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Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

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Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#211

Post by pc86 »

xaa wrote: post #204
pc86 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty standard in the US, due to our history, for colored people to just feel out of place in 9/10 white environment. Calling them "colored people" certainly doesn't help.

Isn't it interesting how "people of color" is a common self-designation for (most frequently) black people, whereas "colored people", literally synonymous, is considered offensive? Of course there are valid historical reasons for it, but many people (probably including GP) don't know about them. The euphemism treadmill can get quite exhausting.

Well, the GP uses "our" in reference US history, and I've never met a single American under the age of 40 who doesn't know that most people consider "colored person" offensive, even if they thought it was a stupid reason.

Like most things considered racially offensive, it's less about the dictionary definition of the word and more about what the connotation is. It's the same reason someone in an interracial marriage would hardly ever say "my black wife" but would say "my wife, who happens to be black," if it were relevant. I'm 100% positive they'd never say "my colored wife" unless they were 130 years old.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#212

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

mafribe wrote: post #143
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #136

This is a very simple problem and racism has almost nothing to do with it: White founder has a business idea and they bring along their friends - most likely white. Those friends bring in their friends and colleagues - also most likely white - to become the executive team. The executives hire tomorrow's managers. By that time the vast majority of employees are white, and even if they work very very hard to hire black…

The longer a lack of diversity persists in a company's trajectory the harder it becomes to fix it. Google and Microsoft seem to have had no problem hiring a lot of Indians or Chinese.

Those are huge companies with tons of cash. Referrals are less important when thousands of college graduates are stampeding for a job at a tech titan. Also, how much of the upper management at either is Indian or Chinese?

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#213

Post by ebfe »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #187

I'm a black guy working in IT at a company in the top 5 of the Fortune 500. This is complicated issue. There have been experiment that show having a "black" name lowers your job prospects [1]. Other studies that show: "...race actually turned out to be more significant than a criminal background. Notice that employers were more likely to call Whites with a criminal record (17% were offered an interview) than Blacks w…

The first study confounds the issues of race and class. Emily is not the white equivalent to Lakisha, Brandi is.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#214

Post by saint_fiasco »

pingou wrote: post #181
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not my experience in France at all. I'm a white American male, and I was shocked when I worked in France for a month. When I ate lunch in the cafeteria the muslim employees grouped together and there was a whole 'who are you eating with' question that I found odd. This was in 2004, and it is only 1 data point. But when talking to French friends of mine in tech who are African they share similar stories. One F…

Well it doesn't mirror my experience at all, at school or at work, but yes I'm pretty sure it does happen. I didn't say there wasn't racism in France, more that the concept of belonging to a definite community depending on your color is probably less present as in the States. The job application problem is a terrible one, as getting a job is the best way to use the social ladder. That's the thing I don't understand,…

>, if an Afro-French cannot find a job, surely it would be be advantageous to hire him, at a slightly lower market price

In some countries doing that is illegal. If the authorities notice that you are paying people of different races different amounts of money, you can get fined. Therefore it's easier to just find excuses to not hire them in the first place.

Is France one of those countries?

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#215

Post by ceras »

reidrac wrote: post #56
pingou wrote: post #18

"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 found it shocking too. If she didn't have much in common with her colleagues, is that really because she was a black woman and they were white males? It makes me think I don't understand the importance of race in US. 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 ran…

Looks like the comments here are all over the place on how much of an impact it has, but I'll give you my perspective as a hispanic in the US.

Race is intimately tied with culture, which impacts your upbringing and interests. People form bonds over their interests and experiences, like talking about their childhood or the TV/music they like--the more these differ, the harder it is to form that first superficial work bond. Even when the differences aren't huge, it compounds enough that friend groups in the US are highly self-segregated.

To pick another race, it's not rare to see Asian-Americans who were born and raised in America hanging out with a group of friends who are all Asian-American. The reasons could be as simple as bonding over the foods they ate growing up, the ways their parents raised them, and the TV shows / music they listened to (e.g. much more open to C-/J-/K-pop). It's the same effect for all races/ethnicities I've seen.

Note that this ignores the more subtle but still important effect of people naturally liking people who look and dress like them, which has obvious racial and cultural ties too. For example, there are studies in the US that show that white people are fine living near black people, but not too many black people. Overtime, simulations show[1] that almost any definition of too many results in self-segregation.

IME coming from a working class background, economic background has a similar effect on relationships, but economic background is not visually obvious like race so it's less discussed.

[1]: http://ncase.me/polygons/

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#216

Post by stuxnet79 »

Larrikin wrote: post #182
ryanlol wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that's not related to the race aspect. Why bring up her race unless that's the reason for why they don't watch the same TV shows or read the same books?

Different races are exposed to different cultures and when everyone knows about some aspect and you don't, you will feel left out and experience culture shock. My elementary school and middle school were about 95% black with rest mostly being white and my high school was about 85% white with the next largest percentage being Asian. The kinds of music, tv shows, and activities people did on the weekend had barely any…

+1

Quick question, what was your experience as a white person in a majority black school? I always hear about the plight of black students in majority white schools but never the inverse.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#217

Post by ceras »

qaq wrote: post #120
Yaziyumaru wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true, I went to a very small not well known college in Canada and a classmate of mine went straight to Google after finishing his CS degree. Good companies generally hire off of provable skills not "how early" you started learning.

Which parts are not true: 1) Majority of employees at Google FB etc are graduates of top tech schools. 2) Majority of employees started coding and had interest in CS before college. How likely you are to be good at CS if you never had an interest in CS before college :)? I have a lot of friends from Easternn Europe now working at Google, Apple, FB, but this anecdotal evidence does not change the fact that majority of…

Do you happen to have any evidence for #2? I work at one of those companies and picked up coding in college, and so did at least a few of my coworkers. I really have no idea how common it is and would love to know.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#218

Post by ctstover »

Free Advice:

Look, the US is filled with businesses in big cities that, while are not "software companies", do very much need to write software to conduct operations. Take Houston, Texas for instance. It doesn't matter where you came from, what you look like, or who your daddy is. The game is supply and demand. If you can supply, you are in demand. If you are a native English speaker, then you are already ahead. In this country, if you are willing to move, work your ass off, and actually like programming - eventually you will reach gainful employment. Especially if you can pass a drug test. The first year? Hell no. Look for the hardest shit you can find that people with no patience think they are "too good for", and you will be filling in your experience in no time. Life is not easy or fair. If you are smart enough to do even some half ass programming, you have been given a gift.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#219

Post by sakopov »

I'm not American but I've lived here for a quite some time and this is my observation purely from my outsider perspective. Ask yourself how many times you see African Americans in a group of Asian, Latino or White people? I think the answer is very simple - Black people segregate themselves not just from White people but people of ANY other race. The majority stay in their cliques and never try to get out and the general consensus is "Why even bother?" I mean, the young lady in the article says she doesn't fit in and all that goes through my mind is how is this anyone's fault?

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#220

Post by yoz-y »

panglott wrote: post #191
yoz-y wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the main problem with French is that they really do not like to speak any other language than French. It is quite common that, for example, during the lunch with international participation and a French majority the conversation will start in English but then very quickly slip into French and then foreigners are lost. It has also happened to me, when speaking English or being in non-french speaking groups…

I would say the main problem with Americans is that they really do not like to speak any language other than English ;)

Maybe some precisions are necessary. I am neither French nor American and I can speak French very well. However many of my colleagues did not and since they came to France for short periods of time (1 to 2 years) they did not have much incentive to learn the language.

I think that when you have many non-French speakers in the workforce (this was a research laboratory with a healthy influx of foreign students, postdocs and engineers) then it would be rather nice for the native speakers to speak the 'common' language everybody knows. Otherwise the groups get divided into foreigners and French.

The comments by passersby are quite infuriating as well. When my wife's parents were visiting (not French either) and were talking among themselves we got some angry dude that started ranting (and shouting so that they couldn't even hear each other) about how everybody should speak French. Of course this is an isolated case but still.

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