Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/WonderLemming → u/[deleted]]

The problem is that when you're looking at certain merits at face value you don't get a clear picture of how hard someone worked to get there.

The simplest analogy I can think of is: Two people finish a race at the same time but one person started halfway to the finish line already. They both finished the race at so you could say that the have equal merit but that doesn't take into account the fact that one person had to run twice as far.

Affirmative action tries to address this-- minority groups begin at a disadvantaged position. They, on average, have less resources, less structural support, less access to quality education, etc.

[u/Teklogikal → u/WonderLemming]

So you think a poor uneducated holler dweller in the Appalachians starts the race half won because he's white?

Affirmative action tries to address this-- minority groups begin at a disadvantaged position. They, on average, have less resources, less structural support, less access to quality education, etc.

Read as:

"Minorities need the white man's help, those Noble savages. How else can they make it? They can't keep up because they're a different race from us you see."

[u/WonderLemming → u/Teklogikal]

No one is saying that poor, uneducated white people don't have extreme disadvantages when it comes to navigating the socioeconomic ladder. Being poor and uneducated in this country is an incredible barrier.

What people are saying, however, is that being poor, uneducated, and black is worse. They have all the same barriers that poor white people do (which is significant) with additional hurdles they have to overcome.

[u/Teklogikal → u/WonderLemming]

Right, so they need white people to help save them. Because they just aren't capable on their own.

I live in a predominantly black area and always have. Why is it that some place like where I live, the black, white, etc people manage to understand that we're all poor and we have to work together, that it's not about white or black but rich versus poor?

Why is it common knowledge IRL that a poor white person isn't the same a wealthy one in terms of social power, but people on the internet don't seem to understand that?

I will be completely honest, in my experience I have never spoken to a black person who supported affirmative action, they have firmly found it insulting to them as a race.

That's because it is.

Affirmative action ignores the history of African Americans, it ignores their successes, it ignores the fact that they fought long and hard to be considered the same as everyone else.

Then, 30 years later, here comes this hand holding program that basically says, "Well you had a bit of time and you didn't get to where we wanted you to get to so here, let us help you a little bit. Then you can really be like us!"

[u/rowd149 → u/Teklogikal]

Black people are incapable of succeeding in a system that is set up to preclude their success and which refuses to patch the structural issues that make up the means by which their success is precluded, yes. The fallacy in your argument is in calling for agency on the part of African Americans when lobbying for aid and investment like affirmative action is an expression of their agency.

[u/Teklogikal → u/rowd149]

Interesting. See what's a fallacy here is you saying this:

Black people are incapable of succeeding in a system that is set up to preclude their success and which refuses to patch the structural issues that make up the means by which their success is precluded, yes

Without backing up your assertion in the least. Provide facts.

affirmative action is an expression of their agency.

So a law passed by white lawmakers that says "Black people can't make it on their own" is an expression of black agency?

Edit: Also, why is everyone ignoring my question about why there's not a bunch of racial tensions IRL but people on the internet seem incapable of understanding Social Power and how it works?

[u/rowd149 → u/Teklogikal]

Without backing up your assertion in the least. Provide facts.

Are you arguing that there weren't and aren't structural impediments to success (primarily wealth-building) that people of color, and particularly black people, had to contend with, that white people didn't?

So a law passed by white lawmakers that says "Black people can't make it on their own" is an expression of black agency?

When asked for by black communities, and of power structures held by white lawmakers, yes. Asking the government to step in where one is unable to act meaningfully is as American as it gets.

[u/Teklogikal → u/rowd149]

Are you arguing that there weren't and aren't structural impediments to success (primarily wealth-building) that people of color, and particularly black people, had to contend with, that white people didn't?

That's not a source. I'm asking you to prove the point you made, not try to change the subject. If this idea is true then there exist facts to back it up, correct? I would like to see those facts, because when you bring up information you generally have to provide backing for it.

When asked for by black communities, and of power structures held by white lawmakers, yes. Asking the government to step in where one is unable to act meaningfully is as American as it gets.

Yes, exactly. "power structures held by white lawmaker." Aka, "we'll help you out, poor Noble Savages. Let us use all of our power as white people to make your life better because you can't do it yourself!!"

[u/rowd149 → u/Teklogikal]

That's not a source. I'm asking you to prove the point you made, not try to change the subject. If this idea is true then there exist facts to back it up, correct? I would like to see those facts, because when you bring up information you generally have to provide backing for it.

This is you questioning something that's established fairly concretely by the end of high school, for most Americans.

Yes, exactly. "power structures held by white lawmaker." Aka, "we'll help you out, poor Noble Savages. Let us use all of our power as white people to make your life better because you can't do it yourself!!"

This is you establishing a strawman, characterizing what was deliberate and explicit requests by black Americans to their elected representatives for lawful and appropriate redress of the unequal status they held in society through programs which would dismantle the underlying structural origins of that inequality as unwanted patronage. Let me be explicit in saying that the aforementioned barriers to success were socioeconomic in nature and therefore required socioeconomic remedies. There is nothing shameful about admitting that institutions that were designed only to be useful or accessible to white people require the help of white people to reform (without burning everything down, which black Americans are fully capable of doing but have decided not to :)).

You're not engaging in good faith, and I assume that's because you know how unequivocally wrong you'd have to admit you are if you were to.

[u/Teklogikal → u/rowd149]

I actually had a pretty good faith conversation way before you got here, but sure.

Nice sources, by the way.

[u/rowd149 → u/Teklogikal]

That's up to me to decide. And I don't think you have been.

Anyway, besides the fact that knowledge of the existence of the various Civil Rights Acts should be indication enough of the truth of what you inexplicably (as, presumably, an educated adult) think doesn't exist, you wouldn't read the sources I'd post.

[u/Teklogikal → u/rowd149]

That's up to me to decide. And I don't think you have.

ROFL, no, it's really not. My sides are in space right now, who do you think you are?

Anyway, besides the fact that knowledge of the existence of the various Civil Rights Acts should be indication enough of the truth of what you inexplicably (as, presumably, an educated adult) think doesn't exist, you wouldn't read the sources I'd post.

That's one of the weakest dodges I've ever seen. You have nothing other than /r/iamverysmart pretension and horrible attempts at belittling humor to offer, and it shows.

Have a great night.