Question About My Moral Duty
Okay, so here’s my dilemma.
I was mostly out of work for the last twenty months. There was a good deal of free-lance work, but not a lot in the way of long-term security. Just at the end of last year, I hooked an excellent gig for a programmer such as myself. Better than average pay, a company using the latest tools, a minimum of legacy code to maintain.
Even cooler than that, this is a company dedicated to environmental good. From a social good standpoint, It would have been a hard time to pick something better suited to my work skills and my sense of ethics.
Save for the fact that I have seen only one black face in the company and that in a job that I am sure pays nowhere near as well as mine.
Now, there is no way I am giving up this gig. My family needs the money and that has to take precedence over my sense of moral duty on this score.
So I’m putting it out there: what do I do? And this, by the way, is why I am anonymous on this blog and so is the company I work for.
6 Responses to “Question About My Moral Duty”
My dad works for a computer programming company, and he talks about the hiring process, and most of the people he hires are people who are recommended to the company by somebody who already works there. If you know other qualified people from a more diverse background who you’d be comfortable recommending into the job, go ahead. Even if they’re not hiring. I mean, if everyone at that company is predominantly white, they’ll likely know predominantly white people, and so the hiring will likely be predominantly white.
If you get the sense that the company is deliberately trying to keep the company homogenized, that’s one thing. But it might be a self-sustaining cycle. If you’re going to be there, I think your “moral duty” if you want to call it that is to try and bring more people on board. Encourage people to apply, give them recommendations if you can.
Moral duty was a deliberate choice of words. Passive acquiesence is not a noble trait.
I do think it is more a case of hiring those who look like those who are already there. Also, the pool of non-Asian minorities in software engineering is vanishingly small. I don’t think I remember seeing a single one in all my masters program and only a couple in undergrad.
So, maybe a better question is: what stategies have proven results at increasing minority employment in technical fields?
Don’t sweat yourself. This shouldn’t be a line in the sand for you…not that you think it is. Merely noticing that there aren’t any black folks around you is a cheerleading moment from my point of view. Half of what “hurts my feelings” as a black person is privilege taken for granted. I say get comfortable with the people around you. If you can get to know someone in HR, all the better. Then in a casual way, ask what their diversity policy is. Chances are they are looking for diversity but the pool consists of people recommended as mentioned. It would also help if you have a kick ass recommendation who is a POC so that they don’t have to look. HR is lazy. The easier their job is made by others, the better.
Good question to ask yourself, KevDog. Here. Let me paste this gold star to your forehead.
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1. Quitting would not make the company any more diverse.
2. If the problem is a shortage of African-American IT professionals, then that is not a problem that can be solved at the company’s level. It would need to be addressed at the college, high school, or prior levels. Perhaps you can donate money or time to some sort of organization which supports diversity in IT.
@Ed
It’s not just IT, its the entire company. It’s like Vermont.
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