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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/technology/silicon-valley-... ...
"Google revealed that its tech work force was 1 percent black, compared with 60 percent white. Yahoo disclosed in July that African-Americans made up 1 percent of its tech workers while Hispanics were 3 percent."
Affirmative Action has worked in other industries.
Why does it fail in Silicon Valley?
> One senior, Sarah Jones, ... “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming." This statement may be true if "people of color" means African American. Otherwise, it is just not the fact. I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been. I've seen people all over the wrold here: Asian, Latino, European,…
Within the Bay Area itself there's plenty of segregation: anecdotally, I noticed relatively few Indians living in Palo Alto and working at startups; most live in MV/Sunnyvale/Fremont and worked in larger companies like Cisco and Oracle. I'm not making the claim that this segregation is externally-driven, it's just that there "are people all over the world" doesn't tell the full story. Having worked in both Toronto and New York, both cities have noticeably more diverse workplaces and neighbourhoods.
That said, while in the Bay Area I never felt my skills as an engineer were questioned because of my background. I really appreciated that.
note: edited for grammar
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found it really shocking as well. Not sure how much of it is due to segregation and how much - due to the inability of the person to socialise… which is not uncommon among technical people from all races.
That is what is so hard about it. Everybody gets treated unfairly from time to time, feels awkward, etc. When you are "black" you don't know the line between racism and man's general inhumanity towards man.
I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
I think its kinda ridiculous to say that to be 'SV material' you need to have started studying CS before college
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People of lower economic circumstances may not have had access to computers prior to college.
In 1990? Likely. In 2010? This article is supposed to be about US, not a third-world country, right?
"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…
I mean, I have more or less things in common with my work colleagues but only because we work in the same field not because we're white males (actually I am Spanish and they're British, and the age range in the team goes from early 20s to late 30s).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea. I don't like the way they use it. Asians and Indians get considered white if they don't fit in the specific narrative, an author wants to tell. I also don't like the idea, that liking pokemon or star wars makes you "white". There is something wrong with this,I can't seem to put into words.
Wasn't the hero of the last Star Wars movies black?
> One senior, Sarah Jones, ... “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming." This statement may be true if "people of color" means African American. Otherwise, it is just not the fact. I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been. I've seen people all over the wrold here: Asian, Latino, European,…
There's a lot of caveats to that statement. Within the Bay Area itself there's plenty of segregation: anecdotally, I noticed relatively few Indians living in Palo Alto and working at startups; most live in MV/Sunnyvale/Fremont and worked in larger companies like Cisco and Oracle. I'm not making the claim that this segregation is externally-driven, it's just that there "are people all over the world" doesn't tell the…
"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…
At the first one, the other programmers were the kind of "dudes" where if you don't like to hunt or talk about sports every day they didn't want to talk to you. It was a really rough place to work, felt like I was walking on eggshells just so I could be one of their peers.
The next company I worked for had a completely different environment. I got along with everyone. They all had a good sense of humor.
So, I guess my point is, even software engineers can differ greatly from one place to the next.