Mentoring and diversity for Python [LWN.net]

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jun 22, 2018 22:42 UTC (Fri) by rwm (guest, #104883)
In reply to: Mentoring and diversity for Python by Ranguvar
Parent article: Mentoring and diversity for Python

I sometimes lament how the Internet has panned out. Profile pictures abound, they add no value when browsing a Github repo. Real names everywhere, in Facebook, Linkedin, along with your personal and professional life stories.

I had hoped we'd move to being increasingly anonymous, devoid of skin color, gender, existing in communities where "...nobody knows you're a dog". I wanted hiring to be the same. I wanted judgement based on patchset, not identity intersection.

But instead we seem to be going in the opposite direction, everyone's talking about gender and skin color, and how we can get more of some genders and colors into ${project|company}.

A well meaning re-architecture of society is being attempted at the moment, but it is one that frequently confounds equal opportunity with equal outcome. I'm not going to say they're right or wrong, but we do have to be very careful - for the tools being employed to bring about systematic change and fighting the alleged gender and racial discrimination are frequently themselves gender and racially discriminating.

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Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jun 23, 2018 4:54 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (3 responses)

I understand your position but if you think logically about how the ethics of this approach work in practice you will find that people are not, have never been, and probably will not ever be truly color-blind, so members of the dominant social group, in this case white hetero males, can freely choose to be anonymous or use their real names and faces without any particular repercussions but members of non-dominant groups are basically required to be anonymous to be treated fairly, deny the basic truth of who they are and how they live their lives, for the comfort of those who would treat them poorly. One would need to maintain near-Intelligence-mole levels of opsec to stay anonymous, because most people work on teams, go to conferences, engage in team building (see LinuxCon, etc.) where they could never truly hide these basic facts about themselves so even if you could maintain that kind of anonymity you would always be at a disadvantage to those people with a more conventional reputation, given an equivalent skill level, so this doesn't actually solve the negative effects of racism and sexism, in and out-group discrimination, in practice.

In practice what works is to make note of when someone is in one or more protected categories, that have been demonstrated to experience discrimination, and take conscious deliberate (one might say affirmative) effort to undo the effects, by rolling out the welcome mat through mentoring programs to generate a pipeline of qualified people and then when it's time to include more people on the team deliberately choosing from the pool of qualified candidates the one who increases the diversity of the team.

As more people get used to working closely with peers who are different then themselves in these fundamental ways, then the base level of racism and sexism will lower and there will be no advantage in hiding your identity. Its never the person who is discriminated against's job to "fix" the discrimination, it is the responsibility of the moral agent who is choosing to discriminate, rather than discipline their negative tendencies, to learn to be better people. Hiding all the non-dominant people just makes that harder, there is no easy fix.

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jul 2, 2018 6:06 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> you will find that people are not, have never been, and probably will not ever be truly color-blind, so members of the dominant social group, in this case white hetero males, can freely choose to be anonymous or use their real names and faces without any particular repercussions but members of non-dominant groups are basically required to be anonymous to be treated fairly, deny the basic truth of who they are and how they live their lives, for the comfort of those who would treat them poorly.

How true.

The recruiters need to confront their own prejudices (which means they need to be allowed to talk about it!!!), and then the only questions that should be asked are "Can this person do the job? Will they add value to the team?".

To give a couple of examples when I was recruiting, we had a far-Eastern guy apply. Can't remember whether he was white expat or Chinese, what I do remember is he was brilliant but the reaction of everybody on the recruitment board was "yes, he's technically the best candidate we've had, but do we really want to work with him?!". For a different job, we had a black guy turn up, but as I put it, he was "English first, black second", a very nice guy and he got the job. Compare that with a black lad I was at school with - "nobody likes me because I'm black". No - nobody likes you because you keep playing the race card.

The problem with being a member of the minority is that if your face doesn't fit, it doesn't help you get the job. Quite how you square that circle I don't know, but if you can do your first-round selection on technical merit, and your second-round on added-value (bearing in mind that diversity is almost always a value-add!) then hopefully things will improve. Except that this will probably then bring on claims that you are discriminating against the majority! :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jul 2, 2018 10:40 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

The other "exciting" part of the problem is the presence of a minority of genuine bigots who know how to disguise their bigotry as real concerns about someone's ability to add value to the team. So, you get an awesome candidate who seems perfect to all but one team member, who then raises concerns like "will this candidate be a team player? Will they be able to cope with the workload we face?" meaning "I want to sow doubt about this person's ability, because if we hire them, I'll have to hide my distaste for the targets of my bigotry".

And this is deeply difficult because it's carefully disguised to be exactly the same as a non-bigot raising real concerns; distinguishing bigotry, ignorance[1] and real issues is a challenge that I don't think anyone has a solution to.

[1] Ignorance in this sense being a complete lack of knowledge, such that you raise concerns that can be addressed by educating you - e.g. someone being concerned that a candidate with a First from the University of Cambridge is perhaps underqualified compared to someone with a degree from Harvard.

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jul 2, 2018 12:04 UTC (Mon) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link]

> Compare that with a black lad I was at school with - "nobody likes me because I'm black". No - nobody likes you because you keep playing the race card.

Living in Europe at "the wrong end of the minority stick", I have sympathy for that kid at your school.

It can be tough to drop or ignore the subject of race/origin/background ("race card") when it is *constantly* brought back to you. I think part of the trouble is that people not "at the wrong end of it" don't get how often one gets that card waved at you.

FWIW Ever thought at how bad teenagers are at regulating emotions and dealing well with conflict? How well do you think *you* would have dealt with racism at school age had it been towards you? Not just one aggression but all the years of it.

[....]

/me recently visiting the office where most of my team works:

Coworker: "Don't be too sensitive. It was just a joke."
Me: "I've heard that same 'joke' four times today."

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jun 23, 2018 8:18 UTC (Sat) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

The thing is, the Internet has shown us what kind of communities we get when everyone is anonymous: 4chan.

Mentoring and diversity for Python

Posted Jun 23, 2018 14:20 UTC (Sat) by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920) [Link]

Realistically, "nobody knows you're a dog" means "everybody assumes you must be a dog".