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Ask Slashdot: How Should Tech Conferences Embrace Diversity?
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting on how debate over diversity has managed to get a Ruby conference in the UK cancelled, as the speakers were 100% white male. The person running the conference, Chuck Hardy, said he 'was not prepared to put [himself] in the position of legal liability and cost ramifications if a sponsor were to pull out under social media strain.' He added, 'The ramifications of comments such as race and gender can have financial and legal consequences for the conference organizer. Raise these issues but allow the conference organizers the chance to highlight and act on these industry level issues. Accusation and slander is not a solution.' Should conferences embrace diversity from the start, or should they go forward even if the speakers are all of the same denomination? How far do we have to go to ensure we are diverse?"
I think the United States experience has proven that adequately.
Have all the presenters in blackface, and then have them announce that they are embracing diversity.
How stupid of an idea is this? Just treat everyone fairly, how hard is that?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
The best way for a tech conference to handle this is to focus on the tech.
Racial and sexual diversity have precisely zero to do with a tech conference. Unless you're running a KKK rally, don;t look at diversity. Look at the tech!
Shouldn't a conference be about the technology, not the people speaking about the technology?
My opinion is that I don't care if the information is presented by a black homosexual woman or a white middle-aged heterosexual man, I just want the knowledge.
You should exert absolutely no effort to be diverse, and you should exert absolutely no effort to not be diverse. What matters is the merit of the speakers, not their diversity.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why do white people even use it?
Instead of complaining that a conference is all white, run your own conference and make it as diverse as you want. My experience concludes that most of the time, those who complain don't do anything themselves. They work as peons somewhere, and have never made any decisions on their own.
Start your own business, it's never been difficult. And show that you're better than others. What a great competitive advantage you'll have.
Quit complaining when someone else does what they want. I don't imagine that in this case the organizer turned away non-white speakers. You wanted it to be random, and sometimes random is uniform. So sorry, that's how math works.
Again, be responsible for something of your own, and you'll find that you won't care what others do on their own.
There were only 15 speakers, not nearly enough for any assumption of bias. Britain is a predominantly white country and programming is a male-dominated profession. If they have selected 15 British Ruby programmers at random they would also get 15 white males with a high chance.
I know, silly suggestion. But lets try getting the most qualified speakers we can, and ignore what color they are.
How far do we have to go to ensure we are diverse?"
Instead of having race quotas to treat the symptom, explore the cause by investigating various demographic breakdowns of those in STEM fields. Note I said explore the cause, not impose an ad-hoc solution to treat the symptoms. If certain socio-economic groups are not present (note I said not-present, and that I did not say excluded) in what society deems as positions that should be diversified, then look at the upward mobility of those demographics and the barriers to entry into a particular career vertical. Which is things like place of birth, education, parenting, finances, etc. Forcing quotas solves nothing and only creates more social stigmas relegating certain classes of people as being special or protected. The sooner we stop treating the symptoms of lack of diversity, the sooner focusing on the causes can be examined (which we already know generally what they are). But most folks don't want to look at and try solving the hard part.
A gang-banging thug from Detroit could be white/black/purple. Said gang-banging thug will probably not go into STEM not because he is anything but white, but instead because he is a gang-banging thug. Solve the gang-banging thug problem and BAM, you've got another person who may rise to the top of a given field other than slanging blow.
And if all your gang-banging thugs are of one color, fixing the numbers at the top as far as who gets to participate in what event based on color breakdown will not solve your gang banging thug problem. Now instead you have quotas at the top but still no solution for the bottom.
Why can't people understand this? Or am I by default a racists for not giving special treatment to non-white classes of people (a distinction sooner forgotten and ignored the better). People are freaking people.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Why do you assume that only people of other races can have different perspectives?
What exactly are these perspectives they bring to the picture?
This sounds like people who want "diversity" so they can have different ethnic foods to get at the drive-thru.
Futurist Traditionalism
More accurately, it's a type of discrimination.
Being biased in favor of a mixed-racial group is racism against all who aren't mixed-racial.
Futurist Traditionalism
You can have that diversity within a single ethnic group.
Just go find people with different approaches to life.
Your approach seems to be racist, in that it assumes members of racial groups are all identical.
We're not. We are diverse as individuals. Quit trying to turn us into the Cosby Show or The Brady Bunch.
Futurist Traditionalism
are we to believe that no women or any non-whites sent in good presentations?
You think it's more likely that they really are all racist misogynists, and would rather cancel their own event than let a woman speak?
It sounds like the problem was they were working on it until this Susser guy implied on Twitter that they're racist misogynists. From there it turned into a typical Twitter shitstorm, and the organizer realized that anyone making the panel at that point would be seen as the token speaker, and no sponsor would want to be associated with something that became high profile for bad reasons.
Assuming the article is accurate, people should really just mind their damn business until there's something concrete and legitimately wrong to make accusations over.
Considering that the native population of Europe is almost all white, I'd say it's about as disgraceful to have all white speakers at a European conference as it is to have all East Asian speakers at a Chinese conference. Jeez. I can't take this nonsense seriously, no matter how hard I try to force myself.
I'm a member of a racial minority that works in technology.
The idea of some kind of minority outreach or affirmative action, if you will, is offensive to me. It belittles and draws into question, my accomplishments. I worked hard to get where I am. Let it be about merit, not political correctness.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
a) you have absolutely no understanding of statistics, do you? the sample sizes here are representative of exactly nothing, primarily due to the
extreme bias within the selectable community, or are you suggesting people be selected BECAUSE they are minorities?
b) how many of the 'minorities' applied for the 5 remaining positions and were unfairly excluded?
c) you have made NO reference to relative merit of the people you seem to think should have been included - the fact that they exist means what exactly?
YOU are part of the problem, YOU are trying to be exclusive, YOU are labeling people above, and looking down on them.
YOU are a racist.
You sicked me with your holier than thou attitude. BTW, the south of ENGLAND holds grudges? oh, you didnt notice this is about a different COUNTRY, hmmm.
Considering that the native population of Europe is almost all white, I'd say it's about as disgraceful to have all white speakers at a European conference as it is to have all East Asian speakers at a Chinese conference.
It's always interesting to ask people who mumble about diversity why this does not apply to China or Africa.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
To map "diversity" to skin color is superficial and reflects the bias of the viewer more than anything. As a white male programmer I've more in common with other male programmers, no matter what their color, than with male football players, male drug dealers, male prostitutes, male athletes. Skin color has literally nothing to do with it. It's cosmetics.
Gender arguably is more relevant but seriously... there is no bias against women participating in free software projects. It's literally a sport open to anyone, with as few barriers as you can imagine. Age, gender, skin color, origin, perhaps the only filter that reduces diversity is the need for reasonably fluent English.
And still, the number of women in our communities is extremely low. That means the detailed technical world of software appeals to fewer women than it does to men. That's not a problem, it's just a fact, and easily observable. It would be offensive to choose women speakers just for their gender. Tokenism is a nasty form of discrimination. At the same time it would be offensive to refuse people on any basis except their work. I don't think that was the accusation here.
Diversity simply means, different points of view, perspectives, and opinions within the group. It does not mean creating a Star Trek experience.
Then again speaking as a white male it's quite likely that my perception of this is totally biased.
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