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Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom (bloomberg.com)
257 points by ml_hpc on Jan 21, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 462 comments



I'm a black guy working in IT at a company in the top 5 of the Fortune 500. This is complicated issue. There have been experiment that show having a "black" name lowers your job prospects [1]. Other studies that show:

"...race actually turned out to be more significant than a criminal background. Notice that employers were more likely to call Whites with a criminal record (17% were offered an interview) than Blacks without a criminal record (14%). [2]"

So all the people acting as though our society is some meritocratic, utopia can keep that bullsh*t to themselves.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that blacks under-perform relative to whites when it comes to academics. There are obvious reason for this, but those reasons don't change the truth. Companies that are heavy on the engineering are going to use academic markers to try and select the best of the best. There aren't enough blacks >= white peers in the top percentiles of CS to give us proportional representation.

[1] http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html [2] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/04/03/race-crimina...


Sounds like a good solution is to strip names from CVs when reviewing them.

People are fallible, and often racist/sexist/discriminatory in general, even subconsciously.

I wonder if this effect is the same with black recruiters, or if it goes the opposite way. It's very much normal for people to favour people similar to them, by race, gender, religion, etc.


I don't think the effect goes the other way (a lot of people habor anti-black unconscious bias, even black people).

Re anonymizing the names, I think there are a bunch of startup companies that provide such a service (i.e. https://www.gapjumpers.me/ ). It has been shown to make a difference but it is not always practical


The Recurse Center does this with their applications -- they substitute randomly-generated names like Spandex Reindeer. Great idea.


The first study confounds the issues of race and class. Emily is not the white equivalent to Lakisha, Brandi is.


further complicated by the tendency towards aspirational naming, as over time formerly upscale names like Emily / Alexandra / Madison etc become associated with low-end socioeconomics due to overexposure.

however, you'd have to be willfully ignorant to deny the perceptual gap between high-end/low-end Emily/Amber vs. Lakisha


So what is a "high-end" black name?


> So what is a "high-end" black name?

The unfortunate implication of parent's statement is that there are no "high-end" black names, and therefore all 'black' names are low-end. Fuck, this is depressing.


The richest black Americans are named:

Oprah, Michael, Tiger, Sean, Robert, Mariah, Earvin, Jay, Bill, Sheila, Tyler, Shaquille, Dr, Master, Berry, Russell, Quintin, Beyonce, Prince.

The richest Americans are named:

Bill, Warren, Larry, Jeff, Charles, David, Mark, Michael, Jim, Larry, Sergey (immigrant, didn't change name), Alice (inherited), S. Robson (inherited) Christy (inherited), Sheldon, George, Phil, Forrest, Jacqueline, John, Steve, Carl.

Bill and Michael are on both those lists, but you would not say they are "black" names.

The thing is, there aren't a large group of upper class black people with different names from upper class white people, so you don't have an image in your mind of high-end black names. The rich and famous black people you know have either normal "white" names or very rare names (Beyonce, Prince, Tiger). High-end names default to looking white, since white is "normal" in USA.


Don't forget also that for many of those black names, those people are celebrities and sports stars: they don't have to worry about getting a job interview at some soulless corporation. Beyonce, Oprah, Shaquille, etc. made their millions in the entertainment business and likely never had to deal with that. However, someone sending in a resume with the name "Shaquille" for a programming job isn't going to get a pass just because he shares a name with a basketball legend; he'll be subject to whatever bias about black people the resume screener has.


By Dr. do you mean Andre and by Master do you mean Percy?


it may have been misunderstood: when I am referring to "high-end/low-end" I am referring to Emily as high-end, Amber as low-end --- not Lakisha. I do not know what the equivalent comparison would be using the example of Lakisha, whether or not that is considered upscale or not.


Reginald?


im not sure if youre joking but in my experience this is pretty accurate.


[deleted]


The op said that Brandi was a name for low class white people I think you misunderstood what he said.


what has your experience been like?


I was contacted to interview with Google but didn't b/c I don't want to live in California. Despite having a distinctly "black" sounding name, I've never had trouble finding work in IT or at all for that matter. I'm split b/c on the one hand I know society is not meritocratic, but I don't feel that I have personally been hamstrung by my race.


I am a non-minority, CS graduate of a HBCU. There were amazing hackers in my program. I believe there were around 200-300 declared CS majors across all levels when I graduated. Numbers are down from those peaks now.

My institution was heavily recruited by big corps, government labs, and east coast companies.

The "best" students, by GPA, were in high-demand for all of the above. Many were heavily recruited into management tracks for non-IT companies. A large number of government institutions and defense contractors were also eager to land new grads from our school. The "best" students, by hacking skills were (maybe stereo-typically for hackers) less interested in classes that didn't involve slinging code, but also all landed programming gigs. Less committed students, from either metric, seemed to still be getting jobs but I can't generalize as to the job type.

I think it is fair to say that my undergrad course-work was not as demanding as (guessing a bit here) Stanford, MIT, or CMU. But my GPA and GRE scores landed me multiple job and graduate school offers.

One aspect of hiring from (or at least my) HBCUs is that there is very strong network effect - alumni come back to the school and recruit interns and fulltime positions for their companies, help prep students for the process, and students looked to those alumni as trusted sources.

If Silicon Valley really wants to hire from HBCUs, that is the path I would recommend. Hire a few alums from the HBCUs and make recruiting and grooming candidates a priority for those alums.


"as the only African American on her team, she didn’t feel she had much in common with her colleagues. “When I went out to lunch or something with my team, it was sort of like, ‘Soooo, what are you guys talking about?’ ” she says"

I find this sentence really shocking, perhaps because I'm french and in France we try to assimilate people more (I don't really know), but I would definitely think that as a white software engineer I have a lot more in common with the black software engineer working with me than with whatever random white dude.


I didn't find it surprising. I'm white, and I've been on all-white teams where everyone else watched the same TV shows or went to the same movies or played the same video games, and I didn't. Those common interests would feel like the only thing they ever talked about, and it would feel very unwelcoming.

Part of the problem is just luck of the draw in terms of the team you get placed on. If that team is all into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and you aren't, you're going to feel like an outsider, no matter what races are involved. If the team has a broader set of interests, it's far more likely the new person will be able to feel like they fit in.

The other part, too, is of course that lots of engineer types are essentially introverted, and have a really hard time actively welcoming people with varied interests into their social circle. Part of it is just a matter of time, but if you go in with the expectation of feeling like an outsider and your first few weeks fit that expectation, it's a bad situation.


So... you either decide you want to be included and try joining in some of the team's shared interests, or you don't. I'm not sure what the problem is - it's no different than being in a regular group of friends when some of them decide to pick up a new hobby/show/whatever. You can either engage and join in, or you can choose not to. Don't whine or act like there's something wrong if you make the decision not to participate though.

If you go in and feel like an outsider and DO NOTHING ABOUT IT, there's nobody to blame but yourself. If you actively try to engage and they don't welcome you, you should probably find a new job where people aren't jerks.


I follow sports almost for this reason alone.

Really couldn't care about the NBA, NHL, NFL, NCAA, etc, but it helps to at least understand the sports and the major teams and how the seasons are going.


That may be, but nobody was whining. Your solution is in need of a problem.


But that's not what she says, her problem isn't that she doesn't like Marvel Cinematic Universe but that she feels that she doesn't have much in common with people of other races.


I think that's stretching it. What she said is she doesn't feel like she has much in common with these particular people, not people of other races in general.

Most "engineering-types" would probably feel the exact same way if they were asked to join the sales team at their company. Talk about culture shock...


It's not stretching it at all. It's literally what she said:

> as the only African American on her team, she didn’t feel she had much in common with her colleagues.


Seems quite prejudiced of her to simply look at her colleagues skin color and assume that she doesn't have much in common with them. Unless by "much" she means "her skin color", but that seems even more racist. I'll give the article the benefit of the doubt.


What makes you feel that she is making this judgement based on skin color? From my reading it sounds like she tried going to lunch with her coworkers and the conversations that naturally came up were not of interest to her.


Cry me a river. Honestly, you're not going to share interests with everyone.

I'm a white guy. If I go to lunch with a bunch of manager or sales guys, and they start talking about sports, I'm going to have exact same problem. I don't give two shits about sports, and I think spectator sports are incredibly stupid. So if I find myself in a group of sports fans, then I'm also going to feel that I don't have much in common with these people. Does that mean they're a bunch of racists? Obviously not; we simply don't share the same culture. If the conversation shifts to technology, or sci-fi, or Game of Thrones (a lot of people are into that these days), etc., then I'll be able to join in, but if the sports fans aren't into talking about that stuff over lunch, then I'm out of luck. I'm not going to whine much about it, except maybe for making some snide remarks about how stupid sports fans are, but I'm certainly not going to go on a crusade about it.

Luckily, I usually get along pretty well with coworkers this way, but I guess engineers tend not to be sports fanatics as much as the general population. But I certainly have found myself in situations with groups of people with very different interests than myself. I didn't make a big deal out of it; I know that my interests are a little more narrow and that I eschew many things that regular people like (sports, popular TV shows aside from GoT), so I try to find people I do share interests with.


Maybe the point then is that if we are aiming for diversity, then we aim for diversity: come out of your own comfort zone and get to know something or someone that feels uncomfortably foreign, try to appreciate this for what it is. It applies as much for "engineering-types" getting to know "sales-types" as it is for people of different racial heritages.

Why should we expect "diversity" to have an appended, "as long as I'm comfortable with that"? Why do we struggle so much with what's "normative"? Why not treat this as an adventure, something unexpected and unknown to explore?

Another aspect of this is that, I think people want to feel like they are part of the team, working together towards a common goal. If what bonds the team are the things they like or dislike, that's a pretty weak team. Shouldn't the common goal that binds the team together be the product or features the are working on? Isn't that the point of company culture -- not to homogenize everyone, but to gel the team? (See: http://the-programmers-stone.com/ )


How about no? If I'm in a group of sports fans, then no, I really don't give a shit about getting to know about how these stupid teams are doing this season. If you have an interest in something, great, but don't expect me to give two shits about it. If I have an interest, I'll let you know, if not, I'll just politely decline.

This doesn't mean that the minority person can't ask, "hey, does anyone follow XYZ?". He might be surprised. But if not, don't expect everyone to have or feign an interest.

And surely, in a team of technologists, they can find something that they're all interested in and can talk about. Maybe something to do with, oh, I don't know, maybe technology? I have conversations at work all the time like that (luckily I work with some really smart people at my current job), about future trends in tech, etc. But I've worked with some dullards in the past, and I didn't get butt-hurt that they didn't want to talk about sci-fi or whatever.


In my experience in scaling applications, I've noticed there is a very big difference between measuring actual performance in production and taking a look with an open mind, and making wild-ass guesses.

You don't have enough data on other people around you, or even how they view the world, or feel about the world. It's like taking a wild-ass guess, and being proud of it.

I don't really care much for following sports teams either. I used to turn my nose at it, as if I am somehow a superior person for not giving two shits about who is winning. One day, I read Michael Lewis's Moneyball and flipped through Blindside and realized I had been an idiot. I still might not care about which team is winning, yet there are a lot of hidden depths to sports. How many other things have I missed by not looking with an open mind?


Everyone prefers their favorite things over things they don't like. Anyone who doesn't is insane. The sports fans probably think they're superior people because they spend all their time and energy following sports, instead of being like me and following sci-fi or programming or whatever.

It really doesn't matter. My whole point, which you seem to have missed, is that people have preferences. I don't give a shit about sports. I don't care about its hidden depths. I have the right to my opinion, and to turn my nose up at sports, just like the sports fan has the right to turn his nose up at sci-fi. Are you going to chastise him for not being open-minded and spending a bunch of time watching sci-fi movies he has no interest in and then being able to discuss them intelligently with coworkers?

The simple fact is that different people have different tastes and interests. If someone wants to be curious and try learning about something different, then great. If they've already given that thing a chance, or taken a quick look and decided it's not for them, there is nothing wrong with that. If that means that they feel "left out" when talking to coworkers, too bad. That's a natural byproduct of people having different interests. It doesn't need to be "fixed".

Basically, what you're doing is telling minorities that they need to take an active interest in things that the majority (meaning white people here) are interested in so that they can fit in better. That sounds rather condescending to me honestly. I used sports here as an analogy to point out that this isn't a racial issue, we only see it here because different demographics tend to have different interests because of their different upbringings and environments. No one makes an issue out of white northeasterners not being interested in gun shooting and muddin'.


But thats not what the article said. >“It could be something as simple as, like, what they watch on TV or what kind of books they like to read. And those are just not TV shows that I watch or books that I read.” It didn't say she thought those were books and TV shows that only people of other races like.


Yeah, but that's not related to the race aspect. Why bring up her race unless that's the reason for why they don't watch the same TV shows or read the same books?


Different races are exposed to different cultures and when everyone knows about some aspect and you don't, you will feel left out and experience culture shock.

My elementary school and middle school were about 95% black with rest mostly being white and my high school was about 85% white with the next largest percentage being Asian. The kinds of music, tv shows, and activities people did on the weekend had barely any overlap. Its not that those part of the culture are only for one race, or that you think one culture is better than another, its just what you are used to. I was exposed to and learn to like a lot of new things, but theres plenty I learned about and just didn't like. It just took time to figure those things out.

What bothered most of the other minority students the most is that just because we would sit together at lunch, somehow we were being racists, when in fact it was just wanting to talk about things that most of the other school had either no clue or no interest in talking about. It wasn't closed off, but usually the only people that would come sit at the "black" table were other students who had attended an inner city school like the rest of us.


+1

Quick question, what was your experience as a white person in a majority black school? I always hear about the plight of black students in majority white schools but never the inverse.


I'll jump in and give you an answer. From 7th to 10th grade I attended a majority black school (a common "solution" to No Child Left Behind in the south eastern US was to move accelerated programs (IB etc) to the lowest preforming school to keep averages above the level required for funding). There definitely was tension (probably exacerbated by the academic divide on top of the racial one) most noticeable in interactions with the administration. Neither group having any incentive to integrate lead to a general feeling of "otherness" but I couldn't say I remember any overt prejudiced on the level experienced by people in the inverse situation.


I went to middle school in a majority black school. In all honesty, most of the white kids were in the honors courses and generally segregated from everyone else. In high school I chilled with more black people because the area was very country-culture influenced and we generally felt out of place.


I'm black


Ok cool, I thought so but just wanted to ask. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm black and have never been in a majority black school (always either asian or white) so I lack perspective.


She said she didn't have much in common with those particular people, not non-black people in general. Had she thought that she didn't have enough in common with multiple races to work with them, she wouldn't have tried to work in a place where only 1% of the population would have the slightest chance of having something in common with her (and very reasonably so, if I may add).


those are basically the same thing

to put it another way: if your white friends grew up watching spongebob squarepants and you grew up without cable, that could certainly make a cultural difference


They aren't though.

Color isn't the defining factor on what TV shows you get to watch.


What makes you think it isn't.

Well, not "color" in the electromagnetic radiation sense, but "cultural group". Turns out, the latter is strongly correlated with the former.


> grew up without cable, that could certainly make a cultural difference

I don't understand. This would happen to anyone who grew up in poverty. What does it have to do with race?


Growing up, my parents watched pretty much only PBS and listened to NPR / classical music. Riding the bus for the first time in middle school, I was exposed to a lot of popular things (music) that felt very foreign. Any joke that referenced song lyrics or a particular actor was lost on me for a while. It's like making a meme-related joke to my parents: they weren't exposed to it, they don't get it. In many ways they don't feel like part of my "tribe" (nerds?).

I can certainly see how being exposed to (or immersed in) a different culture could affect your feeling of belonging in a different one.

For example, I didn't grow up listening to rap. If all of my coworkers listened to rap music, and talked about it in Slack or the like, I would feel almost completely lost. I appreciate flow, interesting lyrics, and the mastery that the artists have over words, but there are many layers of references to prior artists or prior songs that I am not at all familiar with, and didn't even realize existed until I started looking at the Genius.com lyrics for some songs I'd heard on the radio. So, some new song comes out that references Big Names in the industry, and I would not get them at all (or even know they were references to things) unless I were already familiar, or were dedicated to pursuing that art as an interest.

The same kind of thing applies for things like TV show references (Friends, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Family Guy, Spongebob, Star Trek, etc) or movies or comic books.


African-Americans are a distinct ethnocultural group with their own cultural references, dialect, religious traditions, and so on (of course this doesn't apply to all black people; I'm talking about averages here.) "Black" in France is just a phenotype.

Progressive-leaning people in the US would typically be uncomfortable with the idea of "assimilating" Blacks because it implies that White Anglo-Saxon culture is (or should be) the default or standard, whereas in reality it has coexisted with Black culture in the same country for hundreds of years.


As a black man who went to almost entirely white schools my whole life and grew up in a very white place in New York I can sort of confirm what you're saying. When I went to college and met other black students who grew up around more black people I found that I had very little in common with them and it was hard to communicate. I was then, and always have been, more comfortable around white people.

On a side note, I was born in Jamaica and so when people refer to me as African American I always have a quiet chuckle to myself since I've never considered myself to be African and my passport says Jamaica.


> and it was hard to communicate.

I'm curious what the differences where in communication, here in the UK the black people I've worked with have been no harder to communicate with than anyone else, I have noticed there is slightly more of a communication gap with black people who come from London (but I've only known two and they where both deeply religious which I think had more to do with it).


Black Americans have had their own culture developing separately from Anglo-Saxon Americans for hundreds of years. I'm not sure why you think immigrants to Britain that don't share any common group characteristic other than "has dark skin and an African phenotype" are comparable.


I never said they where comparable, I was asking what the differences where.


The difference is that from 1066 until recently England has had one dominant ethnocultural group. Relatively small groups of immigrants are able to integrate into this culture seamlessly.

Black people in England aren't culturally "Black", they are either culturally English, or culturally Trinidadan, Jamaican, Ugandan, and so on. Or some combination/superposition of the above.

There is no particularly strong shared experience between a Trinidadan-English person and a Zimbabwean-English person other than living in England.

Blacks in the US, on the other hand, have a common and separate culture. 20th century immigrants are a tiny proportion of the (biologically) Black population of the US. The overwhelming majority of US black people are descended from slaves.

This population has been separated from the white population to varying degrees from the time of slavery to the present day. Now there is more mixing so the cultures are converging, but that can't happen overnight.

You may as well ask why Scotland and England have separate cultures, or England and China. It's not a matter of skin color; it's a matter of a group of people that have primarily had contact with each other, and less contact with other groups, for hundreds of years. I am not sure how else to explain it.

Edit: re-reading your comment. I didn't realize you were asking about communication difficulties specifically. This can probably be largely explained by the fact that African-Americans speak their own dialect of English that is in some ways quite dramatically different from the (White) standard. Here is some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_En...


Fantastic response!, thank you :).


I've definitely heard this before from African immigrants: they feel completely separate from "African-Americans", and frequently don't even like to be associated with them. Jamaica would be no different; you didn't grow up in the neighborhoods and with the same experiences that a black native-born American would have.


It's not that surprising. Howard University is 95% black (source: <a href="http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl...) and is one of the lowest ranked colleges in terms of diversity. Coming from such a culturally closed-off environment to a different one comprised mostly of whites and Asians of different ethnicities and nationalities would definitely result in culture shock.


You're mistaken if you assume that going to Howard means they somehow have less experience with diversity than being in Silicon Valley.

Black people, just by virtue of being a minority in America, are exposed to white people and culture at way higher rates than the reverse. In fact, a major point of going to a historically black college is to get a bit of a "break" from the dominant culture.


Why does one need a "break" from a culture? I'm in India right now, live here 1/3 of the year, and have lived here extensively in the past. I don't need a "break". I don't need some "critical mass" of firangi around me. As a person who is willing to adapt to the world around me, that's all just a bunch of silliness.

From what you say, it sounds as if many Howard students are less willing to adapt. That's fine. But it's pretty clear that for folks who are willing to adapt themselves (e.g., Chinese, Indian and other immigrants to the valley), the valley is quite welcoming.


I hear this sort of thing often enough that I need to reply. In general Asians claim that race or discrimination isn't the issue. That most of the issue falls to education and work ethic unfortunately i've come across quite a few very racist Indians and Asian people to be sure. In-fact not only do they tend to be very racist and large in parcel hold onto stereotypical tropes but they are also very classist.

I say this as a black carribean man married to a chinese woman. It's truly a shame as some of the behavior I've seen meted out shouldn't be coming from these groups.


It'd be an irony if part of the reason students at HBCUs don't "mesh" with Silicon Valley is that they're not comfortable with diverse environments. Looking at a list of the "whitest" universities, their graduates seem similarly unrepresented in the places I've worked.

A flawed but interesting test: do black CS graduates from Stanford and MIT fit better into SV than black CS graduates from Howard?


As a black alum from MIT and feel I can speak to this anecdotally. Here are some distinction to keep in mind.

1) From the moment I stepped onto MIT's campus I was actively recruited by Silicon Valley companies. My freshman year was tough getting much attention, but recruiters would talk to me and generally gave off the vibe that I was wanted. Contrast this with going to a HBCU where these companies are not present on campus, or if they do show up its only for a day or two for a career fair. You wouldn't feel as welcome coming there.

2) I had black friends who were upperclassman who had "made it" in SV. They could offer advice and guidance. When I moved out to SV I also had them as part of social circle so I had social ties outside of work. Coming from a HBCU its likely you do not know anyone who works at these companies. You also do not know anyone who lives in the area to socialize this. If you do not relate to the people from work then you have trouble making friends.


I don't know how you'd measure fit (tenure at first job? % that change jobs to another SV company?), but it should be pretty easy to get hiring numbers. Stanford might not be a good test simply because of proximity, but MIT certainly would be a contender.


>It'd be an irony if part of the reason students at HBCUs don't "mesh" with Silicon Valley is that they're not comfortable with diverse environments.

This wouldn't surprise me. I graduated college 18 years ago, and even back then there was a huge amount of diversity in my graduating class. I had friends from India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Turkey, Ghana, etc. However, there were very, very few African-Americans (the guy from Ghana doesn't count). Nor were there any Hispanics that I recall. So someone from my university would have fit in pretty well in SV in a diverse work team (and they did, lots of my classmates went there).

So I think your test isn't flawed at all, but a very worthwhile question.


I'm not sure why anyone would consider that to be a positive, such a closed environment in terms of demographics.

Living with people of all races, genders, backgrounds, and sexualities helped me become the man I am today (I've lived with whites, blacks, asians, latinos, men, women, hetero and homosexual people, Americans, and French citizens).

Currently I spend a lot of time with my neighbors in Brooklyn. I'm probably one of the only people in the neighborhood who could be considered both a part of the local community (I know nearly every regular face on my side of the street) and a part of gentrification (I'm a white man who makes good money and is a part of the forces driving rent prices up).

Things get hairy sometimes. I'm offered a lot of things I don't particularly want, and had a few people conspire to potentially remove a few select items from my house. So I started going out in the city more, and now everything's back to the nice vibe it once was. I'm just as comfortable as I was before and that process of potential betrayal and silent forgiveness (I'm not sure my friend even knows I knew he was planning to pull the jux (as my friends from my hometown might say)) is just a part of who I am.

Facing adversities, interacting with new cultures, experiencing new experiences. That's what makes you a rich human being.

Not staying cooped up in your own home, where you bring your friends in from other neighborhoods, like the vast majority of young people here do. I'm convinced, while it may make the neighborhood a bit safer, it destroys the vibrancy of the same simultaneously.

And besides, can you really tell me who wouldn't want to be OG Cody Loco? At least for a little bit? ;-)


As a white guy who also grew up in a predominantly black area with black friends and makes good money, your attempt to appear as the paragon of racial enlightenment makes me cringe.


Do you feel as though your experiences made you better than the OP and so you cringe because of your superior enlightenment? I can't imagine what else you might have in mind, I find nothing particularly cringeworthy in the OP, especially since the whole "paragon of racial enlightenment" bit seems to come entirely from your own head.


I know enough to not pretend I'm on a higher plane of racial understanding by giving trite justifications such as "I'm the only rich white guy in a gentrified neighborhood" while simultaneously giving the example of being the target of an attempted theft, so as to not so subtly show the bias of minorities as criminals.

Not to mention the "OG Cody" at the end, once again showing that these must be stereotypical (highly presumably) black minorities, again to hammer home this sort of bizarre feigned legitimacy he presumes. The whole passage is essentially saying "I get these things that you people don't get it, here's why".

Edit: Another way to put it, he's giving the expanded version of "I have black friends, so that racist thing I said can't possibly be racist."


If this was in a poor white neighborhood I'd expect similar shit to happen.

It's much more an issue of socioeconomic status than race. And I'm sorry you perceived my post in that matter.

They're predominantly Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans. You're the only one who mentioned anything about race when it comes to that instance and your own presumptions don't hold true.

And I never said I was "the only rich white guy in a gentrified neighborhood". That wouldn't make any sense, one person doesn't gentrify a neighborhood. I said I was one of the only gentrifying members who has made an attempt to become a part of the existing community. This is consistent with every place I live, work, and play whether said place is predominantly minority, or predominantly white.

Every person has decades (except children) of experiences that I don't have. Every person is an extremely rich fabric comprised of characteristics inherited from an extremely complex ecosystem of factors. As such, I try to treat everyone with respect, and it ends up enriching my own world.

That being said, sometimes I still don't know exactly what to say. I come from a world of privilege even if my parents were lower to middle middle class, and they certainly don't.

Crime is more predominant in lower socioeconomic groups, it's just a reality. Did I blame every latino in my neighborhood? Did I scorn, run to the police, move away? No. I just backed off for a little and then came back after the holidays and kept going about my business.

You can perceive that however you like.

Edit: And what exactly was this racist thing I said? Was it when I heard that a couple of people were going to take things from my house and so backed off for a little? To mention a legitimate event that happened to me is now considered racist?

Edit 2: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that.

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...


> and had a few people conspire to potentially remove a few select items from my house. So I started going out in the city more, and now everything's back to the nice vibe it once was. I'm just as comfortable as I was before and that process of potential betrayal and silent forgiveness (I'm not sure my friend even knows I knew he was planning to pull the jux (as my friends from my hometown might say)) is just a part of who I am.

Not entirely from his head.


My friends told me that some of the other block regulars were planning to rob me. So I backed off from them for a little bit. And now I hang out with them again, just not inside my home. If this was in a poor white neighborhood I don't imagine similar things wouldn't happen there either.

Maybe the wording was a bit over the top for what the situation actually was: I enjoy hanging out with my neighbors, and wasn't going to let some stupid shit like this mess that up.

Sorry that I explained where the word jux comes from in my vocabulary.

Edit: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that. And then I made a joke at the end about this stupid nickname they gave me once. Good lord.

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...


Imagine if someone described their experience as a software engineer like so:

> I often used to only sit and talk with the sales people, but then I took an introductory Ruby on Rails course. Now I feel very aligned with my fellow programmers, having worked on projects such as websites written in CSS, and frontend UIs written with the Java scripting language. Sometimes, my pull requests are rejected by certain fringe elements of the engineering team, but I can understand why, since I do not have a traditional background in CS yet am contributing just as much to their code base. But, in those cases I will usually go around, show my face, do some SQL queries and everything is back to normal.

It's about the equivalent.


You're right, I overplayed the nature of how much of a contributor I am to the community. I'm not on the block party planning committee for instance. But I spend tens of hours a week during the warmer months just sitting and hanging out with my neighbors. I try to learn a little Spanish which I really enjoy. And we have a lot of fun together.

The idea that I only talked with "sales people" prior to this is invalid though. I was actually the minority in my public school when I was growing up.

And yes, I do feel as if through sharing experiences with people I've learned how to "be aligned" with people as you say, although I wouldn't say that's a fair characteristic of how I perceive it.

I don't particularly feel aligned with any group of people, majority, or minority.

But I do recognize the value of shared experiences which give me a stronger cultural background, empathy, a grander perspective and worldview.

Of course, imagine if someone judged your entire life from 2 or 3 paragraphs on the internet without knowing said person, their background, experiences, personality, or anything about them?

Edit: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that.

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...


What do you mean by the French try to assimilate people more? I'm confused because France is notoriously horrendous to tourists. I've seen polls rate it as the worst place for customer service with tourists and my own brother's experience got him nearly in a fight with some French guys bullying him.

Furthermore, this is just a cultural thing. I'm white and was in a team with a bunch of white engineers that loved cars and things. Our discussions at lunch bored me to tears and I came to realize I had to leave the mega corp to pursue my dreams in the start-up world.

When I arrived at the start-up world, I found people like myself -- people who didn't care so much about things but about ideas and imaginations. I was a lot happier because I found people who thought alike.

It never had anything to do with color and presenting this problem as purely color-based is just being intentionally provocative.


Well I'm not an expert but it seems to me that in France we expect minorities to leave a good part of their culture and become "real french", eat cheese, wear beret and never walk without a baguette under their arms, whereas in the US I was under the impression that there's a lot more effort from minorities to differentiate themselves. I don't think we can really talk of a "black culture" in France (at least not in the same degree as in the US, but I may be mistaken).

I wasn't talking about tourists, we are well known for behaving badly with them, sorry about that.

What shocks me is not that she doesn't feel she has a lot in common with her colleagues, but that she thinks that it's because she's black and they're not.


America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities and a strong nationality.

But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture. Their culture has been a part of American culture from the beginning. For almost all of American history they were essentially banned from mainstream culture.

So nobody can make them assimililate. They didn't come here as an immigrant. Their ancestors were kidnapped and enslaved here.

FYI the world thinks France is particularly bad at assimilation. I don't know if that is just a stereotype but that's how it's viewed.


> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. > It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities > and a strong nationality.

I'll dispute that. In my experience, Brazil is a better melting pot.

Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.


>Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.

That is actually the key to Americas success. The total separation of ethnicity and national identity. It allows an immigrant to keep their ethnic identity and merely add an American one.

It's also helps when a white 5th generation american thinks they are Irish and American. They'll be less likely to believe that a newly arrived Mexican isn't really American. They intuitively know you can be both.


That is something we inherited from the British. You can be British and any ethnicity. The US just took that idea and rolled with it.

America's success results largely from its geography. Being isolated from Europe by a large ocean and having the mighty Mississippi river system to build an agricultural powerhouse from made it pretty much inevitable.


Except that Brazil is known to be pretty racist, even by Latin American standards. There is, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of racism in Latin America.


I disagree completely, I think that type of attitude leads to the notion of "Real" Americans. Keeping the ethnic identity is the opposite of the melting pot.

In Brazil, you're just Brazilian, regardless of color.


100% of the Brazilians I have met (I'm in the US) are middle class and above.

Also, as if by magic, 100% of them appear white (or mostly white), despite non-whites making up a large fraction of Brazil's population.

It's absurd to act like everything is great for racial minorities in Brazil.


Brazil has a pretty significant and open classism via race issue. Not sure we should hold them up as a superior melting pot...


Perhaps not, but you have people who honor their US Confederate ancestry after living in Brazil for generations:

http://www.vice.com/read/welcome-to-americana-brazil-0000580...

But I agree that Brazil overall is an impressive melting pot, on par or better than the US.


So, your claim to being undisputedly the best is just wrong.

The United States has immensely hateful, mainstream discourse about immigrants. Case in point : Donald Trump. That's one big strike against success claims.

Furthermore, it's not just African-Americans who are other-ised into a distinct grouping. Hispanic immigrants are, to some extent, other-ised into their own cultural subset.

I was shocked when I started going to college in the states, because you can even feel the racial divide in how people eat. There literally are black tables and hispanic tables and jewish tables and white tables.

If you're in the `desired' immigrant groups in the states, for example you are European or East Asian, you won't have much trouble integrating, and nor will you face much prejudice. But if you're not in those `desired' groups, you will not.

Canada, where I'm from, doesn't really have these problems to the same extent at all. We have our own; for instance, we other-ise First Nations groups. But that's pretty much all we other-ise.

Certainly the United States does a pretty good job. Hong Kong, for instance, is horribly behind the USA despite itself doing a decent job. But good != "undisputedly the best".


> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. I'll dispute it.

  - Foreign-born US citizens: 14%
  - Foreign-born Australian citizens: 28% (without British, 21%)
Despite all the accusations of racism that Australia gets, we have a far higher proportion of foreign-born citizens than any other western democracy. The country seems to be doing fine.

edit: US is 14%. UK is 12% (as I originally had it). The comparison doesn't really change much, though.


Foreign-born immigrants are recent immigrants. If you change your time frame the results might be different.


If you're born in a country, you're not an immigrant. These people are sometimes called "second-generation immigrants", but they're not actually immigrants themselves. Australia has plenty of those as well (like any postwar new-world Anglo country does)

Still, I'm interested to see how you'd fiddle with the timeframe to make the results functionally different. Show me how you see it being different.


Canadian disputes this.


At least to Canadians we can point out 'French' Canada. The people are different, but still Canadian.


You really want to hold up Quebec's relationship with Canada as a shining example of good integration?


Not at all. But it seems like a good example of very separate cultures developing in the same nation.


"But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture"

There you have it. Deep racism.


I think you just misunderstand what "subculture" means. "sub" here has a meaning like "subset", not like "subhuman".


You keep talking about "Blacks" vs. "real Americans" as though "real American" is defined as "belonging to White culture".

Blacks in the US are not a "less-American" minority. US culture is multipolar. Why would Blacks assimilate to White culture? Why not Whites assimilate to Black culture? To me this sounds like saying Europe is bad at integrating minorities because French people haven't become German or English yet.

A big difference is that Blacks have been in the US for hundreds of years, whereas they have only been in France in large numbers since after the war.


> To me this sounds like saying Europe is bad at integrating minorities because French people haven't become German or English yet.

That's actually an interesting comparison to the states. The US has a lot of the regional cultures thing going on as well.


+1 I see where you're coming from now. You're right about America and the culture of minorities, but in the melting pot, that's how everyone kind of is. We all feel like we have to be someone in America. It's impossible to just be American since there's really no such thing. The traditional American is a mid-western cowboy and that doesn't really apply to people on either coast.


Exactly -- French people are the "indigenous people" of France. The "indigenous people" where I'm from are the Tohono O'odham. I've never met a Tohono O'odham person, so it's safe to say their impact on culture is minor.

Thus, it's wrong to separate the US into "indigenous" and "foreign" in a way that makes sense in France (where French==indigenous). It's especially wrong to do so and then magically declare that Anglo-Saxons are the "indigenous" group that everyone else should try to be like.


There's no such thing as indigenous French people. Cultures between different regions like Brittany and Provence are quite different. The whole idea of European identities being strongly tied to nationalism and established defined groups is rather silly in my opinion. How about Alsace-Lorraine? German, or French? Belgium, is it Flemish or Walloon? Germany has different cultural regions, especially after the division following WWII. Italians have their own divisions between the North and South and other variations. The Scandinavian countries probably best fit a supposed monolithic national culture but that's changing with recent immigrants. The best that can be said is that language defines the peoples of Europe at this time.


The cowboy only emerges in the 1840's. The New England farmer has been around a lot longer, since the 1600's. And yes, there is a culture of rural New England: things like contra dances, boiled dinners, etc.


White/black cultural differences in the US is a different issue from immigrant assimilation. Because black people are already "real Americans", and yet overall are culturally distinct from white Americans in some ways.


I would say the main problem with French is that they really do not like to speak any other language than French. It is quite common that, for example, during the lunch with international participation and a French majority the conversation will start in English but then very quickly slip into French and then foreigners are lost.

It has also happened to me, when speaking English or being in non-french speaking groups, to have drive-by strangers coming up and yelling at us to speak French.


I would say the main problem with Americans is that they really do not like to speak any language other than English ;)


It's not about desire, but about practicality. It would take me a 10 hour drive to find somewhere where there is a significant population of "non-native" English speakers. I'm talking about Montreal, and that's the best attempt at comparison that I can make. Hop on a train in London and you're in Paris in 2.5 hours. Rent a car from there, drive 5 hours and you're in Frankfurt. You've hit 2 new languages in less time than it's taken me to find "1".

My mother is from Belgium and can barely speak french now after living here for 40 years. It's simply because the only practice she ever gets is the hour she spends on the phone with her aunt every couple of months. Unless I move, learning a language is just like any other hobby, only more impractical. I'd rather learn a new instrument to play every day than learn a new language to use once every 5 years.


Maybe some precisions are necessary. I am neither French nor American and I can speak French very well. However many of my colleagues did not and since they came to France for short periods of time (1 to 2 years) they did not have much incentive to learn the language.

I think that when you have many non-French speakers in the workforce (this was a research laboratory with a healthy influx of foreign students, postdocs and engineers) then it would be rather nice for the native speakers to speak the 'common' language everybody knows. Otherwise the groups get divided into foreigners and French.

The comments by passersby are quite infuriating as well. When my wife's parents were visiting (not French either) and were talking among themselves we got some angry dude that started ranting (and shouting so that they couldn't even hear each other) about how everybody should speak French. Of course this is an isolated case but still.


Why's that a problem? English is the global standard lingua franca. English-speaking people in America only need to learn other languages as a hobby, or if they have a specific interest in a particular country.

BTW, I don't think there's any moral reason why English should be the global language, but it is. I speak French too, and if the global language magically became French tomorrow, I would feel perfectly fine.


There is the hypothesis that because we think in language, the structures of languages limit and shape our thoughts. Perhaps there are thoughts that are much easier to have in a language other than english, and Americans tend not to have them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity


That would explain a lot of crazy ideas that the rest of world thinks of.


I've met Germans who said they wished they had only ever learned English and not German.


German is better for philosophy and technical use, except in the edge cases of much longer words IMO. (I'm English.)


This is a discredited line of thinking among professional/academic linguists.

In the modern understanding, languages become able to express ideas when their speech communities need to express those ideas.


There's a difference between "come as you are" and "come join us". Diversity and assimilation are two different things.


Can't agree more with your last paragraph! Summed up pretty much everything I was trying to say above.


This is not my experience in France at all. I'm a white American male, and I was shocked when I worked in France for a month. When I ate lunch in the cafeteria the muslim employees grouped together and there was a whole 'who are you eating with' question that I found odd.

This was in 2004, and it is only 1 data point. But when talking to French friends of mine in tech who are African they share similar stories. One French friend of mine could not find a job in tech until he changed his name to a generic French one. He sent out over 20 job applications and didn't get an interview until he changed his name. After he changed his name he got an interview after the first attempt.

These are only anecdotes, and I can't offer any hard evidence, but I would not suggest that France is somehow 'post-racial'.


Well it doesn't mirror my experience at all, at school or at work, but yes I'm pretty sure it does happen.

I didn't say there wasn't racism in France, more that the concept of belonging to a definite community depending on your color is probably less present as in the States.

The job application problem is a terrible one, as getting a job is the best way to use the social ladder.

That's the thing I don't understand, I thought capitalism only cared about money, if an Afro-French cannot find a job, surely it would be be advantageous to hire him, at a slightly lower market price. Still not good, but better than nothing, and once the minorities are in, we can expect the inequalities and hiring problems going away or at least being reduced with time...


>, if an Afro-French cannot find a job, surely it would be be advantageous to hire him, at a slightly lower market price

In some countries doing that is illegal. If the authorities notice that you are paying people of different races different amounts of money, you can get fined. Therefore it's easier to just find excuses to not hire them in the first place.

Is France one of those countries?


It's pretty standard in the US, due to our history, for colored people to just feel out of place in 9/10 white environment.

But it goes beyond that, and is most likely true for French blacks as well, that if you're the only one who is distinctly visually different, you feel out of place.

It's not something you can really explain to white males, but at least female devs tend to have somewhat of a similar experience. Just the sense of not belonging by virtue of being the one who clearly isn't like the others. Imagine yourself trying to work in a software studio in an arab country. Everyone is way darker than you, just, everyone, at work, on the street, and so on. They talk about different TV shows and they frown on anything bacon, and they wear these odd dresses you never feel comfy in because you like your jeans. They're louder than you, they tend to argue way more, because it's just part of the culture to do that, and it makes you uncomfortable. And also, you keep hearing about these white Christian terrorists, that look like you, that they wish would just get shot.


> It's pretty standard in the US, due to our history, for colored people to just feel out of place in 9/10 white environment.

Calling them "colored people" certainly doesn't help.


Isn't it interesting how "people of color" is a common self-designation for (most frequently) black people, whereas "colored people", literally synonymous, is considered offensive? Of course there are valid historical reasons for it, but many people (probably including GP) don't know about them.

The euphemism treadmill can get quite exhausting.


Well, the GP uses "our" in reference US history, and I've never met a single American under the age of 40 who doesn't know that most people consider "colored person" offensive, even if they thought it was a stupid reason.

Like most things considered racially offensive, it's less about the dictionary definition of the word and more about what the connotation is. It's the same reason someone in an interracial marriage would hardly ever say "my black wife" but would say "my wife, who happens to be black," if it were relevant. I'm 100% positive they'd never say "my colored wife" unless they were 130 years old.


Mad respect to any 130 year olds in interracial marriages. That's impressive on many levels.


"People of color" generally means black people, dark-skinned Latinos, and Native Americans.

"Colored people" is not used because that was what was used by segregationist whites during Jim Crow (e.g. water fountains labeled "colored").


"People of Color" means "non-whites", so includes pretty much everyone but Europeans. It's used instead of "non-whites" to describe a demographic by an attribute they have, instead of an attribute a different group has.


"Colored" isn't offensive, it's just old-fashioned. Words become old-fashioned all the time.


Colored is in-fact very offensive and I wouldn't use it around a person of color.


Everyone's different, but as a black person, it doesn't offend me at all.


Things like this can really vary on a company to company basis. Back-to-back, I worked for two companies that had drastically different social environments.

At the first one, the other programmers were the kind of "dudes" where if you don't like to hunt or talk about sports every day they didn't want to talk to you. It was a really rough place to work, felt like I was walking on eggshells just so I could be one of their peers.

The next company I worked for had a completely different environment. I got along with everyone. They all had a good sense of humor.

So, I guess my point is, even software engineers can differ greatly from one place to the next.


I found it really shocking as well. Not sure how much of it is due to segregation and how much - due to the inability of the person to socialise… which is not uncommon among technical people from all races.


That is what is so hard about it. Everybody gets treated unfairly from time to time, feels awkward, etc. When you are "black" you don't know the line between racism and man's general inhumanity towards man.


How about not assuming racism in the first place? It may just be that you are new and people are not accustomed to having you as a part of their group. I'm sure that even if some of them have prejudices, they will accept you as soon as you show them what you are made of and that you are trustworthy. I'm sure everyone knows at least one shhole from their race, so they can accept a decent person from another one when given the opportunity.

If despite your best efforts, nobody accepts you, and some even make openly racist remarks towards you, then you ring that bell.


Because modern racism doesn't necessarily parade itself out in the open. There are subtleties to a lot of the actions that people will take, and like the parent said, you don't know the line between racism and man's general inhumanity towards man.

I agree that no one should assume racism right out of the gate. I admit to being guilty of this action before. The line between cliques facing inward and people snubbing you due to race is absurdly blurry. It doesn't help when the entire group happens to be white. Then you start this internal dialogue trying to get to the bottom.

Are these guys just really clique-ish to the point where everyone else is an outcast? Am I doing that weird thing where I have a scowl on my face all day? Did I say something that was misconstrued? Are they just racist pricks? Wait, am I just an asshole?

This isn't to say that all who socialize with you are racist. I think your last line is a very important consideration in moments of self-reflection.


> How about not assuming racism in the first place?

Except there is clear evidence that unconscious bias exist. To test your own you can try some of the tests as part of ProjectImplicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) Pretending it does not exist is not really helpful advice.


> you don't know the line between racism and man's general inhumanity towards man

Trenchant observation. I am largely a misanthrope and my wife often points out scenarios where I'm coming across as racist/sexist/discriminatory when the reality is that I'm generally not interested in interacting with people.


Lack of smalltalk topics is hardly an "inhumanity".


This is where shallow discussion of racism can be damaging. If someone receives enough messages indicating that they will be mistreated due to race it is likely to have a major impact on their psyche, then on their behaviour, then on the way they're treated... because of their race.


Racism is a very real thing. Look at the way blacks get treated by the cops.

Being the middle aged "ethnic white" in the Northeast I am not only submissive to cops, but I look like them -- none of my family are college professors but a lot of them work in various branches of law enforcement.

I know their point of view is not the only point of view, but I understand it enough that I come across as somebody who understands their point of view so I have a hard time getting tickets and usually get off with a warning.

For instance I was speeding in a residential zone and the officer got a clear picture of somebody who wouldn't like people driving fast in his residential neighborhood, not somebody who has a favorite residential neighborhood to practice Japanese street racing.


I found it shocking too. If she didn't have much in common with her colleagues, is that really because she was a black woman and they were white males? It makes me think I don't understand the importance of race in US.

I mean, I have more or less things in common with my work colleagues but only because we work in the same field not because we're white males (actually I am Spanish and they're British, and the age range in the team goes from early 20s to late 30s).


Looks like the comments here are all over the place on how much of an impact it has, but I'll give you my perspective as a hispanic in the US.

Race is intimately tied with culture, which impacts your upbringing and interests. People form bonds over their interests and experiences, like talking about their childhood or the TV/music they like--the more these differ, the harder it is to form that first superficial work bond. Even when the differences aren't huge, it compounds enough that friend groups in the US are highly self-segregated.

To pick another race, it's not rare to see Asian-Americans who were born and raised in America hanging out with a group of friends who are all Asian-American. The reasons could be as simple as bonding over the foods they ate growing up, the ways their parents raised them, and the TV shows / music they listened to (e.g. much more open to C-/J-/K-pop). It's the same effect for all races/ethnicities I've seen.

Note that this ignores the more subtle but still important effect of people naturally liking people who look and dress like them, which has obvious racial and cultural ties too. For example, there are studies in the US that show that white people are fine living near black people, but not too many black people. Overtime, simulations show[1] that almost any definition of too many results in self-segregation.

IME coming from a working class background, economic background has a similar effect on relationships, but economic background is not visually obvious like race so it's less discussed.

[1]: http://ncase.me/polygons/


As a white guy who is totally not into "geek culture" at all, I'm in the same boat. And I simply do not care. I'm not going to start playing video games or watching Doctor Who, or whatever, just to fit in.

I'm sure it's infinitely easier for me not to feel like an imposter than it is for a black woman, but of all the real hurdles standing in her way this should be the least concerning of them. Get over it, or the real problems will seem insurmountable.


I doubt its just at work; the silicon valley area itself may be a bad culture fit. From experience, when you don't have people that you relate to face-to-face at home; it gets very depressing. You personally are likely to find people you relate to at home, but they may not.

Being an outsider like that is a huge tradeoff; it can feel like moving to another country.


As a black software developer I had a much easier time getting along with the white French developer culturewise.


>> ...in France we try to assimilate people more...

Really? What about the Muslim immigrants in the suburbs, who are practically in a separate world from mainstream French, cut off and unable to get in on the lifetime jobs that the French middle and upper middle class enjoy? French-African entrepreneurs report that they have better luck doing business with Americans, who don't care what your race is as long as you pay on time. This is a well documented problem in France.


It is an issue but a complex one. It's not like the whole country decided to put all Muslims there and never give them a job or education.

And you should know they are plenty Muslims (and/or Arabs) programmers coming from the suburbs and having that coveted middle-class life, I worked and have worked with many.


That's why I said "try". And I'm not saying that French are less racist than American, there definitely is some discrimination going.

I was more talking about cultural assimilation, I think a black american feels a lot more like he belongs to "the black community" as a french black does.


But many, if not most, African Americans have culturally assimilated, and black culture has permeated mainstream America as well. The U.S. has come a long way since the 1960s.


Would it be shocking if the roles were reversed? There's just as many racist black people as there are racist white people.

edit: Am I wrong?


In short yes. A) There are more white people in America in general (see really any/every census)

B) There are fare more white people in positions of power. So it matters more when a white person is racist than when a person of color is. Racism sucks but the real kicker is discrimination


>A) There are more white people in America in general (see really any/every census)

Obviously not what I meant

>B) There are fare more white people in positions of power. So it matters more when a white person is racist than when a person of color is. Racism sucks but the real kicker is discrimination

How's that relevant? My point was that nobody would be shocked if a white person was racist.


No, but two wrongs don't make a right. Also, as a society, we should be better than that.

I'll give you an example. Some of my friends made disparaging remarks about Muslims. I made it clear that was a generalisation and pointed out a (predominantly Australian) area with a lot of crime, "what about that? Is that any different?" I've slowly but surely educated good people to show more tolerance.

Having said that, I'll be the first to condemn inappropriate behaviour from a Muslim, Asian, white, feminist - I don't really care who. I don't have a PC bone in my body.

There are some great comments in this thread. The one I can least relate to is that we can't talk to people who listen to different music or watch different TV. Really? I was involved with an African woman, Asian, European, Australian. I have had mixed friends all my life. I never honed in on TV shows, but, I honed in on honesty, integrity, attitude (eg. I can't stomach arrogance, victim mentality and aggressive people). Is this so rare that people can converse beyond skin colour and gender?


>No, but two wrongs don't make a right.

Not in the slightest what I was trying to communicate, my point was that racism is so prevalent that it's hardly shocking at this point.

Obviously that's not a good thing, but I found it a bit odd that someone would be shocked by such a remark when you hear much worse things every single day.


I wonder if any of the issues she faced were due to being female as well. Not exactly a great diversity story in that regard either. :/


> One senior, Sarah Jones, ... “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming."

This statement may be true if "people of color" means African American. Otherwise, it is just not the fact. I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been. I've seen people all over the wrold here: Asian, Latino, European, etc.


Yea, that was a head scratcher. Where are these places with all white people? Because looking around at my current team, I'm one of two white guys, and there's a white woman, the remaining 20 or so are all either of south-east Asian or Chinese descent. My previous company was probably 75% Chinese, 20% Indian, and maybe 1% white. Prior to that, my company was a bit whiter, but 60%+ were foreign nationals. It gets to the point where "Man, the U.S. Visa system totally sucks!" is the default lunch conversation. There's definitely a gender gap, but as far as race goes, I don't see this lack of diversity.


None of those races count as minorities in these types of arguments. Only blacks, latinos, and LGBT do.


Asians and Indians are basically considered white in the Bay Area at this point.


Some need to uphold the concept of "structural" racism. Unfortunately pesky non-whites stand in the way of that when it comes to engineering.

So extreme measures are necessary...

0 Claim Silicon Valley is racist, because racial minorities are not hired.

1 Claim that Chinese and Indians are not minorities.

2 Claim that structural racism has "white washed" the Chinese and Indians in Silicon Valley [0]

The funny thing is, the white washing is conducted by the same group as it starts with the sentence "minorities aren't hired" When you live amongst the inherent Marxists as long as I have, you tend to figure out their patterns.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10945241


There's a lot of caveats to that statement.

Within the Bay Area itself there's plenty of segregation: anecdotally, I noticed relatively few Indians living in Palo Alto and working at startups; most live in MV/Sunnyvale/Fremont and worked in larger companies like Cisco and Oracle. I'm not making the claim that this segregation is externally-driven, it's just that there "are people all over the world" doesn't tell the full story. Having worked in both Toronto and New York, both cities have noticeably more diverse workplaces and neighbourhoods.

That said, while in the Bay Area I never felt my skills as an engineer were questioned because of my background. I really appreciated that.

note: edited for grammar


May be because it's much harder for startups to sponsor visas, and they don't have oversea offices to transfer people from?


Yes, this is the main reason. A startup is a much larger gamble for someone on a visa.


Even working directly for a large company is a gamble for someone with a visa. It's one of the little secrets of H1Bs, Green Cards and consulting: Go though a consulting firm, and you get hit by less incidental layoffs (since you are just capex), and even if you are not renewed, the consulting firm will just keep you on the roster (although probably unpaid), while they hand you another gig. Compared to the ticking bomb caused by a layoff, it makes those places attractive from a safety perspective.

This is not really a valley thing either: Here in the midwest, we have companies that are 50+% indian consultants, and companies that are 95% white, with very little in between, and it's all about whether H1Bs work there, directly or consulting.


I'd think it runs the other way: a visa is a much larger gamble for someone running a startup.


Both are true.

My former company (AeroFS) was one of the few I'm aware of that was willing to hire good talent even if it required a visa.

Also, I think that asking someone from India (taking that country as an example) to move to the US for less than market wage to toss the dice on a startup is... a challenge. That startup is less marketable on their resume than BigCorp if they want to return to India and get hired by another company or join an outsourcing company.


I think the segregation you were talking about might be attribute to the first generation of immigrants. NYC and many other places have a longer tradition of accepting people from other contries. Many "people in color" in those cities have been there for generations. But in SV, many tech engineers are not born and raised in America. They tend to hangout within their own group for obvious reasons. Compared with NYC, SV has just started to welcome people from other countries.


As soon as a minorty achieves success (and often disproportionate success) they are no longer considered minorities.


With 'Latinos' its even weirder. Cubans are almost never treated as minorities (disclaimer: I'm Cuban). White-mexicans are treated as if "you're not really who we're talking about." I have a sneaking suspicion that minority is doublespeak for brown people, but even Indians get excluded from this category... for some reason. Even though I've heard countless heart breaking struggles about first generation Indian-Americans dealing with the pain of culture shock, exclusion, and discrimination...

In the end, everything breaks down when you frame things in terms of race, because framing things in terms of race is lazy and dumb. In fact, "race" is a dumb concept. It only makes sense in Middle Earth. What is the significant difference between a "white hispanic", and a "non-white hispanic"? Is there a "hispanic-hispanic"? What about "black hispanics"? Do we call these folks African American (they're not from Africa), or are they Latino? Why do we lump all these cultures together anyways? Is it because they all speak (various dialects) of Spanish? Then what about Brazilians? Are Spanish speaking people from Europe called anything? "Asian" is another absurd category that lumps hundreds of diverse ethnicities and cultures into one.

For some reason, the government (and most other institutions) desperately seems to want to lump you into one of 4 or 5 unscientific categories. All the categories are old racist ones with PC wrappers. It's all anti-intellectual. IMO we should culturally wean ourselves off of using these categories.


> Do we call these folks African American (they're not from Africa)

My favourite example of this was a black British model, whom an American commentator called "African-American". She was born and grew up in the UK, and was neither African nor American.


Or the white guy from South Africa who emigrated to America and tried to get a scholarship as an "African American". By all quantifiable measures he should get to use that label.


> Are Spanish speaking people from Europe called anything?

They're called "the Spanish" or "Spaniards". Sorry, couldn't resist.


> For some reason, the government (and most other institutions) desperately seems to want to lump you into one of 4 or 5 unscientific categories.

Not governmental, but medically, your race can affect what treatments will be effective.


As someone who isn't a native English speaker, I've long noticed that, as you mention, "minority" doesn't mean "the opposite of majority" (I'm not sure since when, or exactly what it does mean; you say success is key, but success in what field - chess, boxing, beer-making? Listing just a dozen fields is probably enough to demonstrate that no minorities exist according to the "success" definition.)

However, to return to grandparent's comment - I, similarly to its author, have never noticed that the word "color" had been similarly redefined. Isn't "a person of color" the opposite of "white", where "white" means a having skin with a color at a mostly-agreed-upon pinkish/palish range?


Success means general economic success and low crime rate. "Minority" outside the context of politics means what you describe above - let's call this "minority_1". "Minority" as used by progressives (lets call it "minority_2") seems to mean a group of people that share uncommon visible characteristics who are also less successful (in the sense defined above) on average than the majority. Racism certainly exists - though progressives use a non-standard definition of racism, such that any member of a minority_2 can not be racist against a successful minority_1 or the majority. In fact, even discrimination against a successful minority_1 by the majority is seen as unworthy of note - an example of this is how no one seems to care about the obviously racist (by any common sense definition) discrimination against Asian students by Ivy-League universities. Asians need much higher SAT scores than white or black students to get a place in same.


"Person of color" is essentially a tortured, PC, language construction intended to enable people to avoid saying "non-white" (which, while descriptive, is apparently insensitive or something like that).

So, for example, mixed-race President Obama is a person of color, his African father is a person of color, and his White mother is not a person of color.

It's fairly situational and the lines are relatively blurry - for example, if I have one Japanese grandparent, am I a person of color or a White person?


Didn't they ironically misappropriate a term to unambiguously describe this? Caucasian.


If it were a game, it would be called "Whiteness unlocked."

An Indian- or Chinese-American can attain "no longer considered minority" (aka whiteness) but African-Americans don't get that achievement.


I'm not sure how a first-generation immigrant with skin 80% as dark as a random African-American who celebrates Diwali instead of Christmas, follows cricket instead of (American!) football, and favors rice puddings to apple pies is actually statistically deserving of the "no longer considered minority" flag in America, financially successful or not.

It sounds more like some people are changing their criteria as they go along to lend the rhetorical power of a cry against Racism to a potentially-interesting point, an exercise in intellectual dishonesty which undermines the point if the listener realizes it. Perhaps if we used words to accurately describe the situation we could actually communicate.


I don't know if you intended it this way, but you seem to be portraying Indian culture as just American culture s/Jesus/ganpati/ s/baseball/cricket/ etc. These things, while accurate, barely scratch the surface.

It really is different here, and not just the food. E.g., asking about family is routine (in a manner uncommon in the US), and I intuitively grasp certain social mixing/separation that is just different from the US.

From what I've observed, these gaps are vastly larger (read: earth/jupiter vs earth/moon) than the gap between various western subcultures.


In order to accurately describe the situation, we have to first understand that the concept of race is bullshit. It's a societal one, not a biological one.


Imputing racism on high-status institutions is a politically useful tool; one can even extract rents through the purification ritual of diversity training - modern opinions on race are best modelled as sacred beliefs. Disproportionately succesful minorities such as East Asian and Indian immigrants are considered functionally white for propaganda purposes, as their success in these institutions is significant evidence that they are not discriminating in favour of whites.


>An Indian- or Chinese-American can attain "no longer considered minority" (aka whiteness)

Is this something white people actually believe?

Successful minorities don't become white. They become weapons white people wield against less successful minorities.


Shoot, you found out, I wonder who squealed.


As another poster pointed out, red tribe conservatives are not the ones saying that Indian/Chinese-Americans are no longer a minority.

The only people who consider Indian/Chinese-Americans "no longer a minority" are the same ones who complain about them being whitewashed.


Of course they are. Indians remain Indians no matter how successful they are. Same with Germans, Frenchmen, or Asian/African Americans, for that matter. They are still part of the respective minority, which is not something bad to begin with by the way…


no, they're considered model minorities and become the poster kids for 'if you put down your head and work hard you could overcome the all-encompassing structural racism that defines this society'

is a person's worth to you determined by how successful they are? that's like the argument about steve jobs: 'we should let in syrian refugees because they might end up fathering a brilliant tech entrepeneur' - no, we should let in syrian refugees because it's the right thing to do.


> I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been.

Yikes. You need to get out more, visit more places in America.


Out of curiosity, besides other large cities like NYC, LA, Chicago where have you experienced a large portion of people from around the world?


Honolulu :)


Miami.


Like? The Midwest and South (minus urban areas i.e.cities which are few and far between) there aren't many diverse places.


I think you're asking for regions in the US, not cities, where you can meet lots of people, so as to demonstrate diversity.

Well, there are plenty of black people in the deep South. There are plenty of latino ranchers in the Southwest. There are some pockets of even non-English speaking folks in Louisiana and the Chesapeake.

But that's not diversity, that's just a different homogeneity. Although I can certainly attest to the fact that, going to school in New Orleans, life does feel a bit different being in the minority locally.

Cities, particularly coastal cities, have been melting pots, world-wide, for a long time. Since long before Columbus landed in the Americas.

If, by diversity, you want to meet a lot of people from different walks of life, you pretty much have to go to cities.

Now, is San Francisco the ultimate sink to which sources of diversity converge? Probably not. But I've been in every hemisphere and most major US cities, and San Francisco is pretty solid. You just have to get outside the bubble a little.

You want insane levels of homogeneity? Try Tokyo.


I am from the Southwest and it is not very diverse compared to SV. Having a lot of Latinos doesn't make a place diverse.

There are tons of Latinos and tons of Whites in Arizona. Not much of anything else.


As I said:

> that's not diversity, that's just a different homogeneity


Right, I misunderstood your post -- my mistake.


Since this post is about race, isn't it obvious it would be ethnic diversity of a place?


I also work in a similarly "diverse" office (east coast, household name software company) but I don't see things nearly as rosey as you do I think. As a white software engineer I'm typically in the extreme minority (I'd say it's a 70/30 split, and of course unless I am in a meeting with mostly management types) and the majority being asians and southeast asians here on work visas.

As this relates to the article I find it incredibly sad that my employer can't find citizens of any color to fill positions and instead chose to hire people coming from countries with dubious education systems.

Instead of bringing over "the best and brightest" to do low quality work at 70k/yr, I'd much prefer our industry and government focus on training its citizens to fill these positions first.


The clickbait article headline is "Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?"

The answer is buried three quarters of the way into the article:

> When they started interviewing seniors, companies found — as Pratt did at Howard — that many were underprepared. They hadn’t been exposed to programming before college and had gaps in their college classes.

So why isn't the article titled, "Why Aren't Enough Black Coders Prepared for Silicon Valley"?


Based on my experience interviewing a handful of developer candidates graduating from Howard, not being prepared is the best way I can describe the impression they left.

It felt like they only had a smattering of CS courses, none of which pushed them very hard.

In other words, they should fix their curriculum.


Is this really a problem specifically with Howard, or more a problem with CS curriculum in general? I ask this leaving the likes of CMU, Stanford, MIT, out of the equation - I'm thinking more about the "non-elite" CS programs, of which there are many, many more.

I am mentoring a CS student at another university and have had some challenges bringing this student along because the fundamentals are just not being taught. I took some time to compare it to Howard's curriculum, and I see some really practical courses offered at Howard - a 1 credit intro to OO and Java, Unix Lab, etc. Not that these make one a computer scientist, but when hiring entry level kids out of college, I would expect these skills to be somewhat solid, and that is not the case with really any CS programs today.


> Is this really a problem specifically with Howard, or more a problem with CS curriculum in general? I ask this leaving the likes of CMU, Stanford, MIT, out of the equation - I'm thinking more about the "non-elite" CS programs, of which there are many, many more.

You shouldn't leave the elite programs out of the equation. I've helped to interview a good handful of people who went to elite institutions and had done difficult, important work, but couldn't answer our interview questions correctly. We don't even use hard interview questions, just three that expect you to know some tricks-of-the-trade for systems programming and basic processor architecture.


I cannot speak for CS, but for chemistry I would not hire anyone who did not graduate from a top-20 program. At any other college, both theory and practice are taught with insufficient depth and rigour - in essence everyone who joins one of those programs either is a medical school aspirant or just there for the "college". CS may be different.


I can't speak for chemistry, but this is a horrificly shitty thing. There are many factors influencing what schools a student chooses to attend. Finances being an important one.


College choice is a problem, especially for first-generation students and those whose families aren't well-off. There are students who could do much better than Tumbleweed State, but they didn't pick the nearby Ivy because they it never crossed their minds that they could have gotten in. There might have been a decent financial aid package. If there wasn't one, who can risk debt in this economic climate.

But I can't fix the world. It's not my fault that at non-top-20 colleges they fail to teach basic things.


This is one of the most horribly elitist comments I think I have ever seen on this site.

Cost is a huge consideration for prospective college student, especially since the onset of the Great Recession.

Furthermore, quality education is available at (I would estimate) most institutions of higher learning. It's just that the students have to do some research to find out who the good professors are at the less prestigious schools.

I think you are doing yourself, your company, and the graduates of less prestigious institutions of higher learning a great disservice being so dismissive toward "lesser" schools.


For people that can get into Harvard or Yale, they will be among the cheaper options, at least as far as tuition.

Especially people that aren't coming from wealthy families, as their need based aid programs will pay 100%.


Anecdotally, a friend of mine had a chemistry education at a top 50 school and went straight to a PhD program at an ivy league where they have had no trouble keeping up.


That sounds like the same technique an HR person would use for hiring, not someone looking for skill in an individual.


This is a problem for essentially every liberal arts school I've looked at.


This is a misrepresentation of the article's position. The article's actual, more ambiguous, position is better summarized in another paragraph:

> People tend to discuss Silicon Valley’s diversity problem in binary terms. One camp says companies are biased against underrepresented minorities, or at least aren’t trying hard enough to attract them. The other says there aren’t enough people from these backgrounds who are qualified for positions—or at least who are good enough to beat those Stanford grads with all the programming trophies and internship experience and Mozart-like childhoods. The reality is, both are true.


This sort of assumes that it is everyone's job to try hard to attract underrepresented minorities. That's expecting way too much noble-mindedness of people. What employment tends to optimize for is good capable employees in general. If the pool does include qualified and capable minorities, they will get employed in most cases (and racial bias will likely be there only in a minority of cases -- atleast in Silicon Valley). Just employing token representatives from under-represented minorities will only perpetuate the problem (special if the token representatives end up performing poorly if they were employed not for their ability but just to represent a minority). What will help is to have a large pool of minority group grads to select from.


I think you are exaggerating how much merit is taken into account during interviews.


Perceived merit, not necessarily actual merit. I think in every interview, how much ever you sneer at it, the people employing will prefer someone who can do their job than someone who will end up needing support to do their job. They may include their bias later, but they still will look for people they perceive to be capable of doing the job they are hiring for.


This seems to be the same problem as women have in Silicon Valley. If you didn't spend a lot of time with computers on your own before college, you're not in the running. Up until 1985 or so, that wasn't the case, because few people had pre-college access to much CPU power. More women were going into computer science then.


I did a relatively easy CS program, but even so I can't imagine going into it without already knowing how to program. It seemed pretty brutal for the people who didn't, and I think even many who made it through didn't get much out of it. Too much too fast.


Do you have anything more than anecdata for the idea that "If you didn't spend a lot of time with computers on your own before college, you're not in the running."?

I've heard that idea in a lot of places, but it's never matched up with my personal experiences. I did my undergraduate at CMU, and plenty of the better programmers there I knew hadn't done any programming before they came to CMU.

But of course, this too is anecdata.


Two reasons,

1. CMU is the top CS school nationally; the basic quality of the education makes up for the lack of previous experience

2. CMU crafted a program specifically for students without previous experience to counter this effect; most schools do not


Perhaps CMU's specializations could be applied to Howard?


I think it's a dangerous myth, and I also have plenty of anecdata that matches yours. I only switched to software engineering partway through college, worked hard, and had a great job 3 years later. And people can always start in a basic position and spend their career improving and moving up.


Ones man's anecdotes are anothers statistics. I haven't seen any data driven evidence for this, but let's use a thought experiment: would you expect it is more likely for professional athletes to come from a background of playing sports and being active from a young age?

I think most people would say yes except to play devil's advocate. Becoming a top caliber athlete requires years of conditioning, experience predicting trajectories of fast moving targets, ability to read your competitors, mental fortitude, flexiblity, and more. Why would we expect a field that prides itself with top caliber professionals in a competitive environment to be any different?


Are teachers, accountants, mathematicians, scientists, doctors, or lawyers known for practicing to get into their respective fields in elementary & middle school? Not so much. Even for the most demanding fields, we expect them to begin to specialize only in their high school years.

To my mind, the fields which are known for requiring training from childhood are sports and the performing arts (music, theatre).

And if I had to guess, I'd speculate this is less because it's intensely difficult to play sports or learn to play music, but because so few people can become professionally successful in these fields (there's only room for so many sports/music/film stars). CS doesn't have this problem (the demand for programmers is skyrocketing), so we shouldn't expect folks who learned to program in childhood to have any more than a mild-to-modest advantage.


Mathematicians, scientists, and doctors absolutely! Catching and dissecting frogs, joining math clubs, debate teams, etc. It's not a requirement but when I think of the best folks in their respective fields they did not start in college. It's not that they've specialized from a young age, but they had long term passions for the tools useful for their field.

What early education provides is a safety net when things become tough. My classmates without this preparation had a much more difficult path and many eventually dropped out. The psychological effect of impostor syndrome is a component to picking field to study in college; those who feel they have a harder time than their peers are less likely to continue in the field long term.


Sure, but I wasn't talking about what it takes to be the best in your field. I was talking about what it takes to even be given a fair shot. (Original comment: "If you didn't spend a lot of time with computers on your own before college, you're not in the running.")


Because recruiters are lazy. They cherry pick colleges and build relationships over a period of years. Then they decide that they need more black people, so they send someone to man a booth at a historically black college and expect the same level of polish. (Which is mostly BS)

I had the same experience as a graduate of a mid tier public college. Finally a recruiter from a big company laid it out for me -- they have a list of schools they recruit from, period unless you are referred.


That's not clickbait though. It's a reasonable title for the article. Your may be closer to the truth, but the original title is completely valid and the article's content addresses the issue fairly. It's not clickbait.


Are they less prepared than people graduating from the hacker schools (or whatever they're called) that are popping up guaranteeing jobs?


Is it that they don't hire black coders? Or is it that there are very few black coders to begin with? African Americans make up 13% of the US population and they graduate college at a lower rate than other ethic groups.

It would also be interesting to look at selected majors across ethnic groups. I suspect that blacks go in to CS at a lower rate than other ethnic groups.


Indeed. To put some numbers around the touchy-feely slice-of-life reporting in the article, education statistics [1] suggest that only 4-5% of BSc CS degree graduates are black, and only 1-2% of MSc CS graduates are black, despite most US universities discriminating in terms of admissions in their favour.

If the applicant pool is disproportionately skewed, you cannot expect the employee base to be any different, and minorities will stick out (which in turn is not necessarily bad for the people if they are good at what they do)...

[1] http://www.exploringcs.org/resources/cs-statistics


Anecdotally, I went to a very liberal university, and tbh, when I was there, there was a total of 1 black person studying computer science back then.

The percentage of women is relatively low too, but surprisingly, it was at a higher percentage than most of the companies I've worked at.

And tbh, I've only had the chane to work with 1 total black engineer anywhere in my 20+ years of software development. He was very, very good at his job. Total # of people who I've interviewed who were black was less than 5.

To me, the only way to fix it is well before middle school to get them excited about computers because tbh, what I get is a trickle of applicants (and even fewer who are qualified).


Looking at the commentary at Hacker News, I would say that the author has done a disservice to the topic by ignoring the minority status of East Asians, South Asians, and Latinos.

With very minor changes, they could have used the correct words to cover the topic they really wanted to cover: that there are fewer black programmers in SV than is desired/expected/needed. And that is a topic that deserves discussion. But because the author minimized the experiences of a huge number of other minority groups rather than focusing on the concerns at hand, we are now squabbling about essentially irrelevant material.

95% of the article could remain intact. By cutting the 5% which is both fluff and offensive to other groups, the rest of the article would be much stronger.


In fairness to the author, the title is "black coders". Not "minority coders".


Typically, editors choose the headlines, not authors.


As a human that people in America would call black/African-American I really dislike articles like this. I understand that some black people feel like they cant relate to others, but I find the entire premise of such arguments about homogeneous workplaces and cultures completely ridiculous. The culture of 'black' people in Alabama will be very different from Howard or Washington DC, does that mean Alabama is unwelcoming ?

Secondly, who cares what schools top tier companies are targeting. If Howard is churning out good software engineers that are so good they cant be ignored, a) they wont need Google, et al to hire them b) their skills will speak for themselves when they apply for a job

It seems like so many people (black, white, Asian, etc) actually buy into this socially constructed division by culture or skin color which is completely insane to me. To me it's like dividing people into groups by eye or hair color and saying you feel unwelcomed by the blue eyed people.

Articles like this seem to reinforce the notion that there is this 'otherness' of culture and skin color. If Google ,Facebook, etc are ignoring software engineers that are top notch from Howard and other historically black colleges, that would be a problem, but I doubt that is the case. Most companies want people that can get the job done well and know their stuff in my experience (I've worked in Silicon Valley and Fortune 50 companies).

The article seems to repeatedly make the point that the black people at tech companies were feeling out of place while working at Google, etc. as if any Indian, Asian, or White person do not experience the same thing (someone from India will have to learn the culture of SV just like someone from Howard Univ. or some white person from Alaska). Who cares if you dont watch the same TV shows or read the same books. If anything , I think thats a good thing, as its a starting point to learn more about something you havent experienced. I think the most important thing is mindset and attitude going into situations like this. Curiosity and open mindedness would do wonders for the people in the article who feel like 'others' in SV.

I dont feel like the culture of SV is as homogeneous as they are trying to project, but this 'otherness' is the real projection

I've never been openly been discriminated against, or felt like the color of my skin had anything to do with my success in Silicon Valley or the East Coast while working at tech companies. I've found almost all people of all 'races' to only care about competence and efficiency (other than the occasional jerk or misanthrope)


I could not agree with your comments more.

The more we realize that there are cultural divides other than skin color, I think we as a collective species can see that the constructs that have been used to divide us in the past are completely pointless; everyone is very different.

Most people would call me white. But I'm from the north eastern US, I'm catholic, I come from an italian background, and I speak shitty broken Spanish from growing up with a lot of cubans and dominicans. I have nothing in common with a jewish girl from LA that grew up in a family of lawyers that immigrated from Russia other than the color of our skin. And some how she and I have more in common than the black cuban kids I grew up with?

The barriers we as a people tend to see as the most divisive are generally the least divisive in practice. We just like to think that they are the most divisive because it's easy to see.


You probably both speak shitty broken Spanish because she's used to talking to the help.


[flagged]


I do not have my head in the sand. I'm saying I don't remember ever being openly discriminated against. Are you saying it's impossible for a black person to live there life without being openly discriminated against in the U.S. ? Obviously we aren't in some post-racial utopia, but I'm saying I have never experienced racism to my face.

I find it funny that someone would think I would have to have experienced it


Honestly, and I'm thinking really really hard about this but yes. I don't know where you have lived but I find it actually amazing that you can say that you have never in your entire life experienced open racism. I have so many questions I don't even know where to begin.

And as a side note, my reaction should probably tell you all you need to know about race in America.


Please, ask any questions you have. I'd love to know what questions you have about it, as I see it as perfectly normal.

Obviously depending on where you live, your socio-economic status , your experience may vary. I'd think one to be crazy if they said there were openly racist people in every city saying racist things, everyday to a black person. That seems ridiculous to me

I seriously don't see what the big deal is. The USA isn't in the midst of the Jim Crow or slavery. Maybe your view is skewed my the media (CNN, etc) about the pervasiveness of racism.

You can't fathom that many black people can live a life without meeting openly racist people ? I would think You were odd if that were the case


> Yes, I always walk around with my head in the sand too.

That crosses into personal attack, and you can't comment like that here. On HN, please post civilly and substantively or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html


I'm not attacking him/her and I hope it wasn't interpreted that way but that is a ridiculous statement by any POC in the United States to make. See dcole2929's response regarding the incredulity of that statement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949198


Yeah, how dare my life contradict your perceptions of what my life should be like since I share the same skin color. I think are tons of people just like me. I hungout with a diverse group in high school and college. Just where do you think this open racism had to happen at. It's certainly not happening at most companies or schools these days. That covers most of people's lives. Also I think you and Dcole our out there if you think EVERY person of color has to had been openly discriminated against. You're projecting your experience onto millions of people. How ridiculous is that. I know some people have openly racist experiences but it's hilarious that you think there is no other experience in the USA other than that


Also, your statement is so completely idiotic I actually laughed out loud. What else in your narrow view does every POC have to have experienced ? Do I have to love rap music ? Do I have to have used the N word ?

If you can't see how idiotic your statement is, I feel sorry for you


I'm sure you didn't mean to attack anyone, but on HN it's important to remain civil in comments, particularly when someone else's statement seems ridiculous.


I've only been to SF twice, but I have to agree that it is pretty white. Not as white as Colorado, but still. I also toured Medium and was blown away by the lack of black folks working there.

It's tough to describe the feeling, but when you're the only black person in the room, you do feel different--a little uncomfortable. However, I don't think this reflects a conscious effort to not hire blacks, rather there are institutional and socioeconomic barriers that leave us underrepresented in tech and many other fields.


Yes, there's not a big black community in San Francisco. There's an unusually large southeast asian community though, which is uncommon in many other parts of the US.

Still, even smaller divides can be stark. I am white and I live in St Louis. There are a lot of black people in St Louis. However, there's parts of the city where it's very uncommon to see black people, while in others, black people have asked me if I got lost or something, because I am the only white guy around. There's the famous Delmar Line, where two blocks separate an expensive white neighborhood from some of the poorest black areas of the city. In the middle two blocks, there's a lot of men in blue.

I mean, I've done software in this town for 15 years. That gives me hundreds of work acquaintances. Out of those, FOUR are black, and one is a first generation immigrant from Kenya.

The biggest work contrast is a company that ran a call center in premises. HR, Accounting, IT... one black guy. The call center, paying $10/hr? 75% black.

I am not sure of how much of all of this is racism vs socioeconomic barriers (although I am sure there's some of all), but segregation is so very real.


Thanks for your thoughtful, considered response. We need more people like you in the world and in tech.


I've only visited Japan twice but I have to agree that it's pretty yellow.


The real story here seems less about race and more about how the CS program at Howard was mediocre (or at least didn't produce students that met Google's expectations) and one of the professors with a background of working for Google and attending an elite CS program realized it's deficiencies, improved it, and was able to get a bunch of students hired by Google by filling in their knowledge and experience gaps.

The school happens to be historically black but I'd be surprised if you found hiring statistics from a majority white school with a similarly ranked CS program to be substantially different.


It's interesting that it describes Silicon Valley as being too white, when it seems like there are quite a few Asians. Even working elsewhere, a high percentage of our programmers are Asian, higher than the metro's demographics would suggest.


Yea. I don't like the way they use it. Asians and Indians get considered white if they don't fit in the specific narrative, an author wants to tell.

I also don't like the idea, that liking pokemon or star wars makes you "white". There is something wrong with this,I can't seem to put into words.


Wasn't the hero of the last Star Wars movies black?


The hero is a white woman - Finn is a bumbling sidekick.


I'd say that Finn is the heart of the movie. He ends up doing the right things because he cares, not because of a destiny (Rei) or sense of obligation (Han).


What about finn's character is bumbling?


Rather than list attributes consistent with "bumbling" it would be better if you compared Finn to other prominent black characters in Star Wars:

Mace Windu? Master of the Jedi high council.

Lando Calrissian? Permed out badass who is in charge of Cloud City

Vader? The original voice actor was black but does anything else need to be said?

Can Finn really compare to any of these? Is he a hero I can personally identify with? No way.


I can identify with a stormtrooper who breaks loose from his oppression and join the other side. The girl has a royal destiny, but Finn is actually working his way up in the world and he's bumbling because he is stretching his limits.

(I get tired of so many stores where the lead characters have some "special" family origin that is so clear to their situations and this erases any discussion of what is it you have to do to become "special" as a member of the mass.)

I so much identify with that guy, see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDM6v1XhWEg


That's a very interesting perspective. Personally I thought Finn was the most "normal" character in that film (meaning the one most like us). He's just a child soldier that not only found a way out of it but he worked his way to the rebellion, with no "destiny" or the Force.

IMO he doesn't have to be rich like Lando or powerful like Windu. He just has to be cool and portrayed positively, and I think he is. If he was like Jar Jar then yes, I'd complain.

Either way, we went from tech diversity to Star Wars, so maybe we should stop here :-)


> Is he a hero I can personally identify with?

> Mace Windu

> Vader

Mace Windu was a completely bogus effort to put Samuel L Jackson in front of Black ticket-buyers. It wasn't even a good role for the incredible (but range-limited) performer Jackson is.


Who also works in "sanitation"

I am still incensed by this. The marketing of the movie totally misrepresented what Finn's role would be. I thought he would be the lead jedi. I doubt I will watch any of the forthcoming Star Wars movies.


That was, like, the point, though. I thought it was great when Finn turned out to be mostly useless at Jedi-ing and Rey was actually the main character, because I didn't see it coming after all of the trailers and ads. A bigger twist than, you know, the other one.


I was going to disagree but you are right. I only watched some trailers and I thought Finn would be the main character. He even wields a lightsaber in the official poster, despite the fact that he received no training nor he had the Force and only used it because he had nothing else to use and his life depended on it. I doubt he'll use it in the rest of the series—seems like he'll join Poe Dameron.


"worked", past tense, on Starkiller Base, before he became a storm trooper.


No He's the young inexperienced hero starting out just like Luke was.


I agree. Finn is like the new Jar Jar


Finn is nothing like Jar Jar.

Finn made me smile and root for him every time I saw him on screen. He was awkward at times (hey, not much social interaction since he was a ST from early childhood), but his heart was always in the right place. I smile when I think of his character, and look forward to seeing him in the next part of the story, EVEN if he's not a Jedi.

Jar-Jar makes me cringe when I hear him or look at him move. (That's saying a lot considering how bad the writing was for Anakin, IMO.) Jar Jar's purpose seemed to be the Comic Relief, whereas Finn has a much bigger and better-integrated role.



Also, like, have you noticed the president of the United States?


Americas views on race are very weird. Race is a social construct. It was essentially a binary view on race. There were blacks and then everyone else. Thats why you could marry Mexicans or Indians but not blacks in many states, historically, if you were white.

This changed when Americas immigration opened up to people from Asia and get central.

But as those groups assimililate we are going to revert to the old style view of race. Black and then everyone else.

So when people say white culture they really just mean mainstream American culture.


I think it also depends if the Asians or Indians have an accent or not. If they were born here, they fit in better and are classified as "white".


"it struck her as a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.” When companies began to visit Howard, they’d boast about having on-site playground equipment and volleyball courts—not the kind of thing Jones or her friends got excited about. “Slides are not really appealing,” she says. “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming."

I found the above passage strange. Within the same paragraph they talk with one student who says it is all white and asian and then in the next sentence the same student says there aren't many "people of color" in the valley. What are asians if not people of color.


It often seems like the people writing this articles don't realize that preferring your own race is racism, no matter what race that is. If she feels that she doesn't fit in because there aren't enough people like her (black), that's just as racist as white people not wanting to hang out with blacks because they're not white.


Haven't you heard that racism = power + prejudice, so black people by definition can't be racist because they don't have power?

(This is not an opinion that I agree with, but a lot of people actually think that way).


Thank god Obama isn't really black.

Sarcasm aside, a lot of people believe whatever serves them better. When they realised that "racism = discrimination" wan't enough to let them achieve their goals, they changed the definition to "racism = discrimination + power". Or, us geeks only became "patriarchal opressors of minorities" when non-geeks realized that the smart kids that got bullied at school were becoming really rich.


I'm not sure they deep down believe it. It's a rhetorical technique of frame shifting that has been quite successful, and allows some people to avoid facing their own racism. Since it works, why not continue using it?

I have found a near perfect antidote: I point out that the USA is the world's most powerful nation (I'm from a small weak nation that has historically been trashed a lot). So, I continue: are you saying that only Americans can be racist, for they are so powerful?

Nobody that I threw that at has been able to recover, they stutter, stumble, flail their arms, start to sweat and change the subject.


> I have found a near perfect antidote: I point out that the USA is the world's most powerful nation (I'm from a small weak nation that has historically trashed a lot). So, I continue: are you saying that only Americans can be racist, for they are so powerful?

That's a really good point.

There's this idea in the world of "white guilt" - that white people have been exceptionally cruel, by enslaving, killing, colonizing other races/nations.

The reality is that most people/races were viciously cruel; people fought wars, killed/raped their opponents, enslaved their prisoners, ... for generations. The difference is simply that whites (Europeans) have been so much more efficient at it (as with so many other things), because they were the first to develop advanced technology.


>"I'm not sure they deep down believe it. It's a rhetorical technique of frame shifting that has been quite successful, and allows some people to avoid facing their own racism. Since it works, why not continue using it?"

Well, it's a "rhetorical technique" then that appears to have gripped mainstream discussion on the matter. It's why blatant double-standards are accepted when it comes to the topics of race, sexism and equality. Either that, or it's the whole "outrage culture" that's causing me to see way more of the blatant outrage rather than the reasoned discussion.


It has to do with the concept of "structural" racism, as opposed to plain bigotry, which can be done by anyone. Structural racist aspects are related to society/institutions, which is shaped by the majority.

While I understand the critique, I disagree with the academic terminology, and think insisting on it leads to misinformed intepretations of others' arguments, like saying "black people by definition can't be racist".


If that's what they meant though, then affirmative action (universities are clearly an institution) would be racist. So would minority business initiatives organized by the government.

I don't think they consider those things racist though, so that can't be their definition.


The topic of race in america is a complex one. But our understanding of it evolves over time, just like in every other field of study. As a technical matter, the definition of racism is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior". That last part is important. Things can be racially motivated and negative without being racist. So for example, Indian person denied an apartment by a white landlord because "they make smelly food". Racist. Indian person refuses to rent to whites because he prefers someone who speaks his language. Racist? Depends. On the one hand, as a landlord he has the power to effect discrimination in a way that can cause a problem to applicants. But on the other hand, the language thing is about trying to solve a specific problem that he has, not because he thinks those people are inferior somehow. Similar situations, but the second is less racist than the first. Especially when you take into account the effect, which is that the Indian family being denied might have to work very hard to overcome this stereotype whereas the white family might well just move on to the next listing and be accepted quickly.


What you describe isn't racism at all - assuming, of course, that hte landlord would rent to whites if they spoke his language.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Twitter would explode if a black candidate was denied for "speaking black" (personally, I find it hard to understand non-mainstream dialects of English). Although tecnically, that still wouldn't be racism, but rather just generic discrimination.


And strange smells coming out of the apartment are not specific problems. You are not entitled to having your culture or culinary tradition accepted or valued. Change the spices and it won't smell.


In my example the Indian family was denied the apartment when they showed up to apply. Your advice would not apply in this situation.


Isn't this a clear cut example of linguistic prescriptivism? The vast majority of people do not use the word to mean that.


> like Star Wars and stuff like Pokemon

What an amazingly stupid generalization. Some of my favorite Pokemon and video game youtubers are black. Tons of black Star Wars fans exists too. It's pretty offensive to associate an entire group of people with certain preferences.


And by the same token, not all white guys are into Star Wars and Pokemon and roller blading. The Bloomberg blogger is guilty of a lot of stereotyping.


Incorrect stereotyping based on race, isn't there a name for that...


I'm not black but I don't understand why a black person wouldn't enjoy going down the slide or playing volleyball. And in terms of being into Star Wars and Pokemon -- I am actually very into rap music, and not into Star Wars or Pokemon at all -- but asking a black colleague if she likes rap music is a one way ticket to unemployment.


For the purpose of this article, they count as white.

According to a quoted student (around 1/3 of the text), Silicon Valley is "a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.”"


Oh yes, that homogeneous Asian culture, comprising 4 billion people who all speak the same language and eat the same food and watch the same TV shows. They're all the same!


To be fair, that homogenous white European culture, with about 50 countries, 23 official languages in EU, 225 indigenous languages in whole of Europe, and every valley with its own, sometimes quite distinct, dialect and traditions. Here are some European dialect maps:

http://i.imgur.com/9btMHIT.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Continen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovene_dialects

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Polska-d...

etc/und so weiter/and so on/et ainsi de suite/...


I get your point but I do think that "European culture" (that sounds strange to my American ears as I typically think of the individual nations, not Europe as a whole) is more homogeneous than Asian culture. Not that it is homogeneous, just closer on the spectrum.


Isn't it strange though that we agglomerate all of Asia into one, when it has two constituent parts that are larger than all of Europe combined, and with another billion or two spread out among a bunch of other smaller countries (the 8th most populous of which being larger than the most populous country in Europe)?

Hell, if Germany was a province of China, it'd barely crack the top five in population. Spain wouldn't even crack the top 10. West Bengal in India would be the largest country in Europe, and it's only the fourth largest state. UP is twice its size.


> Hell, if Germany was a province of China, it'd barely crack the top five in population

Wow. This completely blew my mind. It's incredibly ignorant how we (Americans) lump the provinces, languages, cultures, and 55 ethnicities[0] of China into Chinese people, and then lump Chinese people into Asians.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China


Homogeneous if you divide society into "black people" vs. "everybody else" (or possibly "black people" vs. "white oppressors and their friends/wannabes/bootlickers/slaves of assorted ethnicity, including black traitors"). Actual Asian culture and other real diversities are completely out of the picture.


> quite a few Asians

Yes, especially programmers from India - typically not quite as dark-skinned as African-Americans, but pretty close, and many of them have a thick accent, too.


White is a class, not a race.

For example Irish people weren't considered white until they gained significant economic power. [1]

Interestingly enough it was somewhat at the expense of Black Americans at the time.

Today, Blacks have significant economic and political power, yet only a handful have achieved "white" status and they are almost all politicians (Pres. Obama) and military leaders (Colin Powell).

[1]https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/white13.htm


The 2015 demographic supports your claim. %36 White (non-hispanic), %31 Asian (non-hispanic)

[https://www.jointventure.org/images/stories/pdf/index2015.pd...]


I found that pretty disturbing - right near the start was the claim that Silicon Valley was "too white".

I thought the article was supposed to be about efforts made to empower blacks, but when the writer drops a phrase like that, it's hard to avoid concluding that the efforts are aimed at removing whites.

He could simply have said "not black enough" or "missing black workers" or something similar. Why attack white people?


Yes, and when you break down the "white" demographic, you'll find yourself surprised at the rather high representation of Ashkenazis.


How about this?

Black engineers would prefer to work in IT at a big bank with high steady pay than opt for the highly variable risk/return profile of being an engineer in SV.

And why do they do this? If you look at poverty being an overriding theme for blacks in America, even if they themselves are not poor, then one would clearly prefer a lower risk med/high reward job than an a high risk low or super-high reward job.

Now the above only explains why black Americans underparticpate in start-culture. It says nothing for why they are underrepresented at high paying low risk shops like FB, Google, YHOO, Salesforce, ORCL, etc. Unless, of course, if you need to have first slugged it out at a few start ups before getting a job at a bigger shop. I'd say that's maybe only true for parallel hires and not kids right out of university.


As a black guy working IT at a giant car maker, I can say there's truth to this. Nice comment.


“There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming”

Oh I forgot, us Asians don't when it comes to people of color or diversity.


They might specifically mean blacks when they say "people of color", not that asians aren't a minority, but they person saying that might only be referring to their own race. I am not making a judgement call on what should be a "person of color", I'm just pointing out what they might mean.


In usage, "people of color" tends to be malleable. Sometimes it means "black". Other times it means "not white" or "black or hispanic" or something else entirely.

Sometimes this is just ambiguous. Other times, it becomes a source of liguistic slight-of-hand when people use one meaning (without specifying which) but seek to equivocate with a very different usage with a very different meaning.



You know, every day I feel like I'm told that I have to do something to help other people. There's always a cause. And you know, I'm not against that. I realize people have it rough. But there is this weird perception that Asian men have this amazing privilege in Western society and that we don't endure any racism or discrimination despite the fact that we still do.

They range from how we're depicted in the media, to whether we can achieve the highest levels of our profession (c-level, judges), to even whether women of other ethnicities find us attractive. It's also very easy to casually say something racist about Asians in popular media without the same recourse you'd get if you said something about blacks or jewish people. Growing up, I was picked on by white and black people for being Asian.

And I gotta say, no one gives a shit. No one.

The ones who care, are researchers who either write their findings, or Asian men who have the champion ourselves, such as Aziz Ansari who practically wrote a TV show about it. It's just like, "yeah well you don't have it as bad, so deal with it."

And so when I read articles that tell me that I as an Asian man have to help other ethnicities and that I have amazing privilege that I need to share with others, it irks me because I have to ask, who the hell helped me as an Asian man? Where were the articles about the racism that Asian men like myself experienced? Where are the people writing articles reversing their positions of the way they perceived Asians? Where are the non-Asians who are advocating for more Asians in various parts of society where we are under-represented? I'm just so ticked off by this double-standard.


You're absolutely right that there is racism against asians, including within the tech industry. You're right that we have awful media representation (I mean look at the oscar stats... http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-rac...).

But saying "there's tons of PoC in SV cause there's lots of asian guys" is missing the point. First of all, as you mention, there's a Bamboo Ceiling problem. Secondly, that doesn't change the fact that blacks and latinos are underrepresented. Diversity is good because it provides a broader range of perspectives, and it helps correct for historical injury. Having a ton of asians helps a little in those two areas, but clearly there's still huge room for improvement. Thirdly, you're allowing our small privileges be used as a wedge. The implication is that blacks and latinos should just work harder like asians if they want to be in SV, which is classic model minority bullshit. We need solidarity between minority groups, not division. It's true that other minority groups don't care enough about asian issues, but that's a reason that we all have to do better, not an excuse for us asians to be worse.

> who the hell helped me as an Asian man?

The Civil Rights Movement was instrumental in the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Literally, we wouldn't be allowed in the United States without the help of everyone from the Civil Rights era.

Academic work about microaggressions and racism owe a lot to black thinkers and the black experience. The condition of the million or so undocumented asian americans goes hand in hand with the struggles of undocumented latinos. Blacks are spearheading the fight for media representation with stuff like #OscarsSoWhite. We have to do the work to include ourselves in these fights, but other PoCs clearly are our allies.

Finally, I'm gonna leave you this article from a few months ago:

http://unhyphenate.me/2015/12/18/our-asian-america/


This is an absolutely serious question. Can you elaborate on some of the racism you as an Asian male have experienced? Honestly, outside of certain examples of the "good minority" I've seen very little racism towards Asians in any context so I'm interested to hear what is you may have experienced.


i seriously can't even believe you're asking this. i'll start with a real easy one for you.

how about being called a chink while walking down the street?

how about needing to be not just significantly better than the overall population, but specifically better than other asians at literally everything to even be considered for an elite school or job?

how about a 'comedian' openly saying everyone of your race has a small dick, and hearing mocking chingchong fake language, right on the stage at a comedy club, like you're not sitting right there? oh, and of course everyone laughing their ass off.

how many asian males have you seen on american tv? how many of the depictions even remotely positive, or even just neutral? and is this number something you can count to with the fingers on a single hand?

do you not think that the systematic, deliberate exclusion of an entire race of males from basically ALL media is not at least a little bit strange? do you think this is done on accident? it's not.

this one is at least getting better - asian men get to exist in the same reality as asian women now. i think even white people were beginning to feel uncomfortable that only asian females exist in the reality portrayed on screen.

you've seen very little racism toward asians because you're not asian and you probably can't even identify it when it happens because you think it's normal.


An Asian friend of mine had to work with a guy once that thought it was funny to make jokes about how he didn't feel safe leaving his dog alone with him and things along that line.


I guess it is all in the delivery


I am not Asian, but Asians generally have to have higher grades and SATs than Whites (and certainly Blacks and Hispanics) to get into colleges. Totally unfair.


1) dating as an Asian men 2) representation of Asian men in popular media


Yea I may not understand the plight of being an asian guy, but I do remember my younger brother being almost traumatized by this article, that was being passed around his friends.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2945756/Man-39-plung...

https://archive.is/evS1k

He really saw himself in this guy, and after that he began to withdraw from non-korean social groups.


Amen.


You do know that "people of color" doesn't refer to Asians, correct? It's primarily African-Americans.


That's patently false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color

"Person of color typically refers to individuals of non-Caucasian heritage"

"As Joseph Truman argues, the term people of color is attractive because it unites disparate racial and ethnic groups into a larger collective in solidarity with one another."

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070/...

"In U.S. history, "person of color" has often been used to refer only to people of African heritage. Today, it usually covers all/any peoples of African, Latino/Hispanic, Native American, Asian or Pacific Island descent, and its intent is to be inclusive.


I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...


I'm amazed at the replies that think if you didn't start programming since you were young, then you are seen as worthless. Majority of my fellow CS grads didn't write their first line of code until college and after a few semesters, most of them caught up with or surpassed the ones who learned programming since they were young. Almost all of us now work in great companies and some went on to do PhD's. I honestly hope I never have to work with people are arrogant and ignorant as you.


I'm a senior in CS at the moment; I declared somewhat late, and I never did any programming until my sophomore year. Before I got into in CS, I was worried that classes would assume outside knowledge (beyond prerequisite classes), and that my classmates that had programmed in high school or earlier would be way ahead in terms of ability.

In my experience (and this is at a "top" school/program), this has not been the case at all. In fact, a lot of the types that already had prior experience seemed to struggle when it came to more difficult or theoretical/mathematically rigorous classes (e.g. Algorithms & data structures etc.). I suspect that a lot of those who had already programmed did a lot of little personal projects or hacks. Maybe they learned some different languages, played around on the command line, generally dabbled in different areas of CS and software, etc. But I think the kind of skills gained from doing these sorts of things are mostly trivial. The types of problems solved in most typical apps and websites are not that difficult technically. You learn about a lot of the difficult problems in software and computability through CS material. And the other difficult problems are engineering ones - things like necessarily complex systems with lots dependencies, large-scale or scalable systems, software with high technical demands, comprehensive testing etc. etc. But that kind of thing is learned on the job, or at least in some kind of capable team working on an important project. Not by writing little scripts or apps on your own. Learning how to write readable, modularized code can be naturally (and fairly quickly) learned in intro classes if you are mindful and dedicated to improving.

However, this is just my own experience and observations. And there is no doubt that there are plenty of people out there who started at a young age, and are also superb at computer science and/or are fantastic engineers. But I don't think that in itself is a great predictor of someone's capability.


I think its kinda ridiculous to say that to be 'SV material' you need to have started studying CS before college


How so? Many of the classic Valley proto-entrepreneurs (Gates, Jobs, etc) famously dropped out of college. From my own experience, I probably learned about 75% of what I needed to know about programming before I went to university. I'm not sure how easy it is to gain that valuable bedrock experience in an academic environment.


The key, then, is to gain that valuable bedrock experience outside the academic environment. This can obviously be hit-or-miss, and we shouldn't be surprised if we see someone miss.


I don't know about 'SV material', but I certainly didn't see a lot of "10x" software engineers who were not writing code by the time they were 13-15.

Clarification: I'm not saying that it's a necessary requirement; I'm just saying that I certainly see a correlation.


Formal CS study no, but I would think having some exposure to programming concepts would help. Sort of like how one would expect a music major to have had at least some curiosity about music, or an art student to have picked up a pencil or some paint.


I think they're more looking for a sign that you had an early and therefore natural curiosity to tinker with the mechanisms in the world. Not "CS" per se, but just... computer tinkering. If your family couldn't afford a computer, IMHO, if you at least, say, took a clock or motor apart or something, that would be a good indicator, too.

By the way, this has been brought up as the reason for the dropoff in the women who enter CS curricula in college. Ever since home PC's became affordable, freshman CS classes have basically assumed prior (and thorough) computer experience, and many women who might otherwise become good programmers, for whatever reason (society influence, etc.) have had waaaay less hands-on time with computers than boys, when they become freshmen.

That said, I have met some excellent programmers who started out doing something that is superficially completely different (musicians, for example).


>freshman CS classes have basically assumed prior (and thorough) computer experience

I imagine that it depends on the school but there's probably some truth to that. I've taken a couple of "Intro to Programming" type classes from top schools. I found the material quite manageable--but then I have a moderate amount of programming experience even though I don't do it for a living. I'm pretty sure that if this were the first time I saw a computer command line or wrote code, I'd have been lost. Freshman physics at those schools may be challenging but it doesn't assume a whole lot of prior exposure (other than an appropriate level of math).


I never had any distinct interest in computer science. My original interests were physics and art. In fact, I would say those are still my strengths over all. But I went into CS after I found it interesting in regards to what a person can do with a computer with little effort (in as much as the tools involved).


I think physics and art are nearly the perfect potential sources of a good programmer


I think it depends on what part of Silicon Valley you're aiming for. A lot of the big-name places seem to be weird and incredibly theory/algorithms-heavy, whereas most other places being good at organizing systems is more important. But go too far down the scale and you'll find lot of the small startups need you to have context across the entire stack - you might be doing Ruby one moment, CSS the next, then BGP configuration for your cloud gateway after that. Places that are medium-small to large-but-unsexy can provide more of the entry-level experience. (Not a lot of them are really good, though, so you can't always expect to stay working there forever.)


Well I don't know about that. When I interviewed for google during my last year in college(on campus interview), they asked for my high school grades, SAT scores, and if I learned any CS principles in middle or high school.


Why would you think that? You believe there is less than 4 years of material in all of CS?


How much CS knowledge do you need to hack on a simple CRUD app?


Depends, do you want it to actually work?


Perhaps, but since you have more than enough candidates who did start way before college, it's not unreasonable to priorities hiring them.


Something like that seems so easy to fake. If you have the knowledge now, how is anyone going to prove you wrong if you say you learned it at 13?


People of lower economic circumstances may not have had access to computers prior to college.


In 1990? Likely.

In 2010? This article is supposed to be about US, not a third-world country, right?


I was born in -91, and the first time I had access to a computer that I could actually install things on (not school/library) was at the age of 15, and no internet access at home until about 2 years later. I live in Finland, but I imagine there are lots of Americans with similiar experiences. Nowadays it's also possible that the those people will have a "consumption only"-device rather than a "real" PC they can do things like programming with.


... apparently you don't know any poor people. Most today MIGHT have a tablet, and probably have a cell phone, but a desktop or laptop is a luxury.


even in a third world country like brazil, every single person i know (from lower to high classes) has access to a computer AND a smartphone (even the poorest person has one, it's quite interesting).


Did you not realize that US education is on par with a third world country in a lot of regions?


Access to a computer has little to do with education anymore. If someone wants to tinker with computers, they can use one in a library or just get an old one for <$100.



When was the last time you tried to use a library computer?


That is true, but it doesn't mean they should be given a job they don't have the skills for. Or would you like to have "Affirmative Action" doctors?


And of course that's what you jump to. I certainly do think there should be affirmative action in the medical profession, and there is.

I don't for a minute believe it is necessary to have been coding since you were 12 in order to do most jobs in Silicon Valley. But if companies decide to discount people because of it, then you will absolutely filter out people who come from lower economic backgrounds.

This is a great example of institutional racism.


Sadly, you are wrong. 4 years of computer usage is not nearly enough to be prepared to be a programmer.


..or healthy food, or stability in their home to do homework, or have parents with time to help...

All of it ends up affecting their hireability.


Why is this relevant?


The topic at hand is "why Silicon Valley companies do not hire black people." Connect the dots?


I would say statements like that are exactly why some people don't feel welcome in SV.


This kind of attitude is exactly why I tend to avoid recruiting out in the west coast. There is nothing about "SV material" that translates directly into productive output. It's all ego, with no substance to back it up. And in our company, I certainly have the data to prove it. Although it pains me that I can't share it, especially with the "community" at HN.

And yes, we offer extremely competitive salaries not typical of the east coast.


Plenty of fresh grads get hired out of ivy league and higher end schools, so I'm going to go with yes.


I never programmed before college, and my first job after college is at a highly-reputable SV software company. I know plenty of other people in the same situation.


I have a few minor issues with this article/approach at Haward. First of all, it makes it appear that companies like Google and Facebook are the end-all-be-all. There are more companies than the top tier. In fact, there are also companies outside Silicon Valley. Not only are they setting up students with potential failure, but they are painting a different view of what the industry looks like and where it is located. They are even discounting NYC, which is just a train ride away.

Also, the problem with Howard not being a top tier school applies to every school that is not in the top tier. Many do not even get the same access to recruiters that Howard does.

I also believe schools should be teaching fundamentals and theory and not be used as job training.

That said, the assimilation problem, "cultural fit", is real, but is often neglected. Many programs trying to fix the minority inbalance simply focus on outreach, the recruiting pipeline.


The slow progress reflects the knottiness of one of Silicon Valley’s most persistent problems: It’s too white.

It's actually too Asian. And too Jewish. That is, if you're using, you know, math, and a simpleton's understanding of demographics. If you're using contemporary ethnic racketeering, then yeah, it's too white. Even the NFL is too white.

I actually think it would be funny to see Bloomberg come out with an article demanding that fewer Asians and Jews be hired wherever they excel.


What surprised me from the article is that only 8 out of 10 students at Howard are black. Howard is a historically black university and I assumed the percentage would be 90%+. I did some research and found out that the latest numbers I found were 91% "Black or African American" students at Howard. http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/howard-university/stu...

Offtopic - but Howard has an amazing marching band. They played Rutgers when I was in school (football), and my favorite part of that game was the Howard band at halftime.


AFAIK, Howard and some other HBCUs do actively recruit non-black applicants (and may even use affirmative action to do so).


Chinstrap! Cool to see a familiar face.

Howard's band was definitely entertaining.


The biggest issue I have with the article is that it presents SV as the only place you can go to be successful with a CS degree.

It very well could be that the article misrepresents the efforts of Prof. Burge and the Howard staff since the article is focused on SV.

But if SV is turning away energetic, engaged, intelligent and capable new recruits, then please send them to NYC, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Triangle Park, LA, or anywhere else where companies are looking to hire.

It might not give you a "direct impact" on SV itself, but it does get your people into good paying jobs where they can further develop their skills and experience (especially for those without a long childhood of working with computers). It's a small industry. Soon enough these graduates will be attending conferences and making an impact on this culture.

More importantly, they'll also be representatives in their local communities, helping to inspire the next generation of students who don't see themselves or their experience reflected in this industry. And perhaps that next generation will be more likely to pick up programming in middle school.


This is an interesting question, and probably related to "why doesn't Silicon Valley hire female coders?" and "Why doesn't Silicon Valley hire coders over 30?"


I have a dream where people are judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.

Seriously. I'm tired of these people focusing only on skin color. Why don't we let it go, forget about skin color, and live together.


WTF, Being in the industry myself I see a lot of non white people in the industry.

This could be used to reinforce the thought that the majority of people that care and judge based on color are mostly African Americans.

"More than 20 percent of all black computer science graduates attended an historically black school, according to federal statistics—yet the Valley wasn’t looking for candidates at these institutions."

Ah news for you , they are also not looking at candidates from my community schools.

Perhaps the article should be why you shouldn't attend a non racially diverse university or a university that doesn't attract employers in your field?


This is a very simple problem and racism has almost nothing to do with it:

White founder has a business idea and they bring along their friends - most likely white. Those friends bring in their friends and colleagues - also most likely white - to become the executive team. The executives hire tomorrow's managers. By that time the vast majority of employees are white, and even if they work very very hard to hire black people, it will take a very very long time until there is proportional representation all the way up to the executive level. Some execs work well into their 80s, meaning that it could take more than a century until there is population-proportional diversity at any predominantly white-founded institution.

The longer a lack of diversity persists in a company's trajectory the harder it becomes to fix it. The only solution I can think of is for black people to start more companies themselves.


   The longer a lack of diversity persists 
   in a company's trajectory the harder it 
   becomes to fix it.
Google and Microsoft seem to have had no problem hiring a lot of Indians or Chinese.


Those are huge companies with tons of cash. Referrals are less important when thousands of college graduates are stampeding for a job at a tech titan. Also, how much of the upper management at either is Indian or Chinese?


Well, let's see...

Google's CEO: Sundar Pichae

Microsoft CEO: Satya Nadella

Adobe CEO: Shantanu Narayen

It is true, though, that Chinese people are underrepresented in upper management.


Is Raymond Chen management? He's certainly one of the more respected Microsofters I know of.


My guess would be: for the same reason it does not hire white coders.. incompetence ?


A good article with a horrible, clickbaity headline. Howard's CS department head and even the students seem fully aware that "the problem" doesn't lie in evil Silicon Valley HR departments, but in the challenges of preparing kids who haven't coded until college.


A surprisingly high number of the speakers I went to at AWS Re:Invent were Indian, close to half, and they all worked for Amazon. I found it very interesting.


I'm not American but I've lived here for a quite some time and this is my observation purely from my outsider perspective. Ask yourself how many times you see African Americans in a group of Asian, Latino or White people? I think the answer is very simple - Black people segregate themselves not just from White people but people of ANY other race. The majority stay in their cliques and never try to get out and the general consensus is "Why even bother?" I mean, the young lady in the article says she doesn't fit in and all that goes through my mind is how is this anyone's fault?


> Pratt also noticed that many advanced classes at Howard and other black colleges weren’t as rigorous or up-to-date as they were at Carnegie Mellon or Stanford. By senior year, students risked falling behind their peers from other institutions. “I’d ask faculty members, ‘Why are you teaching this course that way?’ ” he recalls. “And they’d say, ‘Well, I’ve been teaching the course for 25 years.’  ”

That's the core issue right there. The school hasn't adapted to the technology and practices. What use would you be on day one if your coding knowledge was stuck in 1991?


I am a Howard University Alum of the Computer Science Department. My experience at Howard was an eye opening experience. I went to Howard because I got track scholarship and I wanted to get the "Different World" TV Show experience. As a first generation Nigerian American, there was a lot of diversity in the sense that I got to meet black people from all over the world. I even got to get the chance to learn about my history. Also, when I graduated a lot of my classmates went on to work at Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, or other Fortune 500 companies. Google IPO'ed a year earlier and wasn't really on campus. Google and Facebook would get students a couple of years after I graduated. I know a couple of those students that are doing well because they got in early at Facebook. There is a decent amount of Howard Alumni at some of the tech companies. Anyways, what Dr. Burge is doing is great. His focus is to get more students to work on projects and get more tech companies on campus. More people in DC and the US are helping as well.


“There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming”

i dont like this attitude, i am not sure what is should be called, but you should feel relaxed in your own skin, accept diversity, and dont mind it when most of the people around you, are not the same color

why is it unwelcoming ... maybe not what you hope for, but why call it so negatively


"There are a lot of black people, and I'm white, so that's kind of unwelcoming".

I wouldn't have used that argument in any discussion...


Do you deny that you might feel it, though?


> why is it unwelcoming

I imagine history has a lot to do with that.

And then there's the present. People have died because of Existing While (Insert minority color here), without any remorse/accountability/justice, and this shows no signs of abating because our country would rather blame the minority than the culture that allows the slaughter. If you happened to be one of those colors, how on earth would you feel relaxed in your own skin?


Free Advice:

Look, the US is filled with businesses in big cities that, while are not "software companies", do very much need to write software to conduct operations. Take Houston, Texas for instance. It doesn't matter where you came from, what you look like, or who your daddy is. The game is supply and demand. If you can supply, you are in demand. If you are a native English speaker, then you are already ahead. In this country, if you are willing to move, work your ass off, and actually like programming - eventually you will reach gainful employment. Especially if you can pass a drug test. The first year? Hell no. Look for the hardest shit you can find that people with no patience think they are "too good for", and you will be filling in your experience in no time. Life is not easy or fair. If you are smart enough to do even some half ass programming, you have been given a gift.


I started programming at a top computing university where my father was on the faculty while still in high school. I was working with other high school students and college students who were very passionate about programming and computer hardware. I remember working 80 hour work weeks during summers and breaks learning an enormous amount from fellow students as well as faculty and researchers.

Generally, if one wants to get into computing in a highly competitive environment, they should attend a top computing university. Fortunately there are top schools that are public as well as private.

I rarely see blacks (or Hispanics) at computer Meetups in NYC. For that matter, at many computer Meetups, there aren't so many women either.


Some interesting points in the article picking up on the mono culture in a lot of software companies and especially games companies, in my experience outside Silicon Valley, I think it's a programming thing in general wherever you are. After many years I'm quite tired of the endless Star Wars talk, references, and T-shirts that I have to endure from colleagues. I even like the Star Wars movies but there comes a point where I think we could surely shut up about it for one day. However, I have to endure it, I've worked in numerous companies and it's the same thing all over the place, the blah mono culture, I'd love to work with some of the people in this article.


One company's "culture" is another company's Old Boy Network.


Wonder why this isn't on the front page . . . a simple points/time since posted doesn't add up to me . . . IMHO HN is too opaque.


It was heavily flagged and set off the flamewar detector. We reduced those penalties, because the article is substantive. We changed the title to make it less misleading and linkbaity, as the HN guidelines request.


I'm a gay black guy who went to SMU via scholarship and majored in finance. Coding is my hobby. The New York Times hired me to write code for them. I worked there 2.5 years. We are in the tech already. Silicone Valley needs to pick those up who are already here. Some of us are more than willing and capable to work with Silicone Valley.


I think it's similar to the issue of women in comp sci. It's a recruiting and culture problem in the whole industry. African Americans have more barriers than women imo, because statistically they have issues of poverty and less tech early age tech exposure on TOP of culture mismatch.


What a big steaming pile of political correctness. The author interviews a tiny handful of mediocre college students who blame their "color" for not getting hired right out of school by big, glamorous tech companies. Are we supposed to be sympathetic?

I remember my own struggles to break into the tech business, many years ago now. Although white and "privileged", i.e. no cultural barriers to entry, I found it very tough and had to jump through hoops, work my way up from semi-tech to actual development positions. I took night school courses on a credit card and got into debt. I bought whatever gear I could afford and stayed up until 3am writing code, then got up and went to my menial job.

The opportunities didn't just fall in my lap; I had to earn them. No glamorous technology titans came knocking on my door, begging me to come interview. I had to work for everything I got, and God, it was hard. It still is.

This same work ethic applied to everyone; I was on the chatboards in the late 80s, all through the 90s, and the 2000s, and the story is always the same. You have to have the right stuff if you want to build a career in technology -- be smart, creative, have some initiative, humility, humor, etc.

So maybe Black Americans don't get that in their upbringing. Maybe they're not taught to be smart, competitive, hard charging over achievers. Maybe they're not encouraged to be creative, to think outside the box, etc. I don't know. What I do know is, you can't compensate for that by handing people undeserved opportunities.

Affirmative action is a failure; it's nothing but a form of welfare. If Google reaches out and hires under qualified people from Howard or wherever, just to say it's trying to overcome "barriers" and achieve "diversity", that's all doublespeak that in the end means "We will hire a few token blacks because we have extra money. It will make us feel good, and it will fool them into thinking they made it. Whatever. We have to do it."


Please don't post ideological rants and angry invective to HN. They have no place here; we want thoughtful discussion.

Unfortunately, this is still worse:

> mediocre college students

You can't possibly know that.

It sounds like you overcame some significant obstacles, and that's admirable. But please don't put other people down.


> You can't possibly know that.

It's funny, dang. You don't seem to ask all the haters to justify their opinions regarding the NSA. Even though by definition, no commenter could "possibly know" the extent of a surveillance program that is top secret. And let's not touch on 'ranting'; NSA threads are full of those.

In fact, affirmative action is the only topic where you demand ideologic lock-step. If you disagree with my assessment please shut me up: point to 1 comment you have made critcizing a pro-AA position. Because I could go through the threads and produce hundreds of tsk tsk's for anyone who voices anti-AA views. If you can provide me with this one example of being a fair to both sides (and thus worthy of being a moderator) I will officially apologize.


It's an opinion and a set of observations, not an "ideological rant and angry invective". If you agreed with me, would you still call it an angry rant? And yes, I know they're mediocre (in the sense of average, not exceptional) because there's no evidence they've accomplished anything of note, but are merely marketing themselves as raw material for hire to big companies and then complaining that they aren't getting hired because they don't "fit in". That's not what high achievers do.


White women are the biggest beneficiaries of AA http://www.timwise.org/1998/09/is-sisterhood-conditional-whi...


I'm not sure why you think that this is political correctness. There's a clear representation gap in employment at high-wage jobs for large portions of the population. And, that's a social issue that has been identified. As a society we can then either ignore it or address it.

I get that you have a strong opinion on why that gap exists. And, you have opinions on which things won't work to solve the problem. But, by dismissing the issue as political correctness, you seem to be saying that it's not something that we, as a society, should address.

And, that's fine if you believe that. We can all decide to do nothing. But, as an alternative approach, I'd ask that you try to role-play for a moment that one of these people are one of your family. Would you try to help them? Or, would you tell them to get lost?

I think that we have reached a point where a lot of people have started to view vast segments of population as 'others'. Our society seems to be turning into 'us' vs. 'them', and to me that's problematic. We have double standards when it comes to our family and friends vs. everyone else. Personally, I think that's an awful state of affairs and limits the advancement of Humanity.


>> ...by dismissing the issue as political correctness, you seem to be saying that it's not something that we, as a society, should address.

I'm neither dismissing the issue, nor am I denying we should address it.

>> We can all decide to do nothing.

Nowhere did I state that we should do nothing. I haven't shared my own thoughts on how to solve the problem, which is real.

>> ...one of your family. Would you try to help them? Or, would you tell them to get lost?

Of course I'd try to help them. If a nephew, say, were having trouble breaking into high tech, I'd advise him to start small and work his way up. Get an entry level job in the best and most promising business you can find, and do lots of extra-curricular work either at the business or at home. Contribute to some open source software, and write a couple of mobile apps of your own and put them in the Play Store and AppStore. Create a promotional website that shows off your stuff. Network, network, network, both online and at local entrepreneurial and tech meetups. Go to all the tech shows (free exhibit hall pass, if that's all you can afford) and hand out your card.

>> Our society seems to be turning into 'us' vs. 'them', and to me that's problematic.

I think you're jumping to conclusions. A lot of us do care about making our society a better place for everybody, even if we don't agree with your approach. There's more than one approach, and some approaches are better than others.

The shallow, body count approach advocated by the Bloomberg writer and that Howard U. advisor does not work so well; it's like saying, even if these kids aren't quite up to XXX's standards, XXX ought to hire them anyway because to not hire them smacks of racism. Plus, these kids are my students and I think they deserve to succeed in life.

My approach would be to say, these kids are capable of anything they set their minds to and the only thing holding them back is societal expectations that they're not up to the task and need an extra boost. I set high standards for everyone, including myself, not that I always live up to them. But expectation of great achievement is half the battle. When you've been raised in an environment where the white social welfare establishment has told you all your life that you need extra help, you're going to start to believe that.

Look, I believe that African-Americans are capable of brilliant achievements and there's plenty of proof of that. I don't think they need, nor does anyone else need, what you refer to as double standards. We all should be held to the highest standards of achievement so that we are secure in the knowledge that everyone has faith in us, so we should have faith in ourselves. And that is the basis of great achievement.


   Affirmative action is a failure; it's nothing but a form of welfare. 
Failure from what vantage point? If you want to keep society stable and peaceful, some degree of welfare is probably necessary, for otherwise, those that imagine themselves to be wronged might just band together and violently take what they think has been denied to them.


I imagine pacification is not the goal of most affirmative action proponents.


That's true, but it might be parts of the reason why those who accept it, accept it.

If you think about the invention of the welfare state by (to simplify matters greatly) Bismarck, then this was quite explicitly to defang the socialist movements that were threating the established social order of his time, and did manage to set the world aflame with the Russian Revolution.


It is/was in Singapore through LKY.

As usual, perfect lies in the middle through pragmatism. "Only Siths think in absolutes"


> What I do know is, you can't compensate for that by handing people undeserved opportunities.

How do you know this?

Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't, it still seems to me that if you hand black people undeserved opportunities (leaving aside that the word "undeserved" is a huge stretch here, given that you've just admitted that it's for no fault of their own), they'll move into a culture of good white traits like being smart and competitive and creative, and they'll have kids who grow up looking up to their parents' hard-working, humble, humorous white coworkers at Google.

Doesn't that have measurable positive results?


Not OP, but giving false promise to people is very cruel. A lot of people who do not get into schools on their own merits (for whatever reason) do not do as well. The drop out rate among African Americans is significantly higher. This may be because of the colleges attended, but even in the same college, these differences remain. This doesn't necessarily mean that its caused by different standards for different races. For instance it may be because some students have trouble fitting in or finding the support they need. But it is worth considering.


>> Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't...

That is absolutely not my thesis; you're either wilfully or ignorantly misrepresenting what I said. Some black people do make it in tech; some make it in other fields. They generally do so the way the rest of us do, by hard work. Perhaps harder work, in fact, because of cultural barriers that still exist.

Actually, the parent posting is an excellent example of the extreme conclusions to which people jump whenever the hot potato topic of race comes up. It's a kneejerk response: White man shoots black man, must be racism. Half of inmates in max security prisons are black -- must be racism.

The fact is that black culture itself is diverse and while most blacks do achieve respectable middle class lifestyles, there is an achievement gap that some experience, that cannot be dressed up with canards like "cultural barrier" or "dialectical discrimination".

>> ...they'll move into a culture of good white traits...

Yes, this is the old 1970s era rationale for quota systems. "Such practices are inherently unfair and even a form of reverse racism, but in the long run it somehow magically produces equality." This notion has been long since discredited and indeed these kinds of affirmative action and quota practices may even have prolonged black underachievement. It's just like the failed forcible integration efforts of the '70s. They didn't work because while you can mix ethnic groups, you can't mix economic classes; those who can move, move.


I apologize for ignorantly misrepresenting it. That seemed like an accurate way of rephrasing your claim, "maybe Black Americans don't get that in their upbringing." But I guess I have lost some subtlety.

Anyway, I was under the impression that the lives of minorities in the US is much better today and the correlation between race and class is much weaker today than before the 1970s, no? ("Forcible integration," for instance, brings to mind the Little Rock Nine in the 1950s and the "segregation forever" speech in the 1960s, but maybe you're referring to something else.) How has this been discredited, and in what way did they not work? Sorry if this is a naïve question.


How do you know they're mediocre coders? The article makes zero mention of any coding ability, aside from the fact that some of them were having a hard time locking down offers from places like Google and Facebook. Your biases are applying traits to these kids, all of whom you've never met or had any kind of conversation with.

This entire post is the biggest affirmation of "twice the work" if I've ever seen it.


Best guess: Howard is ranked #391 in CS nationally

Source: http://computer-science-schools.com/howard-university


> This entire post is the biggest affirmation of "twice the work" if I've ever seen it.

I don't get the reference, could someone explain?


The notion that minority individuals have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition as the equivalent majority individual.


> I remember my own struggles to break into the tech business, many years ago now. Although white and "privileged", i.e. no cultural barriers to entry, I found it very tough and had to jump through hoops, work my way up from semi-tech to actual development positions

Imagine you actually had cultural barriers to entry to deal with as well.


    Imagine you actually had cultural barriers to entry to deal with as well.
Have you considered that the non-Americans that are successful in SV had much larger barriers to break, including learning new languages, and dealing with visa hassle?

For example my girl friend was deported the other day because a border guard (wrongly) though she didn't have the right visas to enter the country we are living in when we returned from holidays. No native has to deal with this kind of administrative nightmare.


Sure. Isn't it the case that relatively few of those folks are successful, even though there absolutely are those who succeed spectacularly?

That seems analogous to what's being claimed here: that the deck is stacked against minority applicants, not that it's impossible for them to be successful (and certainly there are quite a few who are successful).


Stopppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp


Silicon Valley is not interested in hiring black programmers because they simply do not want to.

The easiest way to prove this is by looking beyond the software engineering field. Why do big SV companies like Facebook, Google or LinkedIn not have black non-engineering staff?

Are capable black accountants, project managers, lawyers, support staff non-existent too?


The issue I take with this is that American assimilation is a two way street. Every culture puts in and takes out. Tacos, sausages, pizza, sushi, these are American foods as much as they are Mexican, German, Japanese, or Italian. Some of them more American than their source in ways. It's not about forcing White Angle-Saxon culture. It's about forging American culture and identity.


We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10947696 and marked it off-topic.


[flagged]


I'm in the UK, I've eaten most of those but not in taco's

2) I quite like a tongue sandwich. 3) Tripe is not my cup of tea but I've had it 4) Fried pork blood, we have a thing here called black pudding (it's congealed blood soaked in oats, then fried, it's damn good and apparenly good for you). 6) Lots of times, don't see it much now, my nan lived on it 7) Used in stocks 10) Pork Scratchings are huge here also damn good but really bad for you.

Traditional English cuisine ate everything.

Chitlings are pretty grim though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding :)


Right, I forgot most European cuisines do make use of the whole animal. I stand corrected.

I kind of dislike blood (you have to eat it quickly, or the flavor deteriorates in your very plate before you notice), but otherwise everything that runs, swims or flies is game ;)


I have eaten most of those but I was tempted to pretend I haven't.

My point was a major simplification of how American assimilation happens or I think ideally it should happen. Cultural heritage is important and mixing cultures together is the best version of America in my opinion.

I'm saying that American culture is a tapestry of it's subcultures and it's subcultures are sourced far and wide. The idea isn't to go with direct and hard assimilation the way people talk about French assimilation as was mentioned at other points in this thread where immigrants adopt French mannerisms but that American immigrants adopt some American mannerisms while bringing their own that other Americans adopt. I used really simple and identifiable culture parts like food.


Silicon Valley would rather hire foreigners than hire black Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/technology/silicon-valley-... ...

"Google revealed that its tech work force was 1 percent black, compared with 60 percent white. Yahoo disclosed in July that African-Americans made up 1 percent of its tech workers while Hispanics were 3 percent."

Affirmative Action has worked in other industries.

Why does it fail in Silicon Valley?


Simply stating a number like that adds absolutely nothing of value. There are a lot of questions you need the answers to in order to make any kind of judgment:

- What is the racial makeup of the accepted applicant pool?

- What is the racial makeup of the interviewed applicant pool (including those not extended offers)?

- What is the racial makeup of the overall applicant pool (including those not invited for interviews)?

- What is the racial makeup of people otherwise qualified to apply?

The whole way up to the overall population of I think 12-13% African-American. Even without seeing numbers I can guarantee that African-American applicants to Google and Yahoo are much closer to 1% than they are to 13%. It's a systemic problem (I am not referring to systemic racism) and you need to address the root causes of each stage.

But it's much easier to say "Silicon Valley is racist" I guess.

Edit: And assuming that average foreign worker is equivalently skilled and cheaper than average American worker, of course they're going to favor hiring the foreign worker. It's economics.


How about non-engineering applicants? Why is there also little or non-existing black non-engineering (accountants, lawyers, project managers) staff in SV?


"It's a systemic problem (I am not referring to systemic racism)"

Well don't keep it to yourself...what is this systemic problem that's not racism?


Silicon Valley can recruit and train African Americans.

Why not do it?


Probably because it's totally asinine to say to someone "Hey you're black, come work for us!"

If you're suggesting that African American Computer Science majors should all get hired immediately out of school so that Google can increase its count from 1.0% to 1.02%, it doesn't work like that.

Two things in this discussion actually matter if you want to affect meaningful change:

1. The racial makeup of graduating Computer Science majors compared to the makeup of the US population. If only 2% of graduating CS majors are from a race that makes up 13% of the US population, you will never have anything approaching proportional representation.

2. The racial makeup of applicants compared to the makeup of those applicants extended offers. This is really the step where, if there are company-level systemic issues around race, they will show up. If 10% of your applicants are a given race but 1% are extended offers there might actually be an issue. This is much harder to determine because not only is it very hard to get the data, but you need a sufficient number of applications to get meaningful results. If you only get 100 resumes a year for a dozen positions, you won't get anything useful here.


The real question is why do it?


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Everyone is the direct descendant of Africans. That's not what "Black" means in the sense it's being used. The people you are talking about are culturally Dravidian Indian, not culturally African-American.


"black" as commonly used in America refers to people of sub-Saharan descent. It does not have much to do with actual skin color.


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> Did you read the article?

Please don't. The HN guidelines specifically ask you not to: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10945107 and marked it off-topic.


Did you? Google FB etc. are hiring MIT, Stanford etc. graduates what a surpise :) they are hiring people who started coding when they were kids as opposed to people who picked up SE in college no way!


I don't think this is true, I went to a very small not well known college in Canada and a classmate of mine went straight to Google after finishing his CS degree.

Good companies generally hire off of provable skills not "how early" you started learning.


Which parts are not true:

1) Majority of employees at Google FB etc are graduates of top tech schools.

2) Majority of employees started coding and had interest in CS before college.

How likely you are to be good at CS if you never had an interest in CS before college :)? I have a lot of friends from Easternn Europe now working at Google, Apple, FB, but this anecdotal evidence does not change the fact that majority of SEs there are graduates of top tech schools.


It might be true that the majority are coming out of top tech schools, I really have no way of knowing that. However, I'm skeptical about how important the school is to Google as an employer given their rigorous screening process. Coming from a top tech school certainly can't hurt but I don't believe the school you go to necessarily dictates what quality of engineer you are, though it can increase your opportunities for sure.

On the second point, I think interest prior to University is certainly helpful but saying it's a majority is just an anecdotal conjecture itself.


To Google school is not important it is important to the top rated Universities that Google is hiring people from :)


Do you happen to have any evidence for #2? I work at one of those companies and picked up coding in college, and so did at least a few of my coworkers. I really have no idea how common it is and would love to know.


#2 I have no evidence that time spent learning and practicing a particular discipline influences skill level, but I am guessing that there is a correlation :). For majority of top schools aside from Barkley it is not a prerequisite to enter into CS program. From people I personally know which is not a representative sample I'd say 50/50 but it skewed by good number of them having Stats./Math as original major and then CS Masters or Ph.D.


Should we bother? With a title like that, they don't seem interested in meaningful dialog.


No, you shouldn't. It presents a problem only to tell you many paragraphs later that indeed many companies are working on it. Of course you have to ride their emotional roller-coaster 'til you end up there.


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We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines.


Says the guy with the alphabet soup as a comment.


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We've banned this account. When a new account shows up and breaks the HN guidelines this badly, we ban it.


Yay!


This is like those folks who say that Arabs can't be anti-semitic because Arabic is a Semitic language and the Arabic people are a Semitic people. Or that some people are anti-semitic because of their hostility towards Arabs.

At best, they're ignorant of the fact that the word "anti-semitic" is not defined literally but rather defined by the historical, sociological, cultural, and linguistic context in which it was minted and used over the intervening years.

But usually the folks who say those things tend to have other, totally unrelated problems with the Jewish people. They were just making a point about people's sloppy word usage — really!

So it is for "black" when used in the racial sense, at least in the US. It is not as simple as black = genetic ancestors from Africa.

Somehow I suspect you understand this...somehow.


Yes. I do. Which is why the article is so ridiculous. What really defines who is black? Wesley Snipes is black because he's the darkest guy in Hollywood? What about a dark skinned Indian who shares 100% of the extra melanin generating genes? Maybe he's even darker than Wesley Snipes. But no... it must be a lighter skinned mulatto (most of the "blacks" you refer to have white ancestry due to race mixing) whose ancestors were slaves in America to consider them to be black right?


I can't tell if you're being sincere, but your attitude is common enough among well-meaning STEM types that I'll assume you are.

There never was nor will there ever be a cut-and-dried, scientifically-precise definition of "black." That's because the concept of "being black" and, in fact, the entire modern notion of "race" are inherently political in the broadest sense of the term. They were invented and subsequently weaponized as a means for a certain class of people to achieve their political outcomes at the expense of another class of people.

Again, I'm talking about the US only.

You are "black" if you are collectively labeled as "black", treated as "black", and are otherwise identified in whole or in part by your "black-ness". Yes, that means that someone's "black-ness" might vary across time, geography, socioeconomic status, who they're interacting with, and any number of other squishy-wishy, imprecise axes.

The idea that "being black" corresponds to something concrete and inherent in a person is part of the lie at the heart of the concept of "race".

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about these things better than anyone I know. Here's an essay of his that touches on this idea: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi...

Appropriately enough given the original link, the most relevant section begins with "My only Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University."


Computer programming is one of the most cognitively demanding professions in existence. Ability to program correlates pretty highly with cognitive test scores, such as the SAT Math. If you look at the top scorers on such tests in America, only about 1% are black. The ratio of black engineers in Silicon Valley matches what you would expect based on the test scores.

To see it visually, this is the bell curve based on millions of test results: http://i.imgur.com/zB1oENS.png?1 There are very simply very few black people in the far-right portion. This is not even a disputed fact (the dispute is mainly over why the curve is skewed and if it can be fixed; the existence of the skew is incontrovertible).

This was at least partly because of the way companies recruited: From 2001 to 2009, more than 20 percent of all black computer science graduates attended an historically black school, according to federal statistics—yet the Valley wasn’t looking for candidates at these institutions.

The average SAT scores at Howard are thoroughly mediocre, on par with second and tier state colleges, and you would not expect an elite school to concentrate on Howard, any more than you would expect it to concentrate on Southern Illinois University or the like. The only reason an elite company would recruit at Howard is for diversity reasons.

Foreman is strong-willed, which sometimes gets him in trouble. “I just chalked it up to soft skills, I guess,” he says, explaining that he and his interviewer had clashed. Pratt says he’d been “furious” to learn that Foreman had been passed over. Other companies said no, too.

So was he a good programmer or not? How do we the readers know that he good do the job and was passed up unfairly?

The phenomenon, “stereotype threat,” is getting more attention in the Valley, and companies have begun training employees to be aware of it.

The idea of stereotype threat is extremely dubious - http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/10/john-list-on-virtual-none...

“She doesn’t fit the profile of what people think of when they think of engineers. Even though people think of Silicon Valley as a big meritocracy, I don’t think that’s how it works.”

There are now a number of companies that do automated programming interviews -- Starfighter, Hacker Rank, etc. Do these manage to overcome stereotype threat? Do these blind interviews allow through more African-Americans? Before throwing around slanderous accusations, one should actually show that Silicon Valley is treating people with the same programming ability differently.

The sad thing is that these tech companies cannot just admit, "We don't recruit at Howard because the SAT scores are not there." Rather these companies have to pretend that anyone can be a great programmer if they just put in the work, and a lot of people end up with false hopes that only get crushed.


Wow, I'm sorry, but programming is not that demanding. Theoretical CS work can be, but the typical programmer is working on maintaining a crud app, especially as a junior developer.


Is it just me? I find it unbelievably demanding. I think writing even relatively simple web apps almost always turns into something mind numbingly difficult. The amount of extremely dense material you have to read and ingest, the number of things you have to stitch together, all of which claim to be easy but in fact require deeper understanding because they never quite do what you need them to, the abstraction of what you have to understand… and then, on top of it, almost nothing is greenfield, so you have to go down a really deep and dark rabbit hole of someone else's highly intricate logic.

What can I say? I consider it to be one of the hardest things I've done. I have no idea how people find it easy, but clearly some do.

A lot of the horrendous complexity in our field comes from churn. But hey whatever the vector, it is (and of course this is just my opinion) hellaciously demanding.

Just a quick note, my post here is intended as a narrow response to the specific claim that programming is not demanding, not the general comment tree.


I'd say only the interviews have become demanding!


Your "sources" are dubious (at best). Why don't you link to some studies that back up your imgur you got from chimpout or some other fine upstanding white nationalist blog.


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The article you linked to failed to factor in stereotype threat, which suggests the authors have no idea how accurate the IQ test really is. Just because you're not asking questions like "Does the salad fork go on the outside or the inside?" doesn't mean the test is bias-free.


The book this "evidence" comes from is the much derided "Bell Curve." The poster is a HN racist troll. I checked his comment history and he pretty much only posts stuff similar to this.


I gave a link to stereotype threat earlier - http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/10/john-list-on-virtual-none... And keep in mind, even if the studies were replicable, the studies did not even show that stereotype threat shows up in the real world, or that it causes the one standard deviation gap. What the original study showed was that on a non-meaningful test, if the professor suggests a stereotype, the gap in test scores grows bigger than one standard deviation.

I think the whole idea of stereotype threat is ridiculous. Just because of a stereotype I'm going to get dozens of questions wrong on the SAT? That just does not make any sense. (And now that we have a black president who was from Harvard Law, wouldn't we see average LSAT scores start to converge, surely there would be less of stereotype against black people in law).


HN accounts aren't supposed to be used just for ideological purposes. HN is a community, and the threads are conversations. That dynamic isn't served when someone shows up only to post lengthy, prepared screeds on tendentious topics.


If the top article on the Hacker News home page contradicts the evidence and the data that I have read, what am I supposed to do? I did not paste in a pre-written screed. I have read a lot on this subject, so I had a bunch of links and sources at my fingertips. It seems to me that posting as someone who has read a lot on this issue, and who can cite sources, is a much greater net contribution to the discussion than otherwise.

And yeah, I understand that my particular account has an ideological bent to it. I wish one account could fully represent who I am. But I am a active HN member with a long history of posts on all sorts of issues. But for obvious reasons, in cases where I believe the truth is highly politically incorrect, I have to post on a different account. I do try to respect the spirit of the guidelines, but I am not sure what I should do differently going forward.


The very idea that you can abstract IQ from socio-economic status has no basis in science. The idea that IQ is a measure of intrinsic intelligence is also not accepted. There's a reason race is not accepted as a biological handicap anywhere but in white supremacy circles and it's not political correctness.


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> the 3 asshats that downvoted me

Please don't do this; the HN guidelines ask you not to.

Also, on (understandably) emotional topics, it's best if you represent your view more substantively and less angrily. People often downvote the latter kind of comment even when they agree with it.


All human fields of study are very messy, they are not precise sciences in the way that Newton's laws are.

IQ tests are designed to be excellent proxies for what we generally understand to be intelligence. They can be better or worse proxies depending on the circumstance. In the particular case of testing black Americans, the IQ tests are quite predictive, and the world looks like what we would expect, if the tests were indeed actually testing intelligence. What is your evidence that IQ tests are poor proxies in the case of testing African-Americans?

A great deal of data seems to show that IQ still is very predictive, even when accounting for socio-economic status. That is exactly what they were originally designed for. SAT tests for instance were designed to find students from poorer and more marginalized backgrounds who nonetheless were still very smart and could achieve if given the chance. This is all covered in the Bell Curve, and well some professors thought that Murray exaggerated the degree of certainty, no one showed that his data was false, nor that the conclusion was false.

Believe it or not, I used to be much more in your camp, but after reading a bunch of sources, including the Bell Curve, Gould's the Mismeasure of Man, dozens of papers from scientists contesting the Bell Curve, responses to those papers, and so on, I came to the conclusions I did. Personally, I would much prefer if the evidence had said otherwise. I don't like being called a racist asshat. But given the evidence is what it is, I don't think it is fair to accuse Silicon Valley of judging people by race over merit, simply based on hiring statistics.

race is not accepted as a biological handicap

That's not an accurate phrasing of my view. If a black person has a 130IQ, they have a 130IQ and their race is not a handicap. No person should view their race as a handicap, or be personally stereotyped based on their race. It is just statistically less likely that a black person has a 130IQ. And that was what the original charge was based on -- the statistical underrepresentation of black people in Silicon Valley.


And my question is - why are there so few white players in NBA? This is racist! Protest that!


The same reason as there were no Black people nominated for Oscars.


You say this, and I hate to point out the obvious, but look there has to be a cut off point for Affirmative Action somewhere... and it turns out to win an Oscar you have to be the best. Just like companies want the best coders. The best isn't a quota.

If you want a quota for black / female / 8-finger coders... have a quota, but the market has yet to make a business case for this being beneficial. (The case could be made in preventing PR gaffes like how Facebook banned all the people with "ethnic" names a few years ago by mistake... but I think these instances are somewhat few and far between.)

I'd guess this has more to do with:

1) black people not having the same access to computers / technology early on (much of what we learn as technologists comes far before college starts),

2) black students often get into college through Affirmative Action, so they may not have been as strong to start with, and

3) black students don't tend to graduate with the same rates / grades others do -- which makes it harder to get interviews / offers.

I don't know what the solution is here, but when you find it we can also use it to get equal white guys in the NBA.


Look at every notable tech company ever, do you see many black people involved in the founding? Why is that?


Totally unrelated to the issue. There is very likely to be some bias on behalf of people making investment decisions, your level of access has significant impact on likelihood of getting funded. On the other hand there are strong diversity programs at universities that article mentions (MIT etc.) and SE are generally hired based on their abilities.


Let's assume there is this black guy / girl sitting in the interview room with you. You (white) are asking interview questions and you soon realise that the person you are interviewing is excellent. But something is off, you can't really put your finger on it. What do you do?


You become honest with yourself and admit that your inability to "put your finger on it" betrays incompetence at your job in interviewing candidates.


How does the color of the person affect this situation?


Good question, and my point is that most people don't ask themselves this question. There is probably nothing wrong with the candidate at all, the "off" you feel is just the different color.


I would do the good ol' "so, tell me about yourself."


> What do you do?

Seek psychiatric help and you'll be OK, hopefully.




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