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Then why is it strictly forbidden to write an article with a title that caters specifically to young white children?
One could say that almost every article caters specifically to white people.
Could you not also say that almost every article caters specifically to Jewish people? Or would that be anti-Semitic in your mind?
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I can tell you why it's important to note the race of an underrepresented minority who made a notable contribution. I teach programming to a group of black young adults. Self image is very important to most young folks. Just seeing other black people who are successful computer programmers helps them imagine themselves as computer programmers. Identity matters to young people who are trying to shape their own self im…
Then why is it strictly forbidden to write an article with a title that caters specifically to young white children?
White people are a majority in technology, so it's assumed to be obvious to white children that they too can be a technologist. There's not a significant gap in perceived identity between themselves and Mark Zuckerberg, for example.
So, that begs the question, why focus on encouraging specifically white children? They don't face racial barriers and have many famous role models. Preference for white people has a long and ugly history in America.
HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community. It's disheartening to see the number of replies expressing dismay at race being an interesting and notable part of this story. Representation is a crucial concept in history and media, and a key element in why conversations about privilege are necessary. Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race,…
> HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community. I'll respectfully disagree with that. I think the rules set up in HN around both manual and automatic flagging mean that controversial stories quickly get buried, and only very straightforward, non-controversial articles get visibility. Many users think this is a positive feature. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but have come to accept that HN…
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It's irresponsible to mention quotas and affirmative action, but not the systemic (and legal) racism and sexism that made those programs necessary in the first place.
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Recently heard about the news Google is discontinuing enterprise site search, not that that is such a huge problem, but it's just another example of the issues that arise from having a monopoly control everything with no alternatives. They can pull the plug and everyone is left lacking.
The second generation search engines killed the theme off (Altavista, Lycos, Webcrawler, Infoseek, etc...), but it was fun while it lasted.
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> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there. We lived in a world where racism exists, regardless of your own personal attitude. This is just like global climate change - simply because you personally are carbon neutral doesn't mean we don't have a systemat…
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However, in the end, my point is this: I am of the opinion that collective action is necessary to address this issue and I believe the weight of the evidence is on this side. The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective. It is just not the world in which we live.
HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community. It's disheartening to see the number of replies expressing dismay at race being an interesting and notable part of this story. Representation is a crucial concept in history and media, and a key element in why conversations about privilege are necessary. Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race,…
Hacker News is full of alt-right people and trump supporters, which you'll see any time anything vaguely immigration, race or gender related gets posted. Just by nature of the subject matter, middle-aged white male libertarian types are going to be over-represented.
I don't understand why one would point out a person's race (unless it's relevant to the situaiton), but since the title did... I cannot fanthom how anyone could call this person "black". If anything, his complexion is similar to what US people call "hispanic" (although to me that's just southern European, not a distinct race).
A Black Technologist is an expert in Black (=incomprehensible to laypeople) Technology. Since we're talking about search engines, I figure that's accurate enough.