Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by fortes » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #179

pingou wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm not an expert but it seems to me that in France we expect minorities to leave a good part of their culture and become "real french", eat cheese, wear beret and never walk without a baguette under their arms, whereas in the US I was under the impression that there's a lot more effort from minorities to differentiate themselves. I don't think we can really talk of a "black culture" in France (at least not in t…

America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities and a strong nationality. But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture. Their culture has been a part of American culture from the beginning. For almost all of American history they were e…

> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. > It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities > and a strong nationality.

I'll dispute that. In my experience, Brazil is a better melting pot.

Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.

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

#232

Post by geofft » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #201

geofft wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I do know is, you can't compensate for that by handing people undeserved opportunities. How do you know this? Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't, it still seems to me that if you hand black people undeserved opportunities (leaving aside that the word "undeserved" is a huge stretch here,…

>> Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't... That is absolutely not my thesis; you're either wilfully or ignorantly misrepresenting what I said. Some black people do make it in tech; some make it in other fields. They generally do so the way the rest of us do, by hard work. Perhaps harder work, in…

I apologize for ignorantly misrepresenting it. That seemed like an accurate way of rephrasing your claim, "maybe Black Americans don't get that in their upbringing." But I guess I have lost some subtlety.

Anyway, I was under the impression that the lives of minorities in the US is much better today and the correlation between race and class is much weaker today than before the 1970s, no? ("Forcible integration," for instance, brings to mind the Little Rock Nine in the 1950s and the "segregation forever" speech in the 1960s, but maybe you're referring to something else.) How has this been discredited, and in what way did they not work? Sorry if this is a naïve question.

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

#233

Post by travjones » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #176

travjones wrote: post #40

I've only been to SF twice, but I have to agree that it is pretty white. Not as white as Colorado, but still. I also toured Medium and was blown away by the lack of black folks working there. It's tough to describe the feeling, but when you're the only black person in the room, you do feel different--a little uncomfortable. However, I don't think this reflects a conscious effort to not hire blacks, rather there are i…

Yes, there's not a big black community in San Francisco. There's an unusually large southeast asian community though, which is uncommon in many other parts of the US. Still, even smaller divides can be stark. I am white and I live in St Louis. There are a lot of black people in St Louis. However, there's parts of the city where it's very uncommon to see black people, while in others, black people have asked me if I g…

Thanks for your thoughtful, considered response. We need more people like you in the world and in tech.

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

#234

Post by wan23 » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #66

tomp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It often seems like the people writing this articles don't realize that preferring your own race is racism, no matter what race that is. If she feels that she doesn't fit in because there aren't enough people like her (black), that's just as racist as white people not wanting to hang out with blacks because they're not white.

Haven't you heard that racism = power + prejudice, so black people by definition can't be racist because they don't have power? (This is not an opinion that I agree with, but a lot of people actually think that way).

The topic of race in america is a complex one. But our understanding of it evolves over time, just like in every other field of study. As a technical matter, the definition of racism is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior". That last part is important. Things can be racially motivated and negative without being racist. So for example, Indian person denied an apartment by a white landlord because "they make smelly food". Racist. Indian person refuses to rent to whites because he prefers someone who speaks his language. Racist? Depends. On the one hand, as a landlord he has the power to effect discrimination in a way that can cause a problem to applicants. But on the other hand, the language thing is about trying to solve a specific problem that he has, not because he thinks those people are inferior somehow. Similar situations, but the second is less racist than the first. Especially when you take into account the effect, which is that the Indian family being denied might have to work very hard to overcome this stereotype whereas the white family might well just move on to the next listing and be accepted quickly.

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

#235

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

stuxnet79 wrote: post #216

Larrikin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll jump in and give you an answer. From 7th to 10th grade I attended a majority black school (a common "solution" to No Child Left Behind in the south eastern US was to move accelerated programs (IB etc) to the lowest preforming school to keep averages above the level required for funding). There definitely was tension (probably exacerbated by the academic divide on top of the racial one) most noticeable in interactions with the administration. Neither group having any incentive to integrate lead to a general feeling of "otherness" but I couldn't say I remember any overt prejudiced on the level experienced by people in the inverse situation.

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

#236

Post by rquantz » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #129

rquantz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not realize that US education is on par with a third world country in a lot of regions?

Access to a computer has little to do with education anymore. If someone wants to tinker with computers, they can use one in a library or just get an old one for <$100.

Theoretically, yes. In practice, no. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13drill.htm...

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

#237

Post by ryanlol » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

tosseraccount wrote: post #148

pc86 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply stating a number like that adds absolutely nothing of value. There are a lot of questions you need the answers to in order to make any kind of judgment: - What is the racial makeup of the accepted applicant pool? - What is the racial makeup of the interviewed applicant pool (including those not extended offers)? - What is the racial makeup of the overall applicant pool (including those not invited for intervie…

Silicon Valley can recruit and train African Americans. Why not do it?

The real question is why do it?

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

#238

Post by alistproducer2 » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

devalier wrote: post #196

alistproducer2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "sources" are dubious (at best). Why don't you link to some studies that back up your imgur you got from chimpout or some other fine upstanding white nationalist blog.

The imgur photo came from the Bell Curve by Charles Murray. There was some controversy about parts of the book, but the fact that blacks score one standard deviation lower on IQ tests was never disputed. You can also find this by just googling "race and SAT scores" "race and LSAT scores". Look at the official results put out by those organizations, and you will find that on every single test the average black score i…

The very idea that you can abstract IQ from socio-economic status has no basis in science. The idea that IQ is a measure of intrinsic intelligence is also not accepted. There's a reason race is not accepted as a biological handicap anywhere but in white supremacy circles and it's not political correctness.

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

#239

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

stuxnet79 wrote: post #229

vanattab wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about finn's character is bumbling?

Rather than list attributes consistent with "bumbling" it would be better if you compared Finn to other prominent black characters in Star Wars: Mace Windu? Master of the Jedi high council. Lando Calrissian? Permed out badass who is in charge of Cloud City Vader? The original voice actor was black but does anything else need to be said? Can Finn really compare to any of these? Is he a hero I can personally identify w…

I can identify with a stormtrooper who breaks loose from his oppression and join the other side. The girl has a royal destiny, but Finn is actually working his way up in the world and he's bumbling because he is stretching his limits.

(I get tired of so many stores where the lead characters have some "special" family origin that is so clear to their situations and this erases any discussion of what is it you have to do to become "special" as a member of the mass.)

I so much identify with that guy, see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDM6v1XhWEg

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

#240

Post by pabb » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

codyb wrote: post #117

taconacho wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that surprising. Howard University is 95% black (source: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1024 " rel="nofollow">http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl... ) and is one of the lowest ranked colleges in terms of diversity. Coming from such a culturally closed-off environment to a different one comprised mostly of whites and Asians of different eth…

I'm not sure why anyone would consider that to be a positive, such a closed environment in terms of demographics. Living with people of all races, genders, backgrounds, and sexualities helped me become the man I am today (I've lived with whites, blacks, asians, latinos, men, women, hetero and homosexual people, Americans, and French citizens). Currently I spend a lot of time with my neighbors in Brooklyn. I'm probabl…

As a white guy who also grew up in a predominantly black area with black friends and makes good money, your attempt to appear as the paragon of racial enlightenment makes me cringe.