ON: What is with the diversity myth?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LS Jaun
Only people in the US would complain about such a stupid topic.
There are Cities and towns accross the US that are 'close to' 100% White, 100% Black, and 100 Mexican and even a few smaller towns that might be %100 Chinese. Let me see "Do they lack Racial diversity?". No sheet Sherlock! diversity without acceptance means squat.
There are Cities and towns accross the US that are 'close to' 100% White, 100% Black, and 100 Mexican and even a few smaller towns that might be %100 Chinese. Let me see "Do they lack Racial diversity?". No sheet Sherlock! diversity without acceptance means squat.
I am a White male, patriot, and American. God Bless America(tm). People are tribal, I am tribal. Let's be clear, though: I am MOST comfortable working around fellow professionals, not necessarily fellow (fill in race). Most professionals have roughly the same kind of behaviors, tastes, and attitudes in the West, thus are the opposite of "diverse" unless some (silly person) actually looked at something like "race" and "gender" to define us. If you use those latter two criteria, however, we ARE very "diverse" at my place of business.
Offhand, of 19 peers, 3/4 are men, 1/4 women. One guy is active in Gay and Lesbian stuff with our company, else I'd not know/care except that it comes up in conversation. We're about half White, other half Asian (various), Black, Hispanic, and American Indian. Roughly half the total are extra-nationals, from Mexico, Argentina, Philippines, India, Britain.
The previous paragraph is irrelevant to our effectiveness as a high-performance team. What is, however, highly relevant is diversity of opinion, which comes from people of quite similar intelligence and education yet different experiences. Culturally, or racially, IMO the "diversity" factor is minimal. Between genders, ditto.
Get my drift?
Kirkland WA, NorKirk neighborhood in-particular, is vast majority White and Asian. Those are the two groups most strongly (by the numbers) represented in IT (Tech), AFAIK. Most of us are techies. Almost all are professionals; amateur-hour isn't around long because they can't hold down jobs, thus can't quality for mortgages that are frankly waaaaay too high for most people. Too busy quacking about "diversity" and filing lawsuits with the ACLU. Guess that would follow?
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
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I agree with you that diversity of opinion is key in an IT techie kind of field, more so than "appearance" diversity. Keep in mind this isn't the case in all trades "say education, culture studies programs, entrepreneurship, marketing, communications, etc"
Still, the case for appearance diversity in IT is a moral issue, not necessarily an advancement issue of tech progress. If people of certain backgrounds are qualified but denied access to the trade, that is socially concerning because that indicates a lack of "equal access, equal opportunity" as a society. If there's no shortage of IT or need for more IT, that's one thing. But the duty as a society in all trades is to protect equal opportunity. If there isn't equal opportunity, then economically you create a class system, which logically creates underclasses that cannot trust the system they are under, which leads to poverty/crime/scrutiny and problems all preventable by ensuring equal opportunity.
In techie fields I think there is equal opportunity though. You can't always force more diversity when qualifications are the determinant which it should be. If there is equal opportunity and no diversity then the issue is to the Minority groups not represented, to consider what they can do differently in education and training to qualify. If it's an issue of the cost of training, that's the meat of the problem.
Would you agree it would be a shame if highly intelligent persons from poor economic households did not wind up as techies because the educational training was too expensive for them/their families to pay for...even while working through college?Posted 12-26-2014 at 07:29 AM by Ericthebean
Updated 12-26-2014 at 07:40 AM by Ericthebean
