Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

>but creating townhall meetings and parading your black/brown employees around like show ponies is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling.

It doesn't just undermine the self-esteem of a PoC, it undermines the self-esteem of white folks, too. Hiring or promoting people due to their skin color is just wrong, no matter what skin color that is. As a white dude, seeing my PoC teammates in the past celebrated not for their accomplishments, but for something they had no control over (their skin color) is sad.

"John in Engineering is really talented, and works his tail off daily. He has come up with some really ingenious solutions to tough problems that have allowed us to grow as a company....but we're celebrating him because he's black, not because he's a kickass engineer". Seen things like this before, which make no sense. Celebrating an employee who is awesome at their job for being awesome at their job is great. You're a company, after all, not a social club. The goal is to grow and make money. Celebrate anyone who can do help with that, regardless if they are black, white, yellow, orange, green, pink, whatever.

Diversity is cool, but when it's put into practice and not shouted from the rooftops, it's even better.

You're not alone. My partner has the same issue. They work in a field where performance can be judged somewhat objectively, but in which reputation still matters. They get not only impostor syndrome, but also the fear that other people will think their achievements are only due to DEI initiatives.

Another issue is that senior minorities constantly get dragged into (useless, time-wasting, chore-like) committees that have representation quotas.

> In my opinion, it would be beneficial if DEI initiatives were confidential and kept "hush hush" within a company.

That would be great: "do the right thing but don't brag about it". Unfortunately, "keep doing the wrong thing but pretend otherwise loudly" seems more common.

Whenever my company has had conversations about DEI initiatives, I always come back to the same argument: "talk is cheap, we can talk all day long about how we are diverse. How about we shut up, put our money where our mouth is, and actually hire some folks from diverse backgrounds".

DEI is something that is easy to talk about but actually kinda hard to implement. Part of the problem is the makeup of the industry in general. In tech for example it would be physically impossible for companies to be 50/50 male/female because the broader industry doesn't break down that way, same goes for any race, religion, background, etc. Companies love to scream from the rooftops about DEI because yelling about it is significantly easier than actually doing it.

> actually hire some folks from diverse backgrounds

Because you’re trying to hire from a small pool of candidates (minority software developer or whatever) that EVERY OTHER tech company is trying to get in a desperate attempt to not look bad (because not having a sufficient number of minorities on staff is a sin).

It’s simply a question of numbers. There’s only so many minorities, and only a fraction of them are sufficiently talented, and everyone wants them. Your company may not be a big enough name to woo these folks. So it’s not necessarily the fault of your leadership to act on their principles.

Now there’s a whole OTHER can of worms associated with DEI, which is that everyone wants minority employees => there’s a lack of them => let’s lower our standards to widen the pool we have to choose from, and your company certainly could go down that route if you think they’re not doing enough.

It boils down to a core philosophical difference - do you want to emphasize equal access to opportunity, or do you want to emphasize equal outcomes? Some would argue it isn't an either-or thing, and we can do both at once, but I argue mandated equality of outcomes is insidious and causes social strife.

If you are a minority and get hired, and the company has an explicit policy of hiring N% of minorities, then you will always wonder (as will all other employees) whether you were hired because of your minority status or because of your actual skills. This is very bad for morale and self worth.

I don't think the minorities themselves were consulted. Perhaps it is being instituted by a minority, but they do not represent the preferences of people they purport to help with these policies.

I think the UC university system has it right because they ban racial preferences for admitting students. While overall the percentage of certain racial minorities is lower there, those that do get in feel accomplished and deserving. This is a better outcome for society and personal self worth.

Interestingly enough, a Pew Research ran a study[0] a few years back which found that the majority of whites, blacks, and Hispanics reject race-conscious hiring—even if it results in less diversity.

I can only imagine what it would feel like to be a PoC in a company that has openly stated that their goal is to achieve a certain racial/ethnic composition regardless of standards. How would I not always have a sneaking suspicion that I was hired to fulfill some quota rather than on my own merits? Worse, I would feel that all of my colleagues are looking at me and wondering the same thing.

Excuse the cynicism, but I think the reason these companies have to shout about their DEI initiatives from the rooftops is because they care less about diversity and helping disadvantaged groups and more about signalling their virtue to the rest of the world.

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/america...

"...it would be beneficial if DEI initiatives were confidential and kept "hush hush" within a company."

"...is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling."

It might be most beneficial for individuals if it's kept-low key. It's best for the company to scream it to the world. Or at least that's what the leaders think right now.

Personally, I think any medium to large company that talks about DEI and isn't addressing the supply side issues are just just marketing. Without addressing that, it's just companies trying to outbid each other, and not using money but using virtue signaling. They should be putting their money where their mouth is and sponsoring scholarships/internships/apprenticeships. Instead of asking you talk at town halls, maybe they should be asking you to talk at high schools so the students can ask questions about your career journey. But hey, I'm just a dev so what do I know that these highly intelligent and highly trained CEOs/HR don't...

I've seen quite a few people angrily push back on statements like 'pipeline problem' and I don't understand why. Obviously there's more to it than that, but it's also that (with hard numbers to back it up).

>They should be putting their money where their mouth is and sponsoring scholarships/internships/apprenticeships.

I worked at a BigCo that did all the usual DEI garbage and their only initiative that actually had results was the one where they spent a bunch of money sponsoring "women in stem" stuff at the high-school and college level.

My company at least used to bring high school students to the company for a women in STEM tour. I believe they stopped it. I have no idea if it worked or not. It certainly didn't work for the company since we weren't seeing any of them join after college.

At least in the case of an intern we had, she went to some other company. Which in fairness, was the better choice. In the conversation we were having, the manager even told her to go to any other company if she has the option because they will pay more. One of the best managers I've seen and he wasn't even my manager. Of course he left for another company shortly after.

I’m unsurprised their only program was for the majority in education.

Weird how there’s programs for the majority (women) when the minority (men) succeed — but no help for the minority (men) in any form. And this isn’t some new issue… men have been the minority in education longer than I’ve been alive.

Thank you for sharing this. I feel the exact same way. Work at a state university. Found out at a big town hall style meeting that I was hired during a "diversity cluster hire." I know I am talented but I was sitting there questioning myself. I am hispanic. Everyone speaking about the cluster hire was white. I appreciate the overall push towards awareness of this issue but I agree this felt like we were being paraded around. I skipped the "DEI Luncheon."

It's a problem.

In our town people went past "Black Lives Matter" to a lot of cheap pandering to the effect that "Black people are awesome" and maybe all of them are right out of Wakanda Forever. It comes across as not based in reality, not really sincere, and not really attending to black people in the community.

I voted an Alumni Trustee ballot on the weekend and there were two black people on the ballot. One was a woman who'd done some of the biggest jobs in the biggest banks, the other was a man who'd leapfrogged from one "diversity officer" job to another. The first one was someone who proved black people could get it done, I'm afraid the second one may be perpetuating the problems of that community. You know who I voted for.

I wish there were an HR "brand" for "We want the absolute best team possible, with diversity of thought and experience. We recognize lots of people are excluded because they're not part of our existing networks, or because they don't think they belong here, so we'll put extra effort into looking for them and showing them what's possible, but we've got the same standards for everyone we bring in, and will always pick the people who make our team the best. This might not always be the best individuals at their specialties in isolation, but the people who will work the best together to achieve our mission. This isn't a single-round game, so we do value long-term evolution of our company, the industry, our country, and humanity overall, but if we aren't successful in the short term, we won't be at the table to make positive changes over time, either. We have minimum moral, ethical, and legal obligations in how we treat people which we will always meet (and hopefully far exceed), but the minimums are not our targets."

Tangential to the current discussion but why do I always sense a reluctance to include matters relating to social class in these programs? When I bring it up during D&I discussions I'll usually get blank stares, and in one instance there were crude comments made about needing to beef up building security first.

DEI took off right after Occupy Wall Street. The whole purpose is to destroy the class discussion entirely and use DEI issues as a weapon against anyone who brings up class. That's why DEI feels so disingenuous, because at its core, that's exactly what it is.

It’s easier to hang out with different colors of people from your social class and pretend like you’ve solved all the problems in diversity. People from lower classes also have icky views that don’t align with yours so no thanks!

That's definitely true. As an example, if you're a low-class white male kid, you're actually quite disadvantaged compared to the general population (for example in educational outcomes). But the DEI initiatives in most companies won't recognize this, as they often don't look past skin color and gender.

Because people believe that social class is your own fault. That people can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they weren't lazy. Not that I agree with this.

This is a complicated question, but at least one aspect of it is that American culture has always had an incredibly difficult time admitting there is such a thing as social and economic class division and confronting it head on.

At least some of this is probably cultural, it's part of our foundational myth that we broke the rigid class structures of the old world countries and we want to believe that is true. There is of course at least some kernels of truth to it, in some sense, for some kinds of people, historically speaking.

The other reason is that there has been a multi-generational extremely well funded initiative to cultivate media and public opinion against the idea. It's everywhere and is the basis of much of the "culture war" signaling we see around us. Examples include the idea that driving a pickup truck or avoiding lattes is some kind of meaningful class marker, rather than things like who owns and controls the capital of this country.

That effort has been highly effective, in part because it's been well executed and in part because of the total collapse of the concept of a labor party in this country, leaving us with two parties ruled by different professional classes.

DEI has become just another corporate metric for executives to game in order to optimize their bonuses. Same with ESG, NPS, and everything else before it - eventually the metric becomes the end unto itself and the original objective gets completely lost.

I think you raise some good points, and I think there are ways to handle DEI hiring well, and ways not to do it well. IMHO, when it's done well, DEI hiring isn't about filling quotas or giving anyone an edge, but it's about making sure that everyone has an equal chance. I've been part of DEI hiring at a couple companies, and my role has been much more about answering questions and making sure that candidates start the process on a level footing with everyone else. All of the candidates are fully qualified for the roles -- I wouldn't be talking to them if they weren't.

Not a native English speaker, but my understanding is that the word "equity" is now used specifically to mean "equality of outcome", which is incompatible with giving everyone an equal chance. I found an article[0] explaining the difference:

>Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

[0] https://onlinepublichealth.gwu.edu/resources/equity-vs-equal...

> it's about making sure that everyone has an equal chance

How does that look in practice? In most companies it seems that means that under-represented people get green lighted at the resume screen step at a much higher percentage than over-represented people. But the bar is the same at the interview stage.

But don't you see how that is a big dis-advantage for the median over-represented applicant?

I think it would be impossible to conclusively say people have an equal chance without having objective, quantifiable, measures of performance. Otherwise, it's easy to use subjective measures, even subconsciously, to make a biased decision.

> when it's done well,...it's about making sure that everyone has an equal chance

If that's the measure, then I think it's not done well in a lot of places (possibly most). Some places are biased one way; other places biased the other way; relatively few are dead-centered.

I have a close friend who expresses similar sentiments sometimes, as someone who is sometimes the target of DEI initiatives.

I've seen DEI hiring initiatives abused to paradoxical ends. Once department administration got into an attempt to basically hire someone using funds set aside for DEI, essentially with the plan to terminate them later, just to collect the support monies that came along with the position. The situation was complex but none of this had to do with hires' actual competence, it had to do with the available pool and this zealotry in unit aims at the time (basically the minority applicants were all working in areas different from the types of projects administration thought people should be working on).

In any event, it created this disturbing situation where an attempt to increase DEI by the higher powers that be was actually having the opposite effect on a hire arguably, by creating this opportunity for unit management to use them for support funds with no actual intent to support them in their career or keep them around long term.

> If I were a white man with the same experience, I might not even be here?

I can understand how DEI initiatives might undermine your self-esteem and I'm sorry you are made to feel this way, but take solace in the fact that you have a job. Imagine how the white guy who was excluded from employment because of his skin color feels. That's who the real victim is here - the person who was racially discriminated against.

> In my opinion, it would be beneficial if DEI initiatives were confidential and kept "hush hush" within a company.

Personally, I prefer companies to be loud and proud about their DEI initiatives so that I know which companies engage in racial discrimination, rather than it all happening behind closed doors.

This is really breath-taking.

Please take a moment and reflect on why these sorts of initiatives exist. It was not because one day we decided to chastise the down-trodden majority class.

This take is radically wrong, and you're just reinforcing OP's insecurities. How do you know that OP has a job at the expense of a white person? How do you know that OP isn't in fact the best candidate for the job? You're making a whole lot of assumptions here that are bordering on outright racism

> However, when I have to join a cheesy townhall once a month to discuss diversity hires, it makes me feel like I have no right to feel proud of any accomplishments I've made within the company.

DEI doesn't prescribe monthly townhalls about to discuss diversity lol Why are you blaming the failings of your company on DEI?

What you are describing sounds performative, which doesn't mean it's tokenism, window dressing, or a bad faith put-on show. It could all be with the best intentions. However it's hard to disagree with your take that DEI results should be self-evident. If a company feels a need to be self-congratulatory, they might be doing it wrong.

You put your finger on it right here: "I could understand publishing a quarterly report, but creating townhall meetings and parading..." Women and minorities in tech have their networks and know what's what. Accurate reporting of positive results is what makes a company welcoming to applicants.

its probably a deliberate strategy in order to make you feel that you haven't earned your position but rather you are beholden to the people that gave it to you

I don't think that's right. Most people involved in DEI have good intentions, they're often just too short-sighted to see second order consequences of the way they do things.

that assumes competency of someone to have a real strategy and then competency to conceal it because it is a timebomb waiting to explode.

Too complicated ;).

Become a founder. You might benefit from some early advantages raising seed money or getting picked for an incubator, but probably not appreciably more than founders like Gates or Zuckerberg from well connected families and communities. And past that first step if you succeed it’s going to be because you made it succeed. Or if you somehow end up founding the affirmative action unicorn because private equity gives you an undeserved valuation, well so long as you don’t sell your soul you may as well enjoy the ride.

> If you're actually a diverse company, then people will notice.

Yep. But the damage has already been done.

At least you have a voice. I recommend using it to change what bothers you.

This has been a criticism of Affirmative Action / DEI initiatives since they were first proposed.

Unfortunately, I've never heard a good rebuttal to this argument. As long as such a system is in place, the potential beneficiaries of such programs cannot be sure if they are there because of merit or just to fill quotas; potentially causing harm to the exact people you're trying to help.

I've always found these telling when companies bandy around with "DEI great!"... All the while the C-levels are 'white male sausagefest' except for the DEI position, which is invariably a black woman.

I like seeing real diversity at all levels of a company, and not the fake diversity pushed by DEI initiatives.

> All the while the C-levels are 'white male sausagefest'

Aren’t those the wurst? It’s like they could at least include vegetables, like aubergine or something.

For all the energy private companies do working towards DEI, think about how easily it could be transitioned into something you don't like. If the winds blow to a falangist anti-capitalism under not catholicism but protestant sects for example, all these little HR people will suddenly be touting the reasons not to hire women and get them back in the home.

HR departments should not be cultural enforcers, and while you may enjoy it now or think positively of DEI, it can flip around just as easily to something not very nice

I’ve no evidence to support this, but I strongly suspect these kind of dog-and-pony shows are a result of there simply not being enough black voices. White people want to be inclusive but they consistently fail to understand what black people actually want out of DEI… because they’re not consulting enough (or any) black people.

The best thing you can do is speak up and make sure your opinion is heard in a way that is simple and direct. Doing it on HN is fine but that won’t change your immediate situation, you need to talk to your leadership.

> because they’re not consulting enough (or any) black people

They are, problem is those black women they consult are mostly DEI people. Who are very different from the actual worker.

I would include that under “not consulting enough black people” but you make an important clarification & I agree with you.

It's a shame "as a black man" posts have made it to HN... at the front page even... during black history month no less.

Plenty of companies make hiring goals that promote diversity as a part of their okrs or company values. Hiring women and minorities makes the company reflect the world we live in now. This is a good thing . Not sure why you are making it about you as if you're the only minority group. Please address your own insecurities before you start making these posts