But you didn't wait to hear my voice. You didn't let me open my mouth. You turned me down on how I looked not what I had to say. You don't know anything about what life experience I have and what unique points of view I can bring you.

> And to be clear every issue you have diverse candidates have plus loads more.

Nobody is openly, legally and systematically denying them the opportunity to prove themselves capable of a job based on the color of their skin. If they're denied based on the color of their skin they can challenge that in the courts. I can't.

> I think there are probably enough jobs in tech for everyone though..

What if more companies start banning hiring white men? What if all the Google-tier companies do, so I can't get any job above a certain salary level?

I think I would feel more insulted if I discovered that I was rejected based on the color of my skin.

White people are under represented at tech companies in USA. Only Asians are over represented. The only reason to discriminate against white people there is that you hate white people. White people are less under represented than black people, true, but white people are still under represented.

The stupidest, least-qualified white man at a company that still employs more white men than they statistically should. He's getting affirmative-action too, it's just not official.

Fast forward a few years, and when looking at internal transfers you'll hear "don't worry, he's a white/asian male, so you know he's here on merit". First time I heard that I was shocked.

> Obviously as a white male I experience incredible privilege overall.

Go tell that to the trailer trash white kid who last saw his mother with a needle in her arm when he was a teenager, never met his father and managed to somehow make it in tech thanks to Community College and scholarships.

And I’m guessing you’re not one of the affected minorities. Otherwise you might see that “the system works for this subset of people so it must be working for everyone” is a flawed and untrue argument, at least in tech.

People pushing for more equal treatment of certain minorities didn’t happen out of the blue. There’s a long history of certain subgroups getting passed up during interviews, underpaid, getting passed up for promotions, etc. As an example an ex-colleague had a really hard time landing his first job in the industry. No one would call him back. He wondered whether his Hispanic sounding name was hurting his chances, so he anglicized it and tried again. He said it was like night and day. He found a job soon after. Perhaps you haven’t witnessed something like this first or second hand.

I think many companies are butchering their diversity recruiting efforts. They try to “fix” the issue with superficial and inefficient policies. But the problem they’re attempting to address is very real.

And if not? Maybe they just all want to hire real hackers (however you define real). Maybe they want to hire people who have been programming since their early teens, which most women and blacks haven't been (or so it seems). I'm trying to tell you that where I am is not because I'm white, but because I sacrificed a lot in order to become a good programmer. My belief is that there is not discrimination, the employers and VCs just want the best, which usually happen to be white males. You seem to see things differently.

Dunno about all of that ... I myself am not sufficently race obsessed I guess. What I meant was that in most cases people get ahead for reasons that have little to nothing to do with merit, and in my experience also that have little to nothing to do with race.

Maybe if you find yourself constantly surrounded by racists you should evaluate how your choices contribute to this. I don't have this experience.

And I'm pretty sure there would be some legal implications for what you claim, so if you are aware of this and not reporting it I'm pretty sure you face potential legal liabilities.

I think it is pretty disgusting that people just look the other way while they witness racism. If I ever saw anything at my place of work that would suggest any racism in hiring choices the person would not make it to the end of the day.

It seems kind of ridiculous that white men won't believe in hiring prejudice/discrimination until it directly affects them.

I feel the same way, kinda...

I'm male, and not a PoC, so perhaps maybe my perspective is different?

I'm told that I'm privileged, but that's not how I feel.

I'm told due to systemic bias that I'm probably unaware of my privilege, but I feel well aware of all the disadvantages I've actually experienced. And yet I'm open minded to exploring the way I could be oblivious to other people' problems.

I'm not sure if I'm actually the bad guy, or if I'm being gas lighted.

What a crock. I don't mean to play identity politics but I can't imagine someone who isn't a white man saying this. I've never seen a tech team with a reasonable gender split, and I can assure you no one is living in a genderally homogenous area.

Lack of diversity is a humungous problem in western society, and while I agree the place to address that may not be a company trying to execute merit-based hiring, it's clear if an entire system outputs only one category of person as successful, that system has deep biases and would be ripe for improvement by including other categories of person.

You know lots of people who won't say they base decisions on race, and who think they're not basing decisions on race, but I bet if you double blind tested them with fake resumes you'd find bias.

And that's great, but diversity extends beyond ethnicity. If the only people your company hires are Ivy League 3rd culture kids, it doesn't matter what race they are. You are missing out on the majority of the benefits of diversity.

> The burden is on people who want to maintain the current, non-representative state to prove nobody from other demographics wants into the field.

No, and the fact that you're asking people to prove a negative should be a giant red flag that your views are unreasonable.

> And I just don't buy the argument that blacks prefer to play basketball and women prefer to teach, or whatever else it is your implying.

Please don't put words in my mouth. And, the fact that you are saying that all people from a LL backgrounds should find tech equally attractive tells me that you've fundamentally misunderstood the concept of cultural diversity.

The punchline is that I'm not white.

I've since moved on from that firm, but I've run into this elsewhere. Really leaves a bad taste in ones' mouth, and hits the demoralization hard. The doublespeak is miserable. But I suppose I have literally these policies to thank for forcing me to strike out on my own to build something actually better.

Have you ever wondered that being born into a system where odds are stacked against you might be a strength for you? Not for everyone in the group, but for you.

> Everyone is carrying around unconscious biases in them. It's built into being human, so bullshit if you're about to say you're somehow immune.

> Look, the problem isn't that you or I have unconscious biases. That's normal. That's human.

Agreed, and I don't think I am (or anyone else is) immune.

> The problem is that we insist we don't, we're doing everything right already, and there's nothing wrong. That's where the problem is. That's how this shitty status quo that has effectively locked minorities into a second-class life gets perpetuated.

I'm not insisting we don't. My point is that it's easy to get defensive when it's implied that you're racist over and over again regardless of the truthfulness.

It's not even good for the people allegedly being discriminated against. When focus and resources are put on the wrong area (e.g. tech company employee racial proportions), it just frustrates those of us in the industry and ignores the actual reasons for the issue (mostly cultural). We could be spending that money and resources toward getting girls into tech at a young age, or getting more computers into inner-city schools. Something that might actually affect the hiring pool.

But we don't have that discussion because the lawsuits imply the problem is with tech companies. Whether it is or not isn't even a discussion because it appears to be rampant if you've never been in a hiring role in the tech industry. If you have, you know what the hiring pool looks like, and you know you (and other companies) are being held to an unreachable standard if you're expected to align with racial proportions that don't apply to tech.

I understand this example lacks some important nuance but directionally useful. Imagine there was explicit hiring goals for left handed people and industry conferences for left handed and organisations for promoting left handed people in tech. In that world I don't see why right handed people are wrong for taking it personally that a whole bunch of effort is put into hiring not them.

Could you clarify how you reached this conclusion about someone specific, as opposed to a generalized fear such a person might exist?

In many years in the tech/engineering business I have never seen anyone express such a sentiment, despite having worked with more than my fair share of unpleasant people.

Presumption of competence, or obliviousness to one's own advantages are certainly present in the community. But I have not seen anyone express such supremacist ideas before.

I never really understood the point of affirmative action until I was told point blank repeatedly that my co-workers thought I was good at the work, but didn't like me because of what I couldn't do, and that getting hired & staying hired is about having co-workers like you.

I've tolerated hostile workplace environments, abuse, discrimination, disclosure of medical information, and such just to cling onto a job because I couldn't prove most of it. I didn't think I could just leave the situation and get another job so I didn't want to make any enemies. Honestly one of the main things I have going for me career-wise is that this has happened so much people feel bad for me and pull strings for me.

Discrimination is so easy. Just say somebody was a bad culture-fit. If anybody is different: disabled, poor, old, wrong ethnicity, wrong gender, ESL, then they obviously don't "fit in".