Apple HR head Denise Young Smith takes up new role as VP for 'Inclusion and Diversity'

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Comments

  • Reply 101 of 110
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    crowley said:

    I haven't made a single racist remark against white people.  Get out of it.
    crowley, from your previous posts:
    ..the insecure white males bleat on about how diversity is killing everything good.
    If you define everything good as being white and male, of course.
    ...a trigger warning for some snowflakes who can't handle a world where they aren't number 1 [assuming you're again referring to white people here]

    You're the one that brought race antagonism into the discussion, along with spice-boy. There was no need. And it took quite a few posts to get past the ad hominems and into any discussion that was at least somewhat meaningful (even then, the actually important, non-ad-hoiminem points mostly got ignored). Crying racism is does not help any sort of discussion. Especially when you're the one saying the most racially-charged things. It doesn't help your argument. In fact, it strengthens the opposing arguments.
    None of those things are racist.  I'm not labelling or disparaging all white people, or even all white males.  Hell, I'm a white male, and I think I'm alright.  I'm talking specifically about a small group of people on this forum who happen to be white and male and show a marked lack of tolerance towards people that are not white and male.

    I agree that crying racism over micro-aggressions doesn't really achieve much.  But a spade is a spade and repeat offending racists and sexists (and idiots) should be called out for being racist and sexist (and idiotic).
    edited May 2017 singularityfastasleep
  • Reply 102 of 110
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 1,989member
    crowley said:

    Diversity is not a zero sum game against skill.  No one is positively suggesting hiring people who are not qualified for the job.
    Not true. For example, BBC is known for posting job openings with the mention of that non-white people are needed for the position, while ousting people who were qualified and who were occupying the positions, but unfortunately for them were white males.
    I have no problem with diversity, but I do have a problem with actual racism and sexism disguised as the fight for equality, as well as I have a problem with with hypocrisy and double standards...
    I know, I am weird that way...
    You'll have to offer a concrete example of that, because your claim that 'BBC is known for' something doesn't mean much without any evidence of it. It looks to me like the BBC's job postings include language encouraging applications from "underrepresented groups" and a statement about commitment to equal opportunity. That's called "outreach," and it's a far cry from advertising that 'non-white people are needed for a position' and firing white people to free up space. 
  • Reply 103 of 110
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    AppleZulu said:
    crowley said:

    Diversity is not a zero sum game against skill.  No one is positively suggesting hiring people who are not qualified for the job.
    Not true. For example, BBC is known for posting job openings with the mention of that non-white people are needed for the position, while ousting people who were qualified and who were occupying the positions, but unfortunately for them were white males.
    I have no problem with diversity, but I do have a problem with actual racism and sexism disguised as the fight for equality, as well as I have a problem with with hypocrisy and double standards...
    I know, I am weird that way...
    You'll have to offer a concrete example of that, because your claim that 'BBC is known for' something doesn't mean much without any evidence of it. It looks to me like the BBC's job postings include language encouraging applications from "underrepresented groups" and a statement about commitment to equal opportunity. That's called "outreach," and it's a far cry from advertising that 'non-white people are needed for a position' and firing white people to free up space. 
    The BBC reported on their job postings here:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36443113
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7798083/Half-of-recruits-to-BBCs-trainee-scheme-are-from-ethnic-minorities.html

    They justified it as training and not a job (although it's paid at the level of a job) but training leads to a job, if they only offer the training to certain people, they are pretty much deciding who gets at least some of the available jobs. There's an ad from last year here:

    http://w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=56937

    "All roles advertised through Creative Access are only open to UK nationals from a black, Asian or non-white ethnic minority."

    The firing was a separate incident here:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/02/bbc-presenter-jon-holmes-the-now-show-sacked

    That presenter said bosses told him that his firing was due to promoting women and diversity. The BBC's official response was that they just didn't renew his contract and it was a creative decision.

    At the end of the BBC article the BBC says they are committed to diversity targets making 50% of their workforce female and 15% minority by 2020 and ensuring the same percentages for screen time and leading roles. Given that they have a fixed budget, they can't just increase their workforce so they have to get rid of some groups to increase others to meet these targets.

    Obviously if there's a huge under-representation of certain groups where it doesn't make sense then actively doing something about it is fixing a problem but having an aim to exactly hit the percentage points of each group is clearly going to result in hiring people for their identity rather than their ability because it simply doesn't happen that every group is equal in all tasks in exact percentages.

    What happens if it results in a natural swing the other way and instead of 50% female and 15% minority, they end up with 70% female or 40% minority. Would they bother correcting over-representation? If they did, it would probably be easy to correct but they certainly wouldn't put out training programs exclusive to men or non-minorities. There's a step too far that companies can go to and more and more companies seem to be going this way. Some white people are supporting mixed race families or are part of mixed race families. Some able-bodied people are supporting disabled family members. A lot of men are supporting women, some of whom prefer to be stay-at-home mothers. Companies need to have sensible policies when dealing with these issues.

    When it comes to Apple in the US, they have around 15000 Asian, 7000 Black, 9500 Hispanic, 45000 White.
    According to the US population, it should be: 4500 Asian, 10000 Black, 13500 Hispanic, 50000 White.

    What happened here is that Asian employees took jobs (~10,000 jobs) from every other group. Is that a problem that need to be corrected? The only way they can correct this to benefit under-represented minorities is by further under-hiring white, which their new hire rates suggest is the case and/or turn away Asian applicants but the Asian new hires have actually grown. Even if they hire an extra 3000 Black, 4000 Hispanic, that doesn't make the percentages work out until the Asian or White number goes down.

    Apple is a diverse company, that shows in their culture and their products. Celebrating that and promoting inclusion is good enough, they don't have to look for faults when percentages don't work out exactly as expected and try to make them match expectations. Not everybody wants to work at Apple with a 90 hour work week, working on smartphones. It's ok for people to have different career ambitions in unequal amounts.
    patchythepirateanton zuykov
  • Reply 104 of 110
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    Sure are a lot of missing posts...
  • Reply 105 of 110
    anton zuykovanton zuykov Posts: 1,056member
    AppleZulu said:
    crowley said:

    Diversity is not a zero sum game against skill.  No one is positively suggesting hiring people who are not qualified for the job.
    Not true. For example, BBC is known for posting job openings with the mention of that non-white people are needed for the position, while ousting people who were qualified and who were occupying the positions, but unfortunately for them were white males.
    I have no problem with diversity, but I do have a problem with actual racism and sexism disguised as the fight for equality, as well as I have a problem with with hypocrisy and double standards...
    I know, I am weird that way...
    That's called "outreach,"
    It is an outreach when the left does it. When conservatives do that, progressives call it - racism and fascism (depending on the mood they are in).
    Please, refer to my post about double standards...

    As for the proof, look here:
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/12/08/bbc-racist-job-ad-excludes-white-applicants/


    tallest skil
  • Reply 106 of 110
    anton zuykovanton zuykov Posts: 1,056member
    Marvin said:
    AppleZulu said:
    crowley said:

    Diversity is not a zero sum game against skill.  No one is positively suggesting hiring people who are not qualified for the job.
    Not true. For example, BBC is known for posting job openings with the mention of that non-white people are needed for the position, while ousting people who were qualified and who were occupying the positions, but unfortunately for them were white males.
    I have no problem with diversity, but I do have a problem with actual racism and sexism disguised as the fight for equality, as well as I have a problem with with hypocrisy and double standards...
    I know, I am weird that way...
    You'll have to offer a concrete example of that, because your claim that 'BBC is known for' something doesn't mean much without any evidence of it. It looks to me like the BBC's job postings include language encouraging applications from "underrepresented groups" and a statement about commitment to equal opportunity. That's called "outreach," and it's a far cry from advertising that 'non-white people are needed for a position' and firing white people to free up space. 
    The BBC reported on their job postings here:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36443113
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7798083/Half-of-recruits-to-BBCs-trainee-scheme-are-from-ethnic-minorities.html

    They justified it as training and not a job (although it's paid at the level of a job) but training leads to a job, if they only offer the training to certain people, they are pretty much deciding who gets at least some of the available jobs. There's an ad from last year here:

    http://w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=56937

    "All roles advertised through Creative Access are only open to UK nationals from a black, Asian or non-white ethnic minority."

    The firing was a separate incident here:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/02/bbc-presenter-jon-holmes-the-now-show-sacked

    That presenter said bosses told him that his firing was due to promoting women and diversity. The BBC's official response was that they just didn't renew his contract and it was a creative decision.

    At the end of the BBC article the BBC says they are committed to diversity targets making 50% of their workforce female and 15% minority by 2020 and ensuring the same percentages for screen time and leading roles. Given that they have a fixed budget, they can't just increase their workforce so they have to get rid of some groups to increase others to meet these targets.

    Obviously if there's a huge under-representation of certain groups where it doesn't make sense then actively doing something about it is fixing a problem but having an aim to exactly hit the percentage points of each group is clearly going to result in hiring people for their identity rather than their ability because it simply doesn't happen that every group is equal in all tasks in exact percentages.

    What happens if it results in a natural swing the other way and instead of 50% female and 15% minority, they end up with 70% female or 40% minority. Would they bother correcting over-representation? If they did, it would probably be easy to correct but they certainly wouldn't put out training programs exclusive to men or non-minorities. There's a step too far that companies can go to and more and more companies seem to be going this way. Some white people are supporting mixed race families or are part of mixed race families. Some able-bodied people are supporting disabled family members. A lot of men are supporting women, some of whom prefer to be stay-at-home mothers. Companies need to have sensible policies when dealing with these issues.

    When it comes to Apple in the US, they have around 15000 Asian, 7000 Black, 9500 Hispanic, 45000 White.
    According to the US population, it should be: 4500 Asian, 10000 Black, 13500 Hispanic, 50000 White.

    What happened here is that Asian employees took jobs (~10,000 jobs) from every other group. Is that a problem that need to be corrected? The only way they can correct this to benefit under-represented minorities is by further under-hiring white, which their new hire rates suggest is the case and/or turn away Asian applicants but the Asian new hires have actually grown. Even if they hire an extra 3000 Black, 4000 Hispanic, that doesn't make the percentages work out until the Asian or White number goes down.

    Apple is a diverse company, that shows in their culture and their products. Celebrating that and promoting inclusion is good enough, they don't have to look for faults when percentages don't work out exactly as expected and try to make them match expectations. Not everybody wants to work at Apple with a 90 hour work week, working on smartphones. It's ok for people to have different career ambitions in unequal amounts.
    Thanks. Look like it indeed happened for real, and wasn't just my imagination /s.
    Who would have though....

    The fact that they were hiring for training or job is irrelevant. And the fact that the incident with firing of a white male was a separate one, is irrelevant to, since I was talking about an overall pattern of companies behavior and it was demonstrated, that that is indeed the case. I am talking about publicly funded BBC, of course. What Apple is doing is a bit different.
    edited May 2017
  • Reply 107 of 110
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 1,989member
    Marvin said:
    AppleZulu said:
    crowley said:

    Diversity is not a zero sum game against skill.  No one is positively suggesting hiring people who are not qualified for the job.
    Not true. For example, BBC is known for posting job openings with the mention of that non-white people are needed for the position, while ousting people who were qualified and who were occupying the positions, but unfortunately for them were white males.
    I have no problem with diversity, but I do have a problem with actual racism and sexism disguised as the fight for equality, as well as I have a problem with with hypocrisy and double standards...
    I know, I am weird that way...
    You'll have to offer a concrete example of that, because your claim that 'BBC is known for' something doesn't mean much without any evidence of it. It looks to me like the BBC's job postings include language encouraging applications from "underrepresented groups" and a statement about commitment to equal opportunity. That's called "outreach," and it's a far cry from advertising that 'non-white people are needed for a position' and firing white people to free up space. 
    The BBC reported on their job postings here:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36443113
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7798083/Half-of-recruits-to-BBCs-trainee-scheme-are-from-ethnic-minorities.html

    They justified it as training and not a job (although it's paid at the level of a job) but training leads to a job, if they only offer the training to certain people, they are pretty much deciding who gets at least some of the available jobs. There's an ad from last year here:

    http://w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=56937

    "All roles advertised through Creative Access are only open to UK nationals from a black, Asian or non-white ethnic minority."

    The firing was a separate incident here:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/02/bbc-presenter-jon-holmes-the-now-show-sacked

    That presenter said bosses told him that his firing was due to promoting women and diversity. The BBC's official response was that they just didn't renew his contract and it was a creative decision.

    At the end of the BBC article the BBC says they are committed to diversity targets making 50% of their workforce female and 15% minority by 2020 and ensuring the same percentages for screen time and leading roles. Given that they have a fixed budget, they can't just increase their workforce so they have to get rid of some groups to increase others to meet these targets.

    Obviously if there's a huge under-representation of certain groups where it doesn't make sense then actively doing something about it is fixing a problem but having an aim to exactly hit the percentage points of each group is clearly going to result in hiring people for their identity rather than their ability because it simply doesn't happen that every group is equal in all tasks in exact percentages.

    What happens if it results in a natural swing the other way and instead of 50% female and 15% minority, they end up with 70% female or 40% minority. Would they bother correcting over-representation? If they did, it would probably be easy to correct but they certainly wouldn't put out training programs exclusive to men or non-minorities. There's a step too far that companies can go to and more and more companies seem to be going this way. Some white people are supporting mixed race families or are part of mixed race families. Some able-bodied people are supporting disabled family members. A lot of men are supporting women, some of whom prefer to be stay-at-home mothers. Companies need to have sensible policies when dealing with these issues.

    When it comes to Apple in the US, they have around 15000 Asian, 7000 Black, 9500 Hispanic, 45000 White.
    According to the US population, it should be: 4500 Asian, 10000 Black, 13500 Hispanic, 50000 White.

    What happened here is that Asian employees took jobs (~10,000 jobs) from every other group. Is that a problem that need to be corrected? The only way they can correct this to benefit under-represented minorities is by further under-hiring white, which their new hire rates suggest is the case and/or turn away Asian applicants but the Asian new hires have actually grown. Even if they hire an extra 3000 Black, 4000 Hispanic, that doesn't make the percentages work out until the Asian or White number goes down.

    Apple is a diverse company, that shows in their culture and their products. Celebrating that and promoting inclusion is good enough, they don't have to look for faults when percentages don't work out exactly as expected and try to make them match expectations. Not everybody wants to work at Apple with a 90 hour work week, working on smartphones. It's ok for people to have different career ambitions in unequal amounts.
    Thanks for the info. I'll just respond with this: You say, "They justified it as training and not a job (although it's paid at the level of a job) but training leads to a job, if they only offer the training to certain people, they are pretty much deciding who gets at least some of the available jobs." I think you're missing a critical point. In the utopian meritocracy so many people posting here delusionally think already exists, the most qualified person will get the job, and all the race stuff will sort itself out, because nobody sees race (or gender) anyway. In reality, that meritocracy doesn't exist, and everybody sees race and gender. But even if that utopia did exist at a finish line defined as the hiring office, it doesn't before that. It just doesn't.

    For all kinds of social, economic, and cultural reasons, women and minorities are stopped or held back long before they get the opportunity to compete in the hiring process. A company like the BBC or even one as large and wealthy as Apple doesn't have the resources to fix schools, housing, parents' income levels, etc., so that everybody gets a fair shot at success. They can, however, offer a leg up in things like active recruitment and training opportunities, so that people who are otherwise disenfranchised might get the chance to be more competitive when applying for an actual job. In fact, if you read the Telegraph article you linked to, it says, "Those who finish the course are not guaranteed a full-time contract but rather considered good enough to 'compete for jobs'." But based on your comment, you don't seem to think they should be able to do that, either. Never mind that an ample supply of qualified white males are quite able to matriculate from Oxford or Harvard wherever and show up as qualified applicants. They should get most of the slots in the junior training program, too? So where do the others get their chance? If companies like Apple or the BBC or whoever can do something to make it possible for women and minorities who are smart, hard working and ambitious to be competitive at the starting line that's defined as the hiring office, maybe they actually can have an effect on schools, housing, and parents' income levels, because some of these women and minority hires who get in will be able to send the next generation to Cambridge, MIT, or wherever, so that they can bypass the junior trainee thing. 

    When it comes to race, gender and opportunity, there are serious problems. Anyone who claims otherwise is not themselves serious. So either you think "I've got mine," or you think something should be done to fix this. If you're in the former category, you're on the wrong side of history. If you're in the latter, then you have to realize that, short of allocating massive amounts of funding to immediately eliminate all poverty, you've got to acknowledge that things like active recruitment and pre-employment training programs have got to be viable means for breaking the cycle that otherwise locks some people out for no other reason than being born with the disfavored gender or skin tone. 
    edited May 2017
  • Reply 108 of 110
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    AppleZulu said:
    For all kinds of social, economic, and cultural reasons, women and minorities are stopped or held back long before they get the opportunity to compete in the hiring process. A company like the BBC or even one as large and wealthy as Apple doesn't have the resources to fix schools, housing, parents' income levels, etc., so that everybody gets a fair shot at success. They can, however, offer a leg up in things like active recruitment and training opportunities, so that people who are otherwise disenfranchised might get the chance to be more competitive when applying for an actual job.
    If Apple's staff was significantly lacking in under-represented minorities or women then the statement about certain groups being held back before hiring would make sense but 22% of their current US staff (~18000 people) are under-represented minorities and globally 32% are women (~40000 women). Poverty doesn't only happen to minorities either. If there's to be class-based hiring/training policies then separate that from race/gender and offer training programs to people below a certain median household income.
    In fact, if you read the Telegraph article you linked to, it says, "Those who finish the course are not guaranteed a full-time contract but rather considered good enough to 'compete for jobs'." But based on your comment, you don't seem to think they should be able to do that, either. Never mind that an ample supply of qualified white males are quite able to matriculate from Oxford or Harvard wherever and show up as qualified applicants. They should get most of the slots in the junior training program, too? So where do the others get their chance?
    What do poor people of any race/gender do to get their chance? You said 'white males' when talking about graduating but women outnumber men at university, they just choose different subjects and Asians do better:

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/how-many-men-and-women-are-studying-at-my-university
    https://www.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwoxacuk/localsites/gazette/documents/statisticalinformation/Final_Honour_Schools,_Bachelor_of_Fine_Art_and_Bachelor_of_Theology,_2016_-_(1)_to_No_5163.pdf

    Female graduates are less interested in tech/science and more in arts/creative/social so there's no reason to expect a 50/50 hiring rate in tech companies. If that's not what they want to do that's their choice. As long as they are represented in the national workforce, that's ok because it means they have found employment somewhere:

    https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

    If companies are hiring racial/gender groups who are already employed somewhere else, they are just displacing the proportions of race/gender across the whole workforce. This is based on the false notion that all groups should be equally interested in all careers.
    If companies like Apple or the BBC or whoever can do something to make it possible for women and minorities who are smart, hard working and ambitious to be competitive at the starting line that's defined as the hiring office, maybe they actually can have an effect on schools, housing, and parents' income levels, because some of these women and minority hires who get in will be able to send the next generation to Cambridge, MIT, or wherever, so that they can bypass the junior trainee thing. 
    That next generation comes from women who have to give birth to them. Many of them choose to leave the workforce to raise their children and there's a higher rate of single parent families with under-represented minorities ( http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by ). Typically the jobs would be going to single career women with no children. It's counter to your statement about future generations to suggest it would be better to give jobs to single women with no children than fathers raising and supporting daughters.
    When it comes to race, gender and opportunity, there are serious problems. Anyone who claims otherwise is not themselves serious. So either you think "I've got mine," or you think something should be done to fix this.
    The responsibility lies in claiming the presence of a serious problem, not the absence of it, this is done by providing evidence of it. We had the issue about equal pay, which people came up with by averaging all industries and companies and when companies started looking at their figures individually they found disparities of amounts like 4 cents on the dollar, I wouldn't call that serious. People negotiate their salaries based on their experience. Different companies pay different rates for the same jobs so averaging them all doesn't make sense. I've been paid less than people who did the exact same job as me who were the same race and gender. You can draw lines down every category, are gay/trans people getting paid less than straight, red hair less than blond/brunette, are ugly people getting paid less than attractive people:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/your-chance-of-getting-a-job-interview-increases-if-youre-attractive-2014-10
    "Your Chances Of Getting A Job Interview Greatly Increase If You're An Attractive Woman"

    You can pick any number of characteristics and draw dividing lines and I guarantee they won't come out with exactly the same rates of hiring in every industry and won't get the same salaries. It's impossible to guarantee this outcome in employment.

    Nobody is suggesting there's a utopian meritocracy, there never will be but at the same time there's not a dystopia. Women and minorities are running companies and entire countries just fine. When there are serious problems of discrimination then they should be pointed out and dealt with but that doesn't mean coming up with a fictional worldview where every positive trait is assumed to be equal and suggest there's a problem when the real world doesn't match it.

    Apple hires more Asian employees, about 10% of their workforce is displaced from other ethnicities. I don't consider that to be a serious problem. Asians (one of the smallest minorities) are graduating at higher rates and do better in tech subjects. They should be commended for that instead of being labeled problematic.
    edited May 2017
  • Reply 109 of 110
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    AppleZulu said:
    For all kinds of social, economic, and cultural reasons, women and minorities are stopped or held back long before they get the opportunity to compete in the hiring process.
    The exact opposite is true, under both definitions of the term.
    When it comes to race, gender and opportunity, there are serious problems.
    Yes, but not the ones you’ve invented.
    you're on the wrong side of history.
    Anyone who uses this phrase is definitionally wrong.
    …allocating massive amounts of funding to immediately eliminate all poverty…
    We’ve scientifically proven that doesn’t work. Do you have any actual ideas?
    …the cycle that otherwise locks some people out for no other reason than being born with the disfavored sex or skin tone. 
    This doesn’t exist, either. Have you done any research whatsoever? You don’t even know the right words to use.
    edited May 2017
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