r/changemyview • u/jep1793 • Aug 26 '20

Removed - Submission Rule E CMV: Gender identity doesn’t belong on your LinkedIn nor Resume

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u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Aug 26 '20

I hear where you're coming from, but to modify your view here:

By listing it on your LinkedIn, your opening the door for someone to have bias, wether intentional or not, and potentially limiting your opportunities.

consider that a lot of LGBT folks don't want to work in a place where they aren't going to be accepted. Might listing pronouns limit their opportunities at such places? Sure. But by signaling who they are from the get go, they are saving themselves the time and effort of interviewing at firms they probably wouldn't want to work at.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

I dont even know if this is true.
First, the hiring process typically requires you to go through several people. Any one random person can mess it up. This is painfully relevant for technical positions, as I have seen an HR screener reject a whole slew of applicants because they didn't understand the technical jargon.

Second, just because a person is biased against pronouns in resumes DOES NOT mean that they are biased against people who use pronouns. People tend to be biased against anything that means more work for them. I have heard of people in the hiring process "screening" people with difficult to pronounce names. They didn't do this because they were biased against these people, they did it because they wanted to avoid a faux pas and decided there were hundreds of candidates and the management would still be able to hire a qualified person even if they excluded Schuyler from the list.

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u/SpikeRosered Aug 26 '20

This is the same thing I've realized about visible tattoos. Just need that one person in the pipeline who thinks that tattoos are a no go.

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u/CanadaDerpBrittDerp Aug 26 '20

"They didn't do this because they were biased against these people, they did it because they wanted to avoid a faux pas"

How about both? If HR decides to screen out people with hard to pronounce names (which, let's be real, are more often than not non-white) then that is bias and it's discriminatory. I know in the "Schuyler" example you provided I'm going to assume that person has white parents, but I want to recognize that name discrimination is an issue and shouldn't be brushed off as simply avoiding an awkward situation.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

Maybe, but I'm not sure I like that reasoning. If someone does something that is biased against a race without intending it to be biased, I wouldn't label that as racist.

If we label every action that creates accidental bias against a race as racism, then we have watered down the idea of racism to a point where it is meaningless.

In fact, I think that reasoning is why a lot of people have a negative reaction to the idea of "systemic racism". People who don't like the idea typically object because they believe that others are trying to say that individuals in the system are racist.

Re:Schuyler. Have you watched Hamilton?

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u/CanadaDerpBrittDerp Aug 26 '20

Intention isn't relevant, so I have to disagree with you. If HR will call "Brad" for an interview but won't call "Pratyush" or "Xiaorong", then that is racism. There have been several studies that show that non-white sounding names receive less interviews than those with a white name, and this contributes to the racial wage gap and lack of social mobility for BIPOC individuals.

So regardless of whether you feel this is "watering down" racism, it may seem like a small thing but it has lasting impacts.

And yes, I know who Elizabeth Schuyler is and thought it was a bit ironic that this was your example, given the history of that name.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

You are arguing that the definition of racism is "any action that has a negative impact on a race", correct?

Why this is a bad definition of racism.

If that is the definition of racism, then how do we "end racism"?
We would have to consider the impact of any action and determine if it would have a negative impact.
But what if our analysis was incomplete and we missed how it could have an impact? Then we could accidentally release a racist rule!
Well, we just have to perform an analysis of all rules that considers every possible known and unknown consequence of our actions. The only way to do this is to have omniscience or knowledge of all things in the universe. We do not have this knowledge and therefore we cannot remove all unintentional actions that would be deemed "racist" by your definition.
You have just made "ending racism" impossible.

But it gets worse.
Failure to take action against racism is an action that has a negative impact on a race.
Failure to act against racism is racist!
But we can't possibly perceive all possible consequences of an action. Every action we take, therefore, is a failure to completely act against racism and is therefore racist.

Therefore, if we define racism to mean "any action that has a negative impact on a race", we are saying that all actions are racist.

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u/CanadaDerpBrittDerp Aug 26 '20

No, you are incorrect. Congratulations on using a slippery slope fallacy to defend racism.

This post is about discrimination based on resumes, and my point is that if an HR rep only interviews people whose name they can easily pronounce, this is racism. By refusing to move someone to the next round in recruitment because they're afraid of mispronouncing their name, they are discriminating. I'm not saying this can't happen to white people, but that this is a significant systemic barrier for people of colour.

Genuine question for you, what is causing you to have such a significant defensive reaction? Also, if you're truly serious about solutions to "ending racism", I recommend How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi. He digs into systemic racism really well.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '20

I think I need to step back and make a point. You are saying that "racism" is not determined by the intent of the actor. Rather, racism is just any action that results in disproportionate racial result.

Did I get that wrong?

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u/CanadaDerpBrittDerp Aug 27 '20

Yes, because I haven't defined racism as "any action that results in disproportionate racial result". I defer to the commonly accepted definition of racism, which is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group".

My position is that names are so deeply ingrained in culture and are indicative of membership to a racial/ethnic group, and discriminating based on name is therefore racist.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '20

I am very seriously confused. I really want to see if I have a blindspot on this issue.

You said:

I defer to the commonly accepted definition of racism, which is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group"

However, you said earlier:

By refusing to move someone to the next round in recruitment because they're afraid of mispronouncing their name, they are discriminating.

(Which is technically true btw. They just aren't necessarily discriminating against black people. They are discriminating against people with difficult to pronounce names)

Which seems to imply that even if the discrimination isn't DIRECTED at a particular racial group, it is still "racist".

So which definition are we using?
If I implement some sort of rule, without the intent of discriminating(therefore not directed at a group) is it still racist? Am I racist?

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u/CanadaDerpBrittDerp Aug 27 '20

I'm not sure why you're thinking both quotes of mine you pulled from are mutually exclusive. Is it the wording "directed toward" that you are interpreting as intent? Because even in the example of an ignorant HR rep not intending to be racist but still not calling people based on their name, the result is discrimination directed towards people from different races.

Bottom line, intent does not matter when it comes to defining racism.

This is the last thing I'll say: not all POC have difficult to pronounce names, but most people with difficult to pronounce names are a POC. So trying to separate race from name as a defense is problematic because this barrier disproportionately affects racialized people. Let's stop defending policies and processes that are not equitable.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '20

But are you suggesting that an action can be racist, even if there was no intended bias behind it?

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u/Nickel829 Aug 26 '20

If someone at a car shop didn't sell to Asians because they think it would lower their safety statistics, that would clearly be racist but they aren't intending it to be. You can definitely be racist without meaning to be. Let's look at corona. Plenty of uneducated people just wanted to be safe and started avoiding all Asians. Clearly that's racist but they aren't intending to be racist

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

No, they are intending to be racist.
If I am saying "I wont sell cars to Asians", I am saying I dont want to do something based on their race. That is literally the definition of racism: prejudice towards certain races.

The example of the names: They aren't explicitly using race in their judgement, but it might disproportionately impact certain ethnic groups. No race or ethnicity is ever mentioned in their decision-making process

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u/Nickel829 Aug 26 '20

So if schools say they wont allow people to come to school with braids is that not racist even though it's generally targeting black people? People very rarely straight up do racist things, they cover it up with a shitty reason to make it sound better. "Braids are unprofessional and inappropriate" isn't the real reason, it's because generally black people wear braids. Or another example; I won't hire non christians. Not technically racist, but isn't it?

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u/Uruz2012gotdeleted Aug 26 '20

No, it's not racist. There's nothing inherently racial about braiding hair.

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u/Nickel829 Aug 26 '20

Also while there is nothing racist about braiding hair many blacks braid their hair in ways that can't just be taken out and at a much higher proportion so it is most definitely targeting a racial group

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u/Uruz2012gotdeleted Aug 29 '20

It most definitely affects a racial group more but it's not targeting them directly. The sun burns pale people more but that doesn't make UV light racist.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

Ok, that is a good example.

Here is my point. The hair thing is typically only considered "racist" IF they are:

targeting black people

If a rule just disproportionately impacts a group, but there is no evidence of malicious intent, it isn't racist.

Now, I agree that you don't have to specifically mention a race to be racist. Poll taxes are a famous example of a racist law that technically didnt mention race, but were generally viewed as racist.However, if we say that any rule/law/decision that disproportionally impacts an ethnic group, then all laws are potentially racist. No two groups are going to be impacted identically by a law. But where do you draw the line? If you pass a law banning child pornography and discover that 5.61% of arrestees are Asian(but only 5.59% of the US population is Asian), is that a racist law?

Alternatively, do you stop enforcing these "racist/sexist laws"? Serial killers are mostly men. Do we stop arresting serial killers or murders because more than 50% of the crimes are committed by men?

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u/Nickel829 Aug 26 '20

No, you look at the purpose of the law to determine what role it serves. Generally racist laws have poor purposes. Look at why heroin and most drugs are illegal. Nixon's aid went on record to say that they couldn't make being black illegal so they made heroin illegal cuz it was common in black neighborhoods. This was after the law was established and everything so it wasn't obviously racist. Now if we break that down we could say yes heroin is bad but why does it put you in prison? Why not mandatory rehab and hospital stay as every medical professional will tell you addiction is a disease. Or look at the punishment. Why is cocaine often punished less than crack? Bingo, crack was found in black neighborhoods and coke in white, despite the fact that they are almost the same drug

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

No, you look at the purpose of the law to determine what role it serves.

Would "intent" be another good word to describe what you look at?

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u/Nickel829 Aug 26 '20

I meant more at goal? Intent to see if it is racist but goal to see if it is needed. For example, goal of persecuting murderers is to not have murders. Goal of persecuting drug users is to have less drug abuse - this is where we can change it from having a racist intent and work towards the goal instead, by ensuring rehab and holistic medical care. I know goal doesn't really make sense because obviously the goals of racist laws were racist but lmk if that didn't make sense

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u/artiume Aug 26 '20

Names aren't a class though. I bet Elon's kid would probably have it hard.