What does white-guilt mean, exactly?

I believe that economic gains made by whites at the expense of other races because of past racist policies reinforced by a historical power imbalance should not be reinforced.

I believe it is appropriate for active steps to be taken to make sure this power imbalance is not reinforced.

I do not believe this is a zero-sum game.

As if that makes it less racist. You know the story you just told me about the hiring manager throwing out a female's resume based on assumptions about her gender? You should re-read it. It applies to your views on white people.

I don't believe it does. I cannot see anything in my story or approach that excludes anyone based on colour, creed or religion. Instead it is explicitly about making sure people are included, not excluded.

To be clear, I think the story would have gone like this: Hirer sees white person's resume, says "oh, this person is white. They will probably drink too much coffee (not sure of a racist stereotype for whites). Damn, we'll have to interview them anyway because of diversity policy and they are qualified"

How does that make it racist?

Many White people are socially conditioned from a young age to reflexively feel guilt and disgust toward the success of White people.

> I believe that economic gains made by whites at the expense of other races because of past racist policies reinforced by a historical power imbalance should not be reinforced.

If you want to try to accurately and fairly "unwind" historical sins (good luck), don't just target White people. And certainly don't pretend that modern White people are the only people who benefit from the those past sins.

Regarding White people in the tech industry, here's something for you to consider: White people in tech are over-proportionally Jewish. As you approach the top of the industry, Jewish people become more and more over-represented.

At the very top of the tech industry, I'd be stunned if fewer than 40-60% of people were Jewish.

Mark Zuckerberg?

Larry Page?

Sheryl Sandberg?

Sergey Brin?

Michael Dell?

All Jewish. A quick Google search reveals countless others (and frankly, good for them).

With these facts in mind, do you think we should push to recruit more non-Jewish White people in tech?

I don't think non-Jewish whites are discriminated against in hiring, but if promotion into management is a problem, then yes, management should reflect the population too.

I'd point out that it would appear there is less of a problem with discrimination against non-Jewish white men than against black females (for example), though.

I think prioritising is reasonable.

(I'd also note that in all those cases except Sheryl Sandberg they were founders, so hiring discrimination was a non-factor. I realise this wasn't your point though).

If non-Jewish White people are underrepresented among successful tech founders, does that not represent an upstream issue?

If that is the case, then yes.

But I suspect that even if you remove the white Jewish cohort from the white group then whites (and especially white males) would still be overrepresented amongst founders.

I don't see the overrepresentation of a minority group as a problem at all. Like you said: Good on them.

If the demographic data for founders looks anything like the demographic data in the linked blog post, White people would be almost perfectly(!) proportionally represented, given the percentage of working-age Americans who are White. White men would indeed be over-represented, and Asian men would be the most over-represented of all.