Whats up Guys! I just wanted to say thanks to all who engaged in this discussion respectfully. I didn’t expect such controversy and negativity, or the unsubscribes, but I appreciate those who saw this as just a conversation. We’re all entitled to our opinions, and it’s important we can share them freely. Thanks for keeping the dialogue open and constructive! #KeepItTechie

There is too much crap about DEI. The colour.race,sex,religion,culture,life-style is irrelevant for any job or position as the only quota needed is the ability to do the said job or position. All humans are one species and as such all are equal and deserve the same amount of respect,love,abundance as each other. This planet has no place for any form of low density isms,boxes or labels.The statistics of anything are of no importance,what is important is ability and capability to do whatever is needed in whatever realm that is under discussion.

As a black tech pro I think capitalism is removing discrimination slowly as non white groups are entering the tech field. The most dangerous thing is to force diversity by introducing laws that exclude other groups. Teaching our children at grass root levels about tech is the only way to achieve DEI. I know there is discrimination, but if talent is developed from the grass roots, discrimination can be defeated. Just an observation.

Just hire the best people for the job irrespective of sex, colour, religion etc... it really shouldn't be this hard

How long you guys gonna ride the "I was unfairly treated 100 years ago so I need special treatment" still gonna be trying to milk that in another 500 years.

IBM has lost multiple lawsuits over age discrimination. So they aren't the greatest example of a corporate citizen.

Some years ago they tried to set a quote of gays in Linux kernel' development instead of capable developers, so I don't endorse DEI.

So do the minorities actually have any interest in being in the STEM fields? My observation over the past few decades is that minorities prioritize other professions over STEM and have even ostracized their own for having any interest in STEM or other “racist” professions. All DEI, and it’s predecessor quota systems, have done is excluded individuals that can actually do a job and placed individuals unable to do the job in their place; which makes a bad situation for both. It has never solved the issue or increased minorities interest in professions their culture views as not having value/worth.

So.. Anwsering your question directly - how to foster actual diversity? Make up process where recruters don't know the person, cut out from CVs name, last name, photo etc. so its physically impossible to discriminate based on protected traits. Tele-interviews could be done without cameras and with voice changing software on recruter side. Affirmitive action itself is at its core, by definition -ist. be it racist or sexist. By its very own definition. Entire idea of diversity is to make protected traits (such as sex, tone of skin, religion, culture, political views, list goes on) entirely unrelevant. Any single instance that breaks this permise is straight up counter-productive. Affirmitive action explicitly breaks this permise. There is no such thing as "positive discrimination". It's just obfuscation speech for straight up discrimination. And to be clear - some discrimination is welcome (there are other kinds of discriminations). For exapmle Im totally fine for result-based discrimination. If you deliver, if your code is great, client is happy, you should be rewarded. If you make huge screw up after huge screw up, you should be.. well, warned, written up, trained, demoted or even fired, depending on how bad it is. You get the point. Just a technicality to cover. And sidenote. Please, I find it incredibly distasteful to use an argument reinforcement "as a person of color" and variations of that. Arguments should stand on their own, I believe. It also catches aggro of opposing side, derailing the discussion.

Thinking one deserves special consideration for one's race is, quite simply....racist. If the truth hurts....wear it.

The problem is that companies are trying to solve supply and demand problems with the wrong tools, like DEI. Only 20% of computer science professionals are women, take a look at universities... You cannot raise the ratio of women to men to 50%/50% with 20% women to 80% men in academia. As a result, companies begin to discriminate against workers based on gender, hiring women instead of men, and not based on experience and knowledge, while placing women in leadership positions a year or two after they are hired, because they cannot write high-quality code without work experience. So to show a fake ratio they preserving women as managers and this also helps to raise an average salary ratio men/women, as managers wages are simply higher than of engineers . This is one of the results of DEI. Same goes for black people, same white male discrimination. Black software engineers are historically an underrepresented group in the field of software engineering, and the industry still lacks diversity, with white software engineers making up over 52% of the U.S. workforce. Black software engineers, on the other hand, make up less than 5%. Computer Programmer demographics by race White, 66.2% Asian, 15.0% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Black or African American, 5.1% Unknown, 4.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%. Companies start hiring by race, gender and not by skills.

just watched for a third time and still didn't see anything you said that would/should/could upset anyone. There was one comment there that made a lot of sense about the % of people going into these fields. If the % of people going to school is less than what these companies are trying to obtain i, it's going to be a losing battle and the company still has to make money so they will still hire who can do the job. I think achieving "DEI" will start at a much earlier age (like middle school) to get kids/young folks interested in tech and away from whatever they are traditionally/culturally accustomed to. I think you do yourself a disservice as well as you are starting way behind when from 18-35, you do what makes you feel good or passionate about and then at 35+, you realize it's not working and want to take a bootcamp for 6 months to compete with people who have been groomed for these fields for the past 20 years. At the end of the day, when the company isn't making money, everything else that comes after that doesn't matter. I think we (people living in America) don't make the most of our opportunities b/c if the brightest from other countries (i.e. India, China, Japan, etc) were able to easily get in without the need of sponsorship from companies, we would really be begging for DEI as a country lol.

Happy Black Fist Friday Tech Avenger...Queens, NY Nuff respect. Talk that Talk

Uh oh...

DEI aka Affirmative Action was and has been challenged for the last 30 yrs! Wht folks were crying back then! but the landscape hasn't really changed and will revert back to business as usual sooner rather than later.

This topic is so important yet not discussed. How people feel and their opinions are the main talking points instead of the actual outcomes of decisions people make. So sad. Yet this is what people want, even if they will not actually say it.