CNET's Headline -- "Yahoo Workforce At A glance: Mostly Male, Mostly White"
It's acceptable to say -- or say in a manner of speaking, "Too many white people...eekers!"
But if your goal actually is making the workforce to match the population better, the headline should actually read something that won't fly quite as well with the PC -- something like: "Let's Fire Some Asians."
Via Manny Klausner, Sonny Bunch explains the distortion in that headline (and outlook) at the Washington Free Beacon:
Yahoo's workforce is half-white. That's not "mostly," unless you take "mostly" to mean "the highest single percentage."* But that's a semantic point: the headline/lede are misleading because they want you to think that Yahoo has an abnormally or disproportionately high number of white employees. This is--and I can't stress this enough--total poppycock. Indeed, if we look at the population as a whole, whites are actually underrepresented at Yahoo. Massively so. Non-hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the American population, well more than the 50 percent at Yahoo. Asians, meanwhile, make up about five percent of the general population but 39 percent of Yahoo's workforce. If my point sounds familiar, it's because I made a very similar one a couple of weeks ago after Google was excoriated by Valleywag** for being "mostly white"--and just two percent black--while completely ignoring the fact that the racial "imbalance" had absolutely nothing to do with whites being overrepresented at the company.So why does the "mostly white" meme persist about tech companies? I think it's because those who are obsessed with diversity for diversity's sake have a hard time reconciling one very inconvenient truth: If you want to equalize the races--be your concern tech companies or colleges, the two places this argument seems to pop up more than anywhere else***--you must do so at the expense of Asian Americans. Rather than saying "Ugh, these institutions are disproportionately Asian," the diversity set says "Wow, these places are mostly white!" While accurate(ish), this kind of dodges the question, doesn't it? Because it's not so much the proportion of white folks as the proportion of black and hispanic folks that concerns them. It's no fun for the diversifier to say "Geez, we need fewer Asians at these institutions to make way for blacks and hispanics." Forcing them to acknowledge the costs--more blacks and hispanics means fewer Asians, if proportion is all that matters--creates a serious mental tension. That mental tension leads to a mental block. And that mental block leads to the brain spitting out the following formulation: "These companies are mostly white!"
Cognitive dissonance. It's a hell of a drug.
Bunch also notes -- as I've observed before to friends:
***Oddly, we don't have this conversation about NBA franchises very frequently.
Right...where are the 5'2" Jewish and Latino women playing for the Lakers?
>>It's acceptable to say -- or say in a manner of speaking, "Too many white people...eekers!"
This should not be acceptable because anyone who would say this, regardless of their own skin color, is a racist. That's bad, right?
Matt at June 19, 2014 10:32 PM
It's not acceptable to me. But people accept that.
Amy Alkon at June 20, 2014 5:16 AM
It still amazes me when folks will say - right to my white male face - there are too many white males; or white males all think this; or white males whatever.
Just imagine if someone said that to another person of a different race or female and the anger (and rightly so) that would result.
But, say whatever you want against white males - we are fair game for the PC crowd.
Charles at June 20, 2014 6:13 AM
I've been told that about Hispanics to my face "There are too many Hispanics here".
Also when I had a black boyfriend people would make faces. Black women, Hispanic women, Hispanic men, white men. I think the only ones that I never had an issue with were white women and Asian women didn't seem to care.
I distinctly remember one fucking coconut who only dated white guys making a disgusted face when she found out my boyfriend was black.
People are just so damn unpleasant and unlikeable.
Ppen at June 20, 2014 6:51 AM
Bill Cosby made an interesting observation about "African-Americans" to the effect that "you're NOT from Africa, you've never BEEN to Africa, so that means you're NOT "African". You were born in AMERICA, you're AMERICAN, and you happen to be black."
He brooks no shit when it comes to "political correctness". Which, as I've said before, is neither "political" nor "correct".
Flynne at June 20, 2014 7:03 AM
Well, you might actually hear people complain about "too many Asians." My middle daughter, whose mother is Asian, has heard that one at her high school (where there are a lot of Asians).
Or you might hear people lumping the Asians in with the whites. My daughter's heard that one, too.
Funny thing is, while she's half-Asian, my daugher looks more like me, a typical white guy, than like her mother. One day at school she said, "I wish I looked more Asian." The girl next to her (a Vietnamese-Caucasian mix) lit into her about "cultural appropriation" and all that stuff. "You know I'm a quarter Chinese and a quarter Filipino, don't you?" my daugher said.
Said the girl: "Oh. Never mind."
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at June 20, 2014 7:28 AM
I've heard the Asian thing pretty much all the time.
People hate on Asians and they feel the need to tell me all the time.
I also think they get lumped in with whites because of how often Asian women marry white guys. I grew up among a ton of Eurasians.
I want all of you to know that I hate everyone, regardless of race.
Ppen at June 20, 2014 7:50 AM
"I want all of you to know that I hate everyone, regardless of race."
This I get. I may not agree with it (well, not all of the time), but I get it.
Everybody has predjudices. It's an evolutionary thing. Back in the sabre-toothed tiger days, we evolved to seek out members of our own tribe because living in a tribe provided the safest living conditions. And the quickest way to pick out members of your own tribe was by appearance. But of course tribal living, and the characteristics that go with it, are dysfunctional in the civilized world. That's the hard part. We're fighting our genetics. But we have to, in order to keep living in the world we live in. Going back is not an option.
Cousin Dave at June 20, 2014 8:32 AM
Yes but now explain that to people who don't believe in evolution and have those prejudices.
Ppen at June 20, 2014 8:41 AM
Even if we accepted the absurd proposition that a company's workforce should somehow be "representative" of the population, then I think the logical conclusion (assuming the goal is fairness to all races) is that the workforce should be representative of the entire PLANET'S population, since national boundaries are arbitrary and humans are all human everywhere (and thus deserving of the same fairness). Therefore the workforce should really be ~20% Chinese, ~20 Indian, ~15% African, etc. And every company on Earth must have the same proportional percentage split.
Lobster at June 20, 2014 8:54 AM
I want all of you to know that I hate everyone, regardless of race.
Let the hate flow thru you!
I R A Darth Aggie at June 20, 2014 9:00 AM
Everybody has predjudices. It's an evolutionary thing.
Serving us as well today as back then.
But of course tribal living, and the characteristics that go with it, are dysfunctional in the civilized world.
Really?
We're fighting our genetics. But we have to, in order to keep living in the world we live in. Going back is not an option.
Do you notice that the world we live in is going away? Partly because certain elements insist on "fighting our genetics"? Why don't you embrace reality for a change?
doombuggy at June 21, 2014 10:23 AM
The Bill Cosby thing made me think of this:
I know a lovely lady from Nigeria. She has four beautiful children with her paste-colored American husband. Those kids are really African-American.
Shannon M. Howell at June 22, 2014 6:14 PM
"Everybody has predjudices. It's an evolutionary thing."
CD, white people are not my tribe. The knobby kneed English will get whats coming to them. Bunch of calmed down Frenchmen if you ask me. And don't get me started on the French. ...
Just because you look alike to others doesn't mean they are your group.
Ben at June 22, 2014 7:42 PM
Leave a comment