Uber Faces Engineers' Lawsuit Alleging Gender, Race Bias (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Uber was sued by three Latina engineers who claim the company pays women and people of color less than their peers and doesn't promote them as frequently as males, whites and Asians. The three women from the ride-hailing company, one of whom still works there, accused Uber of violating California's Equal Pay Act in a complaint filed Tuesday in San Francisco state court on behalf of all engineers similarly held back. The women filed the complaint under a state statute that gives employees the right to step into the shoes of the state labor secretary to bring enforcement actions. That law also may give them a way around a provision in Uber's contracts requiring workplace disputes to go through one-on-one arbitration instead of as group actions in court. "Female employees and employees of color are systematically undervalued compared to their male and white or Asian American peers because female employees and employees of color receive, on average, lower rankings despite equal or better performance," according to the complaint against Uber. In July, Uber said that it adjusted salaries to ensure equity in pay for women and minorities.

Comments

"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uber said that it adjusted salaries to ensure equity in pay for women and minorities."

What the hell?

So, their jobs pay differently, depending on your gender or race? What. The. Fuck.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[sycodon]

There are two sides to this coin.

In Austin, TX, the Fire Department was sued by the Obama Administration for racial discrimination. Why? Because minorities were failing entrance examines in far greater numbers than whites.

Was the examine racist? Not on its face. Questions included math, some chemistry, first aid, and other questions completely relevant to being a firefighter. But, the doctrine of "disparate impact" (a hugely inappropriate doctrine) says that the examine was, in fact, racist due solely to the passing rates of various demographic groups. This, despite that fact that there were some minority applicants who aced the examine.

So we have a situation where an unequal outcome is the result of an actual deficit of knowledge, which happen to be concentrated in some groups.

Who knows if these minorities are actually under performing or not, but it wouldn't really matter because if most of them are, then the Disparate Impact rules takes affect.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[supernova87a]

Disparate impact is completely grounded on the principle that every demographic should be as well represented as every other demographic. That is where it is fundamentally flawed.

If that is the case, why do we bother testing people at all, since everyone should have the same intelligence / experience / desire / skill? Is that not just as determined from birth as race / gender / etc?

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[sycodon]

Facts don't have a racial bias.

And it's far easier to dumb down your test than it is to fight the justice department.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[sycodon]

Not to mention that Austin is a very Liberal town. If someone says they are biased, then their default response is to get on their knees, beg forgiveness and conform to whatever the authority says they need to.

Kind of like some loser on campus prostrating himself before the community and lamenting his "White Privilege"

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Whenever someone asks what drives this social justice thinking, I inevitably give them this talk by Evan Sayet entitled "Understanding How Modern Liberals Think". Evan also happens to be Jewish & grew up in New York as a liberal but eventually noticed some serious problems with the Left's way of thinking.

I can't do his talk justice, but essentially the premise is that the Left wants/believes in equality so badly that it ends up punishing those who've make correct decisions and supporting those who've made bad ones in order to reach equality of outcome.

Over the last few decades, as Western society has weakened, victimhood has become very powerful tool - because for some reason...people think that the weaker someone can claim to be, the more power we should hand them.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[aicrules]

lower the bar! We need dumber fire fighters! What a great idea. Moron. The justice department is racist.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[Type44Q]

What, were you expecting compensation to be based on skills and performance??

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[QuadEddie]

Bullshit x3: #1 - If minorities are requesting less pay, then pay them less. Don't create an artificial structure that pays them more assuming they ask for less. This creates entitlement and is bullshit. #2 - Ah, so you've got a blanket racist comment that assumes that all management is white and doesn't mingle with the coloreds. Complete bullshit. #3 - Nobody thinks that way. As a white, I'm not going to get judged because a white guy shot up Vegas. As a black man, you're not going to be judged because 3 black men gang raped a white girl. Same thing inside the job. José screws up the conveyor belt doesn't mean that the manager is going to put all hispanics on his shit list. Total bullshit.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[QuadEddie]

Yeah, we as techies expect a meritocracy in the workplace, not a skin color lottery.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[david_thornley]

Given that we've had lots and lots of institutionalized inequality over the centuries, it's about time somebody was pushing equality. Sometimes it's necessary to go to extremes to counterbalance other extremes.

We want equality of opportunity. We can easily measure equality of outcome. In our experience, inequality of outcome often is due to inequality of opportunity, so it's worth looking into.

There's plenty of racism and sexism in society, and blacks and Native Americans tend to come from bad backgrounds, and in that case it isn't a matter of quality of decisions that determines success or failure.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[bane2571]

The trouble comes when you only look at the outcome - if 50% of white american people fail a geography test but 100% of Chinese applicants succeed is it because the test was biased against white people or because it was trying to figure out if they had a basic understanding of Chinese geography ?

It's what makes the gender disparity question so very difficult, each case needs to be looked at on its own merits but when people have a conversation at a generalised level, the specifics get lost and only the extremes remain.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[DNS-and-BIND]

So, your solution to injustice is more injustice. Do you or do you not know this has been tried about a billion times and doesn't work? You do not fix some people's problems by harming other innocent people. It just generates resentment which results in negative outcomes. It does make leftists feel better about themselves, though, which I suppose is the whole point.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[david_thornley]

Sure. Making relationships between the black community and the police better could help. So could putting better schools in poor areas. That wouldn't address actual racism, though.

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[david_thornley]

In this case, what is justice? You seem to think that it doesn't mean inconveniencing anyone who already has an advantage. It does make white supremacists feel better about themselves, though, which I suppose is the whole point.

Is there a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber was sued by three Latina engineers who claim the company pays women and people of color less than their peers and doesn't promote them as frequently as males, whites and Asians. The three women from the ride-hailing company

As we all know here, there is a huge difference between an average and a good engineer in terms of productivity and value to the company.

There is nothing here to indicate these three were equal quality engineers or not. Maybe they were and Uber is evil. But why do we have to assume everyone deserves equal pay just for showing up regardless of what they actually do?

The ERA is equal pay for equal work. There is nothing to indicate the work is equal. Maybe it is, but it's just sad and disgusting that that's rendered a non-issue in 2017 America.

Re:Is there a problem?

[Kierthos]

From the article, it would appear that they're citing Uber's own employee evaluation process. (Which, also, at most companies, you're not supposed to discuss with other employees, but it still happens.)

Re:Is there a problem?

[ScentCone]

Plaintiffs assert equality of skill and productivity when it suits them to do so, and will rely on SJW jurors to avoid at all costs any objective measurement of their value, relative to other employees. Same old routine. And if they don't have an internal document asserting that a given engineer is equally productive, equally present week after week, works as many hours, remains as up-to-speed, has the same communications skills, and is otherwise exactly as valuable as somebody else who makes a dollar more a year, then they'll simply assert that the assessment process isn't fair either. This has nothing, whatsoever, to do with having Latina heritage or specific reproductive organs. Unless it's help to cite those things while using the Sue Your Boss law to get a huge paycheck for the lawyers (the boss has to pay them). Gee, I wonder what the motivation could possibly be.

Re:Is there a problem?

[jellomizer]

So lets say 20% of your engineers are good engineers.
and 1% of the minority group engineers are good engineers, then there seems to be a problem. Because your race or gender shouldn't be a major factor in your skills.

Re:Is there a problem?

[Dripdry]

It's from a few years back, but I cite an article (grain of salt, etc)
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...

Re:Is there a problem?

[jellomizer]

From my personal bias, I haven't found much of a difference in skills based on what schools they went to.
I have found Good engineers who came from small unheard of schools and crummy ones from the big schools in engineering, and vice versa.
I have found a trend towards a bigger Ego if they came from a Big name school which needs to be squashed very early in their job, because such an Ego prevents them from actually learning from other people with experience.

Re:Is there a problem?

[KiloByte]

Let's compare: among 1000 kernel devs with most commits who have names that show gender (I know western and slavic naming conventions), there's 8 women. In other similar projects, gender ratios seem to be similar. Yet for example Google has 26% women among engineers. As open source projects are driven by work you actually do rather than by irrational hiring decisions, I believe it's the former figure that's representative of skill (or rather, of who decides to learn these skills). Thus, only possibilities are that 1. Google picks employees based on their race/gender rather than merit, or 2. there's a glut of skilled women somehow denied employment elsewhere. As most other big tech companies also tend to be SJW-run, they have an overabundance of diversity hires, thus we know 2. is not the case. Thus, a good part of women employed have worse skills than their peers. And thus, either they get paid less, or get unfair wage increases.

This is not to say that very highly skilled female/minority engineers don't exist -- they do, I can point you to a few. The thing is, they are rare.

Re:Is there a problem?

[ScentCone]

despite evidence to the contrary

I like how you've provided such quality citations regarding that evidence ... as opposed to the flood of evidence that the California law in question actually produced large paychecks for the lawyers in such suits, and generally minimal claims for the actual employees pressing the suit. The law was DESIGNED that way, by the trial lawyers who profit from it so enormously. And since California has never seen a trial-lawyer-friendly law, regulation, or referendum it wouldn't rush into place, that's what employers like Uber are now up against. Thanks again, though, for your detailed analysis - it's sure a good thing you didn't resort to lazy, juvenile ad hominem isn't it! Oh, right, that's all you've got. So impressive.

Re:Is there a problem?

[jedidiah]

What evidence. All we seem to have here are bald assumptions and accusations. That is not proof.

You demonstrate the problem here with your own lack of intellect.

Re:Is there a problem?

[omnichad]

This is not to say that very highly skilled female/minority engineers don't exist

Absolutely agree. And the reason why so many of them work at Google is because they can.

Re:Is there a problem?

[mvdwege]

As open source projects are driven by work you actually do

Oh sweet Summer Child. You actually believe Open Source is immune to politics and is a perfectly level playing field. How endearingly naive.

Re:Is there a problem?

[KiloByte]

And what about the other tech companies, who also sport a similar overabundance? They sing in one voice here.

Which is greatly harmful to the women who actually are skilled, as they indeed tend to get dismissed by their peers as mere diversity hires. Which spins up the wheel of hate even more.

Re:Is there a problem?

[omnichad]

My point is that the only firms that approach gender equity are the ones that are big enough to attract and hire the best women developers out there.

At smaller companies they may indeed be diversity hires, because the pool is not large. I don't believe that's because women are any less capable - but they're obviously fewer in number right from the introductory university course.

Re:Is there a problem?

[KiloByte]

Oh sweet Summer Child. You actually believe Open Source is immune to politics and is a perfectly level playing field. How endearingly naive.

Well, the field obviously isn't level. Outreachy, Debconf travel funds, etc -- people indeed do get discriminated against based on their gender.

Female contributors just aren't there. I for one do quite a bit of mentoring -- out of 137 packages, there's just one upload by a woman. It was a fine upload, perfect on the first try while most people need multiple attempts. But it's the only one.

I try hard to not discriminate or even say things in a condescending tone, and I got the impression I'm doing ok -- as once the chaff is filtered out (I don't even see those who don't try to submit a package), there's no gender difference. In this case, on above corpus, women package quality is even drastically higher, but with just a single data point, this is not statistically significant.

Thus, women who do submit kernel patches or Debian packages are no worse, at all, from their male peers. The problem is, they make such a tiny portion of the submitters.

Things change once they get paid for coming. I don't believe skills of paid employees are drastically different from unpaid volunteers, thus the skew is obvious.

Re:Is there a problem?

[KiloByte]

I don't believe that's because women are any less capable

All observations show that they're indeed less capable here -- on the average. And that's not surprising: there's so many physical gender difference, such as body water content ratio, brain sizes, muscle and fat layout, ability to discern colors and smells, etc -- thus, assuming there are no mental differences would be preposterous. But, all that average tells you is that, with a gender-blind criteria, one group will make a smaller part of the population than the general count would say.

Personal variance trumps gender/race differences, thus, with a distribution without a hard cap, there will be skilled individuals from both groups above any threshold (assuming an infinitely large population).

Example of a distribution with a hard cap: D&D-like stats. Orcs get int of 3d6-2 str 3d6+2, elves 3d6+2 str 3d6-2. Thus, all the top wizards will be elves with ints 19 and 20, with not a single orc above 16. Likewise, all top fighters will be orcs. But in real life, the distribution has no such cap (ok, ok, physics tells you you can put only a certain number of processing elements and mechanical strength into a given volume, but human biology is so many orders of magnitude below physical limits that this is akin to arguing that a "no limit" stretch of Autobahn is still subject to the speed of light).

Thus: a woman picked at random is likely to be less strong than a randomly chosen man. But I still wouldn't want to get into a fight with a female lumberjack. Yet you're not going to argue that women are as capable at lumberjacking on the average, and it's only evil woodcutter companies having a bias towards men.

Re:Is there a problem?

[omnichad]

All observations show that they're indeed less capable here -- on the average.

I don't disagree with that. But the vast majority of men don't choose to become engineers either. So overall, it's more a matter of choice.

Re:Is there a problem?

[KiloByte]

But the vast majority of men don't choose to become engineers either. So overall, it's more a matter of choice.

And here you nailed the most important factor.

But, when voting for a politician or hiring an employee, you don't get a time machine to their kindergarten to tell toddlers that a toy car fits girls while it's not a shame for a boy to play with dolls. No matter how hard you try to change early stages of the pipeline, any effects will be visible after more years than your company even exists. You get to pick from the pool of candidates available today.

Re:Is there a problem?

[david_thornley]

Plaintiffs apparently have evidence in Uber's personnel files that they're as productive as white male engineers who earn more. You're throwing out a lot of verbiage that includes a lot of lame assumptions. What matters is that the women are not paid right now according to their productivity right now. If the white men are doing things that are better in the long run than the Latina women, then their productivity will differ later on.

What you seem to be saying, with a lot of unnecessary vitriol, is that you think Uber's practices are just fine, regardless of not citing any actual evidence, and that any minorities or women complaining have to be wrong. You're making a very definite judgment without bothering with actual facts.

Re:Is there a problem?

[david_thornley]

We're not talking about Uber hiring nor not hiring people. We're not talking about generalities. We're talking about Latina women being evaluated as being at least as productive as their white male colleagues and being paid less, with no obvious reason other than sex and ethnicity. If Latina women as a group are singularly inept at engineering, that doesn't matter, because we're talking about specific women who are good at what they do. If the hiring pool is short on Latina women, that doesn't matter, since Uber hired these ones.

I'm not calling you a racist, but I'm not calling you intelligent or convincing either.

Re:Is there a problem?

[david_thornley]

You're talking about hiring pools, which are irrelevant, since the Latina women in question were already hired by Uber. The question is the quality of their work (apparently good) compared to their pay (apparently not as good).

Re:Is there a problem?

[mvdwege]

Ok, thanks for putting up with the sarcasm. That is a lot clearer.

entitled much?

[TimMD909]

If you don't like how much you're paid, and if you feel that the only way to get what you feel deserve is a lawsuit, then you've proven to me that you never deserved the money in the first place. No one is forcing you to work at a place where you feel undervalued. It's more likely that you've overestimated your own worth.

Re:entitled much?

[Kierthos]

Most businesses frown on employees discussing their compensation. So, until you find out that you're making less than someone who has been there less time/is less experienced/is less knowledgeable/all of the above, how are you supposed to know that you're undervalued?

At my previous job (which, admittedly was a retail job), I found out at one point, I was making less per hour than someone who was recently hired, and that was at the point where I'd been there a decade.

Do people care about Uber as a company?

[sqorbit]

I know in my local area Uber is much valued service that most people love having around. I hear co-workers, friends, and even random people around that all talk about how great Uber is to have around. I have tried out being a driver and it was a good experience. I tried it for a few weeks and just found it wasn't for me and didn't really need it as extra income, but overall there was nothing really negative about the experience. Is it just the "nerd/geek" culture that seems to be completely fired up anytime there is a piece of bad news or another lawsuit against Uber? If so, why does the tech community seemed to be so targeted on Uber? Loads of companies, tech industry or not, are getting sued all the time. What is it about Uber that grabs our attention? Or is this just a Slashdot thing? Slashdot does seem to love an Uber story.

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Uber + SJW = Slashdot story.

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[jellomizer]

There is a bunch of different reasons.
1. They are the Anti-Capitalist who just hate everything that every company does.
2. They are the Millennial haters who want these damn kids to buy there own car.
3. Uber isn't the most progressive company anyways.
4. Uber migrated from a ride sharing (If I were to commute to work, I could pick up 3 other people along the way and help cover travel cost) service to a contracted Taxi service. So the Taxi Company lobby groups have put effort in vilifying these groups.
5. Politics come into play, as this sharing economy and competing against a regulated industry means a lot of people will make a decision for or against weather or not it supporter or detractor has an (R) or (D) next to their name.
 

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[BradleyUffner]

Don't forget the fact that Uber seems to outright break the law, when they are not stretching it to the very limit, almost daily. Companies that have a prooven track record of being shady deserve to have more attention focused on them.

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[jedidiah]

You mean they don't conform to the barriers to entry erected by the dinosaurs that don't want to be forced to change or adapt to the customer?

Uber is much more efficient, effective, and far less likely to subject me to a driver that makes me fear for my life.

The dinosaurs needed an extinction event.

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[Dog-Cow]

Loan sharks are more efficient and easier to deal with than banks. We still don't want them.

Re:Do people care about Uber as a company?

[david_thornley]

People driving commercially in most jurisdictions need commercial licenses and commercial insurance. Uber tends to pass on that, blaming the drivers if they don't have it.

The government requires insurance, and there's good reasons for that. The reason commercial insurance is more expensive is that insurance companies find they need to pay out more. Therefore, a Uber driver with the typical personal policy doesn't have insurance while working for Uber.

Commercial drivers' licenses have good reason also. I'm on the road something over an hour every workday. An Uber driver might be on the road eight or ten hours in a typical workday. If we're equally likely to get into accidents, the Uber driver will get into eight or ten times as many, so we want to have reason to believe they're above-average drivers.

You know...

[Kierthos]

Regardless of whether this lawsuit has merit or not, this is why most businesses tell their employees not to discuss salaries/compensation. Even when it isn't discrimination (and yes, you better believe it still happens), there's literally no upside for the company.

Re:You know...

[TheCastro1689]

Also they're usually illegal: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/...

Re:You know...

[Kierthos]

Well, yes, but the companies are relying on their employees not knowing that.

Re:You know...

[Baron_Yam]

It's easier to have salary grades by job description and simply fire your low-performers (though in a unionized environment this can be very difficult - and in a government unionized environment almost impossible).

You can also track seniority in terms of hours worked (not years of employment), which allows for women who take maternity leave to have their career progression paused while they're off, and have a pay scale within the pay grades that is seniority-based.

What I've seen multiple times, though, is 'pay equity' where it's more or less an arbitrary assignment of job value based on comparing apples and oranges and deciding they're identical because there just aren't enough people doing identical work within the organization to compare men to women on an even playing field.

Poor Asians

[DNS-and-BIND]

Those poor Asians. They get discriminated against in university admissions with the blessing of the federal government and SJWs, and now they're not even included in discrimination lawsuits any more. In fact they're named right up with the evil white males as being part of the problem. I really feel for them, they have to work twice as hard for the same result that everyone else gets.

Re:Poor Asians

[JeffOwl]

I will be pilloried for even bringing it up, but I am asking a sincere question. Why have East Asians done so well in the US in Universities and in business, especially tech and medicine, while being a minority from a different continent? A century ago, Asian Americans were mostly unskilled laborers. They worked on rail roads, in mines, in laundries, etc... Yet even though they started out poor, were subject to racial violence and widespread discrimination, many Asians managed to move up the socioeconomic ladder. And yes, they did not look like European Americans and did not talk like European Americans. There are many articles that talk about Asians tending to have stronger family units, placing more value on education to the point of sacrifice so that the kids could go to better schools, believe that hard work can lead to academic success rather than requiring a natural talent, etc... All of this has led to Asian Americans earning a different stereotype from what they had in the early 20th Century. Or at least that's how much of the narrative is being delivered. Is that really right? Did Asian Americans just overcome much of the institutional bias through hard work and sacrifice? Is it really that simple or was there another change in the psyche of America?

Re:Poor Asians

[bluegutang]

I think most Asian-Americans are recent immigrants or their children, not descended from 1860s railway worker immigrants. The recent immigrants generally were intelligent, hard-working, and accomplished in their native countries. A lot of them came to the US for college, graduate school, or tech jobs. So it's no surprise that they succeed in the US, but that doesn't necessarily say anything about Asian societies in general.

Re:Poor Asians

[Anonymous Coward]

What no one wants to ever admit is that genetics is 90% of pretty much everything, and what isn't covered by genetics is covered by culture. Look at what cultures favor education and you'll see who does well in a culture founded by people who favor education. Duh!

Re:Poor Asians

[david_thornley]

The reason is cultural, and you've pretty well summed it up. Other ethnic groups don't seem to share the same culture.

My son was in a talented youth math program. Nomination was by teachers, and the kids taking the entrance exam were very heavily East Asian in ethnicity. The exam was designed to test for mathematical ability rather than education or experience, and the ethnic balance of the kids that got in was much more like the ethnic balance in the local population (much lower in blacks, though). This suggests that the East Asian kids were doing better on the basis of work and study, not ability. (It also suggests that there's a lot of talent among blacks that is just being wasted.)

Re:Poor Asians

[david_thornley]

Nobody intelligent admits that genetics is 90% of everything because it isn't. Last I checked, something like 50% of the variance in intelligence in people was accounted for by looking at the intelligence of their parents. This doubtless overstates the genetic component, since there's lots of environmental factors that tend to be similar between parents and children.

The "Sue Your Boss" Act

[John Jorsett]

This suit is being brought under California's Private Attorney General Act, aka the "Sue Your Boss" law. The state will get 75% of any payout, but the real bonanza will be to the attorneys. Because the employer is on the hook for all legal costs, they'll profit handsomely. This law was a gift to the plaintiff bar and has resulted in things like a 2013 suit against Goodyear Tire for allegedly failing to issue wage statements that included the last four digits of employees’ social security or employee ID numbers. The plaintiff got $1k while the attorneys got $105k.

Re: The "Sue Your Boss" Act

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant even imagine how one could legislate a more transparent State shakedown.

California: "Hold my beer."

What sort of company is this?

[Rande]

They give promotions and raises to engineers??!
Everyone know that to get a promotion or a raise then you have to move to another company.

Promotions within company are for management level and above only.

Re:What sort of company is this?

[GameboyRMH]

I have heard tales from the elders of this pro-motion and ra-ise...so the legends were true!?!?

Sounds like corporate immaturity

[ErichTheRed]

Large companies don't seem to have these issues because they have a whole legal and HR team advising every single action. Also, every place I've worked has had a zero tolerance policy when things like sexual harassment are involved. Basically unless you're an executive or top salesman or connected in some other way, they don't mess around when they start getting complaints about people. (Sales always gets a free pass in my experience, however.)

Maybe as Uber has been growing so quickly, and were built on disrupting everything, they felt they didn't need to go this route. But look at companies like IBM...they've been dismantling their entire US workforce and firing everyone over a certain age, and have been doing it all legally from what it seems.

Lesson learned:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop hiring women and minorities as they will sue for lack of promotions due to incapability.

Re:Lesson learned:

[david_thornley]

Alternately, treat them fairly. That will work better in the long run.

fuck that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

If tech companies would stop hiring members of the outrage culture these problems would suddenly cease.

Here's an idea: stop hiring wheezy whiny bitch types. Double down on the bro code. Be Amazon.

Re:Stop complaining about trolls

[jedidiah]

Law and Medicine are much better professions based on this metric. These professions are also glorified by the popular media and have been pretty much forever.

Demographics reflect this. It's almost as if women have taken all of the hints given them and acted accordingly.

With all of the "jock hate" we get from the journalists, it's a wonder there are any women in tech or science.

Re: Are there transparent people?

[jedidiah]

Asians are "people of color". They just get excluded from this category when their success undermines the victim Olympics narrative.

Re: Poor Asians - yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It is really that simple.

As a class, they work harder, spend more time on school work as children, have families that demand they always do better and get top grades, stronger family support structures that value education, and frown upon pop culture idol worship.

Work. School. Family. Success.

That simple.

Re: Asians aren't people of color

[Baron_Yam]

If your skin tone happens to belong to the group seen as doing well... welcome to the other side of racial politics. Your individual case doesn't matter, you're "the man" because of your skin.

Asians are generally perceived as hard working and well educated, so they're now getting lumped in with white people.

Re: Are there transparent people?

[iampiti]

Is the politically correct definition of "people of color" in the US everyone who's not white?
I find it a bit funny since there're many asians who have pale skin too.

Very Hard to Judge

[JimSadler]

There are situations where discrimination is blatant and severe remedies are called for. However there are situations that are really hard to get right. For example if you have a hard and fast rule that anyone who misses work or is late five times in one year is fired and you stick to that rule you might find that people with young children are adversely effected. But that same rule would also get rid of people who drink too much. The employer need not look at the sex or marital status or age of the employee in question. So just how would the employer know that a certain group was adversely effected by the rule? Then we come to another hurdle. There are plenty of Americans who weigh 300 lbs. or more. Can a 95 lb. female flip a 3oo lb. person over her shoulder and carry him 80 feet down a ladder? For that matter can a 120 lb. man do the same thing? So would allowing the smaller folks to fill fireman's positions you would be either requiring far more employees to respond to a fire or sentencing larger people to burning to death. And those fat folks are tax payers as well. Another place where we see the problem is when a cop confronts an individual of certain ethnic backgrounds. A white suburbanite will tend to comply with a cop's orders. But a young black male will tend to move a lot, walk about, make all kinds of rants and gestures. He will not want to be told anything by a white officer and very little from a black officer as well. That walking about and ranting is excessively dangerous to cops. Suspects are known to spin about and shoot cops. The same is true of a foot chase. If the suspect has a gun in the front of his shirt he can spin and fire before a cop can react. Yet fairness also requires that all people are treated the same. In my state not so long ago anyone who ran from a cop could be gunned down with no questions asked. Very, very few people would try to run from a cop. Now the cops are not allowed to shoot simply because a person is running and now most younger suspects run creating a life and death hazard every time they run.

Re: Are there transparent people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes; "people of color" is the same as "everyone who's not white". The tricky part is that the definition of "white" changes depending on context. Whether Jews, Asians, Arabs, or Latinos are "white" depends on what narrative you're trying to push.

For example, the sort of people who march with tiki torches don't consider Jews to be "white", while the sort of people who march with Palestinian flags do. Asians are "people of color" when they're being discriminated against, and "white" when they're being discriminated for.

In general, though, to people who call themselves "white supremecists", "white" means "good"; to people who call others "white supremecists", "white" means "bad".

dom

Re:Stop complaining about trolls

[AmiMoJo]

Disagreement = flamebait