For those looking for a more nuanced understanding of this than the eternal American fight about whether "X is/is not racist", go take some of the tests at Harvard's Project Implicit:
When I took them, I was pretty confident that I was, as a well-meaning nerd, beyond any sort of racial bias. I was wrong.
Although I am deeply opposed to racism consciously, various bits of racial bias lurked in my wiring. It's sort of like how even a very smart person can have plenty of dumb ideas or dumb reactions, especially on topics they haven't paid attention to. Since I took those tests, I've been much more aware of those biases, which a) lets me minimize the effects, b) helps me undermine them over time, and c) has made me much better able to see the subtle effects of racial bias generally.
I would ask people not to take the test immediately, but rather first spend time on the authors' distinction about implicit racial attitudes. Racial bias in this sense is entirely different than overt racism, but still as important. Admitting that you've unintentionally learned the statistical biases present in our culture is not admitting you're a racist. When you're ok with that statement (which can be difficult given the charged USian history of race!), take the test.
I am fed up with all the bla bla around this issue. Really. Look, if you think there is racism in the tech field (let us define this narrowly as prejudices against blacks; prejudices against Indians and Chinese are, I think, a bit different), stop writing cute, angry blog posts; instead write about what the solution is and what you are doing about it.
That there are too few blacks in the tech industry is a fact. The reason is actually very simple (as others have commented): African-Americans are underrepresented in CS, EE, and other tech fields. This is similar to the issue of the dearth of women in these fields. Now, the reasons for this are complex and are not easy to solve. So, instead, while waiting for the root causes and biases to go away, be pragmatic and solve the problem at hand.
The solution is easy, but is not affirmative action or specialized VCs or quotas: It's as simple as increasing the demand of black (or women) programmers.
How to do this? I am working as a software mentor for two FIRST Robotics Teams in Chicago South Side, these teams are almost all black and this is their first exposure to programming (unfortunately, we have to use C++ for first exposure!) So, I alone have the power to introduce 5-10 black programmers to tech community! Assume I have 20% success, which is really lousy, that means 1-2 programmers. If 1K people do this, that's 1K more black programmers on the market.
Another example: Finding that the teams on the Apps for Metro Chicago challenge were all-male, my friend Pallavi quickly assembled an all-female team of college students, who won the second prize (http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6262) and were featured in the local press.
So, same as starting a company: you don't need anybody's permission to start helping kids to solve this problem.
The problem is for this to work at scale you really need to make programming/entrepreneurship desirable for your African Americans. This is easy for sports and entertainment, because the stars are so visible. But who knows who Peter Thiel is outside of a very small niche. Vinod Khosla?
And this is why I think the black incubators make sense. You can bring the idea of an incubator into the inner city and recruit young people of color and if a handful get modest success it will begin to breed something in their community.
All this is easier said than done and maybe even misguided, but I think that's the idea.
You are right. However, not knowing successful entrepreneurs (while being able to name 20 different rappers) is not unique to black high schoolers, so it's up to the mentor to create motivation and make these stories known, e.g. take them to the Social Network movie and explain that that guy in the hoodie is now worth billions, much more than Jay Z.
I don't know about the misguided part, but it's definitely not easier said than done, a lot of people are doing it (although juggling work and a kid is demanding). The response I'm getting from the kids is just awesome.
So, for ordinary engineers like me, the solution is simple: mentor those who you think are underrepresented.
BTW: it's a pity that in FIRST girls around encouraged much, most teams are more than 95% boys.
take them to the Social Network movie and explain that that guy in the hoodie is now worth billions, much more than Jay Z.
A white, upper-middle class student at an Ivy League, versus a black guy with a single mom from the Bed-Stuy housing projects. I don't think it's a very good comparison.
And I say this as a white guy with a working middle class upbringing who works on social networking software, and I still have a real hard time identifying with Zuckerburg.
He's saying that black people and women are under-represented in CS. I think most people would agree that Indians and Chinese people are not underrepresented, but also can face prejudice.
I'm black and a software engineer for 14 yrs (college degree), and although I know there are racist people out there, I've never encountered any even once in 14 years across a ton of companies (startups, fortune 500 companies, etc)
If you can produce something of value, no one gives a shit about your race. The hundreds of people I've met in tech have been race blind as far as i could tell. I think the tech industry in general is a meritocracy from my experience.
I would never join a race based startup, as that seems quite lame to me. Then again, perhaps I'm an outlier as I think race based anything is stupid (BET, etc). We're like 99.9% the same yet people think a chemical within their skin alters something intrinsically about us. Absurd
It really comes down to poor role models in the black community, poor education & not enough resources. Why would anyone care about your race if you are producing.
I think racist people in tech would be the exception, not the rule.
Racism exists everywhere. In fact, prejudice of all kinds does. And probably always will.
I worked a company where the employees felt it was okay to make racist or sexist jokes with the person in the room, so long as the person didn't appear to mind. It made me terribly uncomfortable, but short of going to management, nothing I said or did mattered. (I didn't make an ass of myself, though. If the person isn't going to stand up for themselves, with me already standing, I'm not going to risk my job for them.)
Maybe those people didn't really mind. I know I don't mind when my ancestry is made fun of, so long as it's along typical stereotype lines. (Pointed attacks on my particular ancestors or family are another matter.)
I think we, as a species, have a long way to go in regards to dealing with each other. We have somehow never learned to treat each other with basic respect.
Maybe they didn't mind. But I've definitely heard friends in various non-dominant groups tell stories about the racist, sexist, or anti-gay bias they've listened to politely because they liked their jobs more than they liked being honest about the fact that they thought their co-workers were irredeemable assholes. No way to tell, really.
I will say, though, that the experience is very different when you're part of the dominant group. As a white male in the US, when people make jokes about some portion of my mongrel ancestry, it really doesn't matter. But when I was living in South America, jokes about Americans had a whole new edge to them. Sometimes they really were funny and welcome. But sometimes they weren't because the person really had something against gringos. That was at times really uncomfortable, and I occasionally wondered what it meant for my physical safety. I still laughed either way, though. Ha! Ha ha!
I found it hard to believe they didn't mind, even if I know I wouldn't. In 1 case, I was sure the person minded, but he told me repeated that he didn't. This person was an excellent coder, and ended up quitting a couple years later. The quit was probably for some of the other working conditions that didn't go well with his personality (he couldn't say 'no', they kept asking unreasonable things) but I think the whole package mattered.
I also see your point about it mattering more when you aren't part of the majority, or if you felt there might be a threat to your person.
Just to get it out of the way: no one who has ever posted on Hacker News or has ever been even slightly associated with the Bay Area tech scene is the least bit racist. We are all 100.0000% meritocratic, and when we popped out of the womb we were instantly the most color-blind people in history. This is a given, and anyone who would say otherwise is a whiner who's just too lazy and stupid to code. (This, by the way, is also how we know that people here are not at all sexist or homophobic and have highly progressive views on gender. We're just that good.)
Now that that's out of the way, we can talk about the role of race in tech. I think it'd be useful to divide it into four categories.
1) Race as felt through through social structure. Minorities (defined as AA, Native American, and Latinos) have less access to educational resources than other ethnicities. This is a broader social injustice, and tech can't be held responsible for it. Tech is also hard at work to help mitigate this problem, though with varying levels of success.
2) Race as felt through choice of majors. Minorities disproportionately choose not to major in techy fields. This is in large part due to a combination of 1) and 3) (to follow). Even to the extent that minorities do have access to high quality education, it tends to be more liberal arts and non-techy. Minorities may also perceive that the tech scene tends to be less friendly toward them.
3) Race as felt through network effects. This, I think, is probably the biggest cause of the recent complaints. Everyone knows here how valuable having their social community overlap at least somewhat with the tech community is. Knowing someone who knows someone is how you get jobs and get involved in new projects. And you learn a whole lot through these informal interactions (having no CS background, I only learned about Lisp on a date).
People whom we know are usually of similar racial and class backgrounds. Not through any conscious decisions, but because of shared interests and the fact that people make friends through other nodes in their own social networks, nodes that have the same tendency of showing race and class similarity.
4) Racist prejudice. Examples of this are the null set, because no one here is at all racist.
In the end, though, 3) builds off of itself. You start out as an isolated island, and if you don't break out of it you'll never achieve your full potential. Once you do get pulled into it, though, the sky's the limit.
The question we should be asking is how to deal with 3).
Great comment. I love a good, nuanced look at racial issues. Generally smart people seem unable to use their analytical skills when it comes to race or other social issues. It's disappointing.
Over the course of the three days, the customer made endless racial and ethnic slurs directed at B.
Customer is a 'government owned military installation'. What branch? What site?
Was the customer military or civilian contractor?
The military is [1] _death_ on racisim, sexism, favoritism. Just does not happen. When it does it gets squashed.
While the military one thing, the individual service members are another. It's a very masculine culture, not unheard of for best friends to insult each other with words, phrases, etc that would sound blisteringly insulting to an outsider. But which are understood by the participants to be 'funnin' around'.
I conjecture: could 'B' have been hooked up with a guy who was trying to bond and it mis-fired?
[1] My last direct experience was 1993, when I separated. I have several friends who are enlisted, my step-son has been in the army since 1999.
> The military is [1] _death_ on racisim, sexism, favoritism
Officially, yes, but that's probably BS.
This reminds me of two anecdotes about the IDF (not to make this about Israel -- it's just the data that I have):
1) One friend assured me that any soldier acting improperly would be disciplined immediately, as the IDF had very high standards, etc. etc.
2) Another friend used to tell me stories about his IDF stint and how he and his friends would get high on guard duty all the time.
So ... just because you were in a military, doesn't mean that you know what's going down with everyone.
Also, the attitude that you evidence in your post makes it less likely that you'll know the truth, because you'll be more resistant to contrary evidence.
Treat truth as stochastic/unknown. We don't know the truth. Now ask "what practices or attitudes will tend to help me discover what is true? What practices or attitudes will tend to obscure the truth?"
The attitude "nope that can't be happening because organization X is so disciplined" obscures the truth. Especially in an organization that emphasizes loyalty and duty.
I feel you're not speaking to my actual argument, so I want to try to clear something up:
> Actual expertise trumps ignorance and anecdotes, always.
You are not an expert in other peoples experiences, only your own. We have a case here where one guy says "this could never happen". Another guy says "I used to do that all the time". Only one of them can be right, even though we accept both of their experiences as true.
If the first guy simply said "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening, and therefore I doubt that it could happen", then they could both be right, and the evidence matches both of their beliefs.
The mistake is to go from "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening" to "It cannot/did not happen", especially when someone else says it did happen.
That's all I'm arguing. I am not doubting your experience.
The IDF, which has strengths and weaknesses, is not the US military. The main relevant difference here is that the IDF is composed of every 18 year old in the country (pretty much), whereas the US military is only composed of those who want to be in the military. The kind of kids who will get high on guard duty in Israel won't ever join the military in the US.
Interesting point, but not really relevant to my argument.
What's most interesting about these IDF anecdotes is that you have one ex-soldier completely dismissing behaviour that another ex-soldier admits to. That pattern can generalize to any org, regardless of volunteer / non-volunteer selection. I.e. they can't both be right. One of them is over-generalizing.
EDIT>
I.e. saying "No one in org X is doing Y" is much less likely (given an individual's limited personal experience) than saying "someone in org X is probably doing Y".
The OP said "Org X has property P." You responded with "Org Y does not have property P, and Org Y is like Org X." I claim the second half of that - that things that are true about the IDF are likely to be true about the US military - cannot be assumed. Even ignoring the significant cultural differences between the two countries, there are differences in the demographics the militaries themselves are composed of.
I was making a claim about large organizations that depend on loyalty, not even specifically military organizations.
So, the specific difference between military organizations and cultures are neatly excluded.
The pattern (of which I gave a specific example) is:
Person X in large org Y claims something is true for ALL members of org Y, based on X's personal experience.
I submit that humans being what they are and organizations being what they are, it's more likely that there are bad behaviours that are tolerated in sub-organizations of Y even if they violate the officially stated rules.
TL;DR Without perfect knowledge it's better to assume that something somewhere is going wrong than to assume that nothing anywhere is going wrong.
A lot of science, engineering and process control basically boils down to this. Why do we forget it when dealing with human systems?
Behavior/discipline will necessarily be noisier in a conscripted organization than in a self-selected volunteer organization. I don't think you can generalize that away.
Yeah, some people are genuinely racist, but the fact is that most aren't. What most people incorrectly call "racism" is actually culture fit issues.
When someone's culture is sufficiently different from yours, it becomes enough of an unknown to engender fear. And fear due to the unknown leads to paranoid thought, usually at the subconscious level.
For example, if you get a job candidate whose demeanor screams "from the hood", you'll definitely pass him/her over. The last thing you want is for them to start a fight over "respect", or bring some "friends" over to rob the place (deliberate hyperbole, yes, but this is how the subconscious works). Similarly, anyone who has had much contact with Indian culture will know that fraud and corruption are tolerated far more readily than they are in the West. This means that you need to be on your guard lest the person of that culture starts behaving as if in that culture. I've seen it happen enough times in my own experiences, so this is not just idle speculation. This is also why second gen people have a much easier time of it.
You may argue that you shouldn't "sell out" on your culture just to get ahead ("acting white", for example). I would argue that in remaining "true to your roots", you hobble yourself by deliberately refusing to make it easier for the majority to accept you.
I've lived on both sides of this issue. I've seen actually racist people, but far more often I've seen people who are afraid of the cultural divide, and move to protect themselves accordingly. I've also seen people change their own culture to better match the one of the majority, and they made FAR better lives for themselves than those who refused to do so.
Do racism and sexism exist? Of course they do. And in the rare cases where you DO encounter the real thing, it is your duty as a civilized person to put a stop to it. But when it's merely a culture issue, raising a stink about it will do nothing more than stir up resentment.
People don't like to argue with people they deem incapable of understanding the topic at hand. I hit your hyperbole and read no further because I deemed your take unintelligent and poorly argued. Hence #downvote
It honestly wasn't meant to be rude but I thought most other people would also stop reading and dismiss it and it wouldn't be productive if you took that to mean you'd argued a great point and stumped the community. Your assertions stomp all over sensitive issues on all sides of the issue, you use race-related language that could be considered inflammatory. If your point was about cultural sensitivity on both sides of the divide then perhaps you could have started by showing some in your post. Hope that helps to clarify.
Not really... I used some inflammatory language as an example of how paranoid thought would germinate as fear of an unknown brought someone to the extreme of the "what if". Kind of like how parents fears can grow into a near certainty that their child has been abducted by an axe murderer because he's an hour late coming home from school.
The rest of the post is about fitting in so that you don't trigger that fear response. In essence, comporting yourself in the same manner as is the standard in business in the area you find yourself in (i.e. no surprising behavior). I've made a habit of taking this approach, and it's worked quite well for me. I also know a number of others who refused to do this, and are now bitter over the rejection they suffered (sometimes to the level of violence, actually, which didn't help at all).
As a Black developer, from an under privileged urban area, without a degree (but went to college for CS) I can can say that I agree with Arrington. The reason there aren't more minorities heading to the valley is because they aren't exposed to the possibilities. I know out of all the black developers I know I'm one of the few with aspersions of doing my own thing (NoBadGift.com) let alone know that that's an option.
This is not to say that I haven't experienced racism in my career in technology. Shoot I have people turn me away because I went to college at an HBCU (Historically Black College & University). Yet, I don't think that was because I in this industry just those individuals bias and I know if there were more minorities exposed to the idea of being entrepreneurs then there would be far more in the valley.
Don't worry though I hope to be one of those that help with this problem
SN: for anyone who has never experience racism consider yourself lucky. True story: (mind you I am a well established ,for my age, government contractor.) After exceeding all of a clients expectations on a project I later had a co-worker come and tell me how shocked that a black person could code let alone do it well and that he thought I was only on the team as a ploy by the company to diversify. Then expected me to take that as a compliment lol. Now that's only one of many stories i can tell. Just my 2 cent
I know hacker news crowd is different and most you have not worked in traditional companies so to those who will say racism is practiced by minority, here is my one of the favorite anecdote. I understand anecdote is not data but I have a personal collection of self-experienced anecdotes ,spanning multiple years and client.
I work as an outsourced contracted consultant on a client which outsources to 2 outsourcing firms A(Indian) and B(Native). I work for firm A. Client had a seemingly untraceable problem which was not solved for more than a year.CTO personally used to come to my manager’s desk and express his frustration of not able to resolve the issues. End users were constantly complaining to him. So task force was prepared to which used to meet every day for hours and talk in circles with no resolution. They were not even able to devise an attack plan. I have some reputation for tackling this kind of stuff so they persuaded my managers and started inviting me to their meetings.
After couple of days of investigation I was able to devise a plan and find out the root cause and resolution to the problem. Actual was hilarious and sad at the same time. It was a bigger issue with overall design of the datacentres which was originally designed by vendor B. Millions were wasted because someone failed to understand how TCP/IP layers interact with each other.
I know communication is important so I kept everyone updated and prepared a detailed analysis in doc and ppt format. The moment my analysis was out, guess what Vendor B tried to blame internet for not behaving to make his solution work and client rallied behind him. When I shot down his bullshit argument , me and my firm were taken out of loop and separate meetings with vendor B started to propose potentials solutions. After couple of months of proposing bullshit they again came to us and we provided the solution. Guess what ? We were out of the loop again and solution implementation started by hiring a third vendor C(Native again!!) along with vendor B.
So one of their customers is racist and now racism is "alive and well". Seems like they were living in a bubble if they thought racism no longer existed.
Frankly, I expect that there is far more discrimination against foreign born Indians and Chinese in Silicon Valley than there are against black Americans. I've seen it. I don't believe it to be racism since it is rarely directed towards anyone who was born in the US regardless of their descent.
I think there is a very real sense of lack of shared cultural values and overlapping social circles.
During my stint at a certain mid-sized company in Mountain View that happened to hire quite a few H1Bs, I noticed that engineering teams were split. You had a tight knit group of people who were American/Western European and sometimes Japanese and then you had foreign-born Indians and Chinese who socialized with other foreign-born Indians and Chinese in other parts of the company rather than with their own team.
I really don't see how racism in tech is relevant, because
a) Nobody knows or cares who wrote a piece of software, because 99.9% of the time, the customer never sees the photo of the author
b) If your software is super-hot and gaining a lot of traction and people are smelling the money, they will not care what colour you are
c) For those tiny number of people who don't have traction and want other peoples money, the colour of your skin may give you a disadvantage with some particular money givers, but it will give you an advantage with other money givers
In general, for the success of your product to be affected by peoples prejudices against you or the colour of your skin, you would have to belong to a very unlucky 99.99%. If that happens, well, bad luck, try again. That's what entrepreneurship is all about, isn't it?
If you look at fortune 500 companies, most are run by tall, old white men over 50. The reality in today's world is that if you're a short black woman (for example), you're up against huge discrimination that runs deep in mainstream society.
I found this article the other day that Female Fortune 500 CEOs were at an "all time high". Female CEOs represent just about 3.6% of Fortune 500 company heads. That's 18, a new record. And it's not a very multicultural bunch: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/female-fortune-500-...
The issue is not "crap", it's a very real issue that a lot of people experience every day. Thank-you to Brad Feld for putting the spotlight on this issue into the tech world, at least for a few hours.
Not to exclude racism from the picture, but look at the requirements profferred for CEO: experience in the field, wisdom and experience in a management position. Given this it makes sense that many CEOs would be white males in their 50s. They have experience in the field. They should have gotten wise (though, that's anybody's guess). They would have had management experience during their 30s and 40s. So the question is how many, as you said, short black women were looking to be CEOs of a F500 company 30 years ago when they were in their 20s? Probably not that many. Given that there are only a tiny number of F500 CEO positions (500 or so), that small initial population is competing with a large pool of white men, men in general and taller, non black women.
It will be interesting to look at CEO ratios in 20-30 years. That's about the time you'll start seeing women (more in the work force now then every, especially better educated) start to have the paper credentials to fill those roles.
It's not clear to me how one distinguishes being treated differently because they are a minority, from being treated differently because they are an incompetent ass. And nothing stops the latter from being used as an anecdote in support of claimed racism.
The gist of this whole story is that CNN is a lousy source of information about anything. Most of us have known this for at least five years. Cable journalism is an industry in which a group of people with no specialized knowledge at all, reporters, get to go on TV and pontificate as if things were otherwise. Move on.
This was a really stupid comment. Seems like youre implying playing basketball is innate ability attributed to being black, and that blacks being discriminated in tech is similar so they should stop complaining. In reality, this is a really immature perspective, as most people could probably work in the tech industry regardless of race. Poor parenting, poor education, socio-economics etc are the real factors. Being Asian has nothing to do with playing basketball poorly. Blacks can excel in tech with the proper upbringing and environment.
The issue is your being denied a spot in a pickup game doesn't hinder your ability to thrive financially. Potential racism in tech absolutely will. This isn't something to "live with".
I have no college education, came from single family home blah blah womp womp.
I have launched 10+ projects for clients this year alone. I have 1 failed contract where I left because it just didn't work out.
When I had success it was not because I was black and when I failed it was not because I was black. Both when I have succeeded and when I have failed was never been treated like anything but an equal by my peers.
I personally thing that the NewMe accelerator is total crap and should not exit. What strategic advantage comes from going to a "black" incubator? I dont have a black startup because I dont have all black customers. The one thing this has managed to accomplish is to distract people from finding and solving huge problems and instead focus on some BS issue that has no value.
My only advice to "black" and other entrepreneurs is shut up, go code and make something awesome. The rest will take care of itself.
This entire issue is being exploited to get attention for Angela Benton and her new accelerator. I dont think its fair to cast a shadow over the awesome people I have had the opportunity to work with over the last 12 years in this field simply because someone wants to get some press at the expense of others.
The racism that I've come in contact with (in corporate settings at least) is towards people from India. Not people born here and of Indian descent, but people from India with Indian culture. It would probably be better to call it "culturism" or bias against a culture instead of racism. When you go on a contract and you see 20 employees 50-80% of them being from India and 0% of them in management or even team lead positions, that's an indicator. It's an even bigger indicator when all of said employees have been there for 5-10 years or longer and are willing to manage. The absolute smoking gun is when current the managers bring zero to the table (completely incompetent). These positions in large companies are often obviously filled with friends with no merit, technical know how, or leadership ability. As a side note I'm black as well, and I feel I know these biases when I see them.
I work at a large 20+K consulting firm and there is exactly one Indian on my current project, the female Indian project manager. None on the one before that, and before that one the project manager. It's a diverse world out there and while people blame persistent racism my first boss was a black man with a degree from standard and there is simple not a lot of people in that category. Not just for economic reasons but also because your talking about a smaller overall population.
There are many funnels in immigration and education but talking about them like they shape people is missing the point. It's a selection process and the kind of people that can jump though the right hoops are the people that make it to the other side. In 20 years you will see plenty of Indian middle management but you can expect to see yet another round of 'glass sealing' debate not because people can't get their but because so few parents knew how to set that trajectory in motion.
I guess it depends on the company. I'm doing a co-op at Ericsson right now and my manager's Arab, my team lead is Indian, and my supervisor's a Chinese woman. The male/female ratio is probably 80:20 and the racial breakdown is something like 50% ethnic Chinese (1st/2nd gen), 30% Indian, and 20% white. All of these numbers are fairly representative of the makeup of the tech industry in Vancouver, so I can't say I've seen any prejudice or favoritism here.
In a large corporate setting with lots of dumb management, a majority of those Indians are going to be contractors, and a majority of them will be on work visas.
Why is that relevant? They are hired guns, who are supposed to go when the project ends. And they are exploited to the hilt by their staffing agencies.
Racist? I don't think so. Exploitive and amoral? Absolutely.
There are many examples of Indians leading technology businesses and managing technology departments in the US. In many ways, the Indian immigrants who get green-cards or citizenship are probably the best example of the mythical "melting pot" in today's society.
The probable reason why you see 50-80% Indians in the in the team, but few in management or team lead positions is that, they somehow put up with this bias, that they somehow are happy with what they get. Aren't there a majority of agricultural workers of Latino descent, often working at below minimum wage? Why? They put up with it, and are mostly happy to have the job. The fact is, many Indians, especially those who are "new" in the country, are happy to do what it takes, at the salary and position that they get, even if it is below market rate. Both sides are at fault, no doubt.
Then, of course, there are those who go out and take risk to do extraordinary things, like starting companies. There is no dearth of famous companies founded by Indians, is there?
Well I think you're right...but this "culturism" that you talk about has something to do with the fact that Indians from India are not inherently very good at managing people or software projects.In fact I would say that statistically Indians who have been educated in India are not good managers period.
I am myself an Indian and I have a bachelors degree from an Indian University.
In my experience working for corporate america,one of the things that irritates me most about Indian managers is that they will talk completely from their asses.They wont write a line of code and yet will make very heavy technical decisions and then when I disagree they will resort to micro-managing me instead of making an effort to understand my arguments.
I have repeatedly asked them to actually read the source and understand what I am talking about but they will relegate it back to me and ask me to send an email with a lengthy explanation later(They know I am not going to do that).
I have repeatedly pushed for DVCS adoption but apparently IBM Clearcase is a much better solution than github firewall.None of them (my Indian manager and his Indian manager and his Indian manager) have actually made an effort to understand DVCS till date.
Sometimes my manager has actually tried to argue that just because he has 13 years of experience in software he obviously knows more than me about iOS development and therefore his decision is obviously the right one.(The fact that he has never really written a line of Objective C is completely irrelevant.)
In fact when I apply for new jobs I try to make sure that I am not assigned to an Indian manager.
There's a term for these tendencies: the Power Distance Index. (http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/developers/real-reason-outso...) The idea behind PDI is that leaders in some cultures expect, and even to an extent welcome, subordinates who question them. And there are other cultures where leaders expect obedience above all, regardless of any objective measure of correctness.
India is a high-PDI country. If you're taking orders from an Indian manager, for the most part they will expect you to keep your head down, shut up, tow the line, and do what you're told. This also partially explains Westerners' complaints about Indian subordinates: that they don't speak up, don't take responsibility, don't innovate. They have been very thoroughly taught not to. On the other hand, this also explains the at times amazing attention to detail -- if details are all you are allowed to control, you will control the living crap out of them.
It's not entirely true in Indian tech industry. Every year most companies lose up to 20 percent of their workforce because they move to higher paying jobs and better companies. This is a serious issue that managers are usually at the mercy of their talented engineers.
Well remember I said the managers in these cases are incompetent (pointy haired, Dilbert types). A random person off the street would be better. The tech guy that knows the business and the software and has been working with said software for 10 years would certainly be better.
I've been working around people from India for 17 years now. I've known guys/girls from India that came here in the US in the early 80s. I've been in tech lead positions and have given evaluations for people from India on my team that should have been moved into leadership positions and they've been overlooked. This is how I know first hand that there is some kind of bias in many work settings.
I've seen this in the medical, defense, education, financial, and utility fields on the east coast, mid west, and in the southwest. FWIW I've not seen this at software companies.
Well I think you're right...but this "culturism" that you talk about has something to do with the fact that Indians from India are not inherently very good at managing people or software projects.
Because you have never experienced any racial problems in the high tech field means that there are none? Everyone else is lying about it?
Projects like the NewME accelerator exists because even if you "make something awesome" in a normal environment, getting attention is hard. You add to that being a minority and the road gets a little rougher. Not in every case but in a lot of them.
This isn't about black and white. This is about humans having natural prejudices even if they don't intend to. Nobody is claiming that the valley or the high tech field in general is full of racists. In fact the opposite is true. It is probably one of the more progressive job fields you will find. But that does not mean there is not a problem. There are biases in the field and one of them includes racial. Pointing it out does not mean everyone in the field is racist. They are just presenting one more problem for geeks to try and solve.
There's certainly a lot of dislike for working with people who have strong accents, and the most commercially successful Indian technologists I have met have been the ones with the most westernised mode of speech.
Unfortunately some people take a fairly legitimate gripe (lack of easy communication) and pre-judge an entire group rather than investigating the skills and attributes of a specific individual.
I worked for 13 years doing phone based technical support. I can tell you that people with a strong accent are often seen as 'stupid'. I worked with several Indian co-workers and it wasn't unusual to have calls transferred to me (no accent) because people didn't want to talk to them. As a team lead I got to listen in to those calls, and it's amazing how badly one human being can treat another. There's the passive aggressive person who just keeps saying "i don't understand you". There's the person who says things like "Where am I talking to" "are you in india?" "Can I speak to someone from Canada" (we were all in Canada, same country as the callers). Then there's the people who would just rip in to the agent, questioning their intelligence, yelling at them and much more.
On the other hand, we would often have people call in who had strong accents, and the tech support agents would often judge the callers as 'dumb'. I earned a reputation of being a genius, not because I was a genius but because I'd actually listen to people and try to understand them (sometimes they were hard to understand) rather than being an asshole to them.
In short - it was very common for people on both ends of the phone to rationalize racisim with a hard to understand accent.
To a certain degree, what you're saying is even true among people in the US from different regions here.
Put someone with a deep southern mountain accent and someone with a Brooklyn accent on the phone and they'll feel at odd with each other. Surveyed afterward, they will both probably feel the other is stupid and didn't understand them on simple things.
I myself remember my first experience with someone at a call center, who I can only assume wasn't in the US. I was calling Network Solutions in high school about a domain registration. The person on the phone I recall as having an Indian accent, which I didn't mind so much, but I did feel at odd with them when I needed to spell my first name (David) out to them using the NATO phonetic alphabet. It just struck me as so incredibly odd at the time that someone would potentially mishear or misspell the name David. However, I quickly realized that it was simply a cultural difference. I myself would probably get a common Indian name like "Sita" wrong. Was that Seeta? Seta? Seata? Site? Its only 4 letters, but I could screw it up for sure. I've since been more understanding of people at support lines.
Just as people often say that racism is ignorance, I do have to feel that this wasn't me being against anyone from India (as I actually knew very few people who maintained much Indian culture, language or accent where I lived at the time), but being ignorant and impatient with what was normal for them vs what was normal for me. Thankfully I learned.
> I needed to spell my first name (David) out to them using the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Did you just say "Delta Alpha..." or "D as in Delta, A as in Alpha"?
I can assure you the first one would confuse the hell out of most of the Indians(I am an Indian living in India).
Some of the NATO phonetic alphabets would complicate matters even further - Quebec, Zulu, Yankee. Zulu is a special one, considering Z isn't pronounced "Zee" in India(G is "Gee" and there is no "Zee") - it's called "Zed". So when you say "Zee" as in "Zulu", the support staff is going to have a hard time figuring out what on Earth was that. This is pure speculation - most likely support people undergo some training and they have a basic understanding of western accent and pronunciation.
The safer bet is simply saying the alphabets "Dee a vee eye dee", or better still use short, widely known words as mnemonics "D as in Doll, A as in Ant, V as in Van..."
I often have to resort to phonetic alphabets. Though sometimes it becomes problematic when the mnemonics I come up with confuse the support staff even more:
Anyone not understanding NATO phonetic alphabet has no business working in a call center (or using a telephone, in general), even if English is not his or her native language.
Whenever I try to use the NATO codes, I invariably forget at least one of the letters I need to use. So it's all going happily "C for charlie, A for alpha, Dammit, what's P again? P for...umm....argh...papa!"
That's as a caller though, I've never worked in a position that requires me to take calls from the public. I've often been met with pleasant surprise by call-centre staff when I use it to clarify non-obvious spellings, and always request a read-back check.
Why not? I think you overestimate how common NATO phonetic alphabet is. I, for example, don't know it and I still can use a telephone without problems. (I'm Finnish)
If you're getting paid to communicate with people using the NATO alphabet, you should know the NATO alphabet. (Or the company should hire people who know it. It's not strictly the call workers' fault that they can't communicate.)
But rdl said "using telephone in general" (which I assume was meant in the context of speaking with customers) and people do that even if they weren't hired specifically for communicating.
Yeah, I didn't really mean "as a telephone end user"; I meant "in a professional telephone-based job, especially one in data entry", although I'd consider it to be one of the basic communications skills people should learn just as people, too.
It was chosen specifically to work through bad communications channels and diverse accents, especially if you use the specific pronunciations required for the words (kay-beck for quebec, etc.).
When I worked on a helpdesk, a poster with the NATO alphabet was standard issue for every new employee, as well as a thorough explanation of when to say Zed and when to say Zee. But that was nothing compared to when we started supporting Australians. We had to start a Wiki for Australian to Canadian/US translation.
Pretty sure I always go with D as in Delta, unless I'm on the phone with someone who I'm fully aware will know what I'm talking about (various friends, etc who will do the same thing).
They understood it well enough, but from my POV I was shocked, because never in my life did I have to spell my first name. I know in the US to always make a clarification of the spelling of my last name.
The normal line I give people in the US when they are looking up my account (perhaps at at bank) is, "My name is David Fisher, with no 'C' in Fisher" (since some spell if Fischer) and that normally does the trick.
You do make a good point however that just because the NATO phonetic alphabet is standard for NATO, doesn't mean it is something understood worldwide, anymore than I'd understand Kanji.
I'm not blaming them, racism is always unfair to the recipient but on projects I've worked on Indians have done absolutely nothing to combat it. By that I mean, they hang out together, they go to lunch together, they basically avoid any unnecessary communication with non-Indians. I ask them to go to lunch and I get a reaction like "um, we kinda go to lunch together." I understand that there are a lot of cultural barriers there, but people are naturally very social and fair or not, they aren't going to have as much trust and faith in people that they don't have a social relationship with.
Well, I can see that happening. Even within "Indian" groups, people tend to group themselves with people from same state/language. People from some states are known for almost hostile exclusion of people from other states, including neighbouring ones. I speak this from experience as an Indian living in the US.
As regards to lunch, many Indians are very selective about eating habits (for religious reasons). That prevents them from eating in meat-'contaminated' areas.
None of this excuses them from socialising however.. But, socialising with people you already know is easier than making new connections. Which is just lazy, IMO.
I've taken the care to invite foreign engineers to dinner at my home at each job I take. In each case the comment is the same - "This is the first American home I've been invited into." Never mind they were 2, 5 or 10 years working in America.
I think that this may in part be due to the fact that the idea of "inviting someone over for dinner" is beginning to erode away culturally. Some of my best friends have never been inside my home, and visa versa. I think this is a large part of why establishments like bars, skating rinks, coffee houses, LAN cafes, and court clubs are so big in most of the cities I've lived in: a lot of their business is driven (I suspect) by the fact that they provide a neutral socializing ground, more than the actual service that they provide. When I think of the idea of "taking someone to dinner," the idea of bringing them to my house never really crosses my mind.
I've never lived out of a city with a population of less than 100,000 so I suspect that the social dynamic might be somewhat different there.
Of course that's not the claim being made by your parent. The argument is about how widespread it is and its effects. I'm pretty sure most people would find his story strong evidence for one side of the argument, assuming they believe it. I'm also pretty sure most people will choose to believe it exactly to the extent it agrees with their predetermined bias.
As a white male living in a rural area as a kid and in metropolitan areas as an adult, and having a black best friend, my anecdotal evidence supports a more limited effect than is commonly claimed in pop culture. That is, to the extent that there is willful, systemic, malicious racism, an individual's self-reliance (why this is becoming a dirty word in our culture, I do not know) is significantly more powerful.
I respect people who think the system is flawed and want to dedicate their lives to making it more ideal, but otherwise I think it's healthier to believe your success comes from your own decisions. That's not literally true for ANY of us, but it's best to believe it. It's similar to the recent study which showed that children do best when they believe success is more dependent on how hard you work rather than what your IQ is...which is not the same as it actually being true that success is more dependent on how hard you work rather than what your IQ is.
My only advice to "black" and other entrepreneurs is shut up, go code and make something awesome.
This entire issue is being exploited to get attention for Angela Benton and her new accelerator.
It's easy to tout self-reliance when you're a white male. It's easy to overlook all the tiny advantages you get that accumulate in an invisible, insidious way. It's easy to see people bringing up the issue as whining.
It's hard to understand what it is to be someone else, what it means to struggle with others' perceptions every waking moment of every day in such a pervasive manner as to be incorporated into your very identity. It's hard. But we should all try.
Sometimes, self-reliance means putting your head down and doing the best work that you can do. Other times, it means finding other people with a common experience and taking collective action to actively change your circumstances. Sometimes it looks like a minority-focused startup accelerator. Sometimes it looks like the Civil Rights Movement.
If it looks like whining, probably the best thing to do is to try to refrain from meta-whining, and deeply consider whether the issue could be a real one, even though your own experience is different.
I have lived for 25 years in US. Never encountered racism ever - am from South Asian decent. That is saying something. Of course - there will be some people who will be racist. US, after all has 300M people and it defies probability that it will not have any racists.
However, generalizing racists and saying racism exists based on these extreme edge case doesn't make logical sense.
Have you considered perhaps that you're the edge case?
I've lived in the US my entire life. I'm East Asian. I've encountered racism.
Given two persons of minority descent, one who claims to have first-hand experience of racism, and another who claims that racism is largely a myth, why would I believe the second over the first?
I've lived in Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, and now SF - all diverse places by American standards. And I've experienced racism at every. single. one. Not of the pitchfork-and-lynching variety, but racism nonetheless.
I want to live where you live, where racism is an extraordinary edge case.
Good luck finding anywhere in the entire world where racism doesn't exist. To say it doesn't is ignorant. It's ingrained in our evolutionary traits to have tendency to group and divide whether it be over race, culture, political or religious beliefs.
Some people don't have the intelligence however to rationally overcome the natural inclinations toward whatever bias we may subconsciously harbor. This has been true for the entirety for human civilization.
What I CAN tell you though, is that reverse discrimination by creating "black only" beauty pageants, television stations, and now incubators is not the solution to the problem and will only cause further division.
It's not a solution to the racism or discrimination problems, but it is a solution to the low self-esteem and self-worth problem of being from a marginalized minority.
As an American caucasian male living in a small town in Asia, I can assure you racism is alive and well across the whole world. Live somewhere where you're looked down on for your accent, color of skin, and national origin, and you'll learn what racism feels like. Then go back to your home country, and you'll recognize the subtle racist remarks and discrimination that you would have never noticed before you'd experienced prejudice first-hand.
I've seen it, some sexism actually. However those who are sexist/racist are easy to spot, they are just aholes in general. The one I knew was very easily spotted as every female member of the team complained about him in a month, followed by every male member just complaining how much of an ass he was.
Almost my entire point was that your own experience is not universal. No one's is.
You admit that you've seen discrimination and that it's easy to spot. Why, then, would you assume that it's not a problem? And why would you assume that all discrimination is easy to spot?
If you've witnessed discrimination, but you're trying to stifle the voices that are trying to raise awareness of their situation, then you're part of the problem.
I would say that there could very well be strategic advantages to being part of a "black" incubator. Peer encouragement/validation, communication, shared experiences, etc. As I understand it, culture is a big part of any startup, and a culturally-oriented incubator could attract people who mesh well together.
I am also a black programmer, yet my experience has likely been a bit different. I've found considerable social and professional benefits to working and networking with people who look like me.
> culture is a big part of any startup, and a culturally-oriented incubator could attract people who mesh well together.
This reminds me of Ellen Spertus's argument that certain women might get a better CS education from an all-girls school. The idea is an all-girl environment completely removes such impulses as "I don't want to answer this question and be 'that girl'" or any external signals that link being female with being non-technical.
...and there is a terrible corrosive effect when perceived minorities are given a 'leg up' - that they are not really deserving/talented. Whether part of the hidden neurological bias mentioned, or even true, it means other capable people who happen to belong to that minority get a shadow cast on their accomplishments.
You are the exception and not the rule. It's great when things work out as they did for you but it's not the norm. Just because this has been your experience as a black programmer doesn't mean it is that of all others.
I also don't think its true that "This entire issue is being exploited to get attention for Angela Benton and her new accelerator." This issue would exist regardless of whether the NewMe accelerator existed, Benton is just bringing some press to the subject.
Hardly, I am another black programmer and I've had the fortune of working with other black programmers, whites, Asians, Polynesians, Hispanics and more. He is not the exception. Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry. If there are any negative vibes towards a person because of their background, it's only ever because of their "foreign-ness"; if for example they might have an accent. Even this is quickly brushed off wherever I've worked. High-tech doesn't care what color your skin is or where you grew up. The best hackers I've been honored to share a repository with have been from countries I've never been to in the former USSR and South America, all of varying ethnicities.
This is a false issue that is being propagated by someone to garner attention to their accelerator. This whole idea of a race-based fund for high-tech is repulsive to me. If there are black entrepreneurs out there in high-tech, what is wrong with applying through YCombinator and other established incubator programs if they need the coaching and funding to go to market? It's insulting to think that blacks cannot compete for whatever reason in a normal fund and have to go make their own one and then blame it on perceived "racism". Big cop-out card there.
I've met many programmers that feel differently (as well as engineers in others disciplines ME, ChemE etc) but it is nice that you are another person who has been able to experience zero racism in the work place.
"Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry." I beg to differ. Saying racism is "just not a thing" in any sense isn't really realistic. Are there people using the n-word all the time? No. Are there people with bias they might not even understand or be aware of? Yes. . Also there is a huge difference between the world of strictly programming (doing it for other people's businesses) and the world of tech entrepreneuring. Those are two different worlds,they overlap a great deal but they are still different worlds. You encounter different issues and different sets of people you must interact with in different ways.
That said I don't think NewMe is necessary and agree Black start ups should apply to traditional programs. I think some sort of formalized mentoring network would be useful but aside from that I don't really see the point...it's also not an accelerator that invests money in it's startups from what I understand, so I don't really get the point. I still applaud Benton and the others involved for trying to do something.
I'm actually one of these brown / "arab" new blacks you speak of incidentally (I'm from Algeria) and I haven't had this problem. But I do not have an accent and I've sort of "integrated" well within American culture. I can see where someone who is not so well-integrated and comes with an accent might see some trouble, but if they can code with quality and work in teams well, all that goes out the window.
In my experience once most middle eastern/arab people are "integrated", people see their appearance as vaguely mediterranean and don't really think twice about it.
I agree. I'd also add that I don't think that experience is the same as African-Americans. People do distinguish between middle-eastern/Mediterranean and African-American. At least in my experience.
I have never even met the majority of my clients. I could be black, white, red, or blue for all they know. The colour of your skin may not be a choice, but how you decide to ingrate into the industry is.
A programmer's job is to observe constraints and find a solution given those constraints. Racism is just another constraint. It is a constraint that is not fair. It is a constraint that we should not have to deal with. But, given it does exist, should it stop a good programmer from doing well in the industry? I'm not so sure.
This industry in particular comes so many unique options for work environments. And there is presently so much demand that you can basically write your own ticket. We should definitely be working to stop racism, and all kinds of judgements of others, completely, but in the meantime there are options for those who find themselves affected by it.
The sheer arrogance. "It is ok people. I'm black and, speaking for all minorities, I haven't experienced it so every other minority is a lazy liar"
I'm black as well and though I haven't experienced racism in tech directly I understand why NewMe is a great option for some people. To the poster I would say respect other people's journeys and experiences.
Agreed. Unless it's supported by a legal framework, racism is a self-defeating phenomenon. Racist individuals deprive themselves of the benefits offered by the group toward which they are racist, therefore making themselves less likely to succeed. If anything, a person or group of people being racist should alert you, the observant seizer of the day, to an under-utilized resource and/or market niche.
So long as big brother isn't enforcing it; another person's stupidity can always be turned to your advantage.
I think the GP's point still stands. Smart companies will have an advantage recruiting these engineers, because they have less competition, and so they will win. (Corollary: the quality of the team is the strongest predictor of success).
I agree. Anyone who would hire a worse employee because they don't like the other's {race,color,nationality,gender,sexual preference,...} is an idiot, and I wouldn't bet on their success.
That said, we definitely need some short term solutions too. "Evolution" isn't particularly helpful to those being discriminated against right now.
The lack of women or black people in engineering isn't proof for their discrimination though. It could be that they simply choose to pursue different professions because their upbringing is different.
Companies doing discrimination arbitrage unfortunately don't do anything to help minorities who are discouraged from going into certain professions in the first place.
In corporate settings some of them banks I have come into contact with racism, sexism and age-ism against Blacks, Indians(both from India and from Native America), Jews, Mexicans, etc..the point of Feld's piece was that its alive in the infrastructure and only by shining the light of day on it will make it go away..
Banks are another subject entirely:
www.dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/papers/finalrestat.pdf
"We conduct an econometric analysis of loan outcomes by race and find that black- owned small businesses are about twice as likely to be denied credit even after controlling for differences in credit-worthiness and other factors."
This story is shocking and I hate to nit-pick here but
> Just to remind all of us that racism is alive and well in the US and in tech. [...] The customer site is a government owned military installation.
This doesn't make it any "better", actually much worse, but this is not "in tech".
What I find both shocking and curious about racism is that it is a much more widespread problem throughout the world, not only limited to white racism - there is very strong racism throughout history in a lot of different cultures and is still prevalent there today. Why do humans even care about where someone was born or where they are from? Where and why did racism start at all?
It started when speciation occurred -- if something looks "different" enough to you, you are not going to be attracted to it or treat it like one of your own. That's been around a lot longer than higher thinking, so in a way, it's been inherent all along.
Logically, we might not care, we might not want to care, but there's now research that's pointing out (the studies have been too small so far for real conclusions to be drawn) there's a strong possibility it's wired into our brain at a subconscious level.
Before someone accuses me of justifying racism: I don't think racism is justifiable, but I think this research is important. If we understand the physiological causes, we can consciously make an effort to avoid being biased.
I think there's probably an evolutionary origin - genes that compel their owners to look out for others with the same genes over those who are unlikely to share genes were likely to be more successful overall in our more violent past. Now selection favors those who are able to work well with others of all races, so perhaps it's fading.
Because being a racist nowadays tends to cause one to be marginalized by others, and not be as successful. Today's business environment favors the person who can work well with anyone.
There's a strong correlation between genes and memes (you tend to pass your ideas on to your offspring). In absence of anything else to go on, appearance is indicative of ideas held, making rapid intellectual filtering of "us vs. them" easy using physical characteristics. Yeah, it's wrong in so many ways, yet the correlation is enough for humans to develop it as a survival mechanism early on - important and persuasive when odds are "they" are going to kill you for limited food & resources in preservation & procreation of genes & memes.
>This doesn't make it any "better", actually much worse, but this is not "in tech".
Technically it is because it's in their profession. If you're involved in major tech company there is a likelihood that you're going to have to deal with the gov't.
>What I find both shocking and curious about racism is that it is a much more widespread problem...
Many, if not most people, need to feel some sense of superiority over another individual. It starts with race but does not end there for them. Had Nazi Germany removed or killed Jews, gays, socialists, Christians, etc. they would have found some reason to hate each other.
Nazi Germany was doing this on a whole different level and for different reasons... in their own twisted way, they were actually believing they were doing humanity a favor by cleansing it. There were even scientists there backing all their "race theories".
So, that specific rabbit hole goes much, MUCH deeper than you think.
> Especially at a government facility. In the United States. In 2011. In the tech business.
Humans have accumulated (recorded) vast sums of knowledge, and have become more efficient at building things using that knowledge, but human nature has not "evolved". The human brain has remained about the same for the last 20,000 years (give or take a few thousand years). There have been no quantum leaps here. We are exactly what we were 10 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc.
That's the real problem... That people think that somehow they are "evolved" because the year is 2011. And hence the segmentation begins again... Always seeing your-group as different from other-group, segmenting everything.
A person that pretends that they are not racist, is one that pretend that they are better than the racist... The problem is they are doing the exact same thing as the racist, just on a higher level.
Our DNA is the same. We are better fed and generally healthier (at least since the agricultural revolution), most of us are raised better than your average peasant 1000 years ago, mothers know not to drink during pregnancy (this is a big one, by the way), etc.
Even inside YC. I remember at the YC NYC meetup, the guy on stage in red sweater (forgot his name) was saying "I was so lucky to be born as white male in a middle class family"; I was like, WTH, so born as non-white or female is unlucky?!
Like Louis CK said in a stand-up routine- "I'm not saying white people are better, but being white is clearly better." i.e., you're not likely to ever have an opportunity denied to you in life due to your skin color, or gender.
I think racism is about as far from a relevant issue as you can get. Honestly, the people who get bent out of shape about it are just as backwards as the few people who are still actually racist.
Edit: Since davidw is claiming that I think victims of racism are backwards, I'd like to clarify. I think that all victims of crimes and discrimination should be treated with respect and dignity by polite society (which far outnumber racists). It's my opinion that getting upset about a rude military contractor (like the one in this article) is backwards and is giving his point of view way more attention than it deserves. He should be disregarded entirely because his worldview is irrelevant.
Racism, in any organization, needs to be called out and dealt with. In the military, even moreso, as the military is supposed to be a fair sampling of the racial makeup of our country. It is supposed to be otherwise neutral with regard to race, creed, color, or gender.
If we fail to hold them to as near that standard as possible, then we are giving acceptance to the idea that racism is OK in larger society.
> I think racism is about as far from a relevant issue as you can get. Honestly, the people who get bent out of shape about it are just as backwards as the few people who are still actually racist.
Downvoted for trolling. Equating the victims of, and/or people upset about racism, which is indeed an ever present factor in the US and elsewhere, to those who actively perpetrate such backwards ideas, can be nothing less than either the fruit of a sick mind, or someone playing a troll in the internet.
My opinion is that a white guy (you: https://twitter.com/#!/mikekeen ) saying that people getting upset about racism are 'backwards' is either mind-boggling insensitive or out and out trolling. Nothing rude about it - that's how I see it.
I can accept people saying "luckily, in this day and age, I think it's not so much of a problem" as something up for debate, but to state that those angered by discrimination are "backwards" and "just like the racists" is one of the most vile comments I have ever read here.
I see you're taking some heat for this comment, but I agree entirely. Trolling seems the more polite interpretation, because otherwise you'd be accusing somebody of levels of ignorance and arrogance that are mind-boggling to me.
Racism does of course exist and is a problem. There's a ton of research on this. Here's a good place to start:
But one great example is a study where they sent out the same resumes with different names at the top; some sounded black and some sounded white. The "black" resumes got significantly fewer callbacks, and on "black" resumes increases in skill and experience mattered significantly less:
The research on what people name their children shows very little racial correlation after controlling for wealth. Though it does show high correlation with wealth and status. So showing a bias against names poor people choose regardless of race then claiming it is about blacks is poor form.
So his opinion should be dismissed 'cuz he's white? It's a topic where white people aren't allowed to talk about, except if we wish to talk in politically correct platitudes?
I agree with you that racism is still a real problem and that k33n's comment seems somewhat out of touch. However, what you say is tantamount to "shut up because you're white", and that's not cool either.
You actually went to the trouble of looking up his race in order to make your point. Think about that for a second. You looked up his race in order make a judgement about what he wrote. Didn't your irony detectors go off at that point?
As a white person in the US, I'll tell you true: my opinion on racism is much less well informed than the average non-white person. Because a) I almost never experience it, b) I am less inclined to notice it, and c) non-white people are very unlikely to talk to me about their experiences and thoughts on the topic.
So yes, a person's race is entirely relevant to considering the quality of their opinions on racism. For basically the same reason that I will happily weight a person's opinions on software development based on whether they're an experienced coder or a non-technical manager. Experience matters.
I agree with the statistics (racism is real; white people are less like to be discriminated against or experience indirect racism) but draw the opposite conclusion.
When dealing with issues of discrimination the point is to treat everybody equally, to treat people based on their merits and not based on the color of their skin or the statistics of their demographic. If we conclude from research that one race is more intelligent than another, or taller than another, or has more aptitude in some domain, then a rational agent would reason: "well, this person is from domain D, and people from domain D have less aptitude in Y, and since I am hiring people for that aptitude, I am less inclined to hire this person.". Logically sound, but still discriminatory. It's discriminatory because the person is treated based on the demographic he belongs to, not on his or her individual merits. So even if the research points out that one demographic is inferior to another demographic on one axis that still doesn't justify treating an individual based on his membership of a demographic. To put it bluntly, if research shows (it doesn't) that white people are absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt better at programming than black people discrimination against black people would still be wrong. The differences in aptitude between the individuals always trump differences in aptitude between large groups.
So when you say "a person's race is entirely relevant", I think you're completely and terribly wrong. Because it's irrelevant whether a typical white person understands less about racism than a typical black person. What matters is whether the specific individual understands. Again, the individual is not to be judged based on his membership of a demographic.
Yes, a typical white person understands less about racism than a typical black person. And a majority of the prison population consists of black people. And if you apply those generic traits of the demographic to the individual you're racist. When you judge a black person on his statistical likelihood of having a criminal record then that's racist. When you judge a white person on his statistical likelihood of ignorance on race issues that's also racist.
It seems likely that k33n's opinion regarding racism in the world is, like most opinions, based largely on personal observations and experiences rather than a careful consideration of all available data. He does not observe racism to be a significant problem and thus concludes that racism is not prevalent or relevant today. You argue that k33n's race is irrelevant to his reasoning.
Both of you are incorrect. We have two hypotheses: racism either is or is not a relevant problem. And, we have that k33n does not observe much racism. We (and k33n) should update our beliefs based on the ratio P(k33n does not observe racism|racism is not relevant)/P(k33n does not observe racism|racism is relevant). The value of this ratio depends on k33n's race. If k33n is white, he's unlikely to observe much racism in either case, and the ratio's value is close to 1. If k33n is black, he's much more likely to not observe racism if racism is not prevalent, so the ratio's value is high and useful for updating beliefs.
You're also arguing that we ought not conclude that someone cannot understand racism simply because they are white. I agree with you, but I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is that k33n is white and seems to glibly conclude that racism isn't a real problem. He couldn't have reached this conclusion by looking at statistics because, as you know, the statistics push you toward the opposition conclusion. So, he probably came to this conclusion because he observed that racism isn't a problem for him personally. In doing so, he was being unreasonable and somewhat callous.
Taking four paragraphs to get to your conclusion is a good tactic there. Because maybe by the end people will have forgotten that I'm not actually advocating judging people by their skin color.
I didn't say "shut up because you're white". I said that someone who, in the US, is not likely to be the victim of much discrimination due to the color of his skin should have a little bit more respect for those who are, and those, in general, who are angered by discrimination. Saying he doesn't think racism is an issue is one thing, calling people who are victims of it 'backwards' is galling.
It is tantamount to "shut up". That's what I said. You dismissed his point of view because of his skin color. You looked up his race and based your opinion on him based on that. Had he been of black or asian descent you wouldn't have made the argument you made. You even acknowledge this. You wanted to make an argument but you quickly had to look up if his race matched your preconceived notions about his race because otherwise your argument wouldn't have been valid. On the internet.
I don't know how to spell this out further. Are you really this obtuse?
I would have been equally offended had he been black or asian. I didn't look at his profile until after my first response to him, and I looked because I was curious if I really was interacting with someone who was simply trolling for fun.
Hey davidw, why don't you misrepresent what I said some more? I didn't say that the victims of racism were backwards. Anyone who is a victim of an actual crime should be treated with dignity and respect. People who get bent out of shape about a rude military contractor acting like an ignorant ass ARE backwards.
There are plenty of cases where racism doesn't end up being "an actual crime", because, rightly so, the standard of proof for "actual crimes" is fairly high. In other words, there are way more cases of racist behavior than actual "crimes" that can be pursued in a court of law.
> People who get bent out of shape about a rude military contractor acting like an ignorant ass ARE backwards.
People who don't stand up and say "not on my watch" in the face of injustice are part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
davidw, If you think your last comment was in the spirit of respectful debate then you should go back and re-read it a few times. If you don't want to respect my opinion, that is not my problem.
Racism is irrelevant. Racists are irrelevant. Society doesn't take them seriously. Racists would have zero power over anyone if nobody took their actions or words seriously. Someone doesn't want to give you a job because they are racist? Their loss. Move on. Would you really want to work for someone like that anyway?
I do not believe your comment was worthy of respect, frankly.
If you'd started with your comment above saying that "racism is irrelevant", perhaps I'd have called it a bit naive, but taken no offense. To make the connection between people incensed by discrimination to those who perpetrate it is very, very offensive.
Racism is very much relevant as long as people have power over other people (which is part and parcel of all complex societies), be it political or economic. You can't disregard someone not selling you a house or giving you a job or letting you marry who you wish, or burning a cross on your lawn.
Are things better these days? Certainly! Is racism a non-issue? I don't think so. Are people like Brad Feld, who get angry about discrimination "backwards"? Hell no!
The "racist" tag has become a contemporary excommunication. That might be good were it always applied accurately. But perhaps the diligence of a Soledad O'Brien, interested more in arresting video than strict fairness to subject, makes the tag something very dangerous.
There was a day when people thought witches necessarily worse than the people who spotted witches. Go look at how that turned out.
But of course you and yours wouldn't be so stupid and unfair.
HELLO DOWN-VOTERS. Why bother framing a response when you can just misuse a forum moderation tool? It's intelligence of a kind . . .
> I think racism is about as far from a relevant issue as you can get. Honestly, the people who get bent out of shape about it are just as backwards as the few people who are still actually racist.
Haven't you just killed your company with this comment? Good Luck with any job interviews your company gives in the future. You appear to have left them open to claims of racist discrimination.
If you disagree with what someone writes, then you should reply simply and without embellishment. To conclude that someone has a "sick mind" or has "killed their company" is a bit much of a conclusion to draw from a simple online debate at a tech/startup discussion site.
If Hacker News offered the ability to lock discussions, then I am quite sure that this one would have been locked.
Can't we all just calm down and get back to coding?
I generally believe very much in giving people the benefit of the doubt, and in not overreacting, and so on. The world benefits greatly from not taking offense at the drop of a hat.
However, there are times when one's blood boils for a reason. I reread this a few hours after my initial comments and... yep, I'm still angered when I read that those who call out someone for being racist are "backwards" and the equivalent of racists.
If someone wants to argue that racism isn't that big a deal these days... fine, whatever, that's debatable, and people deserve to be able to air their opinion without being shouted at. However, to stand up and say that those who denounce racism should shut up is despicable.
The guy wrote what he wrote: "people who get bent out of shape about it [racism] are just as backwards as the few people who are still actually racist."
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read in my life. Nope, haven't killed my company with a completely innocent comment made on HN. Sorry to disappoint you.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
When I took them, I was pretty confident that I was, as a well-meaning nerd, beyond any sort of racial bias. I was wrong.
Although I am deeply opposed to racism consciously, various bits of racial bias lurked in my wiring. It's sort of like how even a very smart person can have plenty of dumb ideas or dumb reactions, especially on topics they haven't paid attention to. Since I took those tests, I've been much more aware of those biases, which a) lets me minimize the effects, b) helps me undermine them over time, and c) has made me much better able to see the subtle effects of racial bias generally.