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FB Reveals Woeful Diversity Numbers
theodp writes: There's more work to do," said Facebook's Global Director of Diversity Maxine Williams, who issued a straight-out-of-How-to-Lie-With-Statistics diversity update on Thursday that essentially consisted of a handful of bar charts labeled with only percentages for select measures of the social networking giant's current demographics. In search of real numbers, the Guardian turned to Facebook's most recent Equal Employment Opportunity report filing, which showed that the ranks of black employees swelled by a grand total of seven (7) (1 woman) in the year covered by the filing, during which time Facebook saw an overall headcount increase of 1,231. Comparing Facebook's new bar charts of US tech employees to those issued last year shows the proportion of Hispanic and Black employees remained flat at 3% and 1% respectively, while a decline in the proportion of white employees from 53% to 51% was offset by an increase in the proportion of Asian employees from 41% to 43%.
I wonder what the demographic breakdown of people who actually apply for jobs at FB looks like? Comparing the two would be a more valid way of looking at it.
How is being able to turn your profile picture into a rainbow NOT diverse???
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Asians make up less than 6% of the population according to Google, whereas blacks are 13%. Yet the former are over 40% of the company at Facebook. If Facebook were to be made to "look like America" then a significant percentage of its labor force would have to be laid off.
There's nothing "woeful" about these numbers. They tell us nothing about qualified black and Hispanic candidates not getting jobs. Given the interest in diversity, it's perfectly reasonable to rule out the probability that there were any because the interest in diversity would have almost invariably lead to them being given hiring priority if they applied.
How about "people can do what they like and it's none of my business"? If black people/women/transexual Muslim asexuals don't want to work in STEM how about we assume they're capable enough to reach that decision on their own, without the need to engage in social engineering to correct them. Saying "gee, these black people aren't intelligent enough to figure out they should go into science, let's convince them" is just a veiled form or racism.
Anyone arguing that a quotia is needed for equality dislikes freedom.
Look: I graduated from high school in 1985- far before the intarwebs were cool. I was a geek because I *wanted* to be, societal pressures notwithstanding.
I was bullied on a daily basis. The source of the majority of this bullying was blacks. An Asian friend of mine, years later- in college- mused about his similar experience.
I guess this can go two ways:
1. Black culture can finally start to view academic accomplishment as "cool".
Or:
2. Black culture can realize that the smart kids are in charge, and they'd better adapt or learn to enjoy life in the hip-hop ghetto they've made.
Sorry. Not my monkeys, not my circus, not my problem.
2. Black culture can realize that the smart kids are in charge, and they'd better adapt or learn to enjoy life in the hip-hop ghetto they've made.
Black culture is largely a deliberately created phenomenon. Much of what you think of as modern black culture was actually guided and shaped by whites. While there are many black labels now, what music was produced was formerly controlled by whites. Which movies get made is still largely controlled by whites. The laws regarding private prisons are largely written and passed by whites. You want to blame everything wrong with black culture on the blacks but forgetting about slavery and ongoing, deliberate oppression which continues to this day is more than a bit disingenuous, isn't it? It's ignorant at best, and more than a little racist.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would find it extremely surprising, though more extremely surprising for some areas of their workforce than for others. However, the 1 woman figure is among new black employees only(of which there were only 7); not new employees workforce wide, for which TFA doesn't give a number; but provides some percentages indicating a modest increase in proportion of female workforce.
My suspicion is that facebook is doing some "good cultural fit" selection; but 1 black woman, of 7 black hires, is much more plausible than 1 woman, of 1,231 hires.
If there's some Great White Conspiracy to keep the black man down, neither I nor anyone I know are part of it. Indeed, all my cohorts (including the black ones) say the same thing- something along the lines of, "Shut up, raise your kids well, buy your beer, and don't annoy your neighbors". I don't know what's so groundbreaking about that.
I also notice that you've focussed on my second point, while ignoring the first. Care to comment? I have intimate experience, as well as reading about it all over the place- it's not a melanin thing. Black people come to the US from all over the world and do well. It's US black culture that is to blame.
Furthermore, you whipped out the "racist" card, so here we go: shut up and behave. This may take a while to result in change... but isn't this what everyone should be doing anyway?
Robert Louis Stevenson describes the White attitude towards Asians in his book "Across the Plains", his account of a train journey in America. Based on his telling, I expect that vigorous affirmative action is needed to uplift such a downtrodden ethic group.
"Despised Races
Of all stupid ill-feelings, the sentiment of my fellow Caucasians towards our companions in the Chinese car was the most stupid and the worst. They seemed never to have looked at them, listened to them, or thought of them, but hated them a priori. The Mongols were their enemies in that cruel and treacherous battle-field of money. They could work better and cheaper in half a hundred industries, and hence there was no calumny too idle for the Caucasians to repeat, and even to believe. They declared them hideous vermin, and affected a kind of choking in the throat when they beheld them. Now, as a matter of fact, the young Chinese man is so like a large class of European women, that on raising my head and suddenly catching sight of one at a considerable distance, I have for an instant been deceived by the resemblance. I do not say it is the most attractive class of our women, but for all that many a man’s wife is less pleasantly favoured. Again, my emigrants declared that the Chinese were dirty. I cannot say they were clean, for that was impossible upon the journey; but in their efforts after cleanliness they put the rest of us to shame. We all pigged and stewed in one infamy, wet our hands and faces for half a minute daily on the platform, and were unashamed. But the Chinese never lost an opportunity, and you would see them washing their feet—an act not dreamed of among ourselves—and going as far as decency permitted to wash their whole bodies. I may remark by the way that the dirtier people are in their persons the more delicate is their sense of modesty. A clean man strips in a crowded boathouse; but he who is unwashed slinks in and out of bed without uncovering an inch of skin. Lastly, these very foul and malodorous Caucasians entertained the surprising illusion that it was the Chinese waggon, and that alone, which stank. I have said already that it was the exceptions and notably the freshest of the three.
These judgments are typical of the feeling in all Western America. The Chinese are considered stupid, because they are imperfectly acquainted with English. They are held to be base, because their dexterity and frugality enable them to underbid the lazy, luxurious Caucasian. They are said to be thieves; I am sure they have no monopoly of that. They are called cruel; the Anglo-Saxon and the cheerful Irishman may each reflect before he bears the accusation. I am told, again, that they are of the race of river pirates, and belong to the most despised and dangerous class in the Celestial Empire. But if this be so, what remarkable pirates have we here! and what must be the virtues, the industry, the education, and the intelligence of their superiors at home!"
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Dice cares. Oh, and certain advocacy groups. The general population really doesn't care. Why should they? No one has yet actually demonstrated that this is a problem and anyone is being denied opportunity.
We have an every other hire must not be a white male [policy?]
Wow, so it's a good thing that in today's PC society, I can "identify" as a 28 year old female of color, with 30 years of industry experience the next time I apply for a job. That will increase my chances, because, as a 50 something year old white guy, I am screwed.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I like how Asians are simply assigned Honorary White People status when they don't fit the narrative.
I was talking about this to my girlfriend who is a dental assistant and I explained it this way. I first asked her how many male dental assistants she has worked with in her 10 years or so of working in that field. She said two, both gay. I then asked her what she would do if the media / government suddenly insisted that she hates men since there aren't any on the job and that she had better bring that up to a 50% ratio quickly. I asked her what she would do. She said that there wasn't any way, men didn't apply for the job. That made my point. I have another family member who is a speech pathologist, same issue - no men apply. Until these cases are addressed this is just another witch hunt.
They come here, work 16 hour days often living with 5 other families living in a studio apartment. They work hard, they learn a skill, they learn a new language and are succeeding beyond anything that could have been hoped for in their homeland. They know what hard work is and to get things they must work for them through adversity.
Now their precious snowflake knows none of these things. She watches tv and sees people driving in Lamborghinis and living in beachfront houses Malibu and knows nothing about their background, but thinks her parents are losers for not having a car and living with other losers. She knows she deserves something better. All of her friends are in exactly the same position.
Meanwhile, she isn't doing her homework and when my girlfriend would talk to the parents at conferences it usually went:we try to make her study, but snowflake threatens to report us and have us deported. Snowflake and her friend knows they'll never have to work as hard as their parents but deserve a lot more because everyone else.
I live a short distance outside Detroit. Come take a drive with me some afternoon and I'll introduce you to countless examples. I'm a professional blues guitarist and regularly live, work, and eat with black people and have for decades, and have dated a number of black women over the years as well, many with children. It's a result of the culmination of decades of cultural and social messages blacks receive their entire lives from government entitlement programs, affirmative action laws & policies, schools/colleges, music/media/mainstream news, and their peers.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.