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I never hear about Asians, Latinos, gays or women complaining that a company isn't diverse enough. Why is that?
There is loud conversation about equal pay for women, and the glass ceiling for women. There is an ENTIRE White House initiative and there was a bill that was tabled to discuss issues surrounding equal pay for women.
So with all of that why the focus on black complaints?
There is loud conversation about equal pay for women, and the glass ceiling for women. There is an ENTIRE White House initiative and there was a bill that was tabled to discuss issues surrounding equal pay for women.
So with all of that why the focus on black complaints?
Because in this day and age, simply being labeled a racist in the court of public opinion can cost you your job, your career and/or your entire billion dollar business, as the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Richard Sterling, recently discovered. And our African American community certainly knows how to leverage this truth as well as, if not better than, any minority group does.
Moreover, after Jesse Jackson swept through silicon valley on what I think was likely a shakedown trip, any reasonable person knows that a formal scream of racism could well be just around the corner.
Because in this day and age, simply being labeled a racist in the court of public opinion can cost you your job, your career and/or your entire billion dollar business, as the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Richard Sterling, recently discovered. And our African American community certainly knows how to leverage this truth as well as, if not better than, any minority group does.
Moreover, after Jesse Jackson swept through silicon valley on what I think was likely a shakedown trip, any reasonable person knows that a formal scream of racism could well be just around the corner.
So because there are less of a certain, race or sex in an industry, a company in said industry the company is racist in hiring the best employees? There's a reason most NBA players are black rather than white, they are better at the game. Is that racist, no? There's a reason why there's only a handful of black NHL players, the game is not for the poor as one needs skates, pads and sticks to play. To compare, in basketball all you need are shoes, shorts and a tank-top.
Because in this day and age, simply being labeled a racist in the court of public opinion can cost you your job, your career and/or your entire billion dollar business, as the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Richard Sterling, recently discovered.
Sterling will sell his team and make a huge gain, so how is he suffering? Did he suffer when he discriminated against blacks and Hispanics in his apartments? No. He got RICHER.
I do not buy that argument that whites are being held hostage by blacks. The only form of racism which is penalized are out and out bigoted statements, which are made sufficiently rarely to become a major news item when they do occur.
But the fact that college educated black men on average earn the same as do white men who only graduated high school, is ignored.
Clearly blacks have little interest in going after these tech jobs. Now we need to punish Google and demand they give away jobs to blacks, in a field where this particular race does not strive to achieve/or have interest these niche jobs?
What is next, punishing nail salons and forcing them to hire blacks because most of their employees are Asian?
A company cannot hire someone who does not apply for the job. This entire topic is ridiculous and over the top PC. It screams of entitlement, too.
"We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it’s time to be candid about the issues. Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts. So, here are our numbers:"
Color me stunned at the incredibly small 2% black employment figure from a corporation that has always supported liberals and liberal politics. At a minimum, if Google is not racist (and/or sexist), something very hypocritical is afoot here, because they have always alleged that they support diversity.
So what do you suggest--
should they just start discriminating against qualified white
applicants to equal the playing field in your eyes?
Ya' know that Bill Gates has scholarships programs that
specifically are only for minorities-- should we call him out on that, too??
This is utter & complete insanity to say that Google is racist.
Clearly blacks have little interest in going after these tech jobs.
I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying that. I would say that it isn't Google's fault, the fault of the universities, or the fault of the minorities themselves.
The qualified workforce doesn't exist for Google to hire, and the universities don't get enough good minority applicants/students to graduate people with the degrees Google needs.
The real issue is at the K-12 level. Computer Science, and even Engineering/IT for tech, are somewhat unique in that most people who go into those fields really start building their knowledge for them while they're in those years. I don't mean the basic fundamentals of math, english, etc.
Most CS majors come in with a lot of background computer knowledge learned from years of tinkering with their own computer(s), a bunch of programming knowledge from programming independently, etc. It's not impossible to succeed coming in blind, but most of the people who didn't get that immersion in the field from the time they were kids, wind up dropping out. They're far behind before they've ever even spent a day at college, and it's a tough road to "catching up".
If you're really wanting to get more blacks/hispanics into the tech workforce, you are going to have to find a way to get them those experiences, and not just in school. Which is a very difficult thing to try to do.
While I realize they have more than one office location, the main "campus" is in Mountain View / Silicon Valley. Are you all familiar with the demographics here? Outside of the tiny pocket of East Palo Alto (which doesn't fully qualify, since it's in SM County), our black population is quite small... meanwhile, the Asian population is among the highest and most diverse in the nation. So when you factor in those little details, a 2% figure isn't all that shocking or suspicious. I also realize not all of their employees come from the Bay Area, but a good percentage do, which might account for some of those stats. Additionally, they hire a lot of recent grads from Stanford, SCU, SJSU, UCB, etc, all of which have a HIGH percentage of Asian students.
Just for the record & anecdotal value, my black & gay "brother" (like a surrogate brother) had a 10+ year career with Google's Legal team. They treated him fabulously, and the pay/stocks helped to finance his way through law school! I can also assure you he wasn't hired solely for a diversity point, seeing as he came in with an Ivy League Bachelor's Degree + a whole host of other desirable qualities. Knowing what I do about the company, both from my brother and from living nearby, IMO they're not one you need to vilify.
Well said.
In this country, we have a tendency to (selectively) pick out one (provocative) statistic and make a single presumption of cause for why that stat exists. It feeds an unhealthy narrative that seems more driven by people who are interested in building a political base than a rational conversation of cause and effect.
Given the sympathies in our society (especially as evidenced by the voting pattern) it is hard to conceive that a corporation the size of Google could systematically discriminate against one demographic group and keep it all under wraps. There would be 1000s of Snowdens ready to whistleblow. And that is aside from the fact that not grabbing the best skills available from any demographic group is just poor business for a company of any size.
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I can also assure you he wasn't hired solely for a diversity point, seeing as he came in with an Ivy League Bachelor's Degree + a whole host of other desirable qualities. Knowing what I do about the company, both from my brother and from living nearby, IMO they're not one you need to vilify.