Thank you TR for putting your money where your mouth is

Yeah, I don’t think that guy can be won over.

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Ya, most of the time that will be the case. Those actually interested in dialogue will engage productively, those that aren’t won’t. At least then they have no excuses and their true intentions are abundantly clear. Anyway, moving over to @Stringwise’s thread to continue the discussion since this is not the place. Let’s keep this thread positive moving forward since that was the original intent.

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:metal:

WTF??? I’m usually pretty easy going, but this crosses a line for the TR forum (and pretty much any other civil conversation). There is no place for a user to advocate that someone “deserves a bullet to the head” for resisting arrest.

Please remove this post. Ideally, please remove this user. This is disgusting.

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I’m going to make an effort to not respond directly to some of the comments in this thread…because I’ll just get pissed off, and inevitably start a war here in a non-political forum.

NOW, that said: this is about so, SO much more than ‘just a couple bad cops.’ It is about all the other cops that stood by while watching cops commit racist acts. Abuse power. In the case of the murderer Derik Chauvin, it was about the three cops present who neglected their duty to serve their community, and instead stood by doing nothing, not intervening while they watched a murder take place in broad daylight.

It’s further about all of the cops who lobby to keep such cops in power. Everyone who allows false police reports to be filed, and stays silent while the public pays the price. For every murderous monster like Chauvin, logic dictates there must be countless others who enable him. NONE of those are ‘good cops.’ It is a systemic problem, that has beaten down whole communities for generations. So of course we have mass protests because of it. And with a movement of thousands, which seems to be growing to millions, of course there will be a small subset that just wants to burn it all down.

The solution is not to label everyone criminals. The solution is to invest in these communities to the same degree we have been investing in white communities. Ensure safety. Ensure a decent wage for work that people can support a family on. Ensure healthcare. Ensure access to a police force that isnt out to murder them. In short…give people a chance at an emotion other than fear and despair.

These should not be big asks…

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We have moved the discussion to a new thread to keep this one on topic. Do you mind posting here?

Great to see from TR. Fully endorse

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Well done @Nate_Pearson and the rest of the TR team. I often cringe when I see large corporations use issues such racism or gender discrimination essentially as an attempt to gain good PR (and thus sales).

From everything I have read about the company, I have to say that TR seems to be very ethically minded and principle based. I commend your actions to make some change, not just saying some nice words.

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I was listening to Love is My Religion yesterday myself!

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I am not American or a US resident, though I have lived in the US and in Canada for near on 15 years. I also need to bear that in mind that people in glass houses throwing stones may have issues …

BUT, while I am very pleased to see TR making this donation [I’ve given them a like] and being prepared to match other people’s donation, a lot more has to change if black lives are really going to matter. In the context of this discussion on a cycling forum, and I hope still on thread, I can identify two simple things that need to change:
[1] hiring practices of corporations like TR;
[2} encouragement of broader participation in our [mainly] white, well-off, male dominated sport.
Amber was a start on both things, but now we can surely see that more radical moves are needed.
No doubt, you all – closer to the action – have better ideas to propose to Nate and his team.

Thanks TR – and thanks to you all who have supported the company in this action. But…

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I do know that TR uses blind hiring. So all personal data is anonymized before initial review. This is a pretty good first start to remove any implicit bias when reviewing resumes. The two things they have working against them to be a very diverse company are that they are a part of a very white, male sport and the main career within the company (Software Engineering) is also very white and male.

This is a much more difficult change that is maybe a little outside of TR’s scope but it would be great if they did something to support more diversity in the sport from the very beginning.

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This can actually have a discriminatory effect as well. Social class, race and other social factors put population groups at a disadvantage before they get to the point of applying for a job.

A ‘race blind’ policy, which doesn’t take those systematic barrier into account will end up replicating the inequalities in wider society.

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Oh yes. VERY.
I am a software Engineer.
In my 20 year career, I have work with maybe 5 or 6 women software developers. and MAYBE 3 black developers. So is very male. Its also very white but also i see many Asians developers.

But hopefully this will change with time. I see more your woman engaging in computers and software.
When i was in college we had like maybe 10 software major woman. Of them i only stay in touch with one and she is a very successful developer (she was one of the best of my college class)

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I have edited his post to remove that particular phrase that is inciting violence, and we have sent the user an offical warning that we will not stand for those types of statements here on the TrainerRoad forum.

We appreciate your concern and we are committed to keeping our forum a place for healthy and friendly debate :+1:.

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Yeah, I was talking about this with my GF yesterday. How certain things like access to impressive universities can filter out certain classes or races before the get the chance to apply. And how the different perspective of a minority or the extra challenges that they may have face in order to even get on an even step as the white guy might make them a more valuable employee, even if on paper they may look slightly less impressive. It’s a difficult balancing act of trying to not have implicit bias against POC and also wanting that perspective in your company. And you also don’t want to higher worse programmers in order to get that perspective. It is definitely not my expertise and I certainly don’t know the best way to do it but it is good to see that they are at least thinking about it and trying to remove biases.

err… I think the WHOLE post is inappropriate.
Did you miss the part where he called the protesters “Low Life”?

And showing your protest by burning and looting other peoples property, are you saying this is normal? All these protesters are some lowlifes who dont give a f* about one black guy. They are in there for the chaos and deserve the tear gas and rubber bullets.

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That opinion, while reprehensible, does not incite violence. TR made the right call IMO, but reasonable minds can disagree.

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mwglow15, willball12, Joelrivera: thank you for the constructive response to an outsider’s presumption.

On hiring: you all make good points. But think about Amber. A huge asset to the company, in all kinds of ways and a great benefit to all of us. But I venture to suppose, that she is an even greater benefit to he women who watch the AACC podcast. And she will no doubt have the effect of encouraging more women into cycling. Maybe more women into TR? All good.

But was she hired through an anonymised hiring process? Or was she targeted because of her gender / personality / skills of presentation / CV on the bike?

Oh man. This is another sensitive topic.
And for once I dont know where i stand. I keep changing the way i feel about it.

When hiring people you can do 3 things.
Blind hiring - You might end with the same people anyways. There is an argument about how certain group of people have better experience and education than others. Also, you can see things like college, high schools and other as an indication of the person and your unconscious bias might kick (for example a person from George Mason University might get a better look than a person from Howard University)
Target hiring - There will always be the impression if the person was hired because of talent or because of certain traits. I for one dont mind target hiring as much. I feel it counter balance the years of blindly closing the door to certain groups.
Traditional Hiring - This is also problematic. Everyone has unconscious bias. And knowing everything about the person might be counter productive.

All are problematic. no matter what you do. :frowning_face: :

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Sadly the system is broken. It’s a dysfunctional family we’re living in. And i get that some people are willing to work towards a solution to the problem, but like in any relationship, if some people don’t see a problem or are not willing to work on it… we’ll just keep running into the same issue over and over again.
It’s that cycle of abuse.

I’ve grown up being the token black kid (one of the 2-3 bastions of diveristy in each class…usually me, one of asian origins, and another of middle eastern origin)… and while i very rarely had any ill willed racist interactions, there were a lot of normalized behaviors that i didn’t think were racist but in retrospect were… whether it be touching my hair to see how it feels or other comments about what my athletic abilities should be, etc etc. In that kind of environment, especially when they’re not trying to be straight up @ssholes… it will be harder to change that type of behavior as they didn’t see it as a negative interaction and then see it as an attack on themselves… so it ends up being about their own character being attacked vs how the interaction feels for the other person.
It’s something i can understand to a full extent, where the person thinks only their intention counts, not the end result therefore not understand why theyre villified for it.
I feel like when i read comments, i can see this reflected in a lot of the people who are “against” said movements. And if we can’t get good-intentioned people on to work with us, this battle is far from over.

Thanks TR for trying to do something to help. It’s really appreciated.

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