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

#461

Post by zardo » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 7:18 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #278

panglott wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why's that a problem? English is the global standard lingua franca. English-speaking people in America only need to learn other languages as a hobby, or if they have a specific interest in a particular country. BTW, I don't think there's any moral reason why English should be the global language, but it is. I speak French too, and if the global language magically became French tomorrow, I would feel perfectly fine.

There is the hypothesis that because we think in language, the structures of languages limit and shape our thoughts. Perhaps there are thoughts that are much easier to have in a language other than english, and Americans tend not to have them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

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

#462

Post by pcardh0 » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 8:16 AM UTC

zardo wrote: post #461

School-Cotton wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's that a problem? English is the global standard lingua franca. English-speaking people in America only need to learn other languages as a hobby, or if they have a specific interest in a particular country. BTW, I don't think there's any moral reason why English should be the global language, but it is. I speak French too, and if the global language magically became French tomorrow, I would feel perfectly fine.

There is the hypothesis that because we think in language, the structures of languages limit and shape our thoughts. Perhaps there are thoughts that are much easier to have in a language other than english, and Americans tend not to have them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

That would explain a lot of crazy ideas that the rest of world thinks of.

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

#463

Post by pcardh0 » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 8:32 AM UTC

caskance wrote: post #304

officemonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were a game, it would be called "Whiteness unlocked." An Indian- or Chinese-American can attain "no longer considered minority" (aka whiteness) but African-Americans don't get that achievement.

>An Indian- or Chinese-American can attain "no longer considered minority" (aka whiteness) Is this something white people actually believe? Successful minorities don't become white. They become weapons white people wield against less successful minorities.

Shoot, you found out, I wonder who squealed.

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

#464

Post by HelloNurse » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 9:23 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #37

HelloNurse wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purpose of this article, they count as white. According to a quoted student (around 1/3 of the text), Silicon Valley is "a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.”"

Oh yes, that homogeneous Asian culture, comprising 4 billion people who all speak the same language and eat the same food and watch the same TV shows. They're all the same!

Homogeneous if you divide society into "black people" vs. "everybody else" (or possibly "black people" vs. "white oppressors and their friends/wannabes/bootlickers/slaves of assorted ethnicity, including black traitors"). Actual Asian culture and other real diversities are completely out of the picture.

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

#465

Post by pcardh0 » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 9:37 AM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #444

beachstartup wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i seriously can't even believe you're asking this. i'll start with a real easy one for you. how about being called a chink while walking down the street? how about needing to be not just significantly better than the overall population, but specifically better than other asians at literally everything to even be considered for an elite school or job? how about a 'comedian' openly saying everyone of your race has a sm…

An Asian friend of mine had to work with a guy once that thought it was funny to make jokes about how he didn't feel safe leaving his dog alone with him and things along that line.

I guess it is all in the delivery

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

#466

Post by sangnoir » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #393

dingbat wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

further complicated by the tendency towards aspirational naming, as over time formerly upscale names like Emily / Alexandra / Madison etc become associated with low-end socioeconomics due to overexposure. however, you'd have to be willfully ignorant to deny the perceptual gap between high-end/low-end Emily/Amber vs. Lakisha

So what is a "high-end" black name?

> So what is a "high-end" black name?

The unfortunate implication of parent's statement is that there are no "high-end" black names, and therefore all 'black' names are low-end. Fuck, this is depressing.

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

#467

Post by theorique » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #151

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as a minorty achieves success (and often disproportionate success) they are no longer considered minorities.

As someone who isn't a native English speaker, I've long noticed that, as you mention, "minority" doesn't mean "the opposite of majority" (I'm not sure since when, or exactly what it does mean; you say success is key, but success in what field - chess, boxing, beer-making? Listing just a dozen fields is probably enough to demonstrate that no minorities exist according to the "success" definition.) However, to return…

"Person of color" is essentially a tortured, PC, language construction intended to enable people to avoid saying "non-white" (which, while descriptive, is apparently insensitive or something like that).

So, for example, mixed-race President Obama is a person of color, his African father is a person of color, and his White mother is not a person of color.

It's fairly situational and the lines are relatively blurry - for example, if I have one Japanese grandparent, am I a person of color or a White person?

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

#468

Post by drstrangevibes » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 11:05 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #375

noir_lord wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said they where comparable, I was asking what the differences where.

The difference is that from 1066 until recently England has had one dominant ethnocultural group. Relatively small groups of immigrants are able to integrate into this culture seamlessly. Black people in England aren't culturally "Black", they are either culturally English, or culturally Trinidadan, Jamaican, Ugandan, and so on. Or some combination/superposition of the above. There is no particularly strong shared ex…

this absolute nonsense , to say black people in england arent culturally black is absurd. Black people the world over share a common ancestry and have commonalities in thier culture the melting pot of england has created a unique black culture in just the same way as america has created a unique african-american culture for its own immigrants. You clearly are not black , have no understanding of black culture and are attempting to defend your mistreatment of african americans against an english counter example by spouting nonsense.

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

#469

Post by adetdot » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 11:35 AM UTC

I am a Howard University Alum of the Computer Science Department. My experience at Howard was an eye opening experience. I went to Howard because I got track scholarship and I wanted to get the "Different World" TV Show experience. As a first generation Nigerian American, there was a lot of diversity in the sense that I got to meet black people from all over the world. I even got to get the chance to learn about my history. Also, when I graduated a lot of my classmates went on to work at Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, or other Fortune 500 companies. Google IPO'ed a year earlier and wasn't really on campus. Google and Facebook would get students a couple of years after I graduated. I know a couple of those students that are doing well because they got in early at Facebook. There is a decent amount of Howard Alumni at some of the tech companies. Anyways, what Dr. Burge is doing is great. His focus is to get more students to work on projects and get more tech companies on campus. More people in DC and the US are helping as well.

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

#470

Post by codyb » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

zBard wrote: post #329

oldmanjay wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel as though your experiences made you better than the OP and so you cringe because of your superior enlightenment? I can't imagine what else you might have in mind, I find nothing particularly cringeworthy in the OP, especially since the whole "paragon of racial enlightenment" bit seems to come entirely from your own head.

> and had a few people conspire to potentially remove a few select items from my house. So I started going out in the city more, and now everything's back to the nice vibe it once was. I'm just as comfortable as I was before and that process of potential betrayal and silent forgiveness (I'm not sure my friend even knows I knew he was planning to pull the jux (as my friends from my hometown might say)) is just a part…

My friends told me that some of the other block regulars were planning to rob me. So I backed off from them for a little bit. And now I hang out with them again, just not inside my home. If this was in a poor white neighborhood I don't imagine similar things wouldn't happen there either.

Maybe the wording was a bit over the top for what the situation actually was: I enjoy hanging out with my neighbors, and wasn't going to let some stupid shit like this mess that up.

Sorry that I explained where the word jux comes from in my vocabulary.

Edit: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that. And then I made a joke at the end about this stupid nickname they gave me once. Good lord.

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...