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YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#91

Post by tptacek »

Alupis wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not follow this logic. There are minority and women YC founders who already get the (A) hours.

What the parent is getting at, I think, is that by having explicitly set-aside hours for groups 'B' and 'C', it will create a stigma that groups 'B' and 'C' must attend only those designated hours -- effectively making the "normal" office hours for the "elite' group 'A'. It seems to me, no matter what way you look at it, separated office hours will perpetuate segregation and bigotry, instead of the desired effect.

The normal office hours ARE elite. They're available only to people who have been accepted into YC. The goal of the program is to make more of those (A) group people members of underrepresented demographics.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#92

Post by IkmoIkmo »

atg2 wrote: post #61
djtriptych wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asian men are not underrepresented in the tech industry.

"Asian" is not a race.

Neither is black or hispanic. The entire debate around 'race' in the US I find is riddled with outdated concepts and semantics. In many developed countries's dialogue on these issues the semantics rarely touch on race anymore as it's quite meaningless and scientifically untenable. Instead when we talk about different peoples in socioeconomic debates by referring to various ethnicities (which are quite flexible, you can group people on ethnic bases by culture, religion, language and indeed nationalities or continental heritage like Asian although it's not recommended as there are obviously gigantic differences between say China, Japan and Indonesia that too broad terms become meaningless, too). The US is one of the few developed countries that really uses the word 'race' a lot and still defines people by race. Here in the Netherlands the only time we refer to the word race is when we use the word 'racism', the only word that really stuck and encompasses discrimination on ethnic basis, not race. The notion of typifying people as 'black' or 'white' in the Netherlands is not-done.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#93

Post by mindcrime »

78666cdc wrote: post #81
mindcrime wrote: post #63

I think this is a good move, and glad to see YC doing it. And this is coming from somebody who is neither black nor hispanic. I mean, I get the whole "isn't this just affirmative action and isn't AA bad?" thing, I really do. But this is a private business, not a government agency, and they are free to try and address issues of equality and what-not in whichever way they see fit. And when you're part of a group that i…

The flaw in this argument is that it makes the implicit assumption that having more startups founded by black or hispanic founders is good just because there are more startups founded by black or hispanic founders. That there is underrepresentation with respect to a minority is indicative of that minority generally having lower socioeconomic status, and perhaps prejudices against it. To try to combat whatever those p…

The difference is that it actually won't,

I disagree. I think having more companies (especially successful ones) founded by black and hispanic founders will help everyone broadly, for this reason: It will provide young, potential founders, who might not otherwise have pursued entrepreneurship at all, with positive role models, and will show them actual live examples of how success can be achieved.

My feeling is that this promotes entrepreneurship in general among increasingly larger portions of the overall population... and if you believe that technological progress in general is basically a net positive for humanity (a position which I admit is not without controversy, BTW, although I personally adhere to it) then this is a Good Thing. More smart people working on new ideas, and creating things to solve problems? Yeah, I can accept some private companies engaging in a little "affirmative action" if it supports that.

is to make these sorts of initiatives open to anyone disadvantaged (such as the poor), and invest in programs targeted at children in minority communities.

Having grown up "white but dirt poor" I mostly agree with you, in the sense that I think addressing poverty - regardless of race - is also a valuable thing. I'm just not sure one approach is more or less important than the other. I think both are valuable things to do.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#94

Post by mwseibel »

robot wrote: post #64

Hand-holding minorities label them even more as a group that needs to be helped. They should be encouraged to be successful in the "same" environment as others and treated the same. The moment you do something "for" them is the moment you label them as that group that needs hand-holding even more. I don't think they need special treatment this way. It is done by good intention, but it does not need saying, you're bla…

To be clear - these are office hours - YC is still the same program for all who participate in it. Regardless of their background.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#95

Post by tptacek »

robot wrote: post #64

Hand-holding minorities label them even more as a group that needs to be helped. They should be encouraged to be successful in the "same" environment as others and treated the same. The moment you do something "for" them is the moment you label them as that group that needs hand-holding even more. I don't think they need special treatment this way. It is done by good intention, but it does not need saying, you're bla…

The people doing that labeling are (a) not the minorities themselves, and (b) cheerfully oblivious to the fact that college recruiting programs at elite schools with 4-7% African American or Latino populations is itself a targeted outreach program that helps the overrepresented majority.

There's something especially galling about the repeated concern that targeted outreach to minorities will somehow label its beneficiaries as "inferior", since one expects that most of the time it's exactly the people raising that concern who are rushing to get the ink in their label printers refilled.

It's like saying "this makes African Americans inferior, but you don't get to hold that sentiment against me because I couched it as a concern". At least have the spine to make the meanness plain.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#96

Post by officialchicken »

tptacek wrote: post #82
officialchicken wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't asking about YC, he was asking about the culture. Is there a reason you're so defensive? I can find links to YC "trying to open markets", but it's 2015, and I don't think you are dumb.

I'm not defensive about criticisms of this YC program, although I find all of them preposterous. My hackles are, however, raised by the virulent strain of HN comments written by anonymous users confidently asserting that they understand the motives of people they've never met. The word "probably" in the comment upthread is where the switch flipped in my brain that made me respond. Oh really? Probably, you say? Please…

Since when can anon's can post on HN? Where's the word "probably" in my response that set you off? How can or why should I respond to you about assertions made by others?

Please stop projecting your need for social justice on me, for or against - my only assertion is 'follow the money', and that's more of a fact of life of living in the USA than anything else.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#97

Post by mwseibel »

johnathanNYC wrote: post #87

As someone who is both (afro-latino), I'm really excited about this. After reading the majority of the comments, I'm a little disappointed. It seems that many do not understand that being white and male in the United States, by default, affords many privileges that monitories struggle to obtain. If there any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer. Curious to why the word Hispanic was used instead of Latino. If…

You are correct - we should have used the word Latino

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#98

Post by 78666cdc »

tptacek wrote: post #89
78666cdc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're putting words in my mouth. But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men. But that is beside the point here. My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated. Strike that example off the list, then. It doesn't change the original comment's point.

I'm not sure how I can simultaneously be "putting words in your mouth" and pointing out things that you actually do believe. Your examples were bad. I'm going to go ahead and assert that the "black church" example shoots past "bad" and reaches "offensive"; predominantly black churches do not exclude people of other ethnicities.

Where was the implication that they aren't welcoming? The point was that a black church is not "all white male all the time". It feels like you're looking for something to be offended about.

>Your examples were bad.

I'm glad we had this productive discussion.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#99

Post by mattdeboard »

Alupis wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not follow this logic. There are minority and women YC founders who already get the (A) hours.

What the parent is getting at, I think, is that by having explicitly set-aside hours for groups 'B' and 'C', it will create a stigma that groups 'B' and 'C' must attend only those designated hours -- effectively making the "normal" office hours for the "elite' group 'A'. It seems to me, no matter what way you look at it, separated office hours will perpetuate segregation and bigotry, instead of the desired effect.

> it will create a stigma that groups 'B' and 'C' must attend only those designated hours

Any data to support this?

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#100

Post by atg2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #79
atg2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Asian" is not a race.

Asian is as much a race as White or Black is. ( All races are social constructed with culturally-ascribed boundaries, so really, anything that is generally perceived and treated as a race is a race; even if you restrict it to three "classical" races, White, Black, and Asian are pretty much the modern names for Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.)

My point is, what about all the other people? The world is not divided into White, Black, Asian and Spanish-speaking. There are Indians, Central Asians, Arabs, Persians...

Even 19th century racialists in their ignorant understanding of the world didn't lump 2/3 of the world's population into a miscellaneous category.

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