A surprisingly high number of the speakers I went to at AWS Re:Invent were Indian, close to half, and they all worked for Amazon. I found it very interesting.
Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
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Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#12[deleted]
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#13It's interesting that it describes Silicon Valley as being too white, when it seems like there are quite a few Asians. Even working elsewhere, a high percentage of our programmers are Asian, higher than the metro's demographics would suggest.
"it struck her as a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.” When companies began to visit Howard, they’d boast about having on-site playground equipment and volleyball courts—not the kind of thing Jones or her friends got excited about. “Slides are not really appealing,” she says. “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming."
I found the above passage strange. Within the same paragraph they talk with one student who says it is all white and asian and then in the next sentence the same student says there aren't many "people of color" in the valley. What are asians if not people of color.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#14I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
I think its kinda ridiculous to say that to be 'SV material' you need to have started studying CS before college
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#15Did you read the article?
Should we bother? With a title like that, they don't seem interested in meaningful dialog.
No, you shouldn't. It presents a problem only to tell you many paragraphs later that indeed many companies are working on it. Of course you have to ride their emotional roller-coaster 'til you end up there.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#16What surprised me from the article is that only 8 out of 10 students at Howard are black. Howard is a historically black university and I assumed the percentage would be 90%+. I did some research and found out that the latest numbers I found were 91% "Black or African American" students at Howard. http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/howard-university/stu...
Offtopic - but Howard has an amazing marching band. They played Rutgers when I was in school (football), and my favorite part of that game was the Howard band at halftime.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#17It's interesting that it describes Silicon Valley as being too white, when it seems like there are quite a few Asians. Even working elsewhere, a high percentage of our programmers are Asian, higher than the metro's demographics would suggest.
Yea. I don't like the way they use it.
Asians and Indians get considered white if they don't fit in the specific narrative, an author wants to tell.
I also don't like the idea, that liking pokemon or star wars makes you "white". There is something wrong with this,I can't seem to put into words.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#18"as the only African American on her team, she didn’t feel she had much in common with her colleagues. “When I went out to lunch or something with my team, it was sort of like, ‘Soooo, what are you guys talking about?’ ” she says"
I find this sentence really shocking, perhaps because I'm french and in France we try to assimilate people more (I don't really know), but I would definitely think that as a white software engineer I have a lot more in common with the black software engineer working with me than with whatever random white dude.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#19My guess would be: for the same reason it does not hire white coders.. incompetence ?
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#20I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
I would say statements like that are exactly why some people don't feel welcome in SV.