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100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

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Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#31

Post by onion2k »

punkbit wrote: post #6
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem.

In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to change it, and we can only change it by bringing in ideas that are different to what we have now. That is best done by people who offer different perspectives on what we're doing at the moment. In the case of tech, that's women, ethnic minorities, LGBQT+, non-tech, etc.

The thing that really must change in order to get society making the best tech possible that really impacts lives in a positive way is that we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas. That can only happen by filling the chamber with more people who aren't privileged white males. And I say that as a privileged white male.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#32

Post by wink »

Very good article, but I really didn't like the "if only I could quickly get coding skills and be an engineer" part.

I'm really the last one to call for mandatory lengthy education, but there's a reason I'd usually agree that people having studied Computer Science and worked in the field for few years tend to know certain things people that "learnt to code" don't.

But yeah, maybe the valley is different and there's a huge market for people learning stuff for a few months and rightfully making a lot more money than I do in Europe :)

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#34

Post by peterfirefly »

enupten wrote: post #20
draugadrotten wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. Let's assume California needs more black people in tech. Does China need more white people in tech?

Yes, but only in an alternate world where China smuggled white slaves, repressed them for 400 years, and who then went on to become naturalised citizens. The stupidity!

You should perhaps look a little bit into the history of slavery. It was not white against black or Europeans against Africans. It was everybody against everybody else.

The Muslim history of slavery is quite interesting, for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#35

Post by megablast »

punkbit wrote: post #6
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

We don't need more women, black, latino, white, red, green people in tech, we need talented people, regardless of how they look like. We need less bullshit, people who produce sane code and go home early to work on what matters about us, our communities, our families, our education! I'm full stack dev living in London, I'm black, huge afro, piercings, english is not my first language, skateboarder, into punk music, e…

Yes, and if we would all just be nice to each other we wouldn't have wars anymore.

But in the real world, we need to try different things to get talented people, it is not only white men who have important stuff to offer.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#36

Post by wantab »

gambiting wrote: post #22

"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.

I came to say the same thing. This is another, "Poor black me" article where he's offended by everything he construes to be against him. As if Atlanta is better.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#37

Post by konceptz »

gambiting wrote: post #22

"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.

I really wouldn't classify this as racist. It sounds to me more like an honest share about his community or extended community's view on where he is living.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#38

Post by konceptz »

gambiting wrote: post #22

"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.

I really wouldn't classify this as racist. It sounds to me more like an honest share about his community or extended community's view on where he is living.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#39

Post by random854 »

digitalzombie wrote: post #23
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

There's no proof that women are systematically targeted to be ousted from the tech field. I haven't seen any research papers with any clear evidence of this other than that there are more boys than girls in a particular field. I'm sure there are other occupation with the same thing. There are too many Fillipino in Nurse career I don't see any body saying to diversify it. There are tons of Vietnamese in nails, my uncl…

Read 'Unlocking the Clubhouse' (in regard to women.) It's dated but more recent research has similar conclusions.

I can't speak personally about race issues in tech. What I do know is that the industry thrives on ideas, and as people themselves have diverse ideas, missing an entire group's is missing a lot. Why isn't the field more racially diverse? Are black people 'naturally not interested in tech'? Or do they face social barriers others don't? What I know leads me to believe the latter.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#40

Post by smtddr »

punkbit wrote: post #25
yardie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we do need more black people in tech. And you get more black people in tech by having black people in tech. Going out to recruit, mentor, and support black tech candidates and workers. Seriously, the latest black YC candidate was a prison messaging service. More power to them but for a lot of blacks in the US the 2 paths that earn the most publicity are sports and criminal activity. Even when I was a teenager an…

What about letting kids choose what they want to do with their lives ? I used to be a music producer and learned everything by myself. I grown up in a white neighbourhood. I was the only emcee around, producing Hip-hop music, influenced by the Beastie Boys. I started coding really young. When I got the internet, I learned a lot about Hip-Hop, I was passionate. My first website was related about my passions, sharing m…

First, I downvoted your comment for the excessive negativity/abuse in it. You could have made your point just as clear without them.

Second, I'm going to take your comment to point out something I've noticed when talking about sexism/racism. I'm going to call this theory of mine "Calibration". When I hear people say stuff like "What about letting [underrepresented group] choose what they want to do with their lives?", I've come to believe that most are not trolls and they're probably not actually actively racist[1]. It's a difference in calibration. Perhaps you believe by default these kids are at a neutral(zero) level and have the full power of choice right now. But, what I see is that society actually puts them at like a negative 5. You see these efforts as forcing them to go into tech, a +5 if you will. I see it as just bring them up to 0 from the -5 society put them at so they have the same sense of free choice you & I do.

This vid I think is also based on the calibration idea when it comes to "Reverse racism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M . Basically, it talks about the underlying assumption that the current state of things is neutral for everyone so any effort to improve standings for a group is unfair to the groups not getting help. It's like how every year on Google+, when the LifeAtGoogle account posts something like Black Appreciation day during Black history month, someone always asks "When is White appreciation day?". Or when people talk about BlackGirlsCode.com, someone says "I bet everyone would exploded if we had a WhiteMenCode.com event". And of course, from there said comment turns into a multipage thread of madness. I think part of this is because schools(or parents of students) don't teach enough about the negative parts of American history and its lasting effects. So we have a bunch of people saying "Slavery ended years ago, everything is fine now. Stop complaining." Or similar, "Women can vote now and be CEOs of companies. Stop complaining". The assumption being that everything is equal now and the only thing between anyone and their goals is hardwork & discipline. While that is mostly true, some people have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and reach those goals.

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1. One exception though, I have no idea what is going on with the HN user yummyfajitas. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8613711

He doesn't fit any model of any logical position I'm familiar with. I'm pretty sure he's __not__ racist/sexist, but he just blows my mind.

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