"The world we live in" doesn't mean "on the planet on which we reside". It's a figure of speech.
You demonstrate your selective understanding by first citing the figure of white folk in this country, where HP is based, and then pointing out that whites are a global minority when it helps you defend your point.
You're misusing statistics from start to finish. 12.4% of the population being one race does not equal a 12.4% chance of anybody in any walk of life being that race. 1 in 3 people being white worldwide does not equal a mere 1 in 3 chance that a given tester would have been white. Probabilities are often expressed as percentages, but that does not mean you can treat a percentage from one context as a probability in all contexts.
I mean, it's not as though there's an equal chance that a major consumer electronics product that will be sold on the North American market will be tested in America by Americans or in Africa by Africans... and yeah, major consumer electronics products will probably be increasingly made and tested in China and India but I guarantee that when that happens the people doing the testing will think about the importance of any differences in the North American market before selling here. They couldn't afford to not do so.
'Racism' caused by probability and poor QA isn't a problem. It is not even 'racism'.
It creates an outcome that favors whites, the majority race in the United States and one with a considerable amount of privilege, over a minority race. It arises out of those same circumstances. Hence, systemic racism.
As for whether or not it's a problem? Well, having a webcam feature that doesn't work for you is the very definition of a "first world problem", as nobody actually needs a webcam that does that... and I hope you'll note that nothing in this post indicts HP as a bunch of cross-burning bigots who need to be boycotted out of existence. I picked this as an example because the video happens to be going around right now and it's a perfect example of systemic racism.
The fact that so many people feel the need to defend this shit so vociferously actually makes me angry in a way that the specific issue highlighted in the video. The kneejerk dismissal of any charge of racism that's less overt and clear-cut than outright hate speech is troubling... it's like people are going, "If any one can be accused of racism, I could be accused of racism and that would be awful."
I refer back to the main point of my post: that it seems like admitting to racism has become the unforgivable sin in our society, and that this makes it difficult to have a discussion about racism that's anything more than everybody standing around condemning the KKK and Hitler for being obviously evil.
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ninetydegrees
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 11:26 pm (UTC)You demonstrate your selective understanding by first citing the figure of white folk in this country, where HP is based, and then pointing out that whites are a global minority when it helps you defend your point.
You're misusing statistics from start to finish. 12.4% of the population being one race does not equal a 12.4% chance of anybody in any walk of life being that race. 1 in 3 people being white worldwide does not equal a mere 1 in 3 chance that a given tester would have been white. Probabilities are often expressed as percentages, but that does not mean you can treat a percentage from one context as a probability in all contexts.
I mean, it's not as though there's an equal chance that a major consumer electronics product that will be sold on the North American market will be tested in America by Americans or in Africa by Africans... and yeah, major consumer electronics products will probably be increasingly made and tested in China and India but I guarantee that when that happens the people doing the testing will think about the importance of any differences in the North American market before selling here. They couldn't afford to not do so.
'Racism' caused by probability and poor QA isn't a problem. It is not even 'racism'.
It creates an outcome that favors whites, the majority race in the United States and one with a considerable amount of privilege, over a minority race. It arises out of those same circumstances. Hence, systemic racism.
As for whether or not it's a problem? Well, having a webcam feature that doesn't work for you is the very definition of a "first world problem", as nobody actually needs a webcam that does that... and I hope you'll note that nothing in this post indicts HP as a bunch of cross-burning bigots who need to be boycotted out of existence. I picked this as an example because the video happens to be going around right now and it's a perfect example of systemic racism.
The fact that so many people feel the need to defend this shit so vociferously actually makes me angry in a way that the specific issue highlighted in the video. The kneejerk dismissal of any charge of racism that's less overt and clear-cut than outright hate speech is troubling... it's like people are going, "If any one can be accused of racism, I could be accused of racism and that would be awful."
I refer back to the main point of my post: that it seems like admitting to racism has become the unforgivable sin in our society, and that this makes it difficult to have a discussion about racism that's anything more than everybody standing around condemning the KKK and Hitler for being obviously evil.