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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

#71

Post by onion2k »

smanuel wrote: post #61
onion2k wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to assume you understand the 'white male' aspect. 'Privileged' in the sense that they came from a middle-income home where they had access to things like a computer and books, were fortunate to attend schools that were reasonably well funded, had the opportunity to attend college and university, didn't live in fear of crime throughout their childhood, had outdoor space to play in, had good access to healthc…

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure you don't put all white people in one basket, labeled privileged . So, by your definition there should be "white non-privileged people" as well, right? This means we shouldn't talk about black, white, etc. people but we should talk about having more non-privileged people in tech? I like this thinking but I don't understand what should be the mechanisms for making it happen. The only…

Yes, you are right, but (as I said in my first reply) we need to look at talents that aren't just the technical skills that industry demands right now. We need to populate tech with people who are good at things that we don't necessarily look for right now - having good philosophers, ethicists, sociologists, teachers, artists, etc would improve our industry immeasurably.

Looking beyond experience and education is vital (but very hard).

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#72

Post by mikekchar »

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 am a white guy living in the rural Japan. I can tell you lots of stories of other expat white people accusing me of being a "Japan-o-phile" (apparently a bad thing) because I adopted a Japanese way of life. People have often warned me that "they [the Japanese people] will never accept you" and "you know you will never be Japanese". I get far more racism from these expats who feel betrayed that I have happily integrated into Japanese society than I ever have from Japanese people.

Racism exists everywhere. Living in Japan has been the first place where I've lived as a visible minority and it has been an eye opener. Being obviously different is hard in many ways. There are people who stare at you, or people who wonder if/how you are different from them. There are people who are afraid of you for no reason other than you are different. Very occasionally there are people who are abusive and rude, but most of the time it is mostly a mixture of ignorance and curiosity (and maybe a little bit of fear of the unknown thrown in).

It can be quite a problem for some people. Many people take offence at practically anything and can't let anything slide. They feel it is morally wrong not to take a stand about being treated differently. They feel you are morally wrong if you happily agree to be treated differently.

For me, probably like a lot of people who read HN, I have always been different. I have never fit in anywhere. Even though I was visibly the same as everyone, my way of thinking, my religious beliefs, my values have always been different from the norm. I suffered greatly in countries where everyone assumed that I was the same as them. As a visible minority, I am free to be different. It makes me happy even if sometimes it causes problems.

"Expats in Japan frequently question why I would live in rural Japan with people who don't look [and by extension, think] like me", would be a true statement for me. In my opinion this is likely true of any visible minority population anywhere. It definitely hurts me and I suspect it hurts the author as well, which is probably why he wrote about it in that way.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#73

Post by Cakez0r »

onion2k wrote: post #31
punkbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That confuses skin colour and culture though. The idea that skin colour makes you think differently is essence of racism. We may (or may not) need to break the privileged male echo chamber, but whether you're black or white is completely irrelevant. You want the diversity of social status, sure. To assume someone is of a different social status based on their skin colour is racism.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#74

Post by Jach »

onion2k wrote: post #52
smanuel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need to break the 'privileged white male' echo chamber that keeps coming up with the same dull ideas Can you elaborate on the definition of "privileged white male"?

I'm going to assume you understand the 'white male' aspect. 'Privileged' in the sense that they came from a middle-income home where they had access to things like a computer and books, were fortunate to attend schools that were reasonably well funded, had the opportunity to attend college and university, didn't live in fear of crime throughout their childhood, had outdoor space to play in, had good access to healthc…

So is that 90% figure from some poll or study? I'm curious where it comes from because not even 90% of the IT industry is white. There are a lot of Asians.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#75

Post by b6 »

I would be overjoyed if people would stop capitalizing "black", "white", etc. It feels like I'm reading something from Stormfront. Do we want body attributes and tribes to be less important in the future, or more?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#76

Post by kasey_junk »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #50
onion2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lets be concrete. I'm streaming realtime events and then running statistical models on the datastream in order to manipulate user behavior. What "different perspectives" are offered by women, non-Asian minorities or LGBQT+? Is there a secret prediction method that whites/asians don't know about? A special LGBQT+ streaming architecture? On several occasions I've joined a company and been the only diversity carrier. I…

It's pretty trivial to find examples where societal biases create negative results for companies that do not move beyond them.

For instance, in some places (you may be aware of ;) there is a societal bias that heterosexual anglo men are hyper sexual. That they are literally untrustworthy due to it is not an uncommon bias. It is an easy jump from that bias to an implicit (or even explicit) belief that it is better NOT to hire engineers to build streaming event architectures who are constantly thinking about sex and therefore to build a pipeline that biases against heterosexual white men. A company that did this, intentionally or not, is at a disadvantage when hiring because they have removed from the applicant pool people for the wrong reasons.

A company that instead was blind to that bias (or actively worked against it) would therefore have a wider pool to select from.

Even 1 counter example is often enough to change the biases for everyone who encounters them. So the company that hired 'yummyfajitas' and realized either A) he is not hyper sexual or B) he is but it doesn't impact his ability to perform the task is more likely to detach the wrong biases from their hiring pipeline and this has a multiplying effect.

Substitute "women aren't as good at math", "older people learn technologies slower", "black guys don't research as well" or whatever other bias you want.

Also, you know, sometimes we should do things because they are the right thing to do.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#77

Post by cauterized »

draugadrotten wrote: post #5
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…

> 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?

Poor analogy. 10-15% of CA's population is black. Something like 1% of Silicon Valley tech employees are black. The percentage of white people in China is vanishingly small. And AFAIK China doesn't claim to be a land of equal opportunity.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#78

Post by dudul »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #66
dudul wrote: post #62

"why pay all that money for college when you can go to coding school for a fraction of the price, make over six figures, and get equity in a company?" You realize that most engineers do have a college degree right? You realize that most engineers are not dumb script kiddies who went through 10 PHP tutorials to learn how to code? "I definitely feel like my high school guidance counselor dropped the ball on that one."…

>You realize that most engineers do have a college degree right? You realize that most engineers are not dumb script kiddies who went through 10 PHP tutorials to learn how to code? This doesn't match the dialogue I see here and other places about college graduates and/or job candidates who can't fizzbuzz or have no other skills required in the industry. Although I think it would be nice if we simultaneously had a ste…

Not sure I see your point. Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field.

Just to be clear: I don't think all developers need a degree, but I think there is much more than just attending a 4 week codecamp required to become a good developer. The author makes it sound so trivial and easy.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#79

Post by spacemanmatt »

b6 wrote: post #75

I would be overjoyed if people would stop capitalizing "black", "white", etc. It feels like I'm reading something from Stormfront. Do we want body attributes and tribes to be less important in the future, or more?

Do you seriously propose that ignoring tribes will help anything?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#80

Post by kasey_junk »

smanuel wrote: post #61
onion2k wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to assume you understand the 'white male' aspect. 'Privileged' in the sense that they came from a middle-income home where they had access to things like a computer and books, were fortunate to attend schools that were reasonably well funded, had the opportunity to attend college and university, didn't live in fear of crime throughout their childhood, had outdoor space to play in, had good access to healthc…

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure you don't put all white people in one basket, labeled privileged . So, by your definition there should be "white non-privileged people" as well, right? This means we shouldn't talk about black, white, etc. people but we should talk about having more non-privileged people in tech? I like this thinking but I don't understand what should be the mechanisms for making it happen. The only…

Talent isn't a universal unit of measurement. Talent we attribute to results, even when there is glaring evidence that many of those results are as dependent on factors outside of a persons control than on any abilities of that person.

Thats what the discussion about privilege is really useful for. Keeping it in the forefront of your mind (especially if you are successful) that many people have similar capability/potential as you, but they experience different circumstances that can radically alter the outcomes.

My favorite saying to remember is "He thinks he hit a home run in life, when he was born on third base."

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