Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Racism in Tech

feld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 190 posts

Re: Racism in Tech

#61

Post by j45 »

eddie_the_head wrote: post #50
Rariel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the exception and not the rule. It's great when things work out as they did for you but it's not the norm. Just because this has been your experience as a black programmer doesn't mean it is that of all others. I also don't think its true that "This entire issue is being exploited to get attention for Angela Benton and her new accelerator." This issue would exist regardless of whether the NewMe accelerator ex…

Hardly, I am another black programmer and I've had the fortune of working with other black programmers, whites, Asians, Polynesians, Hispanics and more. He is not the exception. Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry. If there are any negative vibes towards a person because of their background, it's only ever because of their "foreign-ness"; if for example they might have an accent. Even this is quickly…

Maybe, brown / "arab" are the new blacks to get stares and all that.

Re: Racism in Tech

#63

Post by eddie_the_head »

j45 wrote: post #61
eddie_the_head wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly, I am another black programmer and I've had the fortune of working with other black programmers, whites, Asians, Polynesians, Hispanics and more. He is not the exception. Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry. If there are any negative vibes towards a person because of their background, it's only ever because of their "foreign-ness"; if for example they might have an accent. Even this is quickly…

Maybe, brown / "arab" are the new blacks to get stares and all that.

I'm actually one of these brown / "arab" new blacks you speak of incidentally (I'm from Algeria) and I haven't had this problem. But I do not have an accent and I've sort of "integrated" well within American culture. I can see where someone who is not so well-integrated and comes with an accent might see some trouble, but if they can code with quality and work in teams well, all that goes out the window.

Re: Racism in Tech

#64

Post by gizmo »

wpietri wrote: post #56
gizmo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the statistics (racism is real; white people are less like to be discriminated against or experience indirect racism) but draw the opposite conclusion. When dealing with issues of discrimination the point is to treat everybody equally, to treat people based on their merits and not based on the color of their skin or the statistics of their demographic. If we conclude from research that one race is more i…

Taking four paragraphs to get to your conclusion is a good tactic there. Because maybe by the end people will have forgotten that I'm not actually advocating judging people by their skin color.

It pains me that in 2011 I still have to explain you can't justify discrimination (of any type) with statistics.

Re: Racism in Tech

#65

Post by [deleted] »

j45 wrote: post #61
eddie_the_head wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly, I am another black programmer and I've had the fortune of working with other black programmers, whites, Asians, Polynesians, Hispanics and more. He is not the exception. Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry. If there are any negative vibes towards a person because of their background, it's only ever because of their "foreign-ness"; if for example they might have an accent. Even this is quickly…

Maybe, brown / "arab" are the new blacks to get stares and all that.

[deleted]

Re: Racism in Tech

#66

Post by jhamburger »

sharkman wrote: post #57

Even inside YC. I remember at the YC NYC meetup, the guy on stage in red sweater (forgot his name) was saying "I was so lucky to be born as white male in a middle class family"; I was like, WTH, so born as non-white or female is unlucky?!

Like Louis CK said in a stand-up routine- "I'm not saying white people are better, but being white is clearly better." i.e., you're not likely to ever have an opportunity denied to you in life due to your skin color, or gender.

Re: Racism in Tech

#67

Post by j45 »

sharkman wrote: post #57

Even inside YC. I remember at the YC NYC meetup, the guy on stage in red sweater (forgot his name) was saying "I was so lucky to be born as white male in a middle class family"; I was like, WTH, so born as non-white or female is unlucky?!

He might have meant it's easier for him, which still might not be ok with me.

Re: Racism in Tech

#68

Post by j45 »

eddie_the_head wrote: post #63
j45 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, brown / "arab" are the new blacks to get stares and all that.

I'm actually one of these brown / "arab" new blacks you speak of incidentally (I'm from Algeria) and I haven't had this problem. But I do not have an accent and I've sort of "integrated" well within American culture. I can see where someone who is not so well-integrated and comes with an accent might see some trouble, but if they can code with quality and work in teams well, all that goes out the window.

I too, seem to stand out a little to some people; some even call me a visible minority.

Even though I speak better english and command a larger vocabulary than most. English is my first of four languages.

I also dress well, drive well, dine well, know my music, have friends from many countries.

I once heard a saying you have to be twice as * to be * enough. Fill that in for any group.

Re: Racism in Tech

#69

Post by Rariel »

eddie_the_head wrote: post #50
Rariel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the exception and not the rule. It's great when things work out as they did for you but it's not the norm. Just because this has been your experience as a black programmer doesn't mean it is that of all others. I also don't think its true that "This entire issue is being exploited to get attention for Angela Benton and her new accelerator." This issue would exist regardless of whether the NewMe accelerator ex…

Hardly, I am another black programmer and I've had the fortune of working with other black programmers, whites, Asians, Polynesians, Hispanics and more. He is not the exception. Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry. If there are any negative vibes towards a person because of their background, it's only ever because of their "foreign-ness"; if for example they might have an accent. Even this is quickly…

I've met many programmers that feel differently (as well as engineers in others disciplines ME, ChemE etc) but it is nice that you are another person who has been able to experience zero racism in the work place.

"Racism is just not a thing in the high-tech industry." I beg to differ. Saying racism is "just not a thing" in any sense isn't really realistic. Are there people using the n-word all the time? No. Are there people with bias they might not even understand or be aware of? Yes. . Also there is a huge difference between the world of strictly programming (doing it for other people's businesses) and the world of tech entrepreneuring. Those are two different worlds,they overlap a great deal but they are still different worlds. You encounter different issues and different sets of people you must interact with in different ways.

That said I don't think NewMe is necessary and agree Black start ups should apply to traditional programs. I think some sort of formalized mentoring network would be useful but aside from that I don't really see the point...it's also not an accelerator that invests money in it's startups from what I understand, so I don't really get the point. I still applaud Benton and the others involved for trying to do something.

Re: Racism in Tech

#70

Post by FraaJad »

jhamburger wrote: post #48
notauser wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's certainly a lot of dislike for working with people who have strong accents, and the most commercially successful Indian technologists I have met have been the ones with the most westernised mode of speech. Unfortunately some people take a fairly legitimate gripe (lack of easy communication) and pre-judge an entire group rather than investigating the skills and attributes of a specific individual.

I'm not blaming them, racism is always unfair to the recipient but on projects I've worked on Indians have done absolutely nothing to combat it. By that I mean, they hang out together, they go to lunch together, they basically avoid any unnecessary communication with non-Indians. I ask them to go to lunch and I get a reaction like "um, we kinda go to lunch together." I understand that there are a lot of cultural barr…

Well, I can see that happening. Even within "Indian" groups, people tend to group themselves with people from same state/language. People from some states are known for almost hostile exclusion of people from other states, including neighbouring ones. I speak this from experience as an Indian living in the US.

As regards to lunch, many Indians are very selective about eating habits (for religious reasons). That prevents them from eating in meat-'contaminated' areas.

None of this excuses them from socialising however.. But, socialising with people you already know is easier than making new connections. Which is just lazy, IMO.

Post reply on HN