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.'"

Comments

Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all. Sharing demographic and other personal data is something they've been staunchly against since their founding. The government, being entirely unbiased toward people with enough money to buy it off, has appreciated Zuckerberg's principled stance.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all. Sharing demographic and other personal data is something they've been staunchly against since their founding. The government, being entirely unbiased toward people with enough money to buy it off, has appreciated Zuckerberg's principled stance.

I know it is PC to rant on Facebook privacy on Slashdot, but I've never understood why. It is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with. And all the people here who think (or pretend to) that Facebook privacy controls are difficult, really?? Hand in your geek card, they are and have always been quite easy, straight forward settings. If you can't handle that, you perhaps should reconsider having an internet connected PC.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the big problem related to facebook privacy is the fact that they'll make changes to their privacy settings, and in the process, change yours (this isn't just fb btw, google has done the same thing). My biggest argument against using such services is that what you said is true today, but what happens when their next CEO decides that all data (future, present & past) is now open to everyone? Just because they have such a policy today, doesn't mean it'll be policy tomorrow.

Aside from that though, you are correct. It's a free service and you're free to not use them.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

[Facebook] is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with.

Not everyone signs up for it.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[tlhIngan]

I know it is PC to rant on Facebook privacy on Slashdot, but I've never understood why. It is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with. And all the people here who think (or pretend to) that Facebook privacy controls are difficult, really?? Hand in your geek card, they are and have always been quite easy, straight forward settings. If you can't handle that, you perhaps should reconsider having an internet connected PC.

Not to mention, if you're a geek, you'd know the old saying "never put online what you don't want the world to know".

In other words, the ultimate privacy control is don't post in the first place. There is nothing Facebook could do to make public what you haven't posted.

It's the simplest, most basic privacy setting in the world, it works everywhere on every social network,

No matter how Google or Facebook alter their websites, this one privacy setting will always work, guaranteed.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be easy, they're an IT company, so it's probably along the lines of:

80% Indian H1Bs
19% White Americans
1% Other races

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are very wrong, somebody that doesn't use facebook has no control whatsoever over what others post to it or any other social media. So you are at a private party but somebody took some pictures and posted them only, you might get tagged and not even know about it.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[cyn1c77]

That's all. Sharing demographic and other personal data is something they've been staunchly against since their founding. The government, being entirely unbiased toward people with enough money to buy it off, has appreciated Zuckerberg's principled stance.

I know it is PC to rant on Facebook privacy on Slashdot, but I've never understood why. It is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with. And all the people here who think (or pretend to) that Facebook privacy controls are difficult, really?? Hand in your geek card, they are and have always been quite easy, straight forward settings. If you can't handle that, you perhaps should reconsider having an internet connected PC.

Much of the hate is due to the impression that it is not explicitly made clear to non-tech savvy people exactly how much information is being collected and sold about them.

In similar fashion, many in the US were horrified when they found that the NSA was spying on them: Just because you "signed up" for a cell phone plan or internet access doesn't mean that you agreed to share all of your personal conversations and data with the US government.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all. Sharing demographic and other personal data is something they've been staunchly against since their founding. The government, being entirely unbiased toward people with enough money to buy it off, has appreciated Zuckerberg's principled stance.

I know it is PC to rant on Facebook privacy on Slashdot, but I've never understood why. It is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with. And all the people here who think (or pretend to) that Facebook privacy controls are difficult, really?? Hand in your geek card, they are and have always been quite easy, straight forward settings. If you can't handle that, you perhaps should reconsider having an internet connected PC.

Much of the hate is due to the impression that it is not explicitly made clear to non-tech savvy people exactly how much information is being collected and sold about them.

So, the Slashdot hate for Facebook is on behalf of the non-tech savvy people we usually mock? That would be nice of us..., if it hadn't seemed that many of these understand and handle Facebook better than people here seems to..

Btw. Facebook don't sell information any more than Google does, the claim is made on Slashdot all the time but have never been substantiated and Facebook have an official statement where they categorically deny it (many of the articles with the headline "Facebook sells your info" is talking about using your data for targeted ads, the exact same way Google does).

One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

Race is an illusion. It's none of my employer's business where my ancestors may have hailed from.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but it is society's business to counter systematic discrimination, and society has decided that collecting racial statistics are relevant to this. If you don't have a problem with discrimination, campaign for a repeal of laws which are designed to monitor it - don't just break the law. Unless you have no need for society to protect your rights, of course.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice logical fallacy at the end of your statement there, it really tanks your whole line of thinking there.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

The logical fallacy that I find it unreasonable that you expect people to expect your rights even while you won't respect other people's?

If you think that it is "none of my employer's business" to collect data required to enforce the law, it means you have a problem with society providing the means to enforce the law.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:One drop rule?

[khellendros1984]

Race is primarily a social construct, rather than a genetic one. Your race is still a label that bigots use as a basis for discrimination, "imaginary" or not.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that your race is nobody else's business, and that is why you should always respond with "none" when your employer asks you to report yours.

Re:One drop rule?

[DriedClexler]

Perhaps, but you don't get that defense when you start talking about "Our company ROCKS on [racial] diversity! ... but how much it rocks in that regard is a 'trade secret', yeah, that's it."

Re:One drop rule?

[OakDragon]

... Unless you have no need for society to protect your rights, of course.

Yeah, and no need to pay off the mob, either... unless you need them to protect you, of course.

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

If a company like google is not hiring certain races of people, I suspect it is not because of discrimination at google. I am pretty sure the problem can be traced all the way back to the inequality in public schools. When you have affluent school districts with tons of money and high university acceptance and attendance and poor schools where all the minorities go with high drop out rates and low university acceptance and attendance, you can't just expect google to hire people of different races equally and fix everything.

If there is one thing companies care about, it is making profit. They will hire whoever they can to maximize profit. I don;t think Google and other companies like Google would be begging for more H1B visas to hire more minorities from other countries if they were racist.

They are trying to maximize the talent of their workforce for the least amount of money. Any unnecessary discrimination would be cutting into their bottom line.

Re:One drop rule?

[rossdee]

You have to provide your employer with your SSN, and probably other government ID number(s) like drivers license or professional certification number. The government has the data on your race, gender, age etc. Therefore your employer doesn't need to know those details, it can just provide the government with the list of employees, and the government can calculate the percentages.

Re:One drop rule?

[Mr. Slippery]

I am pretty sure the problem can be traced all the way back to the inequality in public schools.

Of course there's no inequality in private schools. Right.

I don;t think Google and other companies like Google would be begging for more H1B visas to hire more minorities from other countries if they were racist.

Non sequitur. American slaver owners were racist but were happy to have more Africans imported into the country to enslave.

Any unnecessary discrimination would be cutting into their bottom line.

Not at all. In a racist and sexist environment, where folks who are not white males are generally underpaid compared to us white guys, a company maximizes profits by continuing that underpayment, perhaps just doing it slightly less than their competition. ("The industry average is that Group A are underpaid by X%. Amalgamated Profits Inc. only underpays Group A by (0.9*X)%, so as a member of Group A boy am I glad to have a job here.")

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not society's business to counter systematic discrimination, it's society's business to not have a government that engages in it or passes laws that encourage it.

Your entire worldview is full of shit. It's basically the left-wing asshole's equivalent of the right-wing asshole's "If you don't love America, you can giiiiit out!".

Asshole.

Re:One drop rule?

[ShanghaiBill]

What makes you think because I didn't hire you, and you happen to be black, that I'm somehow a racist, or discriminating?

Nothing, because one person is not statistically significant. But if you have a workforce of 10,000, and none of them are black, then you might need to explain how that could have happened without systematic racism.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are begging the question. There is no data collection required to enforce the law. They are choosing to collect the data as a means to verify the law, but there is no law that said data must be collected. You are full of shit.

Re: One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because without the intervention of the Federal Government, all those discriminatory policies in the South would have just vanished on their own.

Re:One drop rule?

[MrL0G1C]

So racism is OK if it only happens because it is profitable!!! I used to be against positive discrimination but with arguments like yours I'm beginning to realise that it's necessary to actively redress the equality situation because the situation clearly is not going to redress itself for centuries otherwise.

Re:One drop rule?

[mysidia]

But if you have a workforce of 10,000, and none of them are black, then you might need to explain how that could have happened without systematic racism.

10,000 is not a statistically significant fraction of the population. So you could very well have hired 10,000 people and all of them turned out to be black by luck of the draw.

One 10000 person sample out of 10s of millions of people living in the area. The standard deviation of the composition of such samples may well be 90% or more; especially, once you consider the assumption of random selection is not warranted.

You might have posted job ads in a local paper, and all the applicants turned out to be white males. Although you do not ask applicants for this information, to make sure it is not available to HR when selecting applicants.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, society hasn't decided that.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that's what it is.

More than likely, it may be that those of X racial makeup don't want to work in this particular field or those who do may not have the qualifications to do so. Ultimately, it leads to lowing the bar for qualifications ( so we can hire a greater variety of racial backgrounds ) which does nothing more than hurt the company as they are forced to hire what would otherwise have been unqualified applicants to meet some Federal guideline on how many colors your workforce should have in it.

Race should have zero to do with anything. You're either qualified for the job, or you're not. It should be utilized as neither a penalty nor a bonus when it comes to hiring candidates simply because the makeup of employees is too ( white, black, hispanic, asian, red, purple, 4, whatever ).

We can't even use a standardized test for applicants without someone yelling about it being discriminating or racist due to the inequality of our education system. It's a lose / lose situation.

I certainly wouldn't expect the ( insert any sport here ) to be forced to sign me because I'm ( insert any color here ). Same holds true for the business world folks. You either possess the talent and have a shot, or you don't.

Quit playing the race card. It's old and annoying.

Re:One drop rule?

[ShanghaiBill]

10,000 is not a statistically significant fraction of the population.

When calculating statistical significance, the fraction of the population is irrelevant.

So you could very well have hired 10,000 people and all of them turned out to be black by luck of the draw.

The chance of that happening is infinitesimally close to zero. Far closer to zero than the floating point unit in your computer can handle. If the population is 10% black, the probability would be 1e-10000, while the number of subatomic particles in the observable universe is less than 1e80.

Re:One drop rule?

[ILongForDarkness]

Math mistakes aside there are cultural/historical and other factors that do lead professions to be skewed one way or another. If you are living in a city where immigration is the main source of population growth and immigrates are primarily coming from asia, as is the case where I'm living, guess what? A disproportionate number of applications will tend to be brown/yellow. Will the employee fit with our "corporate culture" will be answered differently if this is the first orthodox Jew applying or you already have a orthodox Jewish club. In the one cause you'll need more information, in the second case rightly or wrongly you will likely assume: he'll find someone here to pal around with.

Re:One drop rule?

[ILongForDarkness]

That might be more of their claim of "trade secret". They don't want the native population to realize how disproportionate their number of indians are vs locals compared with the local population. Tax breaks to create jobs ... which get filled via H1B. Meanwhile they could quite well still be turning down latino and black applicants in droves.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny. Why was Google's race and gender data a trade secret when Google was small, but isn't anymore now that they're big enough to accept the dead weight of affirmative action?

Why is Facebook's race and gender data secret now?

It's almost like affirmative action means hiring unqualified people, but that can't possibly be right, because the distribution of talents in the different races, which don't exist, are exactly the same.

Re:One drop rule?

[fche]

"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.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

That it's based on a specific set of phenotypes doesn't make the classification itself any less artificial. We could decide that "race" was decided by the shape of people's earlobes and it would be no less valid than the skin-color based system we have now.

Re:One drop rule?

[Guppy06]

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?

You're presuming that said education and work experience was gained on a purely meritocratic basis. The United States is demonstrably not that meritocratic. You're assuming the person who shares their last name with both a building at their alma mater and the CEO of their last employer is the more qualified candidate.

Maybe the graduates moving into my industry are predominantly from a single race

For purely coincidental reasons?

How does that make me a racist?

Maybe you are and maybe you aren't, on an individual basis. But as a culture we most certainly are, and if you ever want our society to be as meritocratic as you claim yourself to be, if you ever want the education and work experience listed on the resumes of candidates to reflect actual merit rather than privilege, you will see the value in acting individually to counter that group trend.

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

No, I am saying that if your only goal is profit (i.e. you are discriminating based on profitability and not discriminating based on race), and you assessed each applicant for profitability (i.e. skills=X salary=Y without even knowing their race), you may end up hiring certain races more than others because those races are more profitable to hire.

The NBA isn't racist for hiring so many black people. It's that a very high percentage of good basketball players for various reasons happen to be black. The NBA would hire mostly Asian people if they somehow became the best at basketball.

If Indian people have the best skills and are willing to take the lowest salaries, then that's who google is going to hire. It doesn't matter to Google that they are Indian. They just happen to be Indian.

Re:One drop rule?

[TheGratefulNet]

there is HUGE discrimination in tech, right now.

I know a lot of american workers - really skilled and experienced - that have been out of work for a long time. and yet, we have asians and indians staffing the bay area tech companies and it stinks to high heaven. its clearly discriminatory (not necessarily mgmt, but the team members who are indian tend to vote for their fellow desi's and reject american workers. tell me this isn't true and tell it to me with a straight face.)

and so, if we had numbers on this, we could SHOW, with data, that this widely-known issue is true. once its known, it could be dealt with and repaired.

all we want is fairness. what we have now is a huge imbalance and pretty extreme racism where locals can't even get a chance to compete for local jobs. its sickening.

companies should be fined for this shit. its ruining this country and destroying what's left of the tech middle class.

Re:One drop rule?

[TheGratefulNet]

black, white, latino - all are the 'new minorities' in tech.

and you know who the new majority is. and its not the people who were born and raised here, either.

Re:One drop rule?

[stdarg]

Amalgamated Profits Inc. only underpays Group A by (0.9*X)%, so as a member of Group A boy am I glad to have a job here.

Correct, and thus a higher proportion of Group A members would work at AP Inc, and AP Inc would be happy to hire them. If they didn't hire members of Group A based on discriminatory hiring policy, that would be cutting into their bottom line.

Now you might be thinking that paying Group A less is itself a form of a discrimination, and it could be, but it's not provable given the limited information we have in this hypothetical. Group A may be willing to work for less for reasons that have nothing to do with the employer.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you could very well have hired 10,000 people and all of them turned out to be black by luck of the draw.

The chance of that happening is infinitesimally close to zero. Far closer to zero than the floating point unit in your computer can handle. If the population is 10% black, the probability would be 1e-10000, while the number of subatomic particles in the observable universe is less than 1e80.

Luck of the draw? Rarely do you hire people by luck of the draw. Rather, you hire people based on their ability to do the job, and you probably favor people who can do it better than others. It's entirely possible that cultural factors could work against a certain race to the extent that you could hire 10,000 people and none of them would be black, all without racism.

Re:One drop rule?

[mysidia]

The chance of that happening is infinitesimally close to zero.

A statement which would be a lie if stated by a statistician. Since you can't possibly know from the mere composition of the population; the chance of hiring a black person or a white person each time that you hired someone.

It is not as if you were given an opportunity to pick 10000 random people from the population and force them to quit any existing job they might have and come work for you. Your selection of hires is limited to a fraction of the population which is not necessarily related to the composition of the population.

For all you know, the chance of hiring a black person could be 99.99% each of the 10000 times.

Again, because most of the applicants seeking employment were black, and all non-black applicants were either not qualified for the job, or they were working for someone else and either not looking for a job: or looking for a job with better compensation than what you were offering.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think because I didn't hire you, and you happen to be black, that I'm somehow a racist, or discriminating?

Because that's obviously the truth.

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?

Diversity is far more important than that, and it's racist to think otherwise.

Maybe you're unqualified.

So what? It's about having DIVERSE perspectives, not qualified perspectives.

Maybe the graduates moving into my industry are predominantly from a single race, or predominantly not of a single race.

You have to be vigilant against that to prevent non-diverse environments.

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 dare you suggest a black man needs to have the same experience and proficiency as any other race. They WOULD, if their ancestors hadn't been oppressed by your ancestors, and you have to take that into account.

tl;dr - You a racis' nigga.

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

Monitoring "race" is like monitoring "favorite NFL team" - it's none of my employer's or my government's business. Neither is the particular amount of skin pigment I might have, or how curly my hair is.

The way to counter systematic discrimination is to refuse to buy into the tired trope that "race" is anything but an arbitrary and worthless division of people.

Our race is "human", period.

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

Should hospitals and schools have to explain how the vast majority of their nurses and teachers are women?

Statistically significant differences between any given group, and the general population, shouldn't require some special explanation - that's guilty until proven innocent.

Frankly, if you have a workforce of 10,000 white people, no matter how they self-identify, I'll almost guarantee you that a significant portion of them have black ancestry. Our most recent common ancestor is quite possibly only a few thousand years ago (http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/NatureAncestorsPressRelease.html) - to place some company under strict scrutiny because their employee base didn't self identify in the same proportions as the general population is silly when you realize that we're *all* simply cousins of one degree or another.

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

So, get rid of the label so that some bigot doesn't look at my paperwork and decide "oops, wrong race!"

Look, you've got two versions of racial identification - self identification, and other identification. The two don't match, and aren't even *consistent within themselves*!

Pretending that somehow we'll stop bigotry by labeling, categorizing, and dividing people into imaginary, socially constructed, arbitrary, contradictory and malleable buckets is silly.

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

Not true - a white woman can have a black child (Obama), but a black woman can't have a white child (Angela Howard).

Why do you think that is?

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Of course there's no inequality in private schools. Right.

Private schools are not supposed to be equal. Public schools are. I don;t know why you inferred anything regarding private schools form what I said.

Non sequitur. American slaver owners were racist but were happy to have more Africans imported into the country to enslave.

So in this way no matter what kind of people you hire, you can be accused of racism. You are racist for not hiring people, and you are racist for hiring them too.

Not at all. In a racist and sexist environment, where folks who are not white males are generally underpaid compared to us white guys, a company maximizes profits by continuing that underpayment, perhaps just doing it slightly less than their competition.

And the racist practice of paying white people additional money for no good reason is the thing that would cut into their bottom line. Why would you hire white people and pay them more when you can hire Indians instead and make more profit?

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. In a racist and sexist environment, where folks who are not white males are generally underpaid compared to us white guys, a company maximizes profits by continuing that underpayment, perhaps just doing it slightly less than their competition.

If such discrimination existed employers would only hire non-white or non-male white. Who would hire a equally competent FOR MORE MONEY.

Either evil white male is more competent and therefore worth more, or the discrimination in the workplace is a lie. Chose one. You can't have it both way.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

So racism is OK if it only happens because it is profitable!!! I used to be against positive discrimination but with arguments like yours I'm beginning to realise that it's necessary to actively redress the equality situation because the situation clearly is not going to redress itself for centuries otherwise.

There is nothing to redress. You have been brainwashed.

White peoples are the minority on this earth and what you call racism and discrimination is acceptable and common sense in Asia and Africa.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break...

Are they failing to disclose this data publicly or to government! If they report it when their suppose to, no one cares, if they refuse then that makes them look like racist. I'll get blasted for this, but leave it up to geeks, and nerds to say they are not racists. Which actually is true, they just dont know anyone this is black. Oh wait Ted down the street and his girlfriend Cheryl.

Lets say a black man comes in but looks/talks like he is street, but he/she shows you their work, and to anyone outside your company, with knowledge or CS/programming skill, they are impressed by the body of work and the level of their work are you going to hire them based on their "WORK"? Better yet despite them have a college degree from a "university I'm familiar with"?

I would agree hiring someone because of their color or ethnicity ( to me ) is more racist, then hiring someone based on skill, but that is in fact the US we live in. Government/Southern guilt leads us down a dangerous path...

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

We could decide that "race" was decided by the shape of people's earlobes and it would be no less valid than the skin-color based system we have now.

The system we have now isn't really based on skin colour alone, but a large range of phenotypes.

If you want to reject that system, you may aswell reject all categorizations of subspecies in the animal kingdom also, of which there are quite a few.

Biology is a fairly graded thing, we may not notice or care for small variations but inevitably enough small variations make large ones.

A tiger may be able to mate with a leopard, but that doesn't mean we're suddenly being racist for naming each one differently even though they're all cats.

Re:One drop rule?

[fche]

We reject this false choice, er, loaded question.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thing someone will tell us that is that natural selection only works below the neck.

Re:One drop rule?

[Ardeaem]

10,000 is not a statistically significant fraction of the population. So you could very well have hired 10,000 people and all of them turned out to be black by luck of the draw.

Excellent point. Maybe all those racist people are not actually racist. They might be equally likely to use racial slurs against whites OR blacks, but all the racial slurs they use just happen to be black ones by luck of the draw. Could be!

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should hospitals and schools have to explain how the vast majority of their nurses and teachers are women?

Damn fucking right they do. It is a concern, and they are taking steps to deal with it. Just because slashdot and hacker news doesn't cover it doesn't mean it's not happening.

Re:One drop rule?

[ganjadude]

if "countering systematic discrimination" means hiring less qualified people over more qualified people because of their gender or race, thats not their business, that is in fact discrimination. All we have done is replace one form of discrimination with another from.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a better answer, instead of going what was the number c. 7% of their employees are black/latinos (I guess that Indians don't count, either kind, or Chinese, etc. anyways I digress) but let's see exactly what percentage of that populations holds degrees in areas that Google is most likely to hire from.

Then you can go back and edit your argument appropriately. Frankly I would not be surprised at all if it's not even needed, but then again this all all about politics and Jesse Jackson stumping for votes from his homies, so no need to apply logic and reason at all.

Lastly HTF did this make the front page to begin with? (Never mind I'd momentarily forgotten that /. is in an era of steep decline in quality, pertinence, relevance, and timeliness...)

Re:One drop rule?

[callmetheraven]

the problem can be traced all the way back to inequalities in public school students

FTFY

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

Why is it a concern? Can't it be possible that men and women make different choices naturally without some sort of nefarious, systematic discrimination against either one?

Should we also start explaining why some people are tall and some people are short? Why some people like roses and others like daffodils? Why some car colors are overrepresented?

Just because a subgroup of the population doesn't have the same proportions of some trait as the general population, doesn't mean that something evil has happened.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

You're presuming that said education and work experience was gained on a purely meritocratic basis. The United States is demonstrably not that meritocratic. You're assuming the person who shares their last name with both a building at their alma mater and the CEO of their last employer is the more qualified candidate.

But how the person arrived to having or lacking that education and work experience is orthogonal to the company's need for said knowledge. It is irrelevant. The company needs the skill not the life history. It certainly needs to be addressed in other contexts, but are you really arguing that one should be hired regardless of one's knowledge based solely on skin color ?

Re:One drop rule?

[aevan]

Easy: no blacks applied: [your] luck of the draw[n applicants]. Of course if your company attracted 10,000 people and not one were black, you might have significant P.R. issues.

Re:One drop rule?

[Number42]

you might have significant P.R. issues.

So that's why there aren't that many black Klansmen! I'd always wondered.

Re:One drop rule?

[Guppy06]

The problem is that a resume/CV/whatever doesn't actually tell you the candidate's skills or knowledge. At best it tells you how long a candidate spent in school X or at employer Y, relying on an implied relationship of "school X = skill" and "employer Y = experience." But those implications break down when actually getting your foot in the door at school X and employer Y relies heavily on privilege rather than expertise.

Statistically speaking, the candidate from a privileged class will have a more impressive educational and work history specifically because of their privilege. Members of minority classes will likewise seem less qualified by those same privilege-skewed metrics of "education" and "work experience." The only practical solution is for individual hiring managers to literally give minority class members the benefit of the doubt, if only for a trial period (periods which are typical nowadays of all new employees).

Re:One drop rule?

[ColdSam]

I can't tell if your ignorance of statistics or simple logic is worse, but they're both embarrassing.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like reading these comments because they really reflect what I have seen in the workplace. I like the way White people seem to feel that they get jobs because they have "superior" qualifications. Let's be real here, many people who get IT jobs are far from experts and whatever the job is, it is always a learning experience.

Most of the places I've worked or applied to, hire people for reasons other than just qualifications. I wish I could tell you how many jobs I've seen go to unqualified White candidates, simply because they got along with the person doing the hiring. I can understand that people naturally want to work with those they feel they can get along with. But lets not kid ourselves, the way a person "fits" in during an interview is often the reason they are hired. A charismatic person has as much of a chance being hired as a person with better qualifications simply because those doing the hiring often feel they will "fit in".

Unfortunately cultural bias plays a big role in the hiring process. You can see this in the previous posters statement. He said: qualifications and "attitude". How do you measure attitude objectively exactly? The answer is you don't. What happens is a person will interview a candidate and if they seem to share common experiences and are liked they will hire them. A White candidate can often relate their experiences to a White interviewer. Are you more likely to share common experiences with a White person or a Black person? I'm sure some will lie here and say this doesn't matter, but be honest for a second. When you grow up in your suburban wonderland, it is a far different experience than someone growing up facing discrimination and poverty. Not saying that every Black applicant comes from a poor background or every White person comes from a wealthy one, but there are always differences in perceptions.

The common perception is that White is not only more privileged but somehow "better". People in the U.S. place a bigger value on Whiteness. Black people tend to be regarded as lesser. A Black candidate will always have to try harder to be accepted and therefore faces a bigger burden and more difficulty in getting hired. Everything from the way a person writes their resume, to the types of experiences they have and the way a person describes their experiences play a role in the hiring process. However their experiences and culture will shape this. The one doing the hiring will also use their experiences and culture in the selection process. When a person sees a White person, they tend to fit the U.S. stereotype of successful American. Other races don't tend to be viewed the same.

This isn't to say that there are giant pools of minority candidates out there, but lets be a bit realistic on this. There has been no data to show the "qualifications" of any candidates hired, nor the metrics used to measure this. All we know is that the demographics of many companies does not match what should be expected from the current population. Racism and hiring because of racial bias has a rich history in this nation. It would be naive to think that it no longer happens, especially when data suggests unemployment by race, etc. are still skewed. I know many of us here like numbers, but why even waste time pondering what the numbers look like, all we have to do is read many of the comments here about the "superiority" of White candidates to see that racism is still alive and well, even in the computing and engineering fields.

Until the day when we have invested properly in the education and social programs to put everyone on an equal footing, I have no problem with playing pokemon and showing many of those who think they are "superior", just how "inferior" their mindset makes them.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it, but there's a reason the 'highly skilled and experienced' american workers you know are out of work. It is one of the following:

A. They have a bad attitude
B. They are not actually skilled and experienced (though you might think they are)
C. They want too much money
D. They have no people skills
E. They do not know how to network.

As a highly skilled and experienced American, I have had absolutely zero problems finding work in my field (I'm a software developer - senior). So if your friends can't find work they're doing it wrong.

Re:One drop rule?

[khellendros1984]

Genes get passed down, of course, and that propogates traits that are associated with the social construct of race (skin/eye/hair color, hair texture, etc). I'm not debating that organisms pass traits to their offspring; I'm saying that someone's racial identification doesn't necessarily have a firm basis in their genetic heritage.

Re:One drop rule?

[khellendros1984]

So, get rid of the label so that some bigot doesn't look at my paperwork and decide "oops, wrong race!"

Wonderful, until you've got something (like medical diagnosis) where it could be useful to know something about the patient's ancestry (and help more people than it hurts, social construct, or not).

Look, you've got two versions of racial identification

Condescension. Wonderful. That'll certainly be conducive to creating an interesting discussion.

Pretending that somehow we'll stop bigotry by labeling, categorizing, and dividing people into imaginary, socially constructed, arbitrary, contradictory and malleable buckets is silly.

I'm pretending precisely jack shit. In fact, I said that "bucketing" people provides opportunities for discrimination.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that's kind of how Vanilla Ice identifies as a gangsta' rapper.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is the parent post troll, fucking arsehole moderators.

Re:One drop rule?

[ILongForDarkness]

To be fair there is no majority in the city I work (white is the largest minority). But even then white is a larger minority I think than outside the door (less black people too, more Chinese (lots of asians in the local population but a lot of them are Korean/Vietnamese/Indian but they are hardly represented at my work)). That said diversity is cool. I think gender diversity is worse in our field though where does it start? I went to university with 40 guys and 3 girls. So yeah they'll be roughly a 13/1 guy girl ratio when you get in the workplace ... surprise :) I guess you might never get a balanced representation of society in all professions: more men might be interested in tech than nursing not just because of bias but cultural/biological etc reasons.

Re:One drop rule?

[hsthompson69]

The "race-based medicine" trope is useless, as you already admitted in your initial comment regarding it *not* be a genetic construct. While you can make some narrow claims about some very narrow populations, those claims *don't* hold along the arbitrary racial lines of self or other identification, and are completely inapplicable to anyone of any significant mixture - which, if truth be told, is most of us. If someone is going to do *genetic* based medicine, great - identify the specific genes of a person before treatment. Asking them if their grandmother was Dutch is useless.

It sounds like you're against "bucketing", but for "bucketing" - I firmly disagree that there is any positive outcome of racial bucketing, *period*.

Re:One drop rule?

[Anonymous Coward]

Affirmative action was designed to assist in the destruction of the middle class alright, but also to destroy nationalism. That's my take. What better way to weaken a country's national pride and disempower the locals than by supplanting them. It's about the global 1984 New World Order. The price to bring it in is the destruction of any semblance of white power. A multi-ethnic pool of servants, means that the majority population (in this case white) has to get screwed.

This also allows for upheaval to turn the races on each other, which they will avail of also. The disharmony and social upheaval created by this is all part of their game too.

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that schools in affluent areas deserve more money because the students at affluent schools are inherently better students?

Re:One drop rule?

[Magius_AR]

Maybe the graduates moving into my industry are predominantly from a single race

For purely coincidental reasons?

Umm, yes? Why is this so surprising to you? I wouldn't expect to see perfect diversity across all career paths. Different races have different genetics as well as different cultures. It's the same reason we don't see equal weighting among the genders (which is also not discrimination -- the fact that 120 lb women don't want to compete against 300 lb men in pro football for instance is in no way a sign of discrimination -- it'd be crazy to expect equal demographics).

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

#1 we shouldn't be giving specific companies tax breaks to create jobs, especially when there is no requirement for them to do so.

#2 it doesn't bother me if Indian people are getting jobs instead of other people. People are people. It doesn't matter to me if an American gets a job rather than an Indian or vice versa, any more than it would matter to me if person from Los Angeles got a job that a person from San Diego would have otherwise gotten. Nobody should be entitled to a job or a certain salary.

As consumers we benefit from companies reducing their own costs.

As employees we should be trying to make ourselves more valuable by becoming more skilled, not inhibiting our competition.

We live in a global economy and a global society. The sooner we realize this the better off we will be. We can keep living in a bubble and try to keep our own salaries inflated compared to that of the developing world, but eventually the world won't need the USA anymore and it will just pass us by.

Imagine if Apple kept demanding high prices for the Iphone 5 and never came out with any new iphones. People would still buy iphone 5's for maybe a few years, and eventually even apple loyalists would abandon them. You can only exploit your brand and marketshare so much.

Re:One drop rule?

[Guppy06]

I wouldn't expect to see perfect diversity across all career paths.

"Perfect diversity" is one thing, but here we're talking about patently lopsided results.

Different races have different genetics as well as different cultures.

So aside from trying to get all "nature versus nurture" regarding qualities for which there is no demonstrable inherent biological difference, you also appear to be assuming that "culture" stops at your door. It's somehow their culture preventing them from pursuing these careers and not yours. This in spite of the fact that it's your culture with all the economic and political power.

Re:One drop rule?

[coinreturn]

And the racist practice of paying white people additional money for no good reason is the thing that would cut into their bottom line. Why would you hire white people and pay them more when you can hire Indians instead and make more profit?

Pro tip: racism is not logical.

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Pro tip: I was suggesting that google *is* logical and therefore not racist.

Re:One drop rule?

[coinreturn]

Pro tip: I was referring to: "Why would you hire white people and pay them more when you can hire Indians instead and make more profit?"

Re:One drop rule?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Why would you hire white people and pay them more when you can hire Indians instead and make more profit?

Pro tip: Some questions are rhetorical.

In fact if you look at the other sentence in the paragraph (the one that preceded the one you quoted)

And the racist practice of paying white people additional money for no good reason is the thing that would cut into their bottom line.

It becomes clear that I was not in fact asking why people might hire white people and pay them more in general (one trivially obvious reason being racism). I was suggesting (via a rhetorical question) that someone indulging their racist proclivities is necessarily sacrificing potential profits. Maximizing profits requires abandoning all forms of irrationality including racism.

I wonder...

[Last_Available_Usern]

...how many minorities Facebook hired between when the request was made and when they finally complied. Would be interesting to see before and after data.

Re:I wonder...

[sabri]

how many minorities Facebook hired between when the request was made and when they finally complied. Would be interesting to see before and after data.

I don't work for Facebook, but I have been on their MPK campus as a contractor many times. I can tell you from first hand experience that Facebook is a very culturally diverse environment where everyone, regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender, is welcomed. It looks like a mini San Francisco.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at your post history, you seem to be some sort of corporate apologist, for everyone from Facebook to Comcast. You also seem to be something of an expert on US immigration law. From this, we can infer that when you say "culturally diverse," what you really mean is "mostly Indians." Does the shilling pay well?

Re:I wonder...

[TsuruchiBrian]

Judging by your post history, you are the most prolific and also the dumbest person on Slashdot.

Re:I wonder...

[Greyfox]

What Facebook doesn't want you to know is that the entire place is run by a single person. To comply with diversity laws they got a guy who's equal parts white, black, American Indian and Korean. He's also a left-handed lesbian Eskimo albino. I believe he finds Facebook to be a VERY diverse workplace!

Re:I wonder...

[sabri]

Looking at your post history, you seem to be some sort of corporate apologist, for everyone from Facebook to Comcast. You also seem to be something of an expert on US immigration law. From this, we can infer that when you say "culturally diverse," what you really mean is "mostly Indians." Does the shilling pay well?

I'm not an apologist, I'm merely explaining how stuff works. If you don't like Facebook, don't create an account. If you don't like Comcast, don't get it. Everywhere in the US you have alternative options for internet access.

When I say "culturally diverse", I don't mean mostly Indians. Even if it were, the way you formulate your comment is as if people from India are some sort of plague. You may not agree with the US immigration policy, but you should take that up with your congressman, not with the individuals who take the opportunity to get out of that rape-infested shithole. The legal way, using a visa and employment based permanent resident permits.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like a mini San Francisco.

So, they're all ass-bandits?

Re:I wonder...

[TheGratefulNet]

...not with the individuals who take the opportunity to get out of that rape-infested shithole

its somehow ok that we help other nationals; but what about our OWN??

look, they have a shithole of a country, granted. but leaving the country and coming here is not going to fix india. what it does is help ruin the workforce here for those who are invested HERE and want to stay HERE.

its time to cut off immigration. we have more people than jobs and we owe a living to our own people, first.

this is how EVERY OTHER COUNTRY WORKS. find me another country that favors immigrants over its own nationals. go ahead - I'll wait.

when the US was still a growing country, it made sense to import labor. but now, the job situation is in collapse and we simply cannot keep importing more people who will work for less and displace our own.

sorry if it sounds harsh, but your own people HAVE to come first. every other country works that way. its time to shut the borders and let things converge for the next 10 or so years. the race to the bottom is going to be the economic collapse of the middle class and we simply cannot afford to do that. I fear there can be no recovery once we hit bottom, like that.

Re:I wonder...

[lsllll]

Just curious, how did you find his/her posting history? The posting is from AC.

Re:I wonder...

[TsuruchiBrian]

It was a joke. My post was a criticism of the hypocrisy of attacking someone's post history while posting anonymously.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having recently visited San Francisio, I'm not sure having facebook look like a mini one says much about it. When I visited San Francisco, I saw mainly White people in the wealthiest looking areas and others in mainly impoverished areas. Maybe it was just the places I visited but I wasn't at all impressed by how racially diverse it was.

Re:I wonder...

[sabri]

ts somehow ok that we help other nationals; but what about our OWN?? look, they have a shithole of a country, granted. but leaving the country and coming here is not going to fix india. what it does is help ruin the workforce here for those who are invested HERE and want to stay HERE.

Very fair comment, and I totally understand where you're coming from. There is a big but. Being an immigrant myself, I'll explain a bit myself, but first:

this is how EVERY OTHER COUNTRY WORKS. find me another country that favors immigrants over its own nationals. go ahead - I'll wait.

The Netherlands. A tiny little country in Europe, with approx 17 million people. In The Netherlands, there is a big problem with primarily North-African (read: Morocco) immigrant workers who migrated in the seventies and eighties. Exceptions aside, most of them did not adopt it as their home country and raised their children accordingly. This has ultimately lead to the Dutch government favoring these immigrants in jobs, social security (sometime the government pays for trips to their home country and send healthcare workers provide care abroad).

When I left The Netherlands for the U.S., I too came on a temporary visa (L1A, for those who care). I had no intentions of migrating, but merely upgrading my resume with U.S. work experience. However, when I saw how things were different here, and my wife became pregnant, we made the decision to apply for permanent residence as well.

Sure, that does not make The Netherlands a better place. But, in the grand scheme of things, most people will chose a better life for themselves and their children over being a tiny drop of water on a wildfire the size of Poinsettia. Me being here or me being in The Netherlands will make little difference on either country, so I opted for the country which I loved the most. Someone once said in one of those famous /.-H1B threads: support the country you live in, or live in the country you support. I am definitely in the country that I support, and that so far has been very good to me as well.

However, unlimited immigration is a bad thing for any country, and I totally don't understand why people here are so ambiguous when it comes to immigration and immigration enforcement. By itself, the current rules are quite limiting: no more than 265000 permanent residence permit each year, and no more than 80.000 H1B workers. Yet, once people find a way to come to the U.S. without border inspection, all of a sudden it is politically incorrect to talk about "illegal immigrants", but mainstream media is full of discussions an how to provide a path to citizenship for "undocumented people". And don't get me wrong, I totally understand every single individual who crosses the border that way. I'm just saying that if you want to start somewhere, either fix the hole in that fence or find a way to make those folks pay taxes on their income. I'm sure that this will improve the economy more than deporting a bunch of Indians.

Maxine Waters

[Anonymous Coward]

Maxine Waters and Jessie Jackson are two of the biggest frauds in the US today. They're like the black versions of George Bush and Donald Rumsfield. Lying scum that make money by hurting others. George Bush doesn't care about black people and neither does Jessie Jackson. They care about lining their own pockets and protecting their friends.

Re:Maxine Waters

[The Grim Reefer]

Maxine Waters and Jessie Jackson are two of the biggest frauds in the US today. They're like the black versions of George Bush and Donald Rumsfield. Lying scum that make money by hurting others. George Bush doesn't care about black people and neither does Jessie Jackson. They care about lining their own pockets and protecting their friends.

GWB may be many things. But a racist, I have a hard time believing. And to say that GWB cares for black people in the same way Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters do is frankly insulting to GWB.

Racism is wrong, but Affirmative Action is right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is wrong for you to discriminate based on race, but it is ok if I do it because I said so!

EEO

[_editengine]

EEO data is always private at the company level. The public only has access to the industry level data without the permission of the firm. Otherwise the firms have incentive to lie and the dataset itself is worthless.

Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[rogoshen1]

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.. )

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[JeffOwl]

The interesting statistics are not merely how many total employees come from each ethnic background. It is the makeup of the various levels of management from 1st line managers all the way up to Senior VPs.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

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.. )

But..but.. the hackers on TV shows are always black guys with glasses

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

If google and facebook could find qualified black (or American employees in general) employees

They can, except that they've altered their internal definitions of "qualified" to specifically exclude Americans.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[gnupun]

As much as I hate Facebook (and merely strongly dislike Google) why is this an issue?

Why? Facebook collects and compiles detailed information about its members (starting with requiring users use their real name) but won't reveal even the most trivial information about itself... Total hypocrisy and double standards. Somehow FB's privacy is important but that of ordinary people is not.

Also, these companies are lobbying to increase the h1b quota so knowing the demographics of their workforce is relevant.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

You should not need to call names.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[JumperCable]

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?

That depends. Are those Amercian employees willing to work for the same salary offer as those India/Pakitan/$whatever and be content? They are shooting for a cheap labor market.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[xfade551]

Oddly, race/ethnicity is the one piece of personal information Facebook does not ask (and nag) you for when you create an account.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[CanHasDIY]

As much as I hate Facebook (and merely strongly dislike Google) why is this an issue?

In my experience, when a corporation makes up some outlandish BS like "trade secrets" to hide information, it's because there's something worth covering up.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[russbutton]

Chances are were you to look at Facebook's demographics, not only would you find it to be either white or Asian Americans or H1-B Indians, as well as lacking in American blacks and latinos, you'd also find it be a very young crowd as well. Chances are there are very few people over the age of 35 who are not in the executive class. Even then, you'd probably not find many older workers even as executives.

Zuckerberg has made no effort to hide his disdain for older workers as well as anyone else. A disclosure of Facebook's demographics would likely open them up to many, many $millions in discrimination lawsuits.

Remember that today's college graduates are having a difficult time finding work while Zuckerberg and his like are doing their best to bring in South Asians on H1-B visas. The excuse for the H1-B visa is that you can't find anyone to do that work. The truth is you can't find anyone to do that work for minimum wage...

Clearly Zuckerberg hasn't got enough money.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[xfade551]

I'm pretty sure they higher eastern Europeans under H1Bs for dirt cheap labor, too. And I'm pretty sure those same eastern Europeans qualify as "white" (with rare exceptions).

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

People willingly go out of their way to give Facebook their personal information. If they do not care about their privacy, that's their damn problem. Zuckwhatisit is not pointing a gun to anyone and forcing them to sign up or die.
Facebook, rightfully, doesn't want to breach their employees privacy without their consent. If they did, the PC police might force them to fire people whose only fault is not being born either black or female.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

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.. )

I'd say it matters because there are companies that are absolutely hiring people based on race, even today.

Case in point, have a friend who worked for ASUS. Out of a roughly 300 person campus in Fremont, CA, my friend could only come up with 10 non-Asian employees. That covers white, black, hispanic and everything else. Do the math, and it's like 97-98% of the workforce was made up of Asians. Not only that, they all seemed to be ethnically Taiwanese or Chinese. All the top management was Asian; no non-Asians made it above your baseline supervisor position. I don't know about anyone else, but I am unable to come up with a viable explanation to explain such demographic inequality without it being a deliberate policy that came from the very top.

My friend, who's white, was harassed pretty routinely by his Asian coworkers at ASUS. Finally he made a complaint about how he considered it to be racially motivated to one of his coworkers. She then files a complaint about my friend, the ASUS HR department flatly refused to investigate my friend's complaint of being harassed because he's white despite them fully recognizing that he made that claim in the official HR report, and within a week my friend is no longer working at ASUS. So not only do you have what appears to be highly racist hiring policies, but the few non-Asians who are hired are subjected to swift retaliation if they dare question their Asian overlords and do not say thank you every time a big helping of abuse is heaped on them.

The EEOC and state counterparts are completely and utterly worthless at dealing with these issues. They have very few teeth left after pro-business types are willing to sell their rights away for the mere promise of more jobs and what teeth they do have ends up being focused on only the most egregious of cases because budgets that were never more than meager to begin with, are generally first on the chopping block come any kind of economic downturn, which is when employers become especially emboldened to pull these kinds of stunts. So the sad reality is that plenty of companies can and do get away with blatantly racist activity, even after it's brought to the attention of proper authorities.

Yes, giving the teeth back to the EEOC and state counterparts and charging them with vigorously enforcing laws that have been on the books for 40 years would be the better solution... But, if the proper authorities can't and/or won't act then this is a better solution than doing nothing.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[phorm]

"If google and facebook could find qualified black (or American employees in general) employees, wouldn't they do that rather than importing people from X"

Not if you count "qualified" as "skilled and willing to work for only $X level wage"

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Asian society as a whole is very caste-based, isn't it?

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[ohnocitizen]

It's not as if it's a good-ole boy's club over at the googleplex.

Source for that statement? What if it turns out it is? Is that "none of the government's business"? Is it up to brave consumers to decide if we care or not, and apply market pressure on google by not buying their products?

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?

No. That's part of the problem. There are plenty of qualified employees here. When you import people, you get two very nice things from a corporate perspective: 1. Lower cost. 2. More control.

Fear of getting their visa revoked makes these workers easier to bully and manipulate. And they will work for less. That is the reason big tech wants to look overseas, not a lack of talent stateside.

Which brings us back to the original point - if a company is systematically passing over people because they are (black, female, the wrong kind of christian, etc) - it's hard to do anything about it if they never release those stats. For a company as big as google or facebook, that kind of thing could really put a damper in a qualified person's ability to find a job and feed their family. So we need to decide as a society - does that bother us? If not, then business as usual. But if it does, then we need larger companies (at the very least) to report who they hire, so we can try our best to identify potential trouble.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[rogoshen1]

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate the entire CONCEPT of the H1B program. What got me was the implication by Waters/Jackson (and calling him a Reverend is laughable) that the ONLY reason they'd not hire more blacks is due to racist hiring practices.

While there are a few reasons for not hiring Americans in general, and black Americans in particular -- is racism among them, considering they scour South Asia for candidates?

Basically I think that companies like FB and Google are acting in the most socially irresponsible way imaginable. Rather than actually investing in their country (IE, find smart HS / College kids and train them) they'll go to any lengths to just import the indentured servants to do the work. The amount of money they'll spend lobbying congress to protect their supply of indentured servants .. is that greater or lesser than the cost of instituting an 'apprenticeship' type program?

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[s.petry]

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?

I'm sorry, but you point out the answer to this dilemma which you say is a different discussion. Google, Apple, Ford, GM, Amazon, etc... can all find qualified people in America. The problem is that they don't want to pay for qualified people, which is why they piss and moan about wanting more H1Bs. Which you point out results in people working for reduced wages.

Yes, I agree that race is a foolish thing to look at all things considered. Looking at wages when upper management is making billions is a very relevant issue. Especially considering the "gentleman's agreements" between Apple, Google, Facebook, et. al where they fixed wages blocked the market from working.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

But they are asking your friends to identify you from pictures...

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

In more traditional areas maybe, but frankly it really does not matter. They are incorporated in the United States and the State of California.

Under US Federal law, a company with 15 or more employees is not allowed to discriminate based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious creed, and a few others. A company with 20 or more employees is also barred from age discrimination.

http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/coverage_private.cfm

Under the laws of the State of California, an employer need only have 5 employees to be subject to anti-discrimination statutes.

California Government Code, Title 2, 7286.5(a)

If an American company goes to China, the EU, or wherever else, they are expected to follow all local laws and regulations, are they not? Yahoo France can't just decide they don't like some new French law and decide that they're going to follow US law in France. Why should it be any different here? If a company wishes to do business in the US, it is expected to follow all applicable federal laws and regulations, as well as those in whatever state(s) it operates.

ASUS Computer International is headquartered at 800 Corporate Way in Fremont, California, United States of America (https://www.google.com/maps/@37.498806,-121.928415,3a,75y,154.68h,91.81t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sPAdbG4x94GLnldKf8x2AYg!2e0) and has well over 20 employees, therefore it is expected to comply with applicable labor laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title 2 of the California Government Code which is designated for use by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which expressly prohibit using a person's race or color/creed/ethnicity as a determining factor in any decision relating to the terms, conditions and privileges of employment; which includes hiring and firing.

Picking the first posted job opening (http://promos.asus.com/US/Employment/0369.html) on the ASUS website, at the very bottom is: "We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer; all applicants will be given full consideration under state and federal laws." So, ASUS claims to voluntarily hold itself to anti-discrimination statutes even if it weren't already mandated to do so. Making it very difficult to reconcile how they then wound up with over 95% of their workforce being not just one race, but a narrow subset of that race. We're not talking some mom and pop store either, where the kids are press-ganged into service, we're talking a national wholesaler.

Even if we assume my friend missed a few non-Asian employees while there, it seems a little difficult to believe that anyone who isn't legally blind could manage to miss around 150 people, which would bring ASUS' demographics more in line with the demographics of the San Francisco Bay Area. It seems pretty much impossible to believe that anyone, from the low-level grunt, to any supervisors or managers who should have been given diversity training, to any HR professionals who should have learned these things before leaving college, or ASUS' general counsel who is expected to follow Rule 2-400 of the State Bar of California's Rules of Professional Conduct and compels any member of the Bar to report discrimination in a law firm, with law firm being defined so loosely as to apply to any place a lawyer may work. (http://rules.calbar.ca.gov/Rules/RulesofProfessionalConduct/CurrentRules/Rule2400.aspx) It would be plain to see to anyone simply walking through the ASUS campus that the overwhelming majority of employees were of a single race.

So, the only explanation that seems to make any logical sense, is that it was a deliberate policy on the part of ASUS to give a very strong preference towards Asian applicants. Such a policy would almost certainly be an edict from top levels of management, because the other alternative is that there is something of a conspiracy among all the hiring managers within the company to hire almost exclusively Asian applicants. Even in the latter case, HR and upper management would have to turn a deliberate blind eye to what would liter

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[TheGratefulNet]

one of your quotes is worth repeating:

Rather than actually investing in their country (IE, find smart HS / College kids and train them) they'll go to any lengths to just import the indentured servants to do the work.

this is a case where corporations are not acting out of long-term stability for the local economy and the government (yes, the big bad government) should step in and right this wrong. the business world is not going to self-govern in this regard and so someone more neutral has to do it. this IS the purpose of a government, afterall, to keep the country on track when it starts to go astray.

yet, the government, these days, is a 'shit on us and then run' kind of government. they don't care about long-term stability of the country, either! the old guys want to keep their money, die with it (or give to their kids) and hoard it all, starving the economy and bringing us all down. but ideally, its the government who SHOULD step in and rebalance what industry seems unwilling to do.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[stdarg]

if a company is systematically passing over people because they are (black, female, the wrong kind of christian, etc) - it's hard to do anything about it if they never release those stats.

Hmm I don't think so, not today anyway. Perhaps that was true a long time ago. The government already knows who works for (gets paid by) Facebook. It gets reported in W2s, 1099s, etc. They also ask your race/gender/other demographic markers on various government forms. Your driver's license and passport list some of them. So it would be pretty trivial for the government to get a good idea of it all without asking companies to keep or report their own stats.

It wouldn't necessarily give you finer grained details like how many minorities or women are in management, but you can surmise a lot of that from pay scale anyway.

For a company as big as google or facebook, that kind of thing could really put a damper in a qualified person's ability to find a job and feed their family.

No company is so big that it's a significant portion of the economy... at least in America.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[ohnocitizen]

That's a fascinating answer. I wonder if that data from the IRS is shared so that action could be taken? I imagine it isn't made public (imagine the uproar if it was) - so any sort of social pressure on companies for hiring practices wouldn't have data to go on.

No company is so big that it's a significant portion of the economy... at least in America.

- A big company hiring specialists in a field could constitute a significant portion of the market in a given city.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[ohnocitizen]

While there are a few reasons for not hiring Americans in general, and black Americans in particular -- is racism among them, considering they scour South Asia for candidates?

Sure. Someone could be racist towards a very specific group of people, vs racist in general.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[radarskiy]

"If google and facebook could find qualified black (or American employees in general) employees, wouldn't they do that rather than importing people"

a) Black Americans are not just black, they are American so they do not have the specter of their visa being pulled and are likely more familiar with American law.
b) You have assumed rational non-racist business decision and used that to prove their their business decision is rational and not racist. This is a great example of the original meaning of "begging the question".

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[wed128]

The excuse for the H1-B visa is that you can't find anyone to do that work.

This is not entirely untrue -- Where I live, it's really hard to find competent engineers. Many people graduating college are simply not qualified to do many of these jobs that foreigners are imported for.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[strikethree]

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?

To paraphrase Peter Griffin: The only color that matters is green.

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[russbutton]

What about all the older engineers who are out of work?

One of the problems in tech work is that the tools and technology we use keep changing so fast, it's very, very difficult to stay current. Companies don't provide training for their workers any more either. So workers tend to get used and thrown away when their skill sets are no longer relevant.

I used to work at macys.com. I was pidgeon-holed doing one thing - building Linux systems using kickstart. I wanted to grow my skill set at the time and get into working with puppet, but they said they instead wanted to bring in someone with puppet experience instead of giving me a chance to do the work myself. That's about the time I started my job search to go elsewhere. Got a $15k pay raise out of it too.

Age discrimination is more pervasive than even gender and race discrimination. Just you wait and see for yourself...

Re:Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[wed128]

I currently interview for engeering positions. We get *very* few older applicants. I'm not sure i believe all of these

older engineers who are out of work

exist. At the very least, I haven't seen their resumes.

In my experience, competent engineers tend to have jobs.

Doesn't want the public to know how many H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't want the public to be able to see how many Indians and other H1Bs he employs.

"We need more STEM majors!" What a crock of shit.

Re:Doesn't want the public to know how many H1Bs

[wiredlogic]

H1B jobs are all publicly disclosed. You can search for them and see what areas of expertise "can't" be fulfilled by domestic workers.

Diversity at all costs!

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Diversity at all costs!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

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?

That seems rather pissed off.

Still, there is an Emperor's New Clothes aspect to diversity. "Can't you see its value? Can't you?. Only the uncouth cannot see this!"

First came Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. Then came court rulings limiting the latter to redressing specific past infirmities and somesuch.

So we need a new reason for affirmative action which works around the Constitution. Enter Diversity. "But this will only work if we all agree to ignore the real reason and assign astounding value-judgement importance to Diversity! All together now! Let's have incoming freshmen write odes to Diversity!"

Well, as importance goes, it's still a fat king striding pompously and ass naked.

Grow balls and state you want affirmative action back.

In many cases this is the same naked king who, for decades, explains hopelessly underprepared sports students in colleges by stating, with a straight face, "We are all about not the most intelligent, but the most capable, so we reserve 1% of the student openings for stellar people in other areas besides academics (like football and basketball.)".

Again, grow balls and admit it's a for-profit, professional enterprise.

90 Percent Indian

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly H1-B, with a few fraudsters here on the wrong visa. Facebook doesn't want this data to get out because it will very clearly illustrate their discriminatory hiring practices, and will make class action lawsuits against them much, much easier.

Re:90 Percent Indian

[Your.Master]

The number of H1-B employees is a matter of public record:

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa...

Facebook has 6818 employees. As you can see, there is no way for things to be mostly H1B, although H1B hiring has picked up recently (probably just because Facebook has grown).

almighty

[watcher-rv4]

Call NSA and ask them, they probably know the numbers.

Ugg the diversity brigade strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

So glad my work doesnt hire any niggers. I couldnt stand working with those tar monkeys.

Utter Hypocrisy

[MildlyTangy]

This is no less than utter hypocrisy by Facebook.
Its all ok to share and data mine hundreds of millions of facebook users, but its not ok to do the same for their employees.

hypocrisy [hi-pok-ruh-see]
noun, plural hypocrisies.
1. Facebook.

Re:Utter Hypocrisy

[BronsCon]

Uhm... you don't see the difference between sharing data you collect with the understanding that it won't be shared and sharing data that people provide you specifically with the intent that you will share it? Wow.

Re:Utter Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, is the data Facebook collected on us data that won't be shared? I find that hard to believe, considering all their previous business practices.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of at least one Jew.

I have the racial data right here.

[genner]

Racial data -> 100% human race.
Not that hard.

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you also believe there is only one race of dogs?

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there are at least a couple monkeys there too...

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[cyberspittle]

Unlikely. The human race is a mix bag. There is no data on how many humans are Homo-Sapiens or Homo-Quantum.

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe so. One race, a fuckton of breeds.

Re: I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably also worth mentioning that veterans are also included in this, as they too are a protected class it's illegal to discriminate against.

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

quantuum homos? Bisexual till observed?

Re:I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans:
kingdom: animalia
phylum: chordata
class: mammalia
order: primate
family: homindae
genus: homo
species: h. sapiens

Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sick of Jesse Jackson and all these other nut bags constantly being in the news to discuss useless topics.

It is a private company. If Facebook chooses to hire an all "white" staff, it is none of your damn business. Don't like it? Don't use Facebook.

He doesn't have a "right" to anything a private company does.

Re:Sick

[JStyle]

But FaceBook isn't a private company. Hasn't been since 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Re:Sick

[mjperson]

Actually he does have a right. He got into the shareholder's meeting by being a shareholder. It's his company too. Let him express his views to the board.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well fuck it then. If it's public, why don't you and I just move right on in to Zuck's office. We own it right?

Re:Sick

[Your.Master]

If Facebook chooses to hire an all "white" staff, it is none of your damn business. Don't like it? Don't use Facebook.

That's not a choice he has, because he doesn't know if Facebook is hiring an (essentially) all-white staff, because that's not disclosed.

I'm undecided on whether companies should have to disclose this, leaning toward no, they shouldn't, because in theory employees shouldn't have to disclose this information to Facebook itself (even if in many cases it's visibly obvious), so it shouldn't necessarily be possible for Facebook to furnish this information.

But you kind of made a good argument for "these other nut bags" because they literally can't just not use these companies if they don't like their hiring practices because they don't get to know the hiring practices.

Re:Sick

[Virtucon]

You mean let him express his views that only benefit his rainbow push coalition and his own endeavors? He's an extortionist, plain and simple with a long history of condemning businesses over racial issues and once they pay him off, he shuts up and supports them. Funny how that works. There's an excellent book on the subject.

Re:Sick

[Mr. Slippery]

If Facebook chooses to hire an all "white" staff, it is none of your damn business.

Facebook is a corporation, an entity created by government fiat. I don't think the government should create racists.

Re:Sick

[BronsCon]

Moreso, if a company is run by someone racist enough to hire only whites, why would you want to work for them, anyway? I mean, even if you're white, unless you're racist, why would you want to work for them? And if you're not, you really shouldn't want your labor to line their pockets.

Re:Sick

[volmtech]

Uh, because you don't care to be around them either? I worked at a site where a major defense company built things. The area population was ~30% black, less than 1% of workers were. Some how few made it through the hiring process. Affirmative action is kind of ignored when you are making things that fly.

Re:Sick

[stdarg]

While you're probably correct in your interpretation of what "Don't like it? Don't use Facebook." refers to, there is the possibility that OP was referring to the "it is none of your damn business" part. In which case, his argument makes sense and does not go in favor of "these other nut bags" as you concluded.

Re:Sick

[BronsCon]

Okay, so if you're a racist white guy you might want to work for a company run by a bunch of racist white guys; I'd say ya got me there, but I actually already addressed that point.

And affirmative action should be ignored anywhere the client or customer must instill blind faith in the abilities of your team; not because minorities aren't capable, but because if you're going to hire a member of a minority group, it should be because they're qualified, not because you have a seat to fill and the law says you have to. Hiring anyone, minority or otherwise, for any other reason only serves to ensure that your customers can't trust your people.

Re:Sick

[ganjadude]

facebook came about without the government. no facebook was not created by the government. And once again, simply having an all white (or black or mexican) workforce != racist

Re:Racism is wrong, but Affirmative Action is righ

[Anonymous Coward]

It is wrong for you to discriminate based on race, but it is ok if I do it because I said so!

This is correct. Its the same that If a non-white person calls me a honky, its racist. If i call another white person a honky its not racist because im white*.
This is how the world works. In the same way, it is perfectly OK for a black person to call himself or other black people ni****s, but it is in no way OK for anybody else to call them that. Hip hop music and African American culture teaches us this.

PS. please be aware that i am in no way proud to be white as that is clearly racist and evil. I only feel guilt for being born white and I am very very sorry for being born this way. Please forgive me for the sins of my race.

But they share so much already

[MrKaos]

Facebook, give and give and give data away and people want them to share more. Poor widdle facebwook!

Yes, I am being sarcastic.

Is that in the US (likely) or over all?

[cyberspittle]

How much of the US work force is US citizen? Of that US citizen component in US, how much is African-American? I suspect that there are more Africans (with VISA, etc.) than African-Americans (US born). Technology is all about disruption of society. Overseas is cheap underpaid workforce where there are no labor laws (if any) that are followed (unlikely). Let's get some numbers! If companies catered to students like NFL/MLB/NBA did for college+high scholl atheletes, we would have more talented and qualified US work force. But then again, it is cheaper to import and underpay with visa over employee head. Should they complain, you can send them back at their own expense (yes it happens).

Re:Is that in the US (likely) or over all?

[Virtucon]

From the 2010 US Census:

The Black or African-American
alone population was 38.9 million
and represented 13 percent of the
total population.

God Damn It, Zuckerberg

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why everybody hates Jews.

99.985% normal people

[Anonymous Coward]

0.015% big giant asshole

** (based on 6818 employees as reported in january 2014 sec filings)

yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[raymorris]

On my daughter's birth certificate, I was quite tempted to enter it as "who cares, what year is it, 1814?"

When Milan gets older and asks whether she's white, black, or Mexican, I may tell her "you are Milan, that's all. You're not a group, you are you."
If she presses me, asking where her great-great-grandparents lived, they honest answer is "A lot of places, I don't know them all. Probably some in Jamaica, some either Ireland, Scotland, or both, some in Texas somewhere , but maybe that part of Texas was Mexico at the time."

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Maxo-Texas]

And what if Milan is turned down for jobs based on her appearance or gender?

Does her race matter then?

Going forward, whites are just as likely to suffer racial discrimination.

There are many construction companies where you can't get a job unless you are hispanic. It's not about the pay. It's not about your skills. It's not whether you can speak spanish.

It's flat out because a "white" won't "fit in" with a hispanic crew.

There is a reason we made that kind of behavior illegal to begin with.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Threni]

> When Milan gets older and asks whether she's white, black, or Mexican, I may tell
> her "you are Milan, that's all. You're not a group, you are you."

"Dad, do you want me to get this passport or not?".
"Put white."

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if Milan is turned down for jobs based on her appearance or gender?

Does her race matter then?

Ok, I'll bite. No, her race still won't matter.

I now await your reply explaining why my response is "hypocritical", because I am genuinely curious why you seem to think it is.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[ILongForDarkness]

Of course if the country (I use country generically I'm not in the US but have similar demographics issues) enforced immigration policy And mandated minimum English skills as a requisite to immigrating perhaps we wouldn't be in the situation where industries are dominated by migrant labor that can't communicate with the majority of the population. Having a preferred language outside the norm is one thing, being incapable of communicating unless government services are supplied in every language under the sun is a different thing.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Maxo-Texas]

I can't explain why you feel how you feel. It's enough that you thought about it.

And I don't think your current response is hypocritical.

If she is discriminated against and gets upset and you act differently- then your response will be hypocritical.

Some people will turn the other cheek to people who are killing them. I can respect that.

You may have ideals that make you feel race or sex discrimination are permissible or should be tolerated for some reason.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Maxo-Texas]

As I said, it has nothing to do with the ability to speak the language. You can be fluent. It doesn't matter.

Anti-discrimination laws are not equally enforced against minorities and they discriminate like hell. They don't even think of it as discrimination or that they are doing anything wrong because they are not called on it so they don't even have to consider it.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[hsthompson69]

I actually fought for both of my daughters to be listed as "human" - but was told that it wasn't allowed because it was facetious.

I was never more sincere about something in my life.

In the end, I chose "decline to state", because multi-racial was limited to only 3 choices maximum - as if there was some upper limit on how many different countries your ancestors could come from.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Anonymous Coward]

raymorris stated that he is teaching his daughter that race does not matter.

You presented a scenario where it seemed to be implied that maintaining that stance (that race does not matter) would make raymorris a hypocrite.

Now that you have stated that maintaining that stance does not make them a hypocrite... I am now totally confused as to what the point of your post was supposed to be.

You may have ideals that make you feel race or sex discrimination are permissible or should be tolerated for some reason.

I don't know how you managed to come to that conclusion. All I said in regard to your first post was that race still does not matter. I did not address the obviously wrong appearance/gender discrimination at all.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[ColdSam]

You presented a scenario where it seemed to be implied that maintaining that stance (that race does not matter) would make raymorris a hypocrite.

No, he didn't.

I am now totally confused as to what the point of your post was supposed to be.

Correction, you were confused the whole time. Maxo's point was quite clear.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Maxo-Texas]

Perhaps you are confused because I said "appearance" instead of "race."

I was not saying it was because she was ugly or fat. I'm saying it is because she appeared of a particular racial group and the target company/manager/owner didn't want to her people of that racial group. This still happens and it happens to all races now.

I was presenting a scenario where she was turned down for a job because of her race and it was clear (perhaps because of a stupid interviewer or because of the staff being 100% of one race) that it was because of her race.

If that were to occur, I was asking would the parent still say on principle that race didn't (or at least shouldnt') matter and would ignore rather than try to address the discrimination. And further, would the parent even feel race shouldn't matter and that the matter should be ignored.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You say 'Going forward, whites are just as likely to suffer racial discrimination.'
' ..this is absurd. Racial discrimination requires power so 'just as likely' is absurd. This is the basis of the claim that it is mostly whites who can be racist i.e. to be racist requires an attitude AND power. Even if some Blacks had the attitude they don't have the power. Where people have the power, such as employers ...all you need to prove to the court is the attitude. If they don't have the power ..case closed..nothing to answer!

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Maxo-Texas]

First, I think you are not up birth rates and the projected racial mixes in the very near future in the united states (and other countries as well).

And hispanics own a lot of businesses and are already discriminating.

And there are plenty of non caucasians in positions of power at many businesses.

And there are plenty of women in positions of power at many businesses.

I've seen members of both these groups abuse their power first hand.

While under represented in the boardroom, hispanics, blacks and asians make up a third of the executive and supervisory employees. They have the power to hire, fire, promote, decide what work you get, protect their friends and fire their enemies. I've seen pretty extraordinary discrimination (like the black female executive who only hired and promoted black female managers) which would have gotten a white male manager sensitivity training and a lawsuit.

Whites and Asians are no longer having children at a replacement rate (1.8). Blacks are having children slightly over replacement rate (2.1) and hispanics are having about two and a half children per pair. In 35 years, whites will be a minority group.

I think you are not really considering the way trends are flowing and the way the law is enforced (i.e. unequally).

I'm out of the game myself- retired a year ago. Glad I made it.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you are confused because I said "appearance" instead of "race."

Yeah, that clears it up a bit. I thought maybe you meant "she was discriminated against based on Criteria's A and/or B, so does Criteria C matter now?" As in, does the wrong of being discriminated against based on Criteria's A and/or B justify the wrong of forcing the employer to hire by playing the Criteria C card.

I was presenting a scenario where she was turned down for a job because of her race and it was clear (perhaps because of a stupid interviewer or because of the staff being 100% of one race) that it was because of her race.

In that case, it matters, and yet it doesn't. Or maybe I should say "the employer made it matter, where it never should have mattered". But that does not mean I would play the Race Card, which is what I think of when someone says "does her race matter now?".

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You presented a scenario where it seemed to be implied that maintaining that stance (that race does not matter) would make raymorris a hypocrite.

No, he didn't.

Emphasis mine. Had I left off the "seemed to be", you'd have been correct to say "no he didn't". But because I added it, your post makes no sense. Unless you'd like to argue what I was thinking at the time. Which that might actually be kind of amusing to see you try.
Me: "I saw what looked like a dog."
You: "No you didn't!"
Me: "Oh wow, a mind reader! Hey everyone! This guy can read minds! Quick, tell me what I'm thinking now!"
You: "Uh..."

I am now totally confused as to what the point of your post was supposed to be.

Correction, you were confused the whole time. Maxo's point was quite clear.

1) Nice quote-mining! You completely left off the crucial "Now that you have stated that maintaining that stance does not make them a hypocrite..", making it appear as if I wasn't actually listening to Maxo!
2) So it's "quite clear", yet all you seem to be able to do is chastise me for misunderstanding. Interesting...

Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Bullshit is what you were saying.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.. you should see the amount of affirmative action that goes on at the law school I attended (somebody accidentally shared a spreadsheet he shouldn't have). The grandparent poster is on the mark. Would you really trust a black doctor who was a quota admit to med school?

Better you than me.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

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.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[Webcommando]

The grandparent poster is on the mark. Would you really trust a black doctor who was a quota admit to med school?

Better you than me.

I don't know... did he or she take all the same class work as the other students? Did he or she pass the courses with sufficient grades to graduate? Did he or she successfully complete their residency? Did he or she pass the medical boards?

If yes, then I would. If they are competent and can demonstrate mastery of their craft, why would you not trust them?

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

+5, Insightful and no flames or accusations? Slashdot, you have truly blown me away! I try not to be a cynic, but it's not often I can put as much effort and thought into a post here and actually be rewarded for it. Thank you, Slashdot, for restoring a little bit of my faith in humanity.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[VortexCortex]

White Males make up 77% of the USA. Is any company with less than this percentage racist? Affirmative Action: Utterly bogus.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

Uhm... check your math, please. It's wrong, and that's a good thing. As a heterosexual male, I would be quite disappointed to live somewhere where 77% of the population was male; but then, since you're stating that 77% of the population is both male and white, that would place the male portion of the population somewhere north of 77%, would it not? To some, that would be a utopia; and more power to those people; but that's A) not for me and B) not even remotely accurate.

Just sayin'.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[bytesex]

77% of the USA is white male? That seems a bit unlikely.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[laddiebuck]

You're making a basic fallacy, and I am amazed that though you have given the matter enough thought to come up with your above rant, you have not discovered it.

Affirmative action only matters at admissions, not further. Whether a minority student is accepted to a medical school or law school or whatever to fill a quota, they will come out the other end of that program unless they pass the highly rigorous standards. A medical student cannot be certified in the US without passing all 3 steps of the USMLE, and a residency. So you can trust your doctor or your lawyer, whatever their race. They earned their spot, and quotas didn't matter a damn when they had to sit their exams.

Having those quotas in place is great, because it undoes generations' worth of racism that today manifests itself in socio-economic status. Affirmative action is actively trying to undo all the harm that racism and segregation have done in the past. If you are born African-American or Hispanic, you are likely to be born poorer. The police will treat you differently. Doors will be closed to you that are not to Caucasians. We need programs like Affirmative Action in place to undo all the harm that has been caused and continues to be caused.

And out on the job market? You think race doesn't matter, and that it's all academic. Well there are countless studies that have shown that the same resume will get treated differently if submitted under a different name - a "white-sounding" name will get a lot more calls back than a "black-sounding". Extremely so - sometimes the black names (again, same resumes) will get no calls back for 15 calls back for white names.

Racism is unfortunately well alive. Today it is mostly subconscious but it is still really harmful. From the fact that you gave this matter enough thought to come up with your rant above, and yet not discover the basic logical fallacy in it, though you seem otherwise intelligent, makes me think you have quite a bit of subconscious racism left too. It's okay if you do, many people do, especially if they are of the privileged class and never have to question their assumptions, or have cause to notice how all the doors that were open for them are not open for the unprivileged in their society. But the first step to fixing it is realizing it.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's correct. We are worth, like, 5 of any other race/gender. So we get counted 5x.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[ganjadude]

because it undoes generations' worth of racism that today manifests itself in socio-economic status.

One could also argue that it breeds even more racism. Think about it. If you were the 5th best to pass the entrance exam, and they are taking 5 people total thats great right? well unless you are a white male, then instead of taking the top 5, they take the top 2, 12th 27th and 35th, taking the first woman, latino and black person, eventhough you scored higher than them, you dont get the job or promotion due to the new systematic racism (AKA affirmative action) That might make you feel a little racist towards those groups based on that experience. This is an experience felt by quite a few people these days

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

Affirmative action only matters at admissions, not further. Whether a minority student is accepted to a medical school or law school or whatever to fill a quota, they will come out the other end of that program unless they pass the highly rigorous standards. A medical student cannot be certified in the US without passing all 3 steps of the USMLE, and a residency. So you can trust your doctor or your lawyer, whatever their race. They earned their spot, and quotas didn't matter a damn when they had to sit their exams.

Sure, they'll pass, but let's say they got into Harvard but they were certainly not Harvard material, much less driven than their peers, much lower GPA than the average Harvard student, but they happen to be a minority with the money to cover tuition and hey, we've got this seat to fill. So they get into Harvard, do the minimum to get their degree, and hey, this other student who also happens to be of a minority race has always gotten straight A's, is extremely driven, and graduated from Harvard at the top of their class. Well, tell me, since both have Harvard degrees, how do I tell them apart? Both minorities, one accepted on their merits, one accepted to fill a seat, both passing the courses and getting a degree, one at the top (because they were there on their merits and were actually driven) and one just barely (because they actually shouldn't have been there). But they both have the same degree.

Having those quotas in place is great, because it undoes generations' worth of racism that today manifests itself in socio-economic status. Affirmative action is actively trying to undo all the harm that racism and segregation have done in the past. If you are born African-American or Hispanic, you are likely to be born poorer. The police will treat you differently. Doors will be closed to you that are not to Caucasians. We need programs like Affirmative Action in place to undo all the harm that has been caused and continues to be caused.

We need something, I'm not saying we don't. Damage has been done and yes, it needs to be repaired. Affirmative action is not the answer, though. Seriously, think about it; why force a racist white guy to hire a minority employee he's just going to treat poorly, when there are plenty of non-racist businesses out there who would love to hire them and treat them well? They get that job and, oh, hey, the job market's tough, right? They put up with the abuse and never discover the companies that would treat them right and pay them what they're worth. Because of this, Affirmative action perpetuates racism, causing more damage, rather than repairing it.

And out on the job market? You think race doesn't matter, and that it's all academic. Well there are countless studies that have shown that the same resume will get treated differently if submitted under a different name - a "white-sounding" name will get a lot more calls back than a "black-sounding". Extremely so - sometimes the black names (again, same resumes) will get no calls back for 15 calls back for white names.

I never said race doesn't matter. Clearly, while I took the time to think about this and write those thoughts here, for you to read (thank you for acknowledging that, by the way), you didn't take the time to read and process all I have written. Go back and read my 7th paragraph again; I'd quote it here, but I'm trying to keep clear in my reply, here, who said what, and quoting myself would break that.

Racism is unfortunately well alive. Today it is mostly subconscious but it is still really harmful. From the fact that you gave this matter enough thought to come up with your rant above, and yet not discover the basic logical fallacy in it, though you seem otherwise intelligent, makes me think you have quite a bit of subconscious racism left too. It's okay if you do, many people do, especially if they are of the privileged class and never have to question their assumptions, or hav

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

Wow, you can tell I didn't proofread this one... sorry for the typos. I'm sure you can figure out what I meant to type.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[BronsCon]

Okay, now that is funny.

Funny ....

[Anonymous Coward]

They share everyone else's information quite freely.

Amazing how they're so tight lipped with their own data.

One might think Zuckerberg is an asshole or something.

Sick of "equal opportunity" racism

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting as AC to protect the innocent.

I have interviewed a lot of people for software engineer, being an engineer myself. I usually give the people a problem to solve and ask a few technical questions. It is _hard_ to find talented people for software engineer. When you interview someone, you connect with people that know their stuff, share knowledge with you, and communicate well, way past the gender or color of the skin.

Heck, the only time I have cared about race is when I am instructed by my managers to try to get minorities because we don't have enough of them. I say ok, and go on operating exactly as if this was never said to me.

By the way, I am in a minority myself, and I felt like crap when they said this to me. I felt that I was hired not because I was good at what I do but some superficial bs like where I was born.

Re:Sick of "equal opportunity" racism

[BronsCon]

Hey! Any chance you can give your input on this post? I posted in terms of "black" and "white" because that's what most racists understand, but the post really applies unilaterally.

Full disclosure: I'm asking because you appear to be qualified to give your honest viewpoint on my comment. Your qualifications? Ironically, being a minority.

Re: yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good work. Set her up to be another rootless cosmopolitan drone.

Jesse Jackson is a racist, plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

He just wants something to show that FB is against African-Americans or have some fuel to add to a fire of his. Perhaps JJ needs to focus on educating and helping those people in impoverished areas to come up out of those terrible situations they grow up in and so rarely come out of than trying to see if some other group beside himself is racist.

Re: yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is "wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Only whites can be racist. Jesse jacskson al Sharpton said so

investigate!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Senator Elizabeth Warren should chair an inquiry into this matter, I really do.

Jesse Jackson?

[Charliemopps]

You had me until Jesse Jackson got involved. That guy is a crook and an extortionist. Usually he's only interested in how diverse your company is until you donate to his rainbow push coalition. Suddenly it doesn't matter if you're diverse after that.

Re:Jesse Jackson?

[gmhowell]

Is this guy still relevant? I guess he hasn't heard, we have a black president. This guy needs to just retire because all he does is try to get people to kiss his ass.

Actually, Jesse has heard of Barack Obama. I believe his response at the news was "I want to cut his nuts off"

Re:Jesse Jackson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another 1 line fart from gmhowell!

Jesse Jackson?

[Virtucon]

Is this guy still relevant? I guess he hasn't heard, we have a black president. This guy needs to just retire because all he does is try to get people to kiss his ass.

Re:Racism is wrong, but Affirmative Action is righ

[Anonymous Coward]

PS. please be aware that i am in no way proud to be white as that is clearly racist and evil. I only feel guilt for being born white and I am very very sorry for being born this way. Please forgive me for the sins of my race

Alright, you dang honky.

Throw Zuck in jail

[El Rey]

We need to start holding actual people accountable. You break the law you go to jail or you pay a big fine per day until you comply, just like they do for other offenses. This selective enforcement stuff is BS.

Re:Throw Zuck in jail

[TheGratefulNet]

the ruling class don't go to jail.

I have the racial data right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be too sure. I imagine the reluctance stems largely from the embarrassment it would cause when the paperwork shows a percentage of "Anthropomorphic advanced tactical intelligence gathering probes from Zeta Reticuli" corresponding to exactly one employee.

H1-B Indians count as a minority

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason is that H1-B Indians count as a minority (like African Americans), simple as that.

Re:H1-B Indians count as a minority

[hambone142]

The term "African American" is a joke. It refers to a geography not a race. I guess Elon Musk is "African American" because he came from South Africa and immigrated eventually to the U.S.

Re:H1-B Indians count as a minority

[TheGratefulNet]

that reminds me of a south african (white) who came to the US and wrote his race down as african-american. well, he was born in africa and he relocated to america...

but what a big stir it caused when he listed himself that way.

(this was a few decades ago, fwiw)

It was inevitable

[Brett Buck]

When a new company makes a splash, they can expect a visit from the Jesse Jacksons of the world, running their usual shakedown.

insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the #€"#€# does it matter what race or gender the employees are?
I'm pretty sure they hire the most qualified.

I had to teach my child her race. Who's stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

This thread is going to be mostly about white male suburbanites complaining that race is irrelevant. Because when you're not part of the target group, it's easy to pretend nobody's being targeted. Little lily white girls don't have to suck off cops to keep themselves from being raped.

My daughter had to be taught that when a cop asks her for her papers, visa, green card etc. she is to say "I am an American citizen, and I don't need any papers, and my daddy knows your boss". Not because my daughter's Mexican (she isn't) but because she looks like she might be. If your daughter's less than lily white, you might want to re-evaluate your position. Reality doesn't bow to your philosophy.

Google.Facebook.No highly staffed CS call centers.

[wjcofkc]

I would believe that neither company employs a substantial amount of African Americans. Why? Neither company has vast, low wage customer service call centers. Hence the reluctance to release numbers. If you don't have much experience working in customer service call centers, your first instinct is going to be to mod me down (understandably). If you do have a fair amount of experience working in low-wage CS call centers, you completely understand what I am talking about. I myself (unfortunately) do have quite a lot of experience working in customer service call centers, and have often been one of very few white people in a sea of African Americans as well as a lot women. The truth is, most large tech related companies hire some of amount of minorities and women. But when you look at the whole of the company, you quickly realize that minorities are routinely hired into marginalized positions, even when they are highly qualified sometimes even with a college degree. It's exclusive, but if you have seen it, you get what I mean.

And the NBA got an A+ for racial ... equality .?.

[Anonymous Coward]

NBA Players

For the 2011-2012 season, 82 percent of the NBA’s players were people of color, decreasing by one
percentage point from last season. The percentage of African-American players in the league remained
constant from the 2010-2011 season at 78 percent. Latino players comprised three percent of all NBA
players, dropping one percentage point from last season. Both Asian players and players categorized as
other races decreased to less than one percent of all players. The percentage of white NBA players
increased to 18 percent for the 2011-2012 season. This is a one percentage point increase from the
2010-2011 NBA season, in which the lowest percentage of white NBA players was recorded since the
Racial and Gender Report Card began reporting the composition of the NBA teams.

International players comprised 17 percent of the NBA’s players during the 2011-2012 season,
remaining constant from last season. This remains the lowest percentage of international players since
the 2003-2004 season.
NBA Grade for Players:
Race: A+

Source: http://www.tidesport.org/RGRC/2012/2012_NBA_RGRC[1].pdf

Or maybe, in general, white guys just suck at basketball compared to black guys? I guess it is a general rule that there are always exceptions to general rules. I'd like to see additional emphasis on red-haired Asians in the NBA!

We need black-only firms, I guess

[gelfling]

Maxine won't be happy until we bring back separate but equal

Re:We need black-only firms, I guess

[stdarg]

I guess you're being sarcastic, but "separate but equal" is absolutely fine. The Supreme Court was incorrect when they ruled that separate but equal was inherently unequal, whether in education or any other government service. For instance, last I checked, government buildings still have separate but equal bathrooms for men and women.

More seriously, gender-segregated education is being experimented with in public schools (e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...). I don't see a reason why race-segregated education (or anything else) would be morally or legally worse. But of course it's seen as worse for some reason.

Employer Does Not Know

[JimSadler]

In all seriousness if an employer operates without prejudice they may be unaware of the race, sex or ethnic group of employees either individually or in total. Should an employer send someone around to ask Juan whether he is from Portugal or Some Spanish nation? Should he ask Juan if he is really a male or a female or transgender person? How about asking if Juan is a Jew or a Catholic? And if Juan looks black but has white grandparents and one white parent he can define himself anyway he likes as there is no official standard for what black means. In small companies the employer may know these things due to close contact with employees. But in large companies or companies that hire work at home people they may have no clue about any of these things .Isn't asking those types of questions an illegal invasion of privacy in itself? What's next? Should employers ask for proof of such questions? How about drop your pants Juan I want to make certain you are a male? You just know that some very dumb employers will find ways to screw up in reporting this stuff.

Africans are too stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

... hence Google can't afford to hire too many of them, or their business will suffer.

Who, exactly, decided we have to have NON-WHITES in any company? Why don't those poor, hard done by non-whites go and live IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES, with THEIR OWN KIND? Oh, wait... that would be just awful, wouldn't it... I can't imagine why.

Re:Google.Facebook.No highly staffed CS call cente

[markdavis]

>"very few white people in a sea of African Americans"

Or "very few European Americans in a sea of black people"

If we are going to be PC, then term equality would be nice instead of having just one be "special".

Facebook should be asked about it's employees ages

[Anonymous Coward]

Given Zuckerberg's apparent disdain for older workers (“I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,” Facebook’s CEO said at Stanford University in 2007. “Young people are just smarter.”), I want to know how many people over 30 work there. I'd also like to know if he's noticed himself getting dumber in the years since he made that statement.

Re:Google.Facebook.No highly staffed CS call cente

[Anonymous Coward]

I would believe that neither company employs a substantial amount of African Americans. Why? Neither company has vast, low wage customer service call centers.

Facebook has call centers? Surprising, I thought they didn't have phone support at all. Call them at 650-543-4800 and see for yourself.

Google definitely has large call centers in the Philippines, I've had to call them many times. I don't know if they are Google employees or an outsourced provider (probably the latter).

What race do you want to be today?

[John Jorsett]

Given that gender identity is now apparently whatever the individual says it is when it comes to bath- and locker-room assignments, should we all be asked to pick the race we feel most simpatico with and be that for reporting purposes?

The last few mortgages I refinanced, I took note that the paperwork said that if I didn't disclose my race the broker would do it for me and put that on the form in my stead. So now any time I have to put down my race, I pick one at random. Since I have no idea what's back there in my ancestry, all possibilities are in play and one choice is as good as another.

Likely sexist and racist.

[serviscope_minor]

Reasoning as follows:

A trade secret is by defintion a piece of knowledge inbuing a competitive advantage. This means they have a piece of knowledge about gender and race which they believe gives them a competitive advantage.

IOW either they are sexist/racist or everyone else is.

In the latter case, they'd almost certainly crow about it for the good publicity, because few people object when it turns out a company is a great place.

So the most likely explanation is that they are making hiring decisions based on gender and race.

Ridiculous

[AbRASiON]

Who gives a damn how your workforce is made up, white, yellow, red, pink, blue - male / female / whatever. I don't care if it's a transgender wombat, as long as it's the right person / creature to do the job.

Re:Ridiculous

[TheGratefulNet]

the flaw is that they don't hire based on ability anymore.

if the group is 90% indian, guess who will get the next job in that group?

this is the new reality and unless there is a move to fix it, it won't fix itself!

"he's not a cultural fit" is the PC term but we all know what it really means.

Of course you feel this way.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet you're white.

Positive discrimination is still discrimination

[shm]

I'm not white, but I've worked in white dominated companies which have declined into obscurity thanks to their "progressive policies" of positive discrimination towards minorities.

It's hard to prove bias, but when you work in a place where over the years the upper echelon is filled replaced with visibly incompetent people, correlated with a decline in the company's revenue, it makes you wonder why the best *person* for the job wasn't chosen.

Oh wait, we lost a law suit in 1984 so we need to fix this right now by promoting any token candidate that we have. /rant

I don't care if Zuckerface shares his data...

[n6kuy]

... I care he shares my data.

Not bad for a first guess. Want to guess again?

[raymorris]

> This thread is going to be mostly about white male suburbanites complaining that race is irrelevant.

Not bad for your first guess. Want to try again, or would you likea hint?

Just scum the lot of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just money grabbers, Wonder if money grubbing is going to be so cool when a country like China starts grabbing the lion share?

Re:I had to teach my child her race. Who's stupid?

[hsthompson69]

Actually, the ones with the most to complain about in this whole mess are recent asian immigrants who didn't have a damn thing to do with slavery, but are now being quota-ed out of universities because they work hard, and end up over-represented in high test scores.

It's funny how the collateral damage of the victimhood mentality that demonizes whites ends up affecting a racial group that was legally discriminated against all the way up till 1952 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952)

Funny how if you're a dark Okinawan with good test scores, you get shafted by some light skinned mulatto because they want to stick it to some lily white guy in a picture from 150 years ago.

she's boring

[Wikipedia]

Anyone else find Sheryl Sandberg boring? Seriously, come up with some new and interesting technology. All she ever says is "women women women blah blah blah..." and I'm all for extreme fairness: the best person to do a job is the best D*MN person to do the job! To HELL with all this "fit in with the corporate culture", that's discriminatory!

No blacks

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to know the racial make up of Silicon Valley companies?

Software engineers:

• White
• Asian (Chindian, mainly)

Janitors, kitchen staff, gardeners, and other manual labor:

• Latino

Black people? They don't really work. They sell drugs or collect welfare over in Oakland.

I'm not a racist. The world is racist. Don't shoot the messenger.

I've read this one before

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesse Jackson is on the war path because the technology industry is well paying high value jobs, and a large segment may not be African American. Its interesting though that he would start at the technology industry, and not an even higher paying industry: for example the NBA. Where is the racial diversity and ratios of numbers to population equality? Or is it just all one way?

How many black CS graduates

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal experience, there seem to be very few black CS graduate students on the typical campus. So it is only natural that a software services company would have very few black people.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is

[Anonymous Coward]

Very interesting how people from the USA think.

Whites suffer from racial discrimination? Really?

Why then you call "hispanic" to "native Americans"?

I will give you a hint, because your ancestors actually exterminated the native population and only in territories where Spain and Portugal colonized enough native Americans survived.

People from Spain are white.

In the US, only low paying jobs are dominated by "hispanics"(blue collar jobs), basically everything else is controlled by whites.

Well if they want to cook the books they can..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just classify Indians as Blacks.

Jewish management (AKA, mafia)

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Oracle, Apple, Google, and hundreds of other firms ... Zionists burrowed into the organization and took it over from within.

This is the secret they are trying to conceal.

Once this becomes known it will no longer be possible to conceal the flow of bonuses to select, favored parties - most of whom are members of the mafia.

Just because a person's last name is O'Reilly doesn't mean they aren't a member of the mafia - the only thing that counts is their mother's identity, not their father's last name.

Look for the same thing in the NSA, CIA, and FBI.

Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

They sent all their customer data instead, despite the Department of Labor begging them not to.

This is pretty obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Google, Facebook etc are now about 90% east indian scab. It's pretty obvious why they do not want this information to get out. The policy of not hiring Americans, and in particular the racist and sexist hiring patterns (Indian scabs DO NOT work with blacks or women) would be immediately obvious.

Re:yep, stupid. Teaching my kid her race is

[Maxo-Texas]

Everyone in europe (and africa, and europe, and yup, australia) today are descendents of people who repeatedly killed large numbers of people and took their land and their stuff. In particular, the people from Spain slaughtered the mayans and aztecs and took their stuff.

Try again.

Also, whites haven't "controlled everything" in the united states for a generation now. Because most whites were just and fair and agreed discrimination was wrong.

And now to the just and fair part.
IF hispanics dominate a field of low paying jobs and a white person wants to work in it and the only reason they won't hire her is because she is white. IS that fair?

If a white person is pulled over and has no insurance, they face severe penalties. Enough hispanics drive without insurance that everyone else must carry "uninsured motorist" coverage because the law isn't enforced equally on them.

I thought we were shooting for a fair and just society where race isn't a factor in your ability to get a job, a house, or how you are treated by the law, aren't we?

Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised they don't want to share that information because,
it would expose them for the trendy racist hypocrites that they really are.
I know they are racists because,
they are running a support page for the Boeremag terrorists,

  who were jailed 'cause they tried to bomb Nelson Mandela,
start a race war, drive all "non-Whites" out of the country and
then set up an all White state in South Africa.
Hypocrites because they wouldn't host a support page for Al Qaeda who is fighting the West,
yet they are still hosting one for these Boeremag terrors who are fighting Africans,
because they don't want Black rule in a Black country.
I am banned from Facebook for running this petition against their support of terrorism.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/580/770/040/facebook-stop-hosting-terrorists/
In fact Twitter banned me too and continue to send rabid rightwing racists for me to "follow".
Read more at the blog:-
http://natturner1.wordpress.com/

NEWSFLASH!

[ChoosyBeggar]

This just in: Companies don't care what color you are. Rather, they care how much profit can be gained by employing your services. That is all.

Face up Facebook

[Nat Turner]

I wouldn't be surprised they don't want to share that information because, it would expose them for the trendy racist hypocrites that they really are. I know they are racists because, they are running a support page for the Boeremag terrorists, who were jailed 'cause they tried to bomb Nelson Mandela, start a race war, drive all "non-Whites" out of the country and then set up an all White state in South Africa. Hypocrites because they wouldn't host a support page for Al Qaeda who is fighting the West, yet they are still hosting one for these Boeremag terrors who are fighting Africans, because they don't want Black rule in a Black country. I am banned from Facebook for running this petition against their support of terrorism. http://www.thepetitionsite.com... In fact Twitter banned me too and continue to send rabid rightwing racists for me to "follow". Read more at the blog:- http://natturner1.wordpress.co...

Why does the racial makeup of a company matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is absurd. Who cares what race the people who work at a particular company are. Diversity? There is no such thing. It's an absurd concept to apply artificial quotas to people. People are people. Does it matter what color they are?

Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

American affirmative action to take over tech companies. Sounds like the arrival of lots of bugs, and delayed half-assed rollouts.

Re:Racism is wrong, but Affirmative Action is righ

[Anonymous Coward]

So why bleep out "ni****s", but not "honky"? Do you feel like that word is somehow inherently more offensive?

Are you afraid of offending someone here, in an open forum on race, on the internet?

Good grief.