As someone who is both (afro-latino), I'm really excited about this. After reading the majority of the comments, I'm a little disappointed. It seems that many do not understand that being white and male in the United States, by default, affords many privileges that monitories struggle to obtain. If there any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer.
I'm curious what privileges you perceive, or know to be true, for non-minorities.
I absolutely agree there is a problem. I've heard many first-hand accounts of violence and disrespect from all races. I'm interested in a solution that doesn't just take the labels from a pie chart and reinforce the dividing lines between what ultimately is one group.
Example: I have an African American neighbor one block over that I see regularly. He works in IT/devops. Like every IT person, he gets yelled at by random people at work all the time; it's a high-stress job. But when he gets visibly frustrated, he's The Angry Black Man. Dipshit coworkers complain that they don't feel safe.
It is an example of a white male privilege that being frustrated and swearing at your computer screen is unlikely to result in a white male being put on a PIP for having a "threatening demeanor".
As a large white man, similar things have happened to me.
"Can we have this conversation in the stairwell so I can stand 2 steps down and make you feel comfortable?" <- actual thing I've had to say and do with a crazy female coworker
There may be some racial bias here (I don't have enough reliable data to have much of an opinion), but don't think majorities are immune.
Yeah, well, the difference is, every single black person I've seen that works in the industry has had a superlatively gregarious personality -- comfortable to talk to, ultra-diplomatic, with a good sense of humor. Any similarly sized group of white men I can think of, be it groups of coworkers at different companies, people I play golf with that are in tech, etc, have some angry, caustic personalities. Where'd all the angry black people go?
I've had similar as well. Literally had managers tell me I can't express anger the way others do because it was intimidating when I did it. Size matters as much as anything in that kind of situation.
At one job, I regularly interacted with a man who was larger than me and often angry. He was a few inches taller and 70-80 pounds heavier. He'd had a couple people threaten him with going to management for official notice when he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew he wasn't actually threatening.
But it did give be the perspective of seeing someone larger than me who was angry, which was something I hadn't encountered as an adult. I could then see where others were coming from as well.
I actually think that is kind of interesting. As a 5'9'' guy, it aint a problem, but it is interesting.
It reminds me of a character in the `Tale of Alvin Maker` series by Orson Scott Card. Forgot the characters name, but he was basically a bully and a 'sadist'. He had a sort of geasa placed on him as a baby, so that he never really got hurt. Anyway, he looses it, and suddenly is hurt badly. He suddenly understands what it was like for the people he was hurting. It wasn't really that he was a bad person, it was just that he had never experienced pain himself. It was enlightening when I read it as a teenager. Is it possible to really empathize until you experience something yourself? Don't know.
BTW, I am not in any way implying you are a bully or sadist. :)
Just saying it is interesting that you had a earnestly hard time understanding why other people felt threatened until... The exact same thing happened to you! Some human experiences are very hard to communicate, they seem to only be learned through direct experience.
>
At one job, I regularly interacted with a man who was larger than me and often angry. He was a few inches taller and 70-80 pounds heavier. He'd had a couple people threaten him with going to management for official notice when he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew he wasn't actually threatening.
No, he actually is treatening if he is angry enough at work to cause people fear, alarm, distress.
It's absolutely not acceptable to be that angry at work. It's understandable if it happens once or twice, but here you've mentioned a person who has had several colleagues talking about escalating complaints about his behaviour.
That employee should have been supported to change their aggressive behaviour (because it causes harm to them, and it causes harm to other employees, and it causes harm to the company) with a fairly stern reminder to stop fucking about.
If a physical trait causes people around someone to feel fear, alarm and distress, then that person actually is threatening and it's not acceptable.
As noted above, other physical traits (e.g. blackness) also cause those reactions. Your claim - namely that people's subjective perception, rather than objective behavior, are what determines the bounds of acceptability - seems to prove too much.
It's not the physical traits of height or maleness or colour, but the anger displayed.
Perhaps I should have phrased it as "Don't have a work environment that regularly causes your employees to display anger"; and "Support your employees with workplace stress".
But still, anyone who is regularly angry at work needs to realise that their behaviour is not acceptable.
Implicit trust is how to decode 'white privledge' quickly. Point being that it is something to take for granted, unless you have to establish it (or pay for the privledge). But it is very necessary in tech where alot happens by way of informal networking & referrals and lots of heuristic social screening comes into play (buy necessity, not malice). So those who have implicit trust are at a huge advantage (or at least an even playing field). And those that don't are on the ooposite end of that (battling uphill, etc).
Another example that should be nearer to the hearts of anti-YC partisans: the "looking for people that look like Zuckerberg" bias Paul Graham accidentally evoked a few years back.
That's really interesting. It sounds like that is very much a symptom of ingrained racism; something these people have been encouraged to do for most of their lives.
I grew up in a pretty diverse neighborhood, so I know the people to fear are not divided along racial lines. Someone who came from a wealthier area would probably not have that opportunity.
To the point I made elsewhere on this page, does a program like this help to reduce that perception of inferiority, or just get people riled up about someone getting a perceived handout?
If the problem really is circumstantial, education seems like the obvious solution to me. In your specific example, the symptoms are fear driven; the more diverse experiences someone has, they more they will see how little there really is to fear. Travel is one of those obvious things that reduces bigotry.
The idea behind the phone call is that it welcomes people into the field. If we want to couch these issues in the emotions of the victims, rather than the (often inadvertent) perpetrators, then yes: it's mostly about ameliorating "fear". I don't know that we need much psychoanalysis, though. Mostly what YC is doing is just neighborly common sense.
Bluntly: people getting "riled up" about "perceived handouts" are complaining in bad faith, and their opinions shouldn't be taken into account. The 20 minute phone call YC is offering today is the least of the excuses people could generate about the persecution of the majority. If it's not this, it's something else.
No it is not. You cannot point to poor treatment of one group as evidence of the "privilege" of another group. There are more than two colors of people.
Isn't that precisely what privilege means? Having advantages that accrue to you simply by membership in one group?
There are degrees of privilege, too. I'm not white - I'm multiracial white/Asian, though I look basically Asian. I'm also not a Stanford grad, and my parents weren't millionaires. However, I grew up middle-class in a reasonably affluent suburb, my parents stayed married, they were highly educated, and I'm not black or Hispanic. These are all privileges; they are unearned advantages that I obtained through circumstances before my birth. That I'm not white and can't call up a VC to get them to fund my company doesn't make me unprivileged; it makes me less privileged than certain 1-in-a-million individuals.
What I read in that is that we can say Argentinians are privileged vs Paraguayans, because due to circumstance beyond anyone's control, Argentines are better off than Paraguayans. Same for Greeks vs Swedes?
Fair assessment, I think. I don't know anything about the specific situations in those countries, but privilege is very frequently used in referring to say, coming from the U.S. vs. the rest of the world, or developed nations rather than developing nations.
Okay, and when are we gonna talk about Jewish privilege? Because they get all the benefits of white privilege when they're white-passing, PLUS the benefits of being Jewish!
"Since the mass immigration some 100 years ago, Jews have become richest religious group in American society. They make up only 2% of US population, but 25% of 400 wealthiest Americans. How did it happen, and how crucial is their aid to Israel?"
Or how about the drawbacks of being Jewish? According to the FBI (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2013/topic-...
"Of the 1,223 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:
60.3 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias."
Perhaps Jews do so well because Judaism teaches critical thinking and education as a philosophy, whereas Christianity teaches obedience and the power of wishful thinking. Only one of these schools of thoughts helps you in the real world.
I don't think you grok the concept of privilege as I'm using it. My guess is that like many people who reject the term (or its common usage), you think "privilege" is an indictment of the people who hold the privilege, or a demand for them to relinquish it. That may be some people's notion of privilege, but it's not a very useful one.
Better is just to see it as a positive attribute, rather than a normative one. It is a fact that white men have some advantages in most tech workplaces, simply because they don't stick out. That doesn't make white men bad people, or obligate them to do things to genuflect to non-white non-men. It's just a useful thing to know, is all.
You are focused on the word "privilege" but my point was about the word "white". Anyone not a black male is privileged to be able to get angry in the work place according to your example. It's asian/indian/middle eastern/eskimo/white/other privilege.
If you are saying white privilege is the cause of poor treatment of the black man mentioned above, you are way off base. Privilege is not the cause of the treatment, it is the result.
I'm just simply asking whats the cause of the poor treatment? If you are able to assert that it is not due to white privilege and know if someone is off-base, then I'm assuming you know that cause to make such an assertion. That's all.
Ok, let's carry this logic- the same disparity exists between men and women. Would you describe women who don't feel safe around their visibly angry coworkers as "dipshits", and dismiss this anger as venting? This must be an example of female privilege, right?
You're reading this backwards... The privilege part is that the Angry White Man doesn't get called out for raging much of the time. They get latitude. The black guy doesn't.
Right. So the fact that the Angry White Woman doesn't get called out for raging much of the time, while the man does, is an example of female privilege. Right?
Sex differences of this type can be seen as privilege, but, in the real world, women who show strong emotion are often described as being hysterical or with other negative terms and marginalized while men are described as driven go-getters for the same behavior, and rewarded.
* Have a speech impediment and not be held back, even from high office like president of the us.
(I have rebutted arguments that "It isn't racist to discriminate against blacks for having the black accent because it just proves they are uneducated and inarticulate" by saying "George W. Bush. If articulate speech is really the criteria, how did he ever get to be president? And if we can hire an inarticulate white guy but not an inarticulate black guy, then something in there is still racist somehow, no?")
At a high level; wealth, education and jobs which is easily afforded due to 400 years of slavery, 100 years of blatant discrimination and 50+ years discrimination built into the American Justice System. White Americans also do not have to worry about mass incarcerations and racial profiling. Laci Green does a fantastic job a breaking all of these down: https://youtu.be/h_hx30zOi9I
I'm white. I was once 14. I used to bring in all kinds of hacked together computer things to my high school all the time. I'd even bring in a soldering iron and solder at lunch. I was never arrested or questioned or considered a threat.
When was this? I also was once 14, and I look like my name should be Ahmed Mohammed. I too also brought in crazy stuff to school. I was never considered a threat.
Ofc this was 1994, and that was well before mass school shootings, and 9/11 (however it was during the height of gang violence and so any perceived gang affiliation was dealt with in similar manner).
Racism happens in people's hearts and minds, not in policy. Fixing racism means fixing hearts and minds.
Calling us "one group" diminishes the value of diversity, which is more or less a fact of nature. We are NOT all the same. Cultural intelligence is a thing.
Anyway the specific problem with your race-blind view is that throughout American history we have employed race-sighted policy at every level of government to ensure peril for certain minorities.
Correcting those efforts is an _active_ process of reaching out to the historically disadvantaged who, it can be proven, continue to feel the negative effects of racist American _policy_.
I completely disagree with this, but can you elaborate on racism not being in policy. I think you are confusing systemic racism (in regards to white privilege) with slurs, discrimination, hating someone's skin color, etc.
why do you think the lines are the problem? certainly, race is a thing. the problem is IMO in the asymmetry of power and opportunity between the slices of the pie chart. that races exist is undeniable, but racism does not stem just from acknowledging the existence of the variety of human race.
Red River Metis here. We look white to dark... but we have a very similar history of generational abuse by the Canadian government.
If anyone has read April Rain Tree. Well that was a Metis author. You can't judge a book by its cover. So I get being held two steps back and what trauma does to opportunity.
I think there are better ways to support experience specific generational understanding/education with then segregated environments.
> Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to ancient Hispania (Iberian Peninsula).... Brazilians are a good example of Latinos who are not Hispanic.
Weird to focus there. Portugal was part of Hispania and is part of the Iberian Peninsula, just like the rest of their descendants in the Americas.
Curious to see if you think there is an Asian privilege as well? Asians make more, get better jobs, get better grades, commit less crime than white people. What about our system makes it so easy for Asian people to succeed?
You planning to open up such a thing for the handicapped as well?
I mean, until the ACA came along, I pretty much took a risk-aversion pattern career path so I wouldn't get thrown into the "prexisting condition" abyss, and I'm probably not alone here. Personally speaking, a lot of handicapped folk I've met through the years are quite clever, innovative, and determined, because starting life at the plate with a 3-2 count is a lot different than being on 3rd base, if you catch my metaphorical drift. Just curious.
They aren't "combating bigotry". They've observed the obvious demographic gaps, and they're doing targeted outreach to try to close that gap.
Combating bigotry is a worthy cause, but it is not the only worthy cause, and evaluating unrelated outreach programs by their impact on bigotry is a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand.
I think this is worth pointing out: there is probably no criticism anyone is going to have of this program that the YC partners have not already considered. It's 2015, and they're not dumb.
would this be an example of the Nirvana fallacy? actual good work is being done, and you're saying that it's bad because it's not better? but then again, your suggestion is not really better. you can't fight racism by pretending there is no race, and if you acknowledge there's an unfair asymmetry in society, then the response must also be asymmetric.
if a person is ill, you don't go around giving medicine to everybody so that the healthy wouldn't feel excluded.
I mentioned this below point below - but I'll make it again here. We do tons and tons of outreach at YC. We meet/talk to thousands of founders a year. With open office hours our goal was to have a way to do targeted outreach which we think is important to close the demographic gap in startups. Open Office Hours should be seen in the context of all the other outreach we do instead of in isolation.
Fair enough, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If nobody cared about what YCombinator does, or what potential affect it can have on a career path, then it'd fall by the wayside. It's one of the fine lines good businesses have to straddle - once in a position of leadership, gradually society looks toward the business and wants to know how they intend to use that position of status.
I don't see this being much different than what being featured on Oprah's Book Club could do - sometimes things are overlooked, and using personal currency to bring attention to such things makes sense.
Not trying to be too snarky, but yeah, I know. There are so many support networks for youth and adults in respective communities that once you put the word out, I bet responses will come pouring in. It's a good compliment to trying to raise your outreach profile with the under-represented communities overall - lots of overlap and progress you can help be a part of making!
I'm not trying to be a troll, I'm just trying to find a justification. Having something that says you can only can come in if you are "Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans, and International founders" kinda racist as fuck? It sounds exactly like segregation to me.
Again, not trying to be a troll. Not American, just trying to understand.
Good question! My best answer is that many members of these groups have an even harder time starting a startup. In addition to all the normal outreach we do to all startup founders (6500+ applied for the last batch) we also want to do targeted outreach to underrepresented groups in order to close the gap.
and you certain its all due to their skin color etc?
Sorry, I'm having a hard time to believe it.
> we also want to do targeted outreach to underrepresented
Having that much resources to invest (limited, are they?), you likely will end up funding a business based on founder's skin color. Sorry, but that how it looks like from outside.
"It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders."
Which brings up another interesting point. Are all the ycombinator staff comfortable with being accused of being racists? What would happen to any ycombinator staff who publicly objected to this accusation?
Everyone is racist on some level, including those who would prefer not to be. It is deeply ingrained through constant cultural conditioning and has been shown to be true in many many studies.
It's much more worse to claim that you are in no way racist, since this just suppresses the problem. All you can do is accept that you have deep sub/unconscious biases and try to correct them in your conscious mind, though no one ever fully succeeds.
Eventually, hopefully, we'll all evolve in a better direction. In the meantime, this office hours is a good idea.
It's ridiculous to start going back to this sort of racism. This is the "affirmative action or positive discrimination" that is tearing apart Africa right now.
The only sort of racism that should even be considered these days would be genetic research of ethnic groups. That's not something evil BTW. Researching those prone to heart disease, cancer or have positive/useful genes that could be used to protect all of us in the future. Alas, we aren't living the movie Gattaca yet.
> All you can do is accept that you have deep sub/unconscious biases and try to correct them in your conscious mind, though no one ever fully succeeds.
The difference between this and "We are all sinners; all you can do is accept Jesus into your heart" seems to be merely a manner of terminology.
I cannot imagine that YCombinator did not offer equal opportunity's for all applicants. But they have been slammed with some negative press over the past 2 years (and PG specifically), regarding diversity and women founders.
It is not all that surprising. They explicitly said last year they were going to do something to improve diversity.
Because, at least in America, all of the time is 'white male time', and people of color and women often feel intimidated in spaces that are dominated in this way, so efforts are made to encourage a focus on marginalized people.
I see. It just that the concept just feels weird to me, targeting specifically a few types of people. I suspect having that here where I'm from (Portugal), would have been construed as being racist.
Again, not being a troll, just trying to understand.
Notice that it's Black and Hispanic, and not Asian? At least Asian women might have dedicated office hours ("We will start with Black and Hispanic founders and if successful we hope to launch future Open Office Hours for Women, Veterans, and International founders.")
Always seems like Asian men in the U.S. get the 'worst' of being a minority. Neither the societal advantages of white majority, nor the ability to access services available to Hispanics/Blacks or women.
Agreed. I was focused on the parent commenters point that Asian Men have been successful, despite being the time of "White Privilege."
We (asian men) are well represented in tech--even when I was a kid, MIT specifically said they did not consider Asian as a underrepresented ethnic group.
Neither is black or hispanic. The entire debate around 'race' in the US I find is riddled with outdated concepts and semantics. In many developed countries's dialogue on these issues the semantics rarely touch on race anymore as it's quite meaningless and scientifically untenable. Instead when we talk about different peoples in socioeconomic debates by referring to various ethnicities (which are quite flexible, you can group people on ethnic bases by culture, religion, language and indeed nationalities or continental heritage like Asian although it's not recommended as there are obviously gigantic differences between say China, Japan and Indonesia that too broad terms become meaningless, too). The US is one of the few developed countries that really uses the word 'race' a lot and still defines people by race. Here in the Netherlands the only time we refer to the word race is when we use the word 'racism', the only word that really stuck and encompasses discrimination on ethnic basis, not race. The notion of typifying people as 'black' or 'white' in the Netherlands is not-done.
It's not an accident that America has particular problems with Black/White and Hispanic/White race relations. Comparisons of race relations in America to race relations anywhere else need to be quite careful to identify the correspondences.
The claim that race is too murky a concept to pin down is generally invoked in cases like this; observed preferential treatment for historically disadvantaged races. If race can't exist, the argument implies, neither can racism. Always ask who wins if we allow ourselves to believe this.
The truth is that racism does exist, and we can test for it using methods that are repeatable in experiment. Race is not "meaningless" in this country, and anyone claiming so is selling you something.
Bullshit. Black people aren't discriminated because they're from a 'black race', there is no black race. They're discriminated against because their skin color is black. Discrimination on the basis of skin color can (and obviously does) exist without the existence of an concept of race.
As for hispanic, that's an ethnonym, i.e. an ethnic group, that's exactly my point. This is how we talk in say the Netherlands about what you call the 'racial debate', on the basis of ethnicities like hispanic. And these ethnicities can indeed comprise of black peoples, and within that context we can and do, all the time, talk about racism and discrimination, but that's wholly different from the notion that the human race has different subraces, a black, white, yellow whatever, that's a ridiculously silly and outdated sociological model and anyone claiming otherwise is terribly ignorant.
As for 'who wins if we allow ourselves to believe', really? Do you really base your beliefs on who wins, rather than on what is true?
Just think about how silly that sounds. Imagine I said black is a lighter shade of color than white, it'd be ridiculous. Somehow such an outdated idea that human beings come from or can be separated into entirely different races, biologically different subsets of species, and that one is black and the other is white, remains in the American everyday semantics even though American academia has long moved past such a model.
Anyway, maybe this wasn't clear, when I say race isn't a thing I'm saying it's not a tenable scientific theory of human or biological taxonomy.
That doesn't mean that race as an erroneous social construct doesn't exist in the minds of people. In that way, race as a concept is still very much alive. But when someone says 'Asian is not a race', I think it's important to also note that black or hispanic or white, isn't, either, it's a social construct that is outdated, silly and that we should move past. Just like when people say 'homosexuality is a choice', when scientifically this is wrong, doesn't mean that this idea is not very much alive in the minds of some people. But when someone makes mention of it, it's important to note that it's a wrongful belief that homosexuality is a choice.
Some quick references for those who're unfamiliar with race as a social construct:
> As anthropologists and other evolutionary scientists have shifted away from the language of race to the term population to talk about genetic differences, historians, cultural anthropologists and other social scientists re-conceptualized the term "race" as a cultural category or social construct—a particular way that some people talk about themselves and others.
> Many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs concerning shared culture, ancestry and history. Alongside empirical and conceptual problems with "race", following the Second World War, evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination, apartheid, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the U.S. civil rights movement and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide. They thus came to believe that race itself is a social construct, a concept that was believed to correspond to an objective reality but which was believed in because of its social functions.
> Craig Venter and Francis Collins of the National Institute of Health jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome in 2000. Upon examining the data from the genome mapping, Venter realized that although the genetic variation within the human species is on the order of 1–3% (instead of the previously assumed 1%), the types of variations do not support notion of genetically defined races. Venter said, "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one. There are no bright lines (that would stand out), if we could compare all the sequenced genomes of everyone on the planet." "When we try to apply science to try to sort out these social differences, it all falls apart."
> Stephan Palmié asserted that race "is not a thing but a social relation"; or, in the words of Katya Gibel Mevorach, "a metonym", "a human invention whose criteria for differentiation are neither universal nor fixed but have always been used to manage difference." As such, the use of the term "race" itself must be analyzed. Moreover, they argue that biology will not explain why or how people use the idea of race: History and social relationships will.
Some of the confusion comes from African-American essentially being an ethnicity. There is a shared culture and heritage, but in addition to the normal aspects of an ethnicity there is the element that people from the dominant American ethnicity (white people) can put people in the African-American ethnicity based on how they are perceived.
Like a black person from Nigeria has very different experiences than a black Amercian, but black people from LA and NYC probably have a lot to relate about.
Besides which, the US as a country has put 100's of years of effort into making black a race through the force of law and through societal pressure.
I wasn't going to make that last point today but yes, black race was for centuries a legal construct in addition to an ethnic one. The American concept of race doesn't travel well.
Asian is as much a race as White or Black is. (All races are social constructed with culturally-ascribed boundaries, so really, anything that is generally perceived and treated as a race is a race; even if you restrict it to three "classical" races, White, Black, and Asian are pretty much the modern names for Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.)
My point is, what about all the other people? The world is not divided into White, Black, Asian and Spanish-speaking. There are Indians, Central Asians, Arabs, Persians...
Even 19th century racialists in their ignorant understanding of the world didn't lump 2/3 of the world's population into a miscellaneous category.
The common racial categories today (of which others are subcategories) are (though different names are sometimes used) Black, White, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American. Sometimes Pacific Islanders are considered a separate high-level group, rather than part of a top-level group with Asian. [0]
(Hispanic is an ethnic group that is usually treated as cutting across racial groups.)
> There are Indians, Central Asians, Arabs, Persians...
In terms of the usual racial categories, that's Asian, Asian, White, and White.
> Even 19th century racialists in their ignorant understanding of the world didn't lump 2/3 of the world's population into a miscellaneous category.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the old Mongoloid from the long-dominant threefold racial category -- which is the closest parallel in the old scheme to the modern Asian category but is even broader -- certainly did so even more than one could argue that "Asian" does in the dominant modern scheme.
You say that like making an event 'inclusive' is some kind of chore. In fact, what we're talking about is stopping people at the door because they have the wrong skin color.
And extending an invitation for a 20 minute phone call is worse than traveling across the country to do a recruiting event at an elite college with minuscule Latino and African American enrollment how?
Like black churches and communities, professional women's societies, women's shelters, scholarships for women, women's clubs at schools, and so on? In elementary schools, where >90% of teachers are female? Among psychology majors, with 60-70% women? Do you really suggest that it is always "white male time" everywhere?
Go ask a white kid growing up in a mostly black, poor neighborhood whether he feels like it's "his time."
Initiatives like this should be based on socioeconomics, not race.
You're putting words in my mouth. But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men.
But that is beside the point here. My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated.
Strike that example off the list, then. It doesn't change the original comment's point.
I'm not sure how I can simultaneously be "putting words in your mouth" and pointing out things that you actually do believe.
Your examples were bad. I'm going to go ahead and assert that the "black church" example shoots past "bad" and reaches "offensive"; predominantly black churches do not exclude people of other ethnicities.
Where was the implication that they aren't welcoming? The point was that a black church is not "all white male all the time". It feels like you're looking for something to be offended about.
> My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated.
I like to think we're all adults here. As a nerdy straight white male even I understand that it's shorthand.
Imagine we both have a bucket. Every time life gives you a "freebie", you drop a stone in the bucket. Every time you get passed over or catch crap just for being yourself you take a stone out.
I have had plenty of experiences in my life where I was targeted for being nerdy; bullied, harassed, etc. My parents were not rich and earlier in my life actually quite poor. The difference is my bucket is still mostly full. The average black man can't say that. The average white woman's bucket is fuller than the average black man's, but not as full as mine.
And yes you are pedantically technically correct: there do exist some white people who's buckets are relatively empty by this analogy. They are proportionally a much smaller percentage of all white people than the corresponding cohort of black people in the US.
That is what gripes me a bit about the responses my own tech/nerd community tends to vomit out whenever issues like this come up. Congrats, you pulled a few counter-examples out of your ass. Who cares? We're talking the overall big picture here.
But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men.
I had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy years ago and I am a woman on the street with my two adult sons. There is absolutely more support and better programs for homeless women than for homeless men. However, that is partly because there are a lot fewer women on the street than men, by a very wide margin. Which means that programs for homeless women serve a substantially smaller population, thus it is easier to provide something higher quality.
Part of why so few women are on the street: Family often makes sure a woman with small kids is not literally out on the street. She may not be welcome, but her kids are, and this gives her a place to stay, even if she is treated like crap -- for the sake of the kids. Furthermore, women on the street are at fairly high risk of being raped, something men on the street are not at risk of. So a lot of women will do whatever they have to do to avoid being on the street -- even if that means shacking up with some guy as a polite form of prostitution (an offer I turned down but have seen at least one other homeless woman accept).
My opinion as someone who has both studied it formally and lived it firsthand, and thus interacted with plenty of actual homeless people and observed them, is that men on the street tend to be in less desperate straits than women on the street. Fewer women end up on the street, for complex reasons which do not really translate to privilege per se. There are ways in which me being on the street is an exercise of agency that many women are denied.
Your complaint is kind of like saying "Cancer patients get the best surgeries!" It isn't exactly something to be envious of.
I do wish homeless services generally were better, mostly from a perspective of treating homeless individuals with actual respect, regardless of their gender. But complaining that homeless women have some kind of privilege is basically an ignorant statement.
As for your actual original comment about women's shelters: They exist as sanctuary for women who have been abused. A common way women end up on the street is they flee an abusive relationship where they are financially dependent upon the man. Thus, they flee for their lives with little more than the clothes on their backs. Although there are men who are victims of domestic violence, this is a much more common problem for women, both from the perspective of being assaulted and from the perspective of being financially dependent and, thus, finding it logistically difficult to leave. We don't have "men's shelters" in part because there is relatively little demand for sanctuary for abused and penniless men compared to the demand you see in the female population.
I made no mention of social disadvantages. I merely pointed out that Eminem fits the description of hypothetical "white kid" the parent commenter referenced.
when certain groups are underrepresented, then doing something proactive to improve that is not racism, it's fighting against it.
IMO social context is key. it's asymmetric, and to fix it, you need asymmetric action. if the scale is tipped to one side, then to balance it out, you add some weight to the other.
What is "under-representation"? How do you measure it, and how do you determine when all "certain groups" (which are what, exactly?) are "represented" proportionately?
These are serious questions. How do we decide: what groups should be represented (what about ugly individuals? people with specific disabilities?), and when everything is all "fair"?
It is not racism. Racism is the attitude/belief that one race is superior to another race. Also military veteran is not a race.
It is discrimination. Discrimination is having applicants use 23andMe to prove that they are more black than white, so you can give them a different preferential treatment.
Next to making the world a better place through more black startup founders, this is a PR move. Paul Graham stopped posting on YC around the time of those terrible threads on females in tech. Hackernews became renowned for their toxic response to these issues. You can still see some of that in the rest of this thread and in my comment.
What followed was Female Founders and this initiative. This discriminatory trend will only continue. YC thinks it can make their startup portfolio more diverse, by adding more black startup founders. In this lies the hidden assumption that black founders act or think differently than white founders. The terrible alternative being that YC judges the diversity of their portfolio on the skin color of their founders.
This was incredibly hard to read, but you are correct in one thing, it is not racism. It's Institutional racism, which is any system of inequality based on race.
Just apply anyway if you're European American, Asian-American, or have familial originals in the Balkans / Middle East / SEA. Playing the race card is a political move various corporations' head-honchos in the spotlight of society must submit to doing in America, but it doesn't mean they aren't willing to help someone who is a "gem in the rough" and earnestly needs their help just because that person isn't black / hispanic / woman.
But say you submit two applications of virtually same quality except one is stereotypical black/hispanic/woman, and the other stereotypical white, and the latter gets rejected, then you have a case regarding true racism, as oppose to just political correctness.
Recently in my workplace (I'm white/male, 11 person team is lead by 2 white males) we've been working on refocusing our branding on "Tech Entrepreneurs". Quick. Name the first person you think of when you here that? What do they look like? Probably white, twenty something, male. This was a problem for our team because we are trying to target more than that. We know we are, but communicating that and reaching more people is hard. It's cemented in our bias, but yeah, still, we realize that "tech" is a lot of "younger white dudes". This effort by YC is just trying to change that by making a safe place for people outside of "the norm" to be acknowledged and encouraged.
It is kind of a brute force methodology, but it is kind of all we have. We would need a more elegant understanding of the problem space in order to address such things effectively without relying on some kind of racism/classism/OtherIsm to select for who needs some help getting a leg up when they are routinely left out by our current processes. Perhaps we can gain that understanding, but if it already existed, we wouldn't have the problems we currently have. So perhaps not a good time to hold out for some perfect solution.
There's probably a less confrontational way to phrase the question if you're looking to have a meaningful discussion.
Are you confused by the concept of affirmative action? It's not a new idea and there's a considerable body of academic research and opinions for and against it online.
Racism is a pretty heavily charged accusation to make, and you made it very casually. I believe you weren't trying to troll, but rather than repeatedly saying "I don't mean to be a troll", you might have better luck by being more careful about how you phrase your concerns. That's all.
Whenever you are confused about our culture, just try following the money... problem + buzz + market = opportunity. These are good capitalist VC's acting normally, nothing unusual about it. And if I didn't miss it already, I wouldn't be surprised at a diversity-focused startup fund announcement some time very soon. In this light, this announcement is probably a test/market research for that fund.
I'm not defensive about criticisms of this YC program, although I find all of them preposterous.
My hackles are, however, raised by the virulent strain of HN comments written by anonymous users confidently asserting that they understand the motives of people they've never met.
The word "probably" in the comment upthread is where the switch flipped in my brain that made me respond. Oh really? Probably, you say? Please tell us more. You've made an assertion; it's right there in the thread. Now stand by it and back it up with evidence.
And if I didn't miss it already, I wouldn't be surprised at a diversity-focused startup fund announcement some time very soon. In this light, this announcement is probably a test/market research for that fund.
Well, at face value this could be construed as an act of "Affirmative Action". Some people in non white groups could view it as patronizing or condemn as an act of "white saviorship" or an extension of the "white man's burden" philosophy. Other critics on the other end of the spectrum would view it as counter-productive and enforcing of racial division lines or taken to an extreme as "reverse racism".
I on the other tend to give people the benefit of doubt before rushing to judgements. The fact that they excluded Asians whether for the East or the South from the preferential treatment makes me think that they're acting in good faith and with the best intentions till further notice.
BTW: I am not Caucasian. Since we brought up race in this discussion.
> Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans, and International founders.
I think it's great that YC is concerned about helping non-elite people. What about just focusing on helping poor people compete in Silicon Valley in general? Does anyone think wealthy founders of any kind need more help than poor founders of any kind?
the sad truth is that being poor and being black/latino are both disadvantages when it comes to starting a startup in silicon valley. obviously both are overcome-able, but it's an uneven playing field.
You would think all the efforts towards social outreach would focus on poverty as their #1 criteria - the most direct and obvious criteria of people in need - but they almost never do. The problem is these programs are created by upper-class people in their media-social bubble, cobbled together from the arbitrary championings within that bubble. Unfortunately poverty doesn't have a strong, dedicated representative in these upper class circles, because only a tiny number of people born poor ever make it into the media or valley cocktail parties. Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans - all have members both in needy classes and in upper classes to champion their own cause. But using this represented-in-the-bubble approach results in an arbitrary mix of random criteria that only half serves the purpose. There are certainly many Black/Hispanic/Women/Veterans in need and deserving of help, but there's also plenty who are trust fund babies who don't need it. Meanwhile, there are a lot of obvious groups left out of this list - Native Americans, poor Appalachian whites, etc. It seems ridiculous to explicitly help Blacks and Hispanics, but not Native Americans. We could go on and list a dozen more needy groups left out, but why bother when the correct criteria should just be poverty.
Discrimination on the basis of superficial factors exists. Positive discrimination on the basis of similar factors is inefficient for exactly the reasons you describe, but a) it's a lot cheaper and simpler than means-testing people to find out whether they're actually poor or just pretending to be and b) people often rely on superficial characteristics when choosing role models, which is natural because you want a model who's substantially ahead of you (otherwise you don't have much to aspire to) but the greater the gap you wish to close the lower the probability that you can establish personal contact with all the extra nuance and information involved.
You would think all the efforts towards social outreach would focus on poverty as their #1 criteria
This is a really, really, really terrible criteria to use. It is one with a proven track record of actively encouraging people to be failures in order to qualify for assistance and it becomes a trap they don't know how to escape. It is much, much, much more effective to define need or merit on some basis other than poverty. It is much better for society to say children, handicapped individuals, new parents, people recently fired...etc... deserve or need assistance and not "poor people."
I see your point about moral hazards, but in this case, I don't think anyone would avoid working in order to become poor in order to get free advice about how to work.
There are psychological costs to having people self-identify as being poor enough to qualify for a program that are not there for self-identifying as female or black or hispanic. You are asking people to say to themselves and the world "I am enough of a failure to qualify for help." It is not a basis for future success. It is the opposite. And it comes with all kinds of problems.
I wish YC approached the shortage of women and other minorities in tech/startups differently. But I don't wish they took the approach you are suggesting.
Following that logic, why is the tech industry targeting mostly white men creating harm? Why did the Boy Scouts banning gays create harm? Why did all-white country clubs create harm? Why did a ban on gay marriage create harm? We can easily justify any exclusive institution by ignoring the outsiders and weigh only the benefits to the insiders. Of course, this is painfully ironic when the purpose of the institution, in this case, is inclusion.
The explicit nature of identifying these groups by race is off-putting, mostly because it is short-sighted. Racial identification can't be the solution if the ultimate goal is to end racial disparity. This obviously isn't the first or last program YC implements, but as some point the message has got to become more sophisticated to accomplish the core goal.
YC is a numbers game. This simply encourages stereotypically atypical founders to succeed, skewing the numbers in their benefit for future investors. It also creates role models for potential founders, showing that this is not an industry dominated by just white guys.
From the perspective a middle class white male, I do worry you might be making the problem worse by reinforcing and/or encouraging elitism on both sides.
You make some really good points here. Here are my thoughts: members of these groups (race, sex, nationality) are being identified and negative stereotypes are being applied to them everyday. There has the be a distinction between giving people an explicit benefit based on race/sex/etc and doing outreach to members of different groups but then having an open and common application process for all.
i disagree with the anti-identification claim. if we indeed do not "see race", then how can we even talk about racism, let alone fix it? this may seem trivial, but it is important. as a gay guy, i've heard similar arguments from people (like, "i don't care about sexuality, as long as you're a good person"), and i believe in good intentions, but many people do "see race", and that creates a social situation where people are disadvantaged because of it.
as i said in another comment here, social context is key and should not be ignored. if the scale is tipped to one side, you have to add weight to the other one if you want to balance it out.
What is the ultimate goal you wish to achieve? Do you want to be known as the "gay black guy", or just another human friend?
What if your sexual interests go beyond current definitions; are we to add a new slice to the pie chart simply for one person's identification?
The trans-gender, sexual-orientation debate gets specific, but it's irrelevant in the end.
As I advised a kid confused about his orientation recently: it doesn't matter what the media labels as OK, it doesn't matter what your family labels as OK, listen to yourself and come up with your own (potentially-unique) ideas and then get on with your life. Nobody is going to tell you how to do it as well as you can tell yourself.
> What is the ultimate goal you wish to achieve? Do you want to be known as the "gay black guy", or just another human friend?
The fact that you think this is a dichotomy is why the whole proposal sounds ridiculous to you. What if people don't want to feel that they have to choose between expressing their racial/sexual identity and being accepted as a human? Do you seriously not understand that that is the issue -- the fact that the issue is presented as a binary and exclusive choice: either express your atypical cultural traits or receive "normal" treatment, but not both.
> The trans-gender, sexual-orientation debate gets specific, but it's irrelevant in the end.
Do you realize that you're calling irrelevant the core feature of many peoples' identity? The only people who can spout this and seriously wonder why nobody else sees it this way are people who fit into mainstream, typical populations and are completely unable to take into account the fact that their own cultural affinities are accepted as normal.
In other words: you already enjoy the acceptance which you are blithely dismissing as a worthless goal for others to pursue.
First, this is not a debate about wether oppression exists; obviously it does. I'm asking if team-sports-like brand exclusivity is right, when our ultimate goal should be the acceptance of everyone.
Do think about why you insist on labeling yourself. I don't care if you're gay, and it's certainly not the most important thing I want to hear about you. If we're not talking about sex, why would you bring up your sexual orientation?
Do you think that just because I don't shave, and have subsequently grown a long beard, that I should identify with all the other guys that have beards? Or that I only donate my money only to organizations who are friendly to bearded people? Or that I might have a slightly harder time convincing people of my professionalism, but think that's OK, because I believe in my choice?
I am not untitled because I am following others, I am untitled because I am unique and un-titleable.
> Do think about why you insist on labeling yourself. I don't care if you're gay, and it's certainly not the most important thing I want to hear about you.
Ah, surely what's most important about me are the things you want to hear about.
> I am not untitled because I am following others, I am untitled because I am unique and un-titleable.
But these are not labels, and are in no way ideas about yourself to which you attach an undue importance. If I were to blithely negate your perceived individuality by suggesting that you were utterly banal and unoriginal, that certainly wouldn't be a blow to your nameless ego, right?
> If we're not talking about sex, why would you bring up your sexual orientation?
because it's a big part of who i am. to give a simple example of just how thoroughly oblivious you are - i was invited to many hetero weddings, some pretty big ones, and it had not once occurred to me to come up to the bride and groom and say: "you know, do all these people really need to know you two are fucking?!"
love is a big deal in everyone's life, and i won't stick mine in a closet because you don't want to hear it.
but please, don't let my lived experience or the simple reality of the success of the LGBT rights movement, which is argument enough against your Nirvana-fallacy bullshit, stop you in lecturing other people what's best for them.
P.S. another confirmation of obliviousness, or maybe even bad intentions - nobody said you were following anyone. get it?
> because it's a big part of who i am. to give a simple example of just how thoroughly oblivious you are - i was invited to many hetero weddings, some pretty big ones, and it had not once occurred to me to come up to the bride and groom and say: "you know, do all these people really need to know you two are fucking?!"
> love is a big deal in everyone's life, and i won't stick mine in a closet because you don't want to hear it.
I don't really think that's a fair comparison. A wedding is a public celebration between two people so of course they want everyone to know that they're celebrating something. But your own sexual orientation? How do you bring that up in a conversation not about sexual orientation? I don't care what someone's orientation is, they can be whatever they want, but if I'm meeting someone for the first time why do I need to know about their orientation?
Obviously no one here is saying to HIDE your orientation but, at least for me, being heterosexual doesn't make me who I am, does being homosexual really make people who they are? I feel like that's separate from sexual orientation. In my opinion at least.
> Do you realize that you're calling irrelevant the core feature of many peoples' identity?
As long as people are treated with a minimum level of civility and not discriminated against for irrelevant personal characteristics, their "identities" are irrelevant. I don't want to know or care about the "identity" of most people I interact with, and I guarantee you they don't want to know or care about mine. We're all very busy.
first of all, i AM a gay guy, and anyone who wants to know me must eventually know that as well. i do not find the idea of hiding it or avoiding discussion about it attractive.
in an ideal society, it should be as you say - everyone free to be themselves. but we do not live in that society. and if we want to get to that, then we need to take action. and asymmetric situations require asymmetric measures in order to achieve change.
i believe your intentions are good, but do you realise that what you're suggesting sounds like we should all pretend that we're not black/white/gay/str8/whatever? it's really silly. for gay people, it was important to show our pride, not because we wanted to label ourselves even more, but because we had to direct attention to the issue to get it fixed, raise our visibility, get heard. and ultimately, going to gay pride was for me an incredibly empowering experience. one cruel thing about systematic discrimination is that the people affected by it often internalize it, and perceive themselves as less worthy. coming together and standing up for ourselves helps fight that too.
What the parent is getting at, I think, is that by having explicitly set-aside hours for groups 'B' and 'C', it will create a stigma that groups 'B' and 'C' must attend only those designated hours -- effectively making the "normal" office hours for the "elite' group 'A'.
It seems to me, no matter what way you look at it, separated office hours will perpetuate segregation and bigotry, instead of the desired effect.
The normal office hours ARE elite. They're available only to people who have been accepted into YC. The goal of the program is to make more of those (A) group people members of underrepresented demographics.
YC is a private business of course, but since they started this initiative, wouldn't it be even more efficient to make YC staff itself more diverse? Rather than doing segregated open hours.
I don't see how, no. Normal hours are still accessible to B and C, too, only now B and C do better in 'normal hours' as they've got a bit of a leg up. Over time B and C become role models, further increasing the presence of B and C in 'normal hours'. At least on paper.
This probably won't be very popular: but isn't the notion of special treatment from YC partners on the basis of race inherently racist? I think anyone who is black or Hispanic would much rather associate with YC on the basis of their own individual merit only now everyone who has anything to do with YC will have to wonder if they are there because YC felt the need to help out the poor, underprivileged, black dude or because they actually know what they're doing.
I feel quite mixed about this. I can see that it's well-intentioned in nature but at the same time it also seem incredibly condescending. And what kind of message is this really sending: "minorities can succeed but they also need special treatment to do so?" I don't know about this ... I won't deny that in many ways these people struggle with issues that white people don't, but maybe this isn't the best way to go about levelling the playing field. After-all, I feel that black people and Hispanics are perfectly capable of making it through the front door of YC the normal way.
I'm not sure it serves HN very well to have exactly the same entirely generic debate come up every time there's a thread about anything like this.
Rehashing the same political divide over and over merely produces the identical hash over and over. That doesn't count as interesting in HN's sense—nothing predictable does. Meanwhile, interesting discussion about the specifics of the story at hand largely gets drowned out.
I'm not sure what if anything we can do about this, but it's seems lame and not in the spirit of gratifying intellectual curiosity.
Suppressing this conversation would just result in more people like the parent with well-intentioned but poorly thought-out and regressive views. Certainly, sometimes you'll get a post like Uptrenda's and it's just a concern troll fishing for a conflict, but that not need always be the case (and I suspect here it isn't, fwiw). Even then, the resulting discussion can change minds and is a positive thing - in spite of being perhaps monotonous to people who are already on board.
I think a mod kicking off a meta-topic about the quality of discussion on HN every time he sees a post that falls into one of a few buckets, lowers the signal-to-noise more than posts like Uptrenda's.
If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that it's a topic that requires more discussion. Waving it away is, then, just going to make it come up again the next time.
For what it's worth, I do agree with Uptrenda. I do also want to explicitly highlight that this certainly is racism - and that whether it is justifiable racism is a separate discussion entirely.
The front door application to YC is the same that it was before. YC is seeing that they aren't interacting with enough minority founders and are doing targeted outreach to groups so that they can speak to more of them. Adding more minority founders to the funnel, as they would if they wanted to see more hardware startups and talking to places that serve hardware startups.
I look at this dilemma and others like it [1] as friction on the boundary of micro/macro thinking. A black person can certainly make it though the front door of YC, since people who run YC aren't racist. However, black people as a group still face racism and so affirmative action and policies like that are totally justified.
Another way to look at it is that even if individual experiences are varied enough that they will drown out racial contribution when considered one at a time, racism can still hold back a group of people by 5-10% or whatever, and so that needs to be addressed.
It helps explain why a policy like this is not generally considered racist, but if YC were to single out one individual for YC on the basis of his race, it probably would be.
[1] cf "Poor people should skill up and improve themselves" as well.
If they were snubbing Whites or Asians to help underrepresented groups, then they'd be exercising an unjustifiable racism. Merely going the extra mile to help another group however is not that. YC should do it, and anyone should happily accept an advantage offered to them.
This may be controversial as well, but the black founders I know are rich Ivy leaguers (granted I only know a few). They don't need extra help. (I know there probably are other black founders who didn't grow up in privilege who do not fit into that category.) I don't personally know any hispanic founders, my anecdotally-based sense of things makes me feel like they are urgently underrepresented.
Inherently racist in the same vein as the word "tolerance". Not seeing race is the opposite of racism, not tolerance. What is there to "tolerate"? I'd much prefer YC announce their office hours as "everyone welcome including African American and Latinos" as targeted encouragement if that was indeed their intent.
It felt weird to me too. After being reminded that we are all not the same in somebody else's eyes, I looked down at my arm and thought to myself: "When are my Open Office Hours?"
I personally find this type of stuff uncomfortable since we are all just people in my book. Gender and race don't mean anything beyond where you might be from or what parts you're born with. This is until programs like this come out and remind us all how good intentions point out differences that none of us can do anything about. It almost comes off sounding like somebody is trying to "fix" skin color based on a weird notion that hue handicaps the brain.
I admit that I yearn for the days when we can all finally be treated equally in a colorblind and gender neutral society. For me, special treatment or lowering/hiring bars based on born attributes is an anti-pattern to achieving true equality. It simply divides us all up more.
Maybe I just wish this read: "YC Open Office Hours for Founders"
Hey Micael, exciting to see YC continuing to battle the inequality that exists in the startup world.
I'm curious -- why did you chose to craft the program along racial lines, as opposed to along socioeconomic lines, which seems to be the recent trend in higher ed affirmative action?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-blac...
"For her research, Pager pulled together four testers to pose as men looking for low-wage work. One white man and one black man would pose as job seekers without a criminal record, and another black man and white man would pose as job seekers with a criminal record. The negative credential of prison impaired the employment efforts of both the black man and the white man, but it impaired those of the black man more. Startlingly, the effect was not limited to the black man with a criminal record. The black man without a criminal record fared worse than the white man with one."
That's a poor study to cite. If you took two people of any one race and sent them looking for jobs, probably as often as not one would fare much better than the other just because of individual variability. You get hired based on your interview(s), not your resume.
Generally people who research employment discrimination send out identical resumes except for a test factor and then use the number of interview invitations as a proxy for reaction to the test factor.
Taken from a forthcoming paper by Sampson and Kristin L. Perkins, “Compounded Deprivation in the Transition to Adulthood: The Intersection of Racial and Economic Inequality among Chicagoans, 1995-2013,” in the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.
Professor Sampson has an endowed chair at Harvard and was previously the chair of his department there. While I have not yet gone looking for preprint versions, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that he might have a firm grasp on the difference between statistical and anecdotal information. I see no reason for the author of the Atlantic article to recapitulate the methodology of every single academic reference in a long discussion of social policy.
And Watson, from Watson and Crick, who discovered the underlying commonality of all humanity, DNA, and won a Nobel prize for that work, was extremely racist[0].
That's the problem with arguing based on name recognition. Cite rigorous, peer-reviewed, established work. Let the veracity of the work speak for itself.
I'm not sure if this is your implication, but neither Watson nor Crick is an expert on race (race being not a biological phenomenon but a very social one).
I could see it working out with an application 'why are you underrepresented?' rather than trying to guess at categories. As above, someone growing up dirt poor, but white, in rural Alabama might qualify. Or, say, Ahmed the clock guy when he founds a company.
But I have no experience with these things, so applaud the effort. The YC guys seem good at changing/improving things as they go.
Hand-holding minorities label them even more as a group that needs to be helped. They should be encouraged to be successful in the "same" environment as others and treated the same. The moment you do something "for" them is the moment you label them as that group that needs hand-holding even more. I don't think they need special treatment this way. It is done by good intention, but it does not need saying, you're black, let me help you. I would just do it without naming it.
The people doing that labeling are (a) not the minorities themselves, and (b) cheerfully oblivious to the fact that college recruiting programs at elite schools with 4-7% African American or Latino populations is itself a targeted outreach program that helps the overrepresented majority.
There's something especially galling about the repeated concern that targeted outreach to minorities will somehow label its beneficiaries as "inferior", since one expects that most of the time it's exactly the people raising that concern who are rushing to get the ink in their label printers refilled.
It's like saying "this makes African Americans inferior, but you don't get to hold that sentiment against me because I couched it as a concern". At least have the spine to make the meanness plain.
I get what you're saying; that the VC industry should "just do it" rather than make a splash by announcing a program. However, if someone is in one of these minority groups, and has tried to raise funding in a very white, male dominated VC industry, I'd guess that when pitching, sometimes either the rapport was off or they felt that the other side didn't wholly understand you.
I'm not saying that it's intentional on the VC end, because it's human nature to go with who or what you understand and feel comfortable with.
By announcing a program like this, it may encourage minorities to seek advice, when they otherwise might not have.
so, affirmative action should not be done, and structural racism should not be combated, just so that we do not offend the pride of the discriminated by labelling, or? this is ridiculous. by this logic we might have to ignore racism completely. e.g. if you say that cops in the US are more prone to killing unarmed black suspects, you're also pointing out that black people need help. i guess we should not do that either :D
Have you actually seen the history of Affirmative Action? I'd suggest you read 'Affirmative Action around the world' by Thomas Sowell. There's a plethora of sources and facts packed onto every page, very enlightening.
I take it the nutshell version is that Affirmative Action is a failure (according to this book at least)? (I mean, that is what your phrasing seems to imply.)
I'd suggest you read the book, it's only 200 pages and I can't summarise it in one sentence. It's sad that someone down voted me for suggesting a book which has voluminous facts and history. Human progress is building on what we have learnt before, if we can't learn from history I don't know how we will make progress.
I did not downvote you. I asked a question. There are only so many hours in the day. So, unfortunately, I cannot read every single thing I wish I could read. It would be nice if you actually answered my question instead of recommending "read this book" for the third time. I heard you the first two times.
Peace.
Edit: and have an upvote as a token of good faith.
I was under the impression you were the parent I initially replied to. I apologise.
So in regards to your question, AA has been disastrous around the world. In India and Bangladesh hundreds of thousands of deaths, people burning each other in the street, terrifying stuff. All because of class wars instigated by benefits to one class over the other. Same results, on a different magnitude, in Malaysia, Nigeria, Iran, Australia and to a smaller extent the U.S.
AA has never worked in all of recorded history.
Thank you. I am not a fan of affirmative action. But I also understand that a) it's a touchy topic and b) many people do not know what else to do and want to do something and c) it actually isn't possible to ever know for sure what the world would look like had these events not occured, so we do not know for a fact that it would have gone better had these initiatives not happened. Racism and hatred are rampant. Things might well have gone worse without these intiatives.
I still hope the world can improve on these models, but that is no small task.
this is ridiculous. "in all of recorded history"? hundreds of thousands of deaths? in Australia?! :D but i guess if you read it in a book, it must be true!
there's also a book out there claiming the Nazi regime was all the work of gay people. look it up, you'll probably love it.
If you had bothered to read my post..."On a different magnitude".
In India and Bangladesh there is recorded history of hundreds of thousands of deaths. The book sources these facts, if you want to invalidate anything I suggest you go to the original sources, not make a straw man arguement.
I will reiterate, read the book, read the sources -- if you want to invalidate something, invalidate the primary pieces of evidence -- than come back here and we can have a productive conversation.
sorry, but you presented it very weakly. i checked wikipedia in the meanwhile, and it does it much better justice.
i certainly don't have the time or will to read a 200 page book for the sake of an HN discussion. this should not be a surprise. you could maybe outline something? i'm particularly interested in how exactly these killings came about. wikipedia quotes some criticism - that the examples were cherry-picked, and not even entirely comparable to affirmative action in the US, the contexts were too different (and, kinda funny, one critic states that he already published this same book in the 90s under a diff name :D). but then, wiki also quotes some very interesting arguments he laid out that i did not see here and that sound good.
all in all, i can agree it's a crude method, but hey, it's better than nothing. lots of people here pointing out problems and only some offering solutions, although strictly laughably unrealistic ones. certainly, no mass killings have happened in the US because of it, and such fear-mongering helps nothing. i personally would bet that, were the US a social democracy, all of this would probably be much less needed. when health and education are provided, opportunities are more available to everyone. but the way it is now, any disadvantaged group is more likely to stay that way.
Does it include the over 100 million Spanish speakers in the Americas of European descent? What about the 26 million white Americans of Latin American descent?
What about 100 million "Latino" Portuguese speaking Brazilians of other than predominantly European and Asian descent?
French is also a "Latin"/Romance language. Do the predominantly white Québécois count as Latino? What about the Métis, who are both indigenous Americans and speakers of a Romance language.
What about Native Americans who speak English rather than a Romance language? What if the Native Americans learned Spanish in high school?
What about the hundreds of millions of people from China and India and elsewhere in Asia who grew up in materially worse conditions than any ghetto in the United States?
I think this is a good move, and glad to see YC doing it. And this is coming from somebody who is neither black nor hispanic.
I mean, I get the whole "isn't this just affirmative action and isn't AA bad?" thing, I really do. But this is a private business, not a government agency, and they are free to try and address issues of equality and what-not in whichever way they see fit. And when you're part of a group that is (or is seen as) disadvantaged, it can only help to have some very specific support thrown your way.
If this does even a small bit of good in terms of creating more successful companies founded by black or hispanic founders, I will benefit us all in the long run.
The flaw in this argument is that it makes the implicit assumption that having more startups founded by black or hispanic founders is good just because there are more startups founded by black or hispanic founders.
That there is underrepresentation with respect to a minority is indicative of that minority generally having lower socioeconomic status, and perhaps prejudices against it. To try to combat whatever those prejudices may be, the suggestion here is that "diversity is good" and that just having more minorities will help the problem.
The difference is that it actually won't, because now you have a perception of people being given opportunities they don't deserve, just because they are a minority.
A much, much better way to try to deconstruct the sorts of prejudices or minority disadvantages, which this initiative is ostensibly trying to do, is to make these sorts of initiatives open to anyone disadvantaged (such as the poor), and invest in programs targeted at children in poorer (disproportionately minority) communities.
I disagree. I think having more companies (especially successful ones) founded by black and hispanic founders will help everyone broadly, for this reason: It will provide young, potential founders, who might not otherwise have pursued entrepreneurship at all, with positive role models, and will show them actual live examples of how success can be achieved.
My feeling is that this promotes entrepreneurship in general among increasingly larger portions of the overall population... and if you believe that technological progress in general is basically a net positive for humanity (a position which I admit is not without controversy, BTW, although I personally adhere to it) then this is a Good Thing. More smart people working on new ideas, and creating things to solve problems? Yeah, I can accept some private companies engaging in a little "affirmative action" if it supports that.
is to make these sorts of initiatives open to anyone disadvantaged (such as the poor), and invest in programs targeted at children in minority communities.
Having grown up "white but dirt poor" I mostly agree with you, in the sense that I think addressing poverty - regardless of race - is also a valuable thing. I'm just not sure one approach is more or less important than the other. I think both are valuable things to do.
Is it weird that I understood this as just trying to reach out to Blacks and Hispanics/encouragement and not hand holding? Call me crazy but as a minority, this thought of not getting in say Tech by minorities for example is taking to the extreme. Has anyone ever considered perhaps, their background just didn't qualify them for a particular role? What about attitude? Mindset? Alot goes into getting what you want. You just have to work hard at it and prove doubters wrong.. :)
They did mention they planned on later opening rounds specifically for foreign founders. But if you are based in the U.S., I think they'd consider you a hispanic founder and thus eligible for the current round, yes? I'm Brazilian too, btw, so kinda curious about this. Although I have no start-up aspirations just yet :-(
Brazil has such a mixed demographic though. Like I don't care what your personal racial heritage is, but I was wondering, like, if an American resident says, "I'm Brazilian", what does that mean? Especially if they're of African descent. Would e.g. YC automatically just count them as Hispanic even though they're not actually Hispanic, just because they're "brown" (or white, or black, or whatever else) and Brazil is a South American country?
Good job cutting right to the heart of the language. As written, it sounds like the answer would be 'it depends…'. I'm curious whether I'm reading that accurately, though.
Veterans? What does this word mean in this context? I would expect it to mean a military veteran (this is what wikipedia thinks), but it sounds very weird here.
PS. I'm neither living in America nor a native speaker so excuse my lack of knowledge
That sounds like a really strange idea to me, can someone explain why does people who used to shoot other people count as a cultural minority, as opposed to say, retired policeman, railway worker or any other group really?
I'm a fan, let's be clear on what we're talking about 'short sessions to brainstorm, get advice, network and bounce around ideas' etc for those who are underrepresented. Knowledge transfer and capacity building like this is one of the best ways to help along minority groups in a manner that is deemed fair by most and, importantly, upholds the dignity of the individuals who get help.
I am always happy to see the Métis represented on an American site. Thanks my friend, most people don't know much about us. Seriously though, I am not sure that returning to a philosophy of segregation is the best path.
Perhaps focusing speakers that cover challenged and topics of interest is better then reducing intercultural exposure?
I think it's useful to mention that this privilege is not just a white thing. It's a "people who were born in a first world country" thing. By default, that huge group of people gets privileges that others can only dream of obtaining. You don't have to spend years of your life just trying to get out of a horrible country where you were born. And most of the time, people don't seem to realize and acknowledge this.
Hell, I've met Americans giving me blank stares when I would talk about how difficult it is for me to get even a tourist visa to go to the US.
First world privilege should end. Black, white, asian, latino - doesn't matter. If you were born in a modern and developed country, you are already a part of a privileged group. Acknowledge this, gain some humility and try to better yourself and others around you.
I urge people to organize YC Open Office Hours for non-first-world people, immigrants and the like.
Google "Starting a business". You'll notice the first page results don't lead you to YC, Techstars, Hackernews, or anything (loosely) startup related.
You have to know what to search to land on HN or some other popular startup site. My point (and argument) is that most minorities don't know about YCombinator, HackerNews, etc; partially because most live in a non-startup, tech-oriented community. And searching for reasonable keywords like "start a business" isn't a direct invite to the world of startups.
This is why outreach is important. We need to key certain demographics into the startup world via outbound.
Put it this way, there are 50 states in America and the areas with the least amount of blacks/hispanics are where words like "startup" is king (and vice versa). Until then, outreach is vital until certain demographics pick it up at scale.
First, I want to state that I'm glad YC is making such a step to help struggling founders. While I don't run a startup, I'm super divided on this post, and here's why:
A) It seems both condescending and racist at the same time (i.e. you're a minority in SV? surely you're doing terrible - let us help. You're white in SV? you must be doing great, move along we're not looking to help you) -- As others have stated, it's also partly because of the specified groups.
B) If the ground really is that uneven maybe the problem is not the founders, but the system (again, how to change that is a super complicated discussion)
I feel like a more tactful way to put out such a call for people who would like help might be something like:
"YC is putting on a special series of office hours for struggling startups. In past series we've found that certain groups of people were underrepresented, and we'd like for that not to be the case, so we are going to prioritize the following groups: <group listing here>. This doesn't mean anyone who is not in those groups is unwelcome."
As others have noted, getting away from the group listing would be even better. Maybe just making a call for anyone who feels like they have been "marginalized" in the SV startup community, or aren't receiving enough help might suffice (without making a laundry list of underrepresented people).
I have many opinions on the whole "diversity" debate, but I think my most defensible opinion is for organizations to aim for population-parity demographic distributions, and work to upset any limiting functions that might be skewing your sector away from the wider population's distributions (again, how to do this is highly debated, and I have a ton of my own opinions on the subject, but I digress).
I've also intentionally left out my own race/cultural group/whatever in this comment, but make sure to check your own biases at the door - I could be caucasian, latino, african american, asian, lgbt, trans, whatever .
I think you can't look at open office hours in a vacuum. YC does tons of outreach - for example: college tour, startup school, Stanford startup class, speaking at conferences around the world, blog posts with advice to founders, etc. Most importantly, YC has an open application process and you don't have to have any sort of connection to get in. Open Office Hours is just another tool we can use to do outreach to startups and when considered in combination with our other efforts I think it's only fair to conclude that we are trying to make YC assessable to all (regardless of background).
Again, I think the outreact YC is doing is amazing, and I applaud them for doing it. I'd rather have this kind of conversation (about the wording of something like this) rather than not have the outreach effort exist at all.
Honestly the point of my comment was to do with tact and wording. It's super clear that YC is trying it's best to be accessible to all, and to do the right thing by groups that may feel marginalized (whoever they may be) -- however with the current hubbub (that has no end in sight) around these issues, a great deal of tact should be applied.
More than 0 people feel that the whole "diversity" spiel is antagonistic, as well as more than 0 people feeling that it's completely justied/the opposite. It's a touchy subject, and I feel that wasn't respected by this post. Yes, you want to help a specific group of society that you see struggling, but it's also divisive to make it seem like a group is inherently more valuable for no reason other than the color of their skin, or life choices, or whatever.
> but it's also divisive to make it seem like a group is inherently more valuable for no reason other than the color of their skin, or life choices, or whatever.
it is also the truth, and it is a problem. labelling is like a joke compared to all the things that discriminated groups experience.
edit - apologies, i thought you said 'vulnerable'. valuable? where did you get that from?
Well a lot of the current diversity zeitgeist is (mis)represented in terms that are too simplistic.
diversity is good/desirable -> minorities are more valuable than white people at your company (since you clearly already have enough white people) seems to be the point of a lot of blog posts/conversation. This kind of thinking is most clearly visible in when companies state that they try to hire X underrepresented people to some position, as if you just need to get a certain number (and/or when corporations lower meaningful meritocratic barriers to hire people that otherwise wouldn't have been in the ballpark).
"meaningful meritocratic barrier" to me means "show me you can do fizzbuzz", rather than "tell me which ivy you came from"
There is obviously a case to be made for diversity (independent of morality), but most modern literature doesn't seem to address that at any meaningful level of complexity. I discovered this when talking to a colleague who was annoyed with what seemed to be a devaluing of potential hires just because they weren't "diverse" enough.
> diversity is good/desirable -> minorities are more valuable than white people at your company (since you clearly already have enough white people) seems to be the point of a lot of blog posts/conversation.
when blog posts that make such absolutely ridiculous claims get commented on here, then we can discuss that and heartily agree, ok? :D but in this discussion here, you are the one who said that this action implies minority founders are more valuable. this is simply not true.
i do agree that affirmative action is a bit crude, but it's done for a greater social good, by people who recognize the problem, sympathise, and want to help. the field is, after all, uneven. an asymmetric situation that needs asymmetric action to correct it.
> If the ground really is that uneven maybe the problem is not the founders, but the system (again, how to change that is a super complicated discussion)
don't avoid this discussion, it is essential. it's not complicated. we are all part of the system, and if we all chip in to even the field, things will improve.
I just wanted to make explicit that "changing the system" is difficult, and there are many facets to the problem (and that I recognized that truth).
I discuss these issues somewhat regularly with some colleagues, so I feel like I have solutions that work for me (maybe I'll make a blog post sometime, but I am worried I'll just add to the noise).
it's difficult, and multi-faceted, and still it must be tackled. the system is the crux of this issue, there would be no issue if the field were not uneven.
This wouldn't be necessary if you at ycombinator treated all people equally to begin with. Instead of doing that, you introduce discriminating "open office hours" in which some people are not allowed, based on their race.
You've completely missed the point and it also seems your view of the world is very different than it actually is. How do you propose YC approach an issue like this, in a country filled with racism and discrimination? Is your idea really just "treat all people equally" and the world will follow suit? How does that work?
>How do you propose YC approach an issue like this
By not being discriminating? You don't fight discrimination with more discrimination and the very idea is so mindboggingly stupid that it hurts. It's sad to see that the social justice warrior bullshit has arrived at HN.
If anyone here wants to know about the long history of Affirmative Action you should definitely read "Affirmative Action Around the World" by Thomas Sowell.
Can't sing enough praise about it. Sourced incredibly And clear logical points.
Pro-discrimination quote taken directly from Paul Graham's own letter featured on their Open Office Hours page. http://www.ycopenofficehours.com/
"Notes [...]
[2] One advantage startups have over established companies is that there are no discrimination laws about starting businesses. For example, I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon. But you're not allowed to ask prospective employees if they plan to have kids soon. Believe it or not, under current US law, you're not even allowed to discriminate on the basis of intelligence. Whereas when you're starting a company, you can discriminate on any basis you want about who you start it with."
I guess they are looking for the talented blacks, Meso-Americans and females who weren't happy with being handed the jobs they were under-qualified for, and wanted to risk throwing away being at the top of their in-group mating market for self-actualization or helping the world or something?
The whole Faustian world-saving, or hyper-competitive, tech hobbyist, leadership inclinations aren't really found in the populations they seek to reach out to. They don't want to invent anything new of valuable, they merely seek to re-distribute funding and opportunities in tech to themselves.
The same inclinations to start tech companies are more similar to ones in people who play strategic games, or who contribute to open source software, or who engage in hacking for fun or bragging rights. I think they would have far more success reaching out to those groups.
It's not really imaginable that the kinds of blacks and Hispanics they are seeking to fund were the kinds of kids who would lend their friends books on programming growing up that had nothing to do with school or a career.
If they believe that starting a world-class company is simply a good business decision for anyone with the talent, then, they should do more recruitment of people who actually have the skills for that.
They fail to realize that marginalized minorities are not raised to "be leaders", and "take risks". In a state where the "oppressed" talented can coast on their racial credentials, why bother taking the risk?
Curious to why the word Hispanic was used instead of Latino. If you are unfamiliar with the difference, read here: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino