06-08-2018, 08:41 AM
I'm not sure I'd call something like a job a "privilege". I think people should definitely appreciate it, and acknowledge that there's some luck / factors out of their control that have gotten them to where they are even if it also required lots of hard work. I think the privilege in something like Rob's example is the experiences he had growing up that made it "easier" to get a tech job.
I don't think "Society" (in whatever form you want to think of it) should necessarily act on the results of privilege as much as act to address the root inequalities. So if we look at something like the lack of diversity in tech jobs the root privileges are often things like people's economic background and learning opportunities, conscious or unconscious bias in interview processes, conscious or unconscious discrimination in the workplace, etc. Those are the things that we should try to acknowledge and address. We shouldn't say "Let's hire equal numbers of X"* because that's treating the results of privilege and not the actual problem.
It feels to me like there's a subtle and important difference there.
* One caveat here is that I think diversity has actual quantifiable benefits for a business/organization. And so I think there are situations where it makes sense to choose person A over person B even if B is a better candidate in a vacuum if A brings more diversity. It doesn't even need to be about personal characteristics. If you've got a bunch of employees with backgrounds from the same big company or industry - it could easily make sense to bring in someone from a totally different background even if they're arguably "worse" in other ways.
I don't think "Society" (in whatever form you want to think of it) should necessarily act on the results of privilege as much as act to address the root inequalities. So if we look at something like the lack of diversity in tech jobs the root privileges are often things like people's economic background and learning opportunities, conscious or unconscious bias in interview processes, conscious or unconscious discrimination in the workplace, etc. Those are the things that we should try to acknowledge and address. We shouldn't say "Let's hire equal numbers of X"* because that's treating the results of privilege and not the actual problem.
It feels to me like there's a subtle and important difference there.
* One caveat here is that I think diversity has actual quantifiable benefits for a business/organization. And so I think there are situations where it makes sense to choose person A over person B even if B is a better candidate in a vacuum if A brings more diversity. It doesn't even need to be about personal characteristics. If you've got a bunch of employees with backgrounds from the same big company or industry - it could easily make sense to bring in someone from a totally different background even if they're arguably "worse" in other ways.