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My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

latimes.com

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Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#41

Post by jakelazaroff »

tasogare wrote: post #7
bluedino wrote: post #2

I was expecting stories from his father, or about his father. Instead, the author talks about IBM's "support" of Nazi Germany and ends with statistics on the low amount of African-Americans employed in the tech industry. Yet the percentage of blacks and non-Asian minorities in high-tech professions consistently remains under 2%. For minority women, the numbers are even more dismal. Recent studies conclude this is not…

> and non-Asian minorities Ah, the classical trick of excluding data points that don't fit the narrative. It's far more convenient to blame the Bad White Man for everything than to ask the real questions.

Race isn’t split up into white and non-white monoliths. One subgroup can experience racism in ways that others do not.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#42

Post by GhettoMaestro »

anon1m0us wrote: post #37
GhettoMaestro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chill out. The reason the original commenter doesn't like it is because said behavior is cheating. Injecting race as an attribute doesn't change the fact that the behavior is cheating.

AirBnB doesn't cheat? Uber? Facebook? Cheating and breaking rules is lauded in Silicon Valley, dare I say admired in entrepreneurs. Black employees though, not so much. This is racism. EDIT: Before you start nitpicking my examples: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html "They delight in breaking rules..."

All 3 of those companies you mentioned are pieces of shit and I do not endorse their various elements of cheating. If you admire them, you're stupid and morally stunted.

Stop trying to make everything about race. It is all so tiresome.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#43

Post by shard »

gnufied wrote: post #20
povertyworld wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the pipeline problem is that you're not winning over the most high achieving minority students to stem. I remember there was a Mexican American woman in one of my calc classes that was easily the best student and smoked everyone else (granted, it was at a second rate state school), but when asked what she wanted to do, she said she was going to be a dentist. People coming from underrepresented backgrounds don…

> don't want to spend 8 years doing a Phd, then a ML bootcamp, all so they can make low 6 figures at a job that could be outsourced or H1Bed at any minute Just wow. You are saying people with ML expertise and PhD can be replaced any minute! It just shows your own bias against certain people. I have never seen or heard anyone who brings certain deep technical expertise replaced in a minute. Hiring people is _really_ h…

The difference is that a premiere machine learning specialist from outside the country can work in the country immediately once immigration issues are taken care of. A premiere medical professional would still need to pass additional exams or certifications before they can work. Thus all things being equal, it is easier to replace a technologist from overseas than a medical professional.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#44

Post by macspoofing »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #28
cblum wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I found it very dishonest that the author is trying to imply that what happened to Tay was due to developers being biased.

You don’t think developers can program defensively against their ML Twitter bot picking up racism?

No. Not against racism specifically, but against being gamed by trolls. In this case, there's nothing special about racism. If it wasn't that, the trolls would have gamed the chatbot to have it push anti-vaxxer talking points, or moon-hoax conspiracies, or just some random garbage.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#45

Post by nickpeterson »

anon1m0us wrote: post #37
GhettoMaestro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chill out. The reason the original commenter doesn't like it is because said behavior is cheating. Injecting race as an attribute doesn't change the fact that the behavior is cheating.

AirBnB doesn't cheat? Uber? Facebook? Cheating and breaking rules is lauded in Silicon Valley, dare I say admired in entrepreneurs. Black employees though, not so much. This is racism. EDIT: Before you start nitpicking my examples: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html "They delight in breaking rules..."

Those companies are also wrong then. Stop justifying poor ethics by pointing at other examples of poor ethics, it's a race to the bottom.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#46

Post by cameronbrown »

bsanr wrote: post #24
cameronbrown wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if the dental schools aren't producing enough minority dentists, those communities may not have access to quality dental care. Sorry, I must have missed the memo that citizens can only visit dentists of the same ethnicity.

You find it difficult to believe that white dentists generally serve the communities they live in, which, by income squared with demographic data, tend to be overwhelmingly white?

Yes.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#47

Post by pbhjpbhj »

kls wrote: post #29

Tangentially related to the article but I think my story is a good reality check for myself and others about racism. Now I am one of those individuals that ascribe every malty or advantage to racism but I absolutely agree that in form it still exists and sometimes those perpetuating it do not even know they are doing it. Anyways on to my story and on to one of the absolute best things that ever happened to me in my l…

>'That being said, had someone of my same race had not choose me over the more qualified candidate I would not be where I am today', //

That's clearly unfair. The insinuation is that only non-black people can achieve the best qualifications, which seems exceedingly offensive.

What was your intended take-away -- surely not "nepotism/racism are fine if you're black [in USA]"?

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#48

Post by w0mbat »

cblum wrote: post #22

> Microsoft released a chatbot named Tay, designed to learn from Twitter users. Within 24 hours, Tay claimed the Holocaust never happened, professed hatred for women and suggested that black people should be hanged. > “Garbage in, garbage out,” software engineers say. Likewise, racism in, racism out. Biased developers produce biased code. The author either made zero effort to understand how things work, or willingly…

Right. In one case somebody worked out that Tay would repeat anything you wanted if you said “Repeat after me” first. Tay was just functioning as an echo, not taking on beliefs.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#49

Post by shard »

cameronbrown wrote: post #17
povertyworld wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity I just googled it, and yes, there is, and it's actually more serious than lack of diversity in adtech. If there aren't enough underrepresented minority applicants at Google, they will just have to hire an overrepresented minority to spy on you instead. But if the dental schools aren't producing enough minority dentists, those communities may not have access to quality dental care.

> But if the dental schools aren't producing enough minority dentists, those communities may not have access to quality dental care. Sorry, I must have missed the memo that citizens can only visit dentists of the same ethnicity.

You shouldn't be surprised that people prefer to see doctors (and lawyers and plumbers etc) from their home country and speak their native language. Similarly, if you were living in a foreign country with a different national language, you'd likely prefer the same.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#50

Post by bsanr »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #40
bsanr wrote: post #26

Here's hoping that HN can buck Law 619 of the Internet: the comment section of all articles which mention data that shows social, economic, or institutional disparities which negatively effect black people will largely be concerned not with the implications of that information, but with questioning the authenticity or reliability of that information; or else, simply with thinly-veiled racism. I'll keep a running list…

You must be awesome to talk with at parties.

Am I wrong, or just annoying?
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