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Facebook Refuses To Share Employee Race and Gender Data
theodp writes "Back in 2007, Representative Maxine Waters asked Google's HR Chief, "How many [of Google's employees] are African-American?" After 7+ years of stonewalling, Google has pledged to finally divulge diversity data on its workforce for the first time. While the U.S. government requires all major employers to file diversity statistics with the EEOC, Google convinced the Dept. of Labor that the race and gender of its work force is a trade secret that should not have to be released to the public. Google now concedes that it has been 'reluctant to divulge that data' and 'quite frankly, we are wrong about that.' Interestingly, Facebook apparently has no such compunctions about refusing to disclose data on the racial and gender makeup of its employees, even as CEO Mark Zuckerberg lobbies Congress for changes to the makeup of the U.S. workforce. Pressed on the matter by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Facebook's annual shareholder meeting, the WSJ reports that COO and gender equality advocate Sheryl Sandberg rebuffed Jackson's request, saying, 'It's really important to share [the Facebook diversity numbers] internally, and eventually externally.'"
As much as I hate Facebook (and merely strongly dislike Google) why is this an issue? The implicit assumption behind this seems to be that diversity can only happen if you get people who look different in the same room. and that's nonsense.
These are both companies that are chomping at the bit to hire h1b's who are expressly non-white and hail from overseas countries. (The fact that they get to work as indentured servants with lower than average wages is another discussion). It's not as if it's a good-ole boy's club over at the googleplex.
If google and facebook could find qualified black (or American employees in general) employees, wouldn't they do that rather than importing people from India/Pakistan/$wherever? Implying that these companies are racist because they aren't hiring many blacks says less about facebook or google -- and more about our country. (or more accurately about Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson playing the race card constantly to stay relevant.. )
Because we all know that diversity is the MOST important thing. Better have a black doctor instead of one who performs the best. Make sure that coder is a woman because even if she isn't as talented as the white male, its BETTER!!!! Because basing things off of race is RACIST..err I mean NOT BASING things off race is RACISTS err....wait what was I saying?
Racial data -> 100% human race.
Not that hard.
What makes you think because I didn't hire you, and you happen to be black, that I'm somehow a racist, or discriminating? Maybe I'm looking for specialized EE's with a specific field of experience to finish out a project, and your degree and experience just don't fit the position I'm looking for? Maybe you're unqualified. Maybe the graduates moving into my industry are predominantly from a single race, or predominantly not of a single race. How does that make me a racist? If you think your skin color entitles you to a job at my company, you're mistaken. Your attitude and experience do.
How many different races a company hires to fill a quota is no sign of a lack of discrimination. Hiring qualified workers regardless of race is a sign of a discrimination-free workplace. In fact, filling a quota often causes more problems than it solves on the discrimination front.
If my company is still 80% Caucasian, or 80% Asian, or 80% African is irrelevant to how discriminatory or not a company is. Hiring based on race is. Those are two different things. What's the diversity look like over at BET, or at your local Asian market? Do they have to meet diversity standards too? The only people that apply for some jobs are the only ones that want that job. I can't help it if a disproportionate number of those applicants are the same color.
In a highly technical business industry I shouldn't have to seek out unqualified people in order to check a box and feel good about doing NOTHING AT ALL to solve discrimination. I should hire the most qualified applicants, and spend my efforts at diversity elsewhere, like raising STEM awareness in public schools, or offering scholarships an internships to qualified candidates. Make your workplace appealing to all comers, and you'll see diversity naturally happen. But as long as our only company appeal is "we care so much about race, we played human pokemon" we're going to have this race problem hanging around. We shouldn't have diversity guidelines at all, because as a society, we've moved past the point of thinking race actually matters, right? So why don't we act like it?
The reason racism is still a pervasive problem is that we keep bringing it up and talking about it like it's a problem. Ignore or punish the haters, and eventually they'll die of old age or aneurysms, and we can move on with life as a whole.
(Yes, I'm optimistic. No, I don't think this will actually work. Yes, tribalism still occurs across all races and genders and sports affiliations. No, it's still not acceptable for a civilized society.)
And if I'm reading you right, you're not saying you shouldn't trust a black doctor, just that you shouldn't trust an *unqualified* black doctor. Which, because you can't tell one from the other until after the fact, as a result of affirmative action, translates to "don't trust a black doctor".
People are going to call me a racist for this and I don't care. If someone can't piece this together for themselves and thinks my comments have anything to do with race (rather than the ludicrous, and patently racist, expectation that members of one race be judged on a different scale than members of another race), I can't be bothered to care what they think.
Affirmative action is bullshit!
Yes, you read that right. Affirmative action is bullshit. It only superficially helps black people who think they can't succeed without it; in reality, it only serves to help guilty racist old white guys sleep better at night. It's holding the black community back more than anything else, at this point, specifically for the reason stated at the top of this post.
A black guy and a white guy enter your office, both have the same degree form the same school. You know the white guy got into that school on his own merits, but, because of affirmative action, you don't know whether the black guy deserved to get in, or if he was accepted to fill a quota. That's not to say the black guy couldn't have possibly gotten into that school on his own merits, just that you don't, and can't, know that he did, because you have no way of knowing whether that school needed to fill a seat with a black guy in order to comply with the law. Likewise, when you hire the black guy, your customers have no way of knowing if you hired him because of his qualifications, or to comply with the law. Were you hiring the most qualified candidate, or just filling a quota? Your customers have no way of knowing.
All affirmative action hiring laws do is force people to hire people they don't want to and, therefore, shouldn't hire, regardless of reason.
Put yourself in the shoes of a black man for a moment (black guys, this should be easy for you)... Without affirmative action, would you have a harder time finding a job, as a result of rampant racism? I can't answer definitively, but I'll admit the answer is likely a very loud "yes". But think about it; do you want to work for a racist company? Do you want to work for a company that only hired you because they had to? There are enough companies out there run by people who are not racist that you should be able to find a job without having to settle for working at one that is. By forcing companies to hire you based on race, affirmative action prevents that; you don't know whether the company you're working for is run by racist assholes who hired you to fill a "black seat", or if they truly did hire you based on your qualifications; regardless of your qualifications. As a result of affirmative action, you could be willingly lining the pockets of a group of racist white guys and not even know it.
There are plenty of qualified and capable minority workers in the workforce. The trouble is, for anything that requires a higher level of trust than a cashier or cart retriever, affirmative action makes it impossible to tell, as a customer, whether the minority worker you're dealing with is actually qualified for the position until it's too late (if they're not). That's not to say every white guy who gets hired is qualified. Cronyism is definitely rampant, as well; but the fact is it's easier to fire a white guy who doesn't perform than it is to fire a minority worker for any reason, again due to affirmative action laws.
I don't know what the solution to this problem is, but I do know that it is not affirmative action. Maybe affirmative action is the best we can do and, if that's the case, that's a really sad situation for everyone involved. I know I don't want to be treated by a less-than-qualified doctor, and so I'm forced to avoid anyone who may have been hired to fill a seat; and there's nothing racist about that.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
"Race is primarily a social construct, rather than a genetic one."
And yet somehow it is passed on from parents to children -- even those not socialized by those parents.