Tl;DR. I'm white. I worked my ass off to get to where I am now, I make good money, and no magic "CIS White Privelege fairy" ever came down and sprinkled money or opportunity on me. Simply put, The whole "privelege" concept is ridiculous and insulting.

Taking your story at face value, just because you did not feel privileged does not mean that privilege does not exist, or even that you didn't actually benefit from it. As I said, what we call "privilege" is merely a status quo that those in the majority, largely unaware, experience as a lack of resistance, whereas someone who suffers the other end of the same status quo experiences as a penalty. You can't say it doesn't exist or wasn't in effect because you did not feel it, the experiences of those who suffer under it prove its effect. Your experience is your experience, you cannot use it to disprove the experience of others.

I was never dirt-poor (well, perhaps briefly) growing up, but I also come from meager, rural means and now make a good living at everyone's favorite tech company out in beautiful Seattle. I worked hard too to get where I am, and never had much active benefit bestowed upon me. Still, I recognize that I certainly have gained from all kinds of socially-ingrained, passive benefits. Privilege is not usually defined by you getting to take the express elevator but by those on the other end of things having to take the stairs nearly everywhere they go. Had every opportunity in your story been made available to you, but with only a change in your skin tone, its entirely possible that all you have today might never have come to be. I mean that literally -- all of your extant success could have been derailed merely by someone thinking to themselves "Well, he seems entusiastic, and he's well-qualified, but he's black."

You can be offended if someone suggests that you didn't work hard, or don't deserve what you've achieved, as I would be if someone suggested the same of me. As an immigrant to this country you likely have felt discrimination, and had to work harder than a born-citizen would to overcome it. But even still, you cannot rightfully be offended by the mere notion that privilege exists, just because you were one of the lucky few who's hard work actually paid off -- and again, congrats, sounds like you've earned it, but there are people who work just as hard, or harder, and are not able to climb as high as you.

Tl;DR. I'm white. I worked my ass off to get to where I am now, I make good money, and no magic "CIS White Privelege fairy" ever came down and sprinkled money or opportunity on me. Simply put, The whole "privelege" concept is ridiculous and insulting.

Taking your story at face value, just because you did not feel privileged does not mean that privilege does not exist, or even that you didn't actually benefit from it. As I said, what we call "privilege" is merely a status quo that those in the majority, largely unaware, experience as a lack of resistance, whereas someone who suffers the other end of the same status quo experiences as a penalty. You can't say it doesn't exist or wasn't in effect because you did not feel it, the experiences of those who suffer under it prove its effect. Your experience is your experience, you cannot use it to disprove the experience of others.

I was never dirt-poor (well, perhaps briefly) growing up, but I also come from meager, rural means and now make a good living at everyone's favorite tech company out in beautiful Seattle. I worked hard too to get where I am, and never had much active benefit bestowed upon me. Still, I recognize that I certainly have gained from all kinds of socially-ingrained, passive benefits. Privilege is not usually defined by you getting to take the express elevator but by those on the other end of things having to take the stairs nearly everywhere they go. Had every opportunity in your story been made available to you, but with only a change in your skin tone, its entirely possible that all you have today might never have come to be. I mean that literally -- all of your extant success could have been derailed merely by someone thinking to themselves "Well, he seems entusiastic, and he's well-qualified, but he's black."

You can be offended if someone suggests that you didn't work hard, or don't deserve what you've achieved, as I would be if someone suggested the same of me. As an immigrant to this country you likely have felt discrimination, and had to work harder than a born-citizen would to overcome it. But even still, you cannot rightfully be offended by the mere notion that privilege exists, just because you were one of the lucky few who's hard work actually paid off -- and again, congrats, sounds like you've earned it, but there are people who work just as hard, or harder, and are not able to climb as high as you.

I see your point and reasoning, but I disagree with your logical result.

In the USA, specifically, Indians/Asians make the most money by a large margin despite being an extreme minority.

Hispanics, despite being a pretty large minority make less then blacks.

If Privelege exists as you suggest, I'd expect to see a higher population correlate with more money.

I'd say what you interpret to be a privelege is luck. Sure some employer has said "This guy looks like a good candidate, but he's black and I hate those". Statistics makes that a certainty. However, I'm sure there's dozens of more valid excuses people have lost out on jobs that didn't have anything to do with their race. If those businesses turn down qualified minorities, they should be losing those employees to other employers, and suffer in the market/lose relevance over time.

Tech companies concern themselves with hiring based on qualifications/experience. This is why tech companies hire so many Indian developers despite them having a bad reputation.

*EDIT* As for workplace equality, I have noticed that women tend to not negotiate for more money as much as men. I think that has more to do with how women learn/are raised. Not completely sure why, though. I've got an interview tomorrow that I can ask if that happens.

I've talked about over a dozen or so, and I've read books on it. As mentioned earlier, and covered in books like "Women Don't Ask" and "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office", it is their social beliefs.

Every one of the women I've talked to, including my wife and several of her working friends, and also as documented as a very common belief in the books, think if they push hard at those negotiations the interviewers and bosses will think bad of them, which will harm their long-term relationship at the company. Most of these women are great at hardball negotiation in other scenarios, but since they are going to work with the bosses and teams in the long haul, they want to establish a good relationship. They feel if they go in pushing hard for wages or promotions they will harm the long-term relationship.

My own belief, which others I've worked with have shared, is that when women stand up and demand a high pay they are valuing themselves and the work they do. Both men and women who do that will usually respond along the lines of "No, that salary is not okay, you need to pay me $x because of these reasons." Those who put their heads down or just ask for more without reasons can be good workers, but those who stand up, take action, and can justify the action are often the best contributors.

Tl;DR. I'm white. I worked my ass off to get to where I am now, I make good money, and no magic "CIS White Privelege fairy" ever came down and sprinkled money or opportunity on me. Simply put, The whole "privelege" concept is ridiculous and insulting.

I think both can be true. Much of the world is, to varying degrees, a meritocracy. If you exist on either extreme of the intelligent and hard working bell curve, you can overcome most adversity or squander most inborn advantages. If you fall in the middle of the curve, you are far more susceptible to the whims of fate. There's a 10% variance between states on high school graduation rates, obviously any one person can graduate, but it doesn't change the fact that if you're from Mississippi, you're statistically more likely to drop out. When a close friend of mine graduated from law school the very top of his class, and those who had connected families, immediately found jobs.

I've found that a lot of individuals from very poor white families view the attention given to minorities as unfair, since they had it hard as well. Unfortunately, for some reason our society puts a great deal of weight on our inheritance. The quality of education we (in the US) receive is tied to the property taxes our parents can afford. We have very low estate taxes. Parental income correlates very strongly with whether you have to work (possibly full time) while pursuing an education or if you can focus exclusively on school. The socioeconomic status you are born into often has a lasting impact on your quality (and length) of life. Essentially, you're punished or rewarded for how well your family did.

And if your grandparents were dirt poor, it sounds like they (or their parents) were not in the upper extrema of hard work and intelligence. But they probably did benefit from not being a minority. A Harder working black family was likely to be in the same situation as your grandparents, because of overt and systematic racism at the turn of the century. That's the wrong people sometimes look to fix. You were penalized because your grandparents were not as hard working or entreprenurial or whatever as they could. Other people were punished despite hard working grandparents.

Also, I did some quick googling, and in 1916, the infant mortality was about half for whites compared other races. You might owe the fact that you exist at all to 'the white privilege fairy'.

To clarify, I agree that using race as an excuse to demean others accomplishments is a bad thing (either 'you only succeeded because you're white' or 'you only succeeded because of affirmative action'). People who work for their successes should be praised. People should be taught that they can rise from any background. But at the same time, when you collate millions of individual anecdotes, you end up with statistics. And there are clearly people raised up or pushed down unfairly on the margin, even if any given story breaks that narrative.

My own belief, which others I've worked with have shared, is that when women stand up and demand a high pay they are valuing themselves and the work they do.

Or they'll be labeled as an 'abrasive bitch', and still offered less than the men make. That's what usually happens when women take the tack you suggest, of acting just like a guy would in a corporate setting.

I've worked on dev teams where this dynamic was quite obvious. Guys could walk into a meeting, interrupt someone in the middle of a sentence, loudly state a wrong opinion, and no one would say shit. A woman who even reacted to being interrupted in such a fashion would get peer reviews describing her in colourful language...

I see your point and reasoning, but I disagree with your logical result.

In the USA, specifically, Indians/Asians make the most money by a large margin despite being an extreme minority.

Hispanics, despite being a pretty large minority make less then blacks.

If Privelege exists as you suggest, I'd expect to see a higher population correlate with more money.

But white's still have the most household wealth. And in fact, we'd expect higher variance among very small minority groups. There's also many other dynamics going on: it is very difficult to immigrate illegally across the Pacific ocean, and there's a relatively small historic asian and Indian population, so those groups are disproportionately represented by people the government views as high value: higher educated individuals with good job prospects. Latino's include more illegal immigration and historic immigration, which brings down averages.

I'd say what you interpret to be a privelege is luck. Sure some employer has said "This guy looks like a good candidate, but he's black and I hate those". Statistics makes that a certainty. However, I'm sure there's dozens of more valid excuses people have lost out on jobs that didn't have anything to do with their race. If those businesses turn down qualified minorities, they should be losing those employees to other employers, and suffer in the market/lose relevance over time.

Markets are not so elastic that small inefficiencies in hiring will create obvious shifts in market share. For example, one good patent outweighs a great number of poor hiring choices. Additionally, it's not usually so simple as an overtly racist employer. They might have just a slight preconcieved notion that asians are good at coding and blacks are bad it. So if two candidates are within 15% of each other, they'll chooes the Asian. That means a better than average black candidate might consistently lose out for jobs he deserves. Worse, this snowballs, because in the end he has to find a job he's, say, 10% overqualified for. The next round of applications, the Asian candidate has a better job on his resume so not only does he have the prejudice advantage, he's also got a better looking resume, so the gap grows despite no initial superiority as a candidate. At each stage, for each person, racial and gender advantages can be fairly minor and overshadowed by other effects, but aggregated across a lifetime and across many individuals, they can still be a very powerful force.

There's also subtle advantages that are hard to see. For example, your story involves learning to program around age 13 or so? Unless you are very young, having access to a computer at all at that age was already a privilege.

Trying to get back on topic, the question was if the game industry specifically has a problem.

The video in question talks about issues in the content of games, and only briefly talks about employment at studios.

Broad concerns across all of society are different than the game industry specifically. There are some issues that affect all of culture.

For the employment at studios, within the game industry specifically, at the studios I have worked at, at the studios I have personally seen, the answer is No, the places I have seen did not have specific issues with discrimination. There may be broad cultural bias, but that is not specific to the industry.

For the content of games, which is what the original video was about, I think that the number of games with discrimination is a problem is vanishingly small. Only the smallest number of games involve humanoids at all. Of those games, a large percentage are "build your own avatar", so again no discrimination by the studio. In the remaining games, some of them have issues.

But you're looking at a very tiny number of games from a small number of studios, not an industry-wide issue.

For the employment at studios, within the game industry specifically, at the studios I have worked at, at the studios I have personally seen, the answer is No, the places I have seen did not have issues with discrimination.

I think you may be missing the broader point here. For a white male to stand up and say "I've never seen discrimination where I work, so it doesn't exist"... that's kind of problematic.

Can you honestly say that you absolutely sure you wouldn't have seen any signs of discrimination at those same workplaces if you happened to be black, female or queer? The whole point of 'privilege' is that it is normalised for those who benefit by it, and they never see or experience anything out of the ordinary.

Only the smallest number of games involve humanoids at all.

But how many highly publicised, big budget, AAA titles feature humanoids? I'd suggest that number is in the high 90 percent.

Of those games, a large percentage are "build your own avatar", so again no discrimination by the studio.

"Build your own avatar" doesn't really solve the problem - at best it's a dodge, and often is a cynical way to avoid taking flak over the lack of diversity elsewhere in the gam.

Even if you can make your own character black or female, what about the rest of the cast? Among the NPC companions you can accumulate, is there diversity? Among the hundreds of NPCs you meet, is there diversity?

Some companies do this very well, for example, Bioware's RPGs demonstrate a significant commitment to diversity. Your average ego shooter? Not so much. How often do you get to play as a black soldier in Call of Duty? Or play as a female character in Halo? Hell, in ODST, the only female character is the *only* unplayable one...

"Build your own avatar" doesn't really solve the problem - at best it's a dodge, and often is a cynical way to avoid taking flak over the lack of diversity elsewhere in the gam.

How? This allows gamers to choose exactly what they want to play... And it's not like games take flak over lack of diversity when it comes to the bottom line.

Even if you can make your own character black or female, what about the rest of the cast? Among the NPC companions you can accumulate, is there diversity? Among the hundreds of NPCs you meet, is there diversity?

Do they need to be diverse? Assuming we're talking about AAA games here, they're usually trying to tell a story based on the director's vision.

How often do you get to play as a black soldier in Call of Duty? Or play as a female character in Halo? Hell, in ODST, the only female character is the *only* unplayable one...

It's playing to the market. If I was creating a character for a game right now, the character would be white, intentionally, so my main demographic (whites) would relate more to the character. He'd have a non-playable white wife because most people can relate to being in love, and the majority demographic is white. These roles just fill themselves out naturally based on the aimed demographic.

If I was making an AAA game for Japan, I'd make the characters anime styled, or Japanese, simply because it fits the majority demographic wants.

It's playing to the market. If I was creating a character for a game right now, the character would be white, intentionally, so my main demographic (whites) would relate more to the character. He'd have a non-playable white wife because most people can relate to being in love, and the majority demographic is white. These roles just fill themselves out naturally based on the aimed demographic.

And you've just contributed to the lack of diversity in video games.

Did it ever occur to you that correlation may not be causation? You think you should use white male characters because you think your audience is white (despite a lack of evidence to that effect). But what if it's the other way round? What if your audience is white males because you only include white male characters?

And how do you think all the people who aren't white males feel about most games not having characters that look and act like them?