand in one spot and count on your fingers the number of african-americans who attended. Whites, lots. Chinese, lots. Indians (asian), lots. Hispanics, lots.
Now I know there are some large african-american segments in the bay area, better start by asking them why the heck they don't get down there and compete like everyone else does. It's a meat market, but you stand a lot better chance of making contacts and getting hired if you show up.
I've also done a number of interviews of candidates over the years and, let me tell you. It's not just failing to attend hightech meatmarkets, but not even applying that holds people back. We never screen people past what's on their resume. We left our (extremely touchy) HR people to arrange interviews for everyone, or at least the most apparently qualified when there's a large number, and when they appear it's the first time we've seen or talked to them. Zero african americans. The only one who came into the shop in three years was a contractor.
A good place to start looking would be any study done to explain why a significant segment of the population doesn't represent itself.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now take a "moron" with that set of skills and watch them climb the ladder and compare to Joe/Jolene-african-american-person who grumbles about not getting recognition for all their dedication and hard work and how the system is predisposed against them. Ever see anyone get promoted for squeezing sour grapes? I haven't. I imagine they don't hang around long if they have a reputation as a malcontent.
IME people who want to move up the ladder can do so by working toward an indispensible, high recognition position and making it known they are happy, but looking.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Basically all I wanted to say was that whether none/some/all people do/dont think there is discrimination in the tech industry everyone here is agreeing on one form of discrimination and that's lack intellectual prowess.
I'm sick and tired of being held down in a low paying job just because of my intellectual ability! Where's my affirmitive action? Where's my stuff to make things better? Where's my intellectually challenged Jesse Jackson or whoever? Where's my high paying tech job? Oh sure you all might say well go to school get some education...well I would but my ACT/SAT scores are too low. I was denied access to one of the greatest educational facilities in this country because "I'm not smart enough." I hope you all get my point because well...I not too good with grammer and speeling and I have AD...uh..D.
Being a silicon valley sysadmin, and bouncing around throgh about 10 companies in 6 years i've seen alot of enviroments.
:)
Most companies aren't racist, yet they do practice segregation. (sp?) I'd name names but we'll protect the innocent.
The company I currently work for is a Fortune 500. I've been to 3 sites, the one I work at is mainly indian h1-b visa workers. By my estimate its about 150 indians, 10 asian, 5 anglo and 1 african american. The reason for the huge number of indians i'd suspect is because the site boss himself is indian.
The company I worked at before had a hawaiin CIO, therefore canidates from hawaii universities were hired before anyone else. It had close ties with HP so there were quite a few HP employee's on board, it was a good mix of about 50/50 between pacific islanders and anglo's.
Before that I was at a company that was allmost 90% taiwanese. The CEO was taiwanese so allmost the rest of the company followed suit.
Before that it was a German CEO, but this one was funny, we had a mormon CTO who hired a bunch of mormons from BYU. So you had a drinkin German fighting with a pompous self rightous prick religious mormon fanatic. After the CTO was fired most of the mormons were gone too and the CEO surrounded himself with germans.
I guess the point i'm trying to get at here is people in general try to surround themselves with like people, and in the tech industry this is more important than anything because of the communications involved. Personal expirience has taught me to allways use troubleticket systems because it forces them to explain the problem in text based english, which is free from the problems of bad verbal english mixed in with a heavy (put your favorite language here) accent.
I've been around redmond many times, well more like the washougal/camas area. Its pretty darn close though, and my impression has been that there are a lot of white people up there. So naturally there would be quite a number of anglos hiring/promoting anglos at M$. As horrible as it sounds, birds of a feather try and flock together. Certainly I could have sued a bunch of the companies i've worked for (they're discriminating my italian heritage) but i've found there are better things to move on to in life than spending your time in court over petty stuff. If M$ wants to be a white company, by all means go right ahead, go find a new job. I'm sure somebody out there is going to want to hire you. Better yet go to HP, out of all the companies i've seen so far they seem to be the most desegragraded company around. Someone should do a little photoshop magic and make a pic of bill gates wearing a pointed white hood.
Thats my $.02
--Toq
I have long thought that vast awards of "Punative" damages to plaintifs has hurt the legal system and driven up insurance and medical costs, as well as many other areas.
The logic behind punative damages is that the fee has to be large enough to make the transgressor not do it again out of fear of another penalty. But theses huge punative damage awards just encourage people to file suit over stupid stuff
My idea on what would work right is that the people filing only get the "real" damages. For example in the microsoft case, give them 10 year salary or something, good but not stupid. Then make microsoft pay the remaining 4.75 billion in punative damages but have it go somewhere else, not the plantifs. Where the somewhere else is I don't know and is a can of worms in itslef
I think this would preserve the punishment without painting a target on anyone with money
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Probably the problems encountered at Microsoft stem in part from the way Microsoft started--as a consulting group offshoot of a tightknit computing club at Harvard. The founders of the computer industry were all young, white, and male. Nothing wrong with that, particularly, but now the field is trying to expand.
Not only persons of color but also women are experiencing problems breaking into these original networks. The relationships within the original networks are very insular, and very much tied to rapidly dwindling sources of venture capital. So, they are developing networks of their own, in Silicon Valley and in the emergent East Coast high tech corridor.
Still, as one of the leading corporate American employers, Microsoft can expect to be held to the same standards as other corporations insofar as Equal Opportunity Employment issues. Gone are the days when it could be argued that tech companies are somehow different or exempt from these workplace issues. If there is solid proof of a pattern of discriminatory practices, then it needs to be corrected.
Sincerely, Kathryn AegisI've worked on the Eastside of Lake Washington. I've worked with African and African-American tech people, even managers (no, they're not the same, someone who came here from Uganda has very different values than someone from Chicago).
And, I can say that, IMHO, most of the firms on the Eastside (Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland) subconsciously discriminate against African-Americans, especially in management. It's actually easier to be female than male, because people can cope with you better.
Note that I'm what looks like Caucasian, even though I'm mixed like virtually any American; but I'm not blind. I notice the silent pauses, even when it's someone dressed up nicely in a suit with a proper "English" accent, when they show up at meetings or at lunch places.
And I'm not confusing it with those that dress the bad boy image, or talk with an urban African-American accent.
So, to survive, you have to be twice the manager that a white man or woman does. It's not fair, but it is true. And you have to watch who visits you at work, who you go to lunch with, and even when your kids visit you at work. Because the stereotypes, and the unconscious fears, are there.
That said, I doubt MSFT is doing this consciously. But their HR should be noticing the effect on African-American managers and questioning harsh evaluations for behaviour ("not a team player; gets angry easily") that would not be noticed if the manager was Caucasian.
[caveat - I own MSFT stock (and RHAT too)]
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
How about the racial figures in basketball and football, what do they illustrate? Or how about numbers of research papers published in Computer Science, papers on new algorithms, alogoritm patents. Or numbers for independent software consultants? In 17 years I have been in software business, I haven't run into a single black software consultant.
The only place where black computer, scientific and leadership geniuses dominate are Hollywood movies and PBS children programs. For example, in PBS cartoon Arthur, the class science & computer genius celebrates Kwanza, while the Jewish girl is top in sports and her father is a garbageman. The lightest skin kid is, as expected, the dumbest one and from a fatherless family.
Let me play devil's advocate for a bit. Maybe Microsoft (as a whole) isn't racist, it could just be a few bad apples. Microsoft is a large company with many employees, the odds are good that sooner or later they will hire a racist employee, and if there aren't enough complaints, how will they know there is a problem.
Also, the technology field is not a field for the poor, and poverty does tend to fall upon minorities and women (especially single women with children). I'm white and male myself, but I grew up in a single-parent household, my first computer I owned was a 286 I bought for myself around 5 years ago. School gave me enough experience with computers to learn BASIC, but not much more. Everything I learned I was self-taught, and if I was going to enter the technical field now (and I'm considering it), I would probably go for a MSCE and a little training to be a network admin, since it needs little schooling and jobs are available. Pay might not be great, but its money. Now with such training, I might be qualified to staff Microsoft's help lines or sweep the floors, not much more. I'm sure not going to be a code monkey on Whistler or Office 2002.
Continuing to be a devil's advocate, I would ask for hard evidence of racial bias, for example, having two employees of equal skill and training, and picking the white employee consistantly for advances in position, and raises in pay, and the employee has to be high-ranking enough for these to be the company's decision, and not a rotten boss's decision. Alternatively, if you could show me that valid complaints against bad bosses were brought to management's attention and ignored, you could prove to me that Microsoft is racist. Otherwise, the problem didn't exist, or its the occasional racist employee that management doesn't know about
Just my $.02
I have to say that the tech industry is as close to a merit based system as you can get. If you know your stuff you will get ahead. Although I've never worked at microsoft I know several people who have, I've never heard any complaits of this sort.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
For Christ's sake, pull your head out of your copy of _Fountainhead_ and look around at the world every once in a while. What seems logical from your perfectly idealized libertarian happy-happy-capitalist viewpoint doesn't necessarily fly in the real world.
Why is there such a large percentage of you people on Slashdot? Is it due to the abnormally large population of kids who, because they're somewhat intelligent, believe they're superior to most of their peers and therefore pretty much capabable of figuring out How Things Work without any real experience?
Companies can be racist, corporations can be evil, freeing the market is not always a good idea, and all this shit has been proven again and again throughout the history of capitalism and in the experience of damn near everyone who's spent some time outside of school. To deny or ignore such realities is dangerously arrogant.
Apologies for the flame, and for the fact that it had to be in reply to your post... I'm just sick of this economic darwinist crap. I was under the impression that we'd stopped using it as justification (or method of denial) of social problems something like a hundred years ago. It disappoints me that this seems not to be the case.
It was not that he was rude to white employees -- he just hung around with black employees. All the time.
Now, if a white person were to do the same, he would be labeled as racist. Especially, he would be culpable for exploiting his social relationships with white managers to gain standing. I don't claim to know how to fight this -- or even if it should be fought. I just observe the fact that black people do tend, as you pointed out, to socialize exclusively with other black people. And that they tend to exploit those social connections just as white people exploit theres.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
I think this case is a load of bunk, based on my experience and the examples I've seen in the industry (and Microsoft has historically been more enlightened than most - they just want big brains and not much more). What some people forget is that being qualified doesn't mean you get the job - you get it if you're the _most_ qualified. And if there's always someone better qualified than you, you never get the job. That's when you leave to get onto some other company's track - and hope the other company has people you can in turn leapfrog. When I've hired in the past (as I do at my current company, and did at my past employer), I could care less about race, gender, or sexual preference. I look for the following attributes:
1: Are their skills appropriate for the job?
2: Are their salary expectations in line with what I can pay, and am willing to pay?
3: Do they have the right amount of experience for the job?
4: Do they have a personality that will enable them to get along with their prospective co-workers on the "team"?
As tie-breakers, I'll look at things like certifications (do they have any, and are they relevant). I don't care about race or gender - send me people that can do the job and they'll get the job, assuming they're the best candidate. Period. And, excepting some troglodytes who are, I'm sure, in some companies, the bulk of IT hiring meets that standard.
Over the years, I've hired white, black, and hispanic, men and women, gay and straight. And there would almost certainly have been more categories represented in that list if I'd had them available to choose from - I've had good people work for me in all those categories! I'd have been an idiot and I'd be doing my company a disservice if I excluded any potentially good employee on the basis of race, or any other irrelevant factor that doesn't affect job performance.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Racism isn't always as obvious as it is on made-for-TV movies. (Sometimes, unfortunately, it is that obvious, but usually it's a lot more subtle.)
The tech industry cannot afford to be racist in any fasion since 75% of any tech company's employees are of some non-european ethnic origin.
I think you make a bit much of a leap though when you think the look of surprise means they thought of you as less competent.
I myself had a black CS friend in college, and he was really intelligent and great to work with. However, if I'd been in your group you probably would have seen a simlar look of surprize on my face - not becuase I thought you were less competent, but simply because people I talk with via e-mail or other electronic means always have a simply "likley profile" built up in my head and if it's different then I have to take a moment to readjust. It doesn't mean I would think less of the person, especially if I'd already worked with them...
I'll admit there are probably people who would react just as you said. But given how many people in the CS field are from various cultures (chinese, japanese, indian, etc.) I don't see how you could really go all that far in the computer field without being pretty open to people that differ from yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The race thing drove me into a 5 threshold and cured me of my /. addiction. Big ups Taco, I commend your candidness and honesty.
Here's something that I found to be very interesting. It is an article by a caucasian professor of journalism at UT.
WHITE PRIVILEGE SHAPES THE U.S.
Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert William Jensen 1998
first appeared in the Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1998
by Robert Jensen
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white privilege--unearned white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing field? I ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have unearned privilege but ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds of privilege). Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non-white population, American Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor.
There certainly is individual variation in experience. Some white people have had it easier than me, probably because they came from wealthy families that gave them even more privilege. Some white people have had it tougher than me because they came from poorer families. White women face discrimination I will never know. But, in the end, white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there. But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect me every day of my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths. Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are stacked in my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control over their fate--that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose--then we will live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop us. But we all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic about the scope of the task. However, I continue to have hope, to believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world honestly and act morally. A first step for white people, I think, is to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege. It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our success. It means we face a choice about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism in the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
nothing excels in every environment
How is it I can submit this article as the news is breaking and it's rejected, but once it's old news
This is one of the many reasons I love open source collaboration over the net. None of us have any idea whether each other is white, black, purple, or -- strictly speaking -- even from the same planet. You are judged purely on how you present yourself, and in email that laregly equates to how much time you spend proofreading your messages. :-)
It's much harder to be racist when everybody else is only seen as two-color bitmapped text, and you chose those colors...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The problem with this lawsuit is that it states that microsoft as a _company_ has a corporate policy of discrimination against blacks. This lawsuit isn't saying "there are some bad apples at MS" or "all the people we had to deal with were racist" - it says that "microsoft as a company is run by a secret good old boy network of black-hating people that turn otherwise unbiased managers into agents of the white devil".
I don't think the lawsuit says that. If there are some bad apples at Microsoft, Microsoft is responsible for it. If a rogue Microsoft employee put some code into the next version of Word which would at random times replace every other word in all your documents with the word "nigger", Microsoft would be responsible for this and would have to pay out on all the lawsuits brought against it even though it was a single person who did this and not a company policy.
Uh, you must mean reverse discrimination right? Clearly there are no absence of blacks in most of the major sports (except for ice hockey). I'm not trying to be a bigot, but in sports I think it's almost detrimental to be white nowadays
I'm a dev, and don't play sports. but from time to time i watch a game of football or basketball (mainly to feel somewhat masculene). It seems that the players will be >= 80% black, but certain roles are almost always white, quaterbacks, are almost always white, coachs seem to be nearly 95% white. owners are probably 100% white.
I don't know if it's hard for a black man to get a job doing one of those roles, for a black man to be an owner of a major sports team he would have to be pretty damm rich, and unfortantly, there arn't to many rich black folks out there.. huh, does this sound racist?, naww, must be my white liberal guilt.
-Jon
this is my sig.
I think you mistake arrogance for racism. When I'm up for a promotion or whatever, I always assume I'm the more skilled, it wouldn't matter if my competition was Richie, Pike, and Torvalds. And I expect everyone else around me to believe the same thing about them.
P.S. When I (poor white trailer trash) took freshman engineering, I had zero, zippo, nada experience with a computer. So don't just assume Joe White Boy had a privileged upbringing, either. Some of us worked our asses off too.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
This reminds me of an issue with football coaches a while back. There were complaints that there weren't enough coaches of a certain race and that more should be hired.
:).
This made me mad. My race as well as the race of the coaches doesn't matter. It's a qualification issue. If the coach of the other race was more qualified then he would have been hired. It's as simple as that.
Tell me this:
If you're on a plane flight would you want your pilot to have been hired because he/she was more qualified or because he was a minority in the field and they thought they should balance everything out? I'd pick qualification _ANYDAY_.
The hiring based on race is racism of another form -- which is exactly what they're trying to stomp out. It seems like a vicious circle to me.
This kind of relates to my previous post. At my current job we have many races. We have "minorities" and "non-minorities". I know for a fact that everyone here was hired because they were damn good in their field -- not because they needed to "balance" things out.
Anyway, this may have been a totally unrelated rambling. I just wanted to vent some steam. Hopefully no one was offended. I don't see how you could be but hey -- no offense was meant if you were
---
Rob Flynn
---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin
but in sports I think it's almost detrimental to be white nowadays
Yea, it really sucks to be white and in the sports industry right now. After all, that means that you're probably an agent, manager, or executive, making a whole ton of money and not taking any physical risk. Oh, and don't forget how you don't have to worry about trying to make enough money to support you for your entire life during its short, physical peak.
It's just horrible...
So, either you're a clever troll, or a total idiot...
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
It seems the general consensus among white, male tech workers is that they belong in the industry. If they are up for a promotion against an equally skilled minority, of COURSE they should get the promotion, because they're automatically more skilled. Because the majority of tech managers are ALSO white, this attitude is perpetuated.
:) As someone else mentioned, the attitude generally is 'I'm the best there is.' not 'I'm better than all those [insert race here] people.' Arrogance is indeed rampant in this industry (and in most knowledge based industries).
This comment is just as racist as the attitude you're trying to portray. Any generalization about a race is racist. (Well except maybe "All white people or white." etc.
I don't deny that racism exists in this industry, it exists in EVERY industry to some degree. Guess what, racism (in general) will probably never completely go away. Someone will always find a reason to hate another group of people (be it race, country or what-not). I do believe people that are more commonly victims of racism have a tendancy to become overly sensitive though.
If you're competing for a job with 5 other white people and you feel you're the best one for the job and you don't get it would your first assumption be that you didn't get the job because you're black? Perphaps your own perceptions of your skills and the skills of other is skewed (it usually is, even mine I'm sure). Perhaps you didn't get the job because the other guy was married and had kids and you were single so he needed the job more (I've been on the shit end of the stick on that one). My point is, racism is only one of a large number of reasons why you could be passed over for a promotion that you think you should've gotten.
-Zane
This sig is worse than my last.
You're close -- 49% white in the Lower Mainland overall, but less in Vancouver city itself. And our population is quite more strikingly diverse than you portray, not to mention that your percentages add up to 110%. However, blacks don't even register statistically in any part of the province. Here's some percentages from the Sun's election coverage a couple months back:
Vancouver Kingsway has the largest non-white population, with 63.4 per cent of residents visible minorities. Vancouver South-Burnaby comes second with 56.2 per cent. Not surprisingly, Kingsway also has the highest percentage of residents who have a mother tongue other than English -- 62.2 per cent.
The least diverse riding in the region is Fraser Valley, where only 5.2 per cent of residents are non-white. The second-least diverse is South Surrey-White Rock-Langley, where only six per cent of residents are a member of a visible minority.
While Kingsway has a higher proportion of minorities, South-Burnaby is be the most diverse riding in the region. It boasts a large Chinese (30.9 per cent), Indo-Canadian (13.1 per cent) and Filipino (3.6 per cent) population. But it also has smaller, but still significant, groups of Korean, Japanese, Southeast Asian and Latin American residents -- all making up between one and two per cent of voters.
In addition to having the most minorities over all, Vancouver Kingsway also has the largest Chinese population in the region, with 39.7 per cent of residents being Chinese.
Richmond is second with 34.1 per cent.
Surrey Central has the largest population of Indo-Canadians with 21.3 per cent identifying themselves to census takers as South Asian. Surrey North is second with 16.6 per cent.
North Vancouver has the largest proportion of Arabs (3.3 per cent), Vancouver Kingsway has the most Filipinos (5.7 per cent) and Vancouver East has the highest number of aboriginals (5.6 per cent)
Well, Microsoft's attrition rate (9.6%) is about half the industry average (18.1%), so I think that speaks for itself.
I've been a low-level employee at MS and we were treated like gold. Not only was the environment laid back (come and go as you please, wear whatever you want, spontaneous water-gun fights), but they bought dinner for us all the time, had Friday Fests (music, food, free beer), threw huge parties for us, gave us cool stuff, planned skiing trips, etc. My managers were both reasonable and brilliant (direct manager was a top Cornell CS grad, his manager was a top MIT CS grad) and minorities were very well represented. The organization is also very flat, so I felt like I could have emailed almost anyone above me (our VP, for instance) and it would be read and responded to. I think that's the general experience of MS employees that work in the product groups.
Uh, you must mean reverse discrimination right? Clearly there are no absence of blacks in most of the major sports (except for ice hockey). I'm not trying to be a bigot, but in sports I think it's almost detrimental to be white nowadays.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I don't understand the American legal system when it comes to suing people and companies. It seems like you can sue for any amount of money that you like!
True. We should implement a libertarian system, where people that sue a company or a person, and lose, have to pay the legal fees for the other party.
BAM! A lot less frivolous lawsuits when you have to think real hard about whether you have a legitimate complaint.
"And like that
I'm saddened but not really surprised by the general response of most here, "rascism? Of course not, it's just that very few black people apply for tech jobs / have the qualificiations / yadda yadda yadda". Guess some of you should have bothered to try learning something from the humanities people. Yes, some of sociology is real science too.
Western society is intrinsically rascist, mostly for historical reasons. How anyone in the UK or US could deny it when white people are so much better off across the board (income, life expectancy, social class, education, victims of crime, you name it.) Either society is set up to subtly (or none-to-subtly) discriminate against people on the basis of their skin colour, or black people are intrinsically more stupid / violent / criminal / unhealthy. Which I don't think (I really hope) no-one here actually consciously believes.)
In the last year my brother married Ghanaian woman and they have just had a beautiful baby girl. I've also just started work at a company with a black CEO. (Yes, man-in-black, he has a public school (ie, expensive fee-paying here in the UK) accent.) Watching people getting introduced to either of these two without having been explicitly told 'oh, by the way, s/he's black" has been rather...educational. And rather depressing.
Looking on the bright side: in Western Europe, where we haven't quite the same historical relationship with black people and slavery (yeah yeah, Liverpool and Bristol were built with slave trade blood money, but we never had millions of black slaves *here*) -- there surely is rascism here but (I hope) through hard work & educational efforts & not least legal sanction (like: not letting the police get away with it when yet-another black suspect accidentally falls down some stairs in a policestation and dies on the floor of a cell) -- things are getting better, for black AND white.
Final word for the white folks here who really believe they're too smart to be rascist. How do you think you can grow up in a rascist society and NOT absorb ANY of those attitudes? I know I did. Without lacerating oneself with liberal guilt, it's good to look for the speck in your own eye before denying there's a beam in Microsoft's (or society's at large.)
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
Excuse me folks, but isn't every worker, black and white, working in the IT field ... like, welcome to the real world!
(and especially larger companies like, oh, say, Microsoft) treated like a slave? 60+ hour work weeks, oppressive management structure, morons getting promoted
over vastly more skilled and competent co-workers
Look here for some more info:N ews/.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Business/Microsoft_
To answer the question, in the tech industry, it's approx. 6.3%. So yes, it's a little lower.
How many are Indian? How many are Asian? How many are White?
I find that quite a few of their complaints aren't discrimination based on color...they're things that Microsoft does to ALL of their low-level employees. We don't call them Microserfs for nothing, you know...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Nobody here feels like a slave. None of the MSFT people I've talked to feels like a slave - especially not those who have made millions there.
If you are forced to work a 60 hour week, you should go seek employment elsewhere. If you are oppressed by your manager, passed over for promotion, etc, move on. If you aren't happy, take your skills elsewhere. There are lots and lots of places that need competent people, will treat them right, and pay them well.
-- Jeff Paulsen
If you think about it, its like saying that Microsoft have made $5 billion out of these people, and that these people have lost $5 billion because of Microsoft. Maybe these are exceptionally talented individuals, but surely they should only ask for how much they have actually lost?
I'm not black, but I am a female, which in the tech industry may as well be the same. I've definitely experienced sexism on all levels. One thing I have noticed: If there is 1 {insert group here} person, you judge that person on their abilities. If there a half dozen, and they tend to socialize with each other, they are treated based on the stereotype.
I do not doubt for a second that you have been discriminated against, however the best way to fight discrimination is to not let people think of you as a race/gender/religion but as an individual. Distinguish yourself. Most of my friends are white or indian guys. They talk about "stupid females who got into CS at CMU based on gender," but they don't lump me into that group. Period.
At the risk of sounding racist, I have noticed something about black people in particular, more than indians, chinese, or females, they tend to associate exclusively with members of their race. They are asking to be treated "the same." People who form cliques are not liked by those outside the clique. Think back to high school. Did you like the "popular" people? Did you think all "popular" people were dumb?
It's hard being a female (and I'm sure as bad if not worse being black) in the tech industry, but filing class action lawsuits which lump you back into the same group will do nothing to help.
-Alison
To be fair to Microsoft, I don't think this is necessarily indicative of a racist policy at Microsoft. MS may well hire qualified applicants irrespective of race. What it does indicate is a societal problem. I don't know enough black people to have a particularly detailed picture of the challenges they face, but I know enough women to know that from grade school onwards, women are discouraged in various ways from pursuing technical and management careers. I'd be willing to bet blacks face similar pressures.
I was one of a handful of white kids bussed to a predominantly black public school as part of desegregation in Tennessee in the early 80's, and I can say that the mostly black schools I saw were in utter disrepair, short on textbooks, and staffed with teachers who did not compare well to their counterparts in mostly white schools. (In both cases, most of the teachers were white.) Schools in TN are some of the worst in the nation -- I went to what was regarded as the best high school in the area and didn't have to write a single essay in four years -- but the predominately black schools were even worse. We can talk all we want about the role of individual initiative, but not having the opportunity to learn will screw you good.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Sorry, M$ may be evil but come on.
I remember one time Jesse Jackson headed to silicon valley to complain about a shortage of blacks being hired.
The resounding response: "Bring 'em in! We are facing a shortage of computer experts and we will hire anybody who is competent!"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
shit like this bugs me, but whatever.....
I worked for MSFT for 4 years and damn - i'd do it again in a second. I've never worked for a compnay that treated it's employees as well. You're going to stay late? Let us order dinner for you..... anything you want to drink. Shuttle buses. Great stock options If you worked your ass off and did good work, expect to get nice fat bonuses (twice annually) and promotions. Nobody I ever met gave a rats ass if you were white, black, purple, straight, gay, male, female, etc. Your work is what mattered - period.
All that aside - racism? Have you seen the racial makeup of any tech company in the US? 'Whites' (whatever that means) are generally in the minority.... in my current company a SUBSTANTIAL minority. People get promoted according to ability, talent, social skills (YES - to manage other people you can't just be a code genius, you have to be able to work with people as well). Just because you are 'qualified' for a promotion doesn't mean you are the MOST qualified. Sorry - that's life.
Don't get me wrong - i'm not about to say that there couldn't possibly be individuals whos actions may be suspect. But they would be just that - individuals. A coroporate racist policy? Give me a friggin break. People forget that MSFT in Redmond is what - 18000 employees? It's a small city! And you'll get the same kind of cross secion of people there that you get anywhere....
And FIVE BILLION? Well, that just speaks for itself...
j
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This is true for me too. I'm white. Why do you assume that since all of this happens, that it's racially motivated? This stuff just happens, and it seems to me that office politics is the single most non-discriminatory thing there is.
Again, why do you assume that this is true only for black men on the jobsite? You seem to assume that black people only get on the job through hard work and that everyone else was handed it on a silver platter.
Ok. So your high school didn't challenge you. Which left you with lots of time to do things, like challenge yourself. And it would appear from your own words, that you got something very rewarding from being challenged. My high school challenged me incredibly, but it left me almost no time to do anything else. It would seem to me that we did about the same amount of work. Why assume that you're the only one that worked your A$$ off?
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In my experience it's always amused me at the reaction I get when I come in for an interview. On the phone, it would be near impossible for someone to realize that I'm black - I have a classic "white" voice. They read my resume and probably talk to me on the phone, but you can see a look of surprise in many an interviewer's eyes when his next applicant is a 6 foot tall black guy.
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It is clearly not the case that all whites naturally assume they are better employees than blacks, just like it is clearly not the case that all whites have access to good education (have you ever been to the south ?), just like it is _clearly_ not the case that all members of your "Racial group" even give a shit about the educational progress or financial stratification of their race.
There is obviously racism in our field, because our field is made of PEOPLE, some of whom happen to be racist, or even have subconscious prejudicial tendancies.
The problem with this lawsuit is that it states that microsoft as a _company_ has a corporate policy of discrimination against blacks. This lawsuit isn't saying "there are some bad apples at MS" or "all the people we had to deal with were racist" - it says that "microsoft as a company is run by a secret good old boy network of black-hating people that turn otherwise unbiased managers into agents of the white devil".
How likely do you think that is ?
As someone who has been through Microsoft interviewer training, at what point in the MS hiring process do i get told about the secret "discriminate against blacks" rule ? It sure wasn't in my training packet. It wasn't anywhere listed in the whole section of stuff about actively but tastefully avoiding any questions or issues regarding ethnicity/religion/gender/preference/whatever. As interviewers there are whole lists of things we're not allowed to talk about and anything that could even be used to inferr financial history or caste or racial background or whatever is strictly taboo.
I've worked at a number of tech firms - there is more racial diversity at MS than anywhere else i've worked, both in general and in management.
Although I don't beleive in the government mandating AA programs and quotas, given a hiring choice where all things were equal, if one candidate clearly had an advantage growing up because of racial and financial history, and the other probably had to work _really_ hard against lots of financial and social obsticales, i'd want to try and hire the less priviledged of the two - the one that had to work harder to cover the same distance. But I like to root for the underdog. Unfortuneately, thanks to all the AA and PC stuff thats been forced on institutions, my understanding is that i am not allowed to take into consideration such issues when making those decisions.
Shame really - the very basis to judge who's had the harder climb, a method to really show minorities and those who are disenfranchised with "playing by the rules" that they _can_ win - pulled right out of the whole hiring process.
And for what its worth, I salute you for sticking with it to get to where you are now - I got glimpses of how the black kids at my HS who were really working hard to make the most of their education were treated by others - sometimes whites - but more often than not, the blacks from their very own neighborhoods that seemed to have given up on the system. It was disheartening all around, to say the least.
It's hard to say wether AA type programs or even optional preference given to minorities will do anything to help rekindle the spirit of the kids that see a tunnel with no light at the end. Part of me thinks that people see through AA and minority preference as a cop out, enforcing the idea that minorities _cant_ get ahead without help.
Whats the right answer ? The government says im not allowed to have a preference one way or the other. What do you say ? What should the hiring practice in the tech industry be ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I worked at Microsoft as a developer for over 10 years in the Office group. I participated in the hiring process and was a manager. We were constantly looking to hire, train and retain the best possible people for the job, regardless of race, gender, personality or anything else not directly related to getting the job done.
Very early in my tenure, the hiring criteria was explained to me thus: "it doesn't matter if the candidate goes and pees in the corner of your office in the middle of the interview, if the candidate is a brilliant programmer, we hire him or her". The foolishness of racism or gender bias was even clearer by implication and made explicit through HR training.
Apart from the obvious moral and legal issues, racism is stupid and self-destructive. Success means a lot at Microsoft and discrimination reduces your competitiveness. In my experience, stupid people don't last long at Microsoft.
Obviously Microsoft is a huge company which I left several years ago, and I don't know the specific people involved, but I doubt the corporate culture has changed that much since I was there.
Disclaimer: I'm a white guy.
I'm usually surprised to see black guys programming. Why?
At the college I went to (an engineering school) the majority of black men and women attended the liberal arts/Afro-American studies major.
A friend of mine, Tavia, was in the same engineering program as I was. A black woman engineer. She tended to stand out in class :) But, she was an incredibly talented and intelligent person. She got great grades. I often asked her for help, and we worked together on several lab projects. She became friends with a number of the engineering students and we ate lunch together, and just hung out a lot.
The black men and women at our campus tended to eat lunch in their own little cluster in the corner. They took a pretty dim view of Tavia eating lunch with us. They'd come right up to her and say things like "Forget what color you are?" They'd tear decorations off her dorm room door. They physically and verbally harassed her. How can black people who want to advance deal with this kind of pressure? I sure wouldn't know how.
I feel that the black community is just as responsible as the white community for the current conditions.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
...I got nice and angry at some of the comments posted on this article. It's funny to me that people I consider my peers (meaning geeks) always tend to assume there is no racism in our field, because they honestly think that they're too smart to be racist.
First, let me be frank: I don't agree with suing for $5billion. Nor do I agree with using the small percentage of MSFT minority workers as leverage. What I DO agree with is the basis behind their argument, which is the EXACT same attitude being reinforced on this board.
Everywhere I've worked (UNIX Systems Admin/Engineering) I've been seen as a remarkably compentent, skilled worker....until I meet the customer face-to-face. Then, suddenly, my decisions are questioned more, people go over my head to ask about things that are my responsibility. Even back to college (University of Michigan), I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
It seems the general consensus among white, male tech workers is that they belong in the industry. If they are up for a promotion against an equally skilled minority, of COURSE they should get the promotion, because they're automatically more skilled. Because the majority of tech managers are ALSO white, this attitude is perpetuated.
Let's set the record straight: My racial group does not choose to be less educated...we simply don't always have access to the same resources growing up as whites. That can't possibly be understood by someone who's never attended public school in a major city (I'm from Detroit). I took freshman EECS with 3 hundred white guys that had been taking C classes since the 9th grade, and the only exposure I'd had to any form of high-level programming was self-taught. Poor K-12 education == Poor SAT/ACT != quality higher education. This uneven playing field is the reason for the small numbers of us in the tech industry.
I'm sick of typing at this point, and I've got Apache modules to code. To sum up, stop with the "Blacks are always complaining...why don't they just get jobs...they have as much access to higher education as we do" crap. Find a black man on your job site, and ask him where he's from, and what high school he attended. I guarantee he's either got parents as priviliged as most of yours, or he worked his ASS off to get to where he is now.
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As I heard it, it stems from perception of treatment, but as lawyers will do, they play some mean cards when they decide to go for big huge giant money like that. Tossing workforce makeup percentages around, drawing attention to the way one person is treated, overlooking that the same treatment is dished out to everyone, etc.
Reality is, few blacks are in the high tech industry. Period. Has nothing to do with heritage, skin color, religion, etc., but to do with few persuing the skills to the point they would be actively recruited. Perhaps this can be the product of layers of demographics, but you can't blame a company for not hiring enough programmers if most of the applicants decided to study greek literature. It's absurd. And all this bending-over-backward which companies have done to avoid looking racist won't really pay dividends for years.
Down the coast, where Mr. Jesse Jackson raised a big stink, in Silicon Valley, you will find ethnic diversity is the rule. Not because of some quota system, or trying to appease alleged social movement leaders, but because the people brought their skills in and carved out their space. Sadly for some of these complainers, it's not the ethnic diversity they want to see.
I have some serious reservations about the legitimacy of a complaint when I see a party going for enough money to buy the Dakotas.
Maybe they'd have a case if Microsoft forced them to smoke cigarettes...
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It does not matter how many Billions Bill Gates has given to minority charites, he does not make every promotion, MS is composed of over 39,000 employess. Racism is caused by some of these employees prejudices (nothing to do with Gates) acting on them.
If someone has been brought up to think that Black people like me are less intelligent then he is just because of the color of my skin, then the next time I am up for promotion with a White counterpart, even if I might be more qualified than he is, in my superiors eyes, Black people are just not intelligent enough to hold that position, and I will be denied the position. Now, this is Racism. How do I know??? I have experienced it in the Tech field.
All those who are saying that Racism does not exist in the tech field are saying so because they have not experinced it....and would't.
The same goes for stereotypes such as Black people being thought of as being lazy, violent and as one poster put it, the most criminals. Did you ever stop to think how someone felt when he walked into an office for the 1st day at works and was already being treated as if he were lazy or just came out of jail?? Always a suspect when something went missing? answering rediculous questions like "have you ever been to jail?"
Most times it is so subtle that I don't think that most white people realise what they are doing or what effect it has.. but then again thats just me being an optimst. Yes, racism exists.
oh, and the $5B is for the hundreds of former and currnet MS employees, not just 7of them.
I have no real opinion about whether $5 billion is too high or not.
However if we are going to discuss it, we have to at least get the facts straight. First of all, the 7 people are trying to make this a class action suit--which spreads the money out some.
Second, at most importantly, the plaintiffs aren't saying that they personally lost $5 billion due to racism at Microsoft. They want that as *punitive* (means "punishing") damages. If all MS was required to do was give each black person $100k (for lost salary, etc) they wouldn't even notice. The idea is to inflict some pain on the corporation to force them to change.
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First of all, Indians and Asians, though they may still be minorities, do not have the stigmas or problems that blacks and Hispanics do in this country, so pointing at them and saying "see, there's no racism here" is hardly relevant. The fact that these two groups (blacks and Hispanics) are underrepresented in higher income occupations is very serious, and it does not better the situation by shouting out allegations of "reverse discrimination" before their case has even been heard in a court of law. Is the fear that their complaints may actually be justified so overwhelming that it has to be covered up by the web of denial? Please, that is for the justice system to determine. And just remember that every jurer on every court faces that denial as well, which makes their struggles all the more challenging.
Microsoft aside, we face an even bigger problem that 1) blacks and Hispanics live in poorer neighborhoods, 2) blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have undereducated parents, 3) blacks and Hispanics are more likely to go to public versus private schools, 4) living in poorer neighborhoods directly implies substandard educational facilities, 5) computer science is more likely to be taught in college preporatory classes, which are more likely to exclude blacks and Hispanics due to the substandard elementary school facilities, 6) blacks and Hispanics are less likely to make it to college in the first place, 7) get real--show me a list of computer jobs where "bachelors degree" is not a requirement.
And even if one or two are lucky enough to make it through all of those obstacles, they face an even bigger challenge in getting noticed for jobs, promotions, benefits, etc., consciously or unconsciously.
Their case is worth hearing out, we owe them that much. 40 acres and a mule? I'd rather have 40,000 stock options...
Becuase for a variety of societal reasons, there aren't as many blacks in the computer industry as there are whites, or Asians.
You can say the same thing for women, there aren't as many women in the computer industry as men, percentage wise.
I think to find their suit substantial, they need something stronger than percentages.
Why, here 5 employees are suing for $5 Billion - Isn't this completely over the top? $50,000 each would be more like it. Doesn't it mean that big companies are in total fear of the very slightest slip up, and are unlikely to take risks and innovate when it could mean that they are likely to lose Billions if it even goes slightly wrong.
Also, I really really find it hard to believe that a company in this day and age would be racist. They are driven by money, and finding the best employee for the job is the absolute bottom line in any company these days.
It'll be very interesting to see more details of this case and see just what happens! ;)
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