Why does it have to be that this is an evil white-man conspiracy trying to hold black and laitno's down? Why can't it be something much more simpler, that perhaps there aren't as many qualified black and latinos?
Take a look at typical black culture in largely black only areas. You'll find that speaking without using ebonics is, "talking white". You'll find the culture doesn't value education and shuns literacy, mathematics and sciences as "white people stuff".
Why does it always have to be a white persons fault? Are liberals subtly admitting that black and latinos only live and work at the behest of white people? Are they admitting that if it wasn't for white people there wouldn't be any silicon valley jobs for blacks and latinos to even work in?
If blacks and latinos are equally as capable as white people, why can't they start their own silicon valley and hire blacks/latinos only?
Why is it the white mans job to nurse, baby, coddle and farm out black/latino talent? Why are they incapable of doing all these things themselves?
Why does the burden of an entire race's existence fall upon white people?
Why are blacks and latinos incapable of doing these things themselves without white peoples help?
As a white man, why in the world should I give a shit about black/latino problems? When was the last time a black or latino person gave a shit about my problems?
Why as a society has the narrative been flipped to blame all problems on white people?
Why does it have to be that this is an evil white-man conspiracy trying to hold black and laitno's down? Why can't it be something much more simpler, that perhaps there aren't as many qualified black and latinos?
Take a look at typical black culture in largely black only areas. You'll find that speaking without using ebonics is, "talking white". You'll find the culture doesn't value education and shuns literacy, mathematics and sciences as "white people stuff".
Why does it always have to be a white persons fault? Are liberals subtly admitting that black and latinos only live and work at the behest of white people? Are they admitting that if it wasn't for white people there wouldn't be any silicon valley jobs for blacks and latinos to even work in?
If blacks and latinos are equally as capable as white people, why can't they start their own silicon valley and hire blacks/latinos only?
Why is it the white mans job to nurse, baby, coddle and farm out black/latino talent? Why are they incapable of doing all these things themselves?
Why does the burden of an entire race's existence fall upon white people?
Why are blacks and latinos incapable of doing these things themselves without white peoples help?
As a white man, why in the world should I give a shit about black/latino problems? When was the last time a black or latino person gave a shit about my problems?
Why as a society has the narrative been flipped to blame all problems on white people?
I think feelings on this are going to depend on whether you consider a silicon valley job as more "outcome" or "opportunity." I'd say making sure that black/latino people can obtain these jobs is just as important as making sure they have equal opportunity to attend a good college or good highschool. That puts me in a bit of a predicament though because I come to the conclusion that what's in the best interests of society requires these companies to go against what's in their best interests and pass up more qualified whites/asians. Thoughts?
That's a pretty common line of attack against this sort of thing but I don't think it holds water. There are plenty of "unqualified" white people who get jobs just by knowing the right person. In many industries (less so in tech because there's a shortage overall) there are plenty of qualified applicants of all races, it just takes some work on a few levels (overcoming your own biases, going out of your way to recruit, etc)
I don't believe that there are plenty of qualified applicants of all races. I've been in a position to review resumes and perform interviews for over a decade and I don't recall having ever seen a black developer candidate, much less a "qualified" one. The closest I've gotten is I worked alongside a black sysadmin once. My city is nearly 30% black. My city is also about 25% Hispanic. I've worked with a hand full or so of Hispanic devs, I'd guess somewhere in the range of 3-5% of my coworkers have been Hispanic.
But... the article says Asians are the most likely to be hired and least likely to be promoted so then are they more qualified or not?
You know I think this is actually a good thing. I’ve been working as a dev for 12 years but after interviewing with tech companies more recently I’m done. I’m doing my own thing. The ‘technical interviews’ made sure of that, I presumably suck at them but I can’t be sure because no constructive feedback. Start your own thing, it will be more rewarding, I’ve learned more in 9 years of side projects than I ever did at the job and recently it’s really paying off. Oh yeah, there is no engineer shortage and there never has been, pay people decent and don’t be raise the bar to the point it’s in the clouds and you’ll see there are earnest, keen hardworking people eager and ready. Oh and I don’t know, may be invest in people a little instead too, people are life long learners, they have potential.
> The ‘technical interviews’ made sure of that, I presumably suck at them but I can’t be sure because no constructive feedback ...
such a good point. i've heard that companies have rules expressly forbidding offering constructive feedback to candidates, because liability (or something). but it's a wasteful/destructive system. many companies seem to think working for them is the summation of earthly existence. but they still have churn.
>The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries.
>One of my friends is a woman of color, and not that long ago, she arrived with three male colleagues in the lobby of a building for a scheduled meeting. The administrative assistant came out, walked right past my friend, shook the hands of the three men, and welcomed them. My friend extended her hand to introduce herself, and the assistant asked, "Oh, you're with them?"
Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact.
If by "racism", you mean making decisions based on race only in a literal, overt sense, then sure. If by "racism" you mean structural, large-scale, societal oppression of disadvantaged groups, then no, that's not something a lone startup, or even a bunch of startups, can replicate. The latter is typically what people actually mean.
The over-arching problem is that structural racism is subtle. It doesn't come from managers saying that don't want any [insert racial slur]s on their team. It comes from people making connections through their kids' schools in mostly-white neighborhoods, or getting along because they like the same music or share the same hobby. People like people who seem familiar, and it's harder from someone with a different cultural background to break through. And this is before we factor in the fact disadvantaged groups tend to grow up with fewer opportunities.
Being "neutral" isn't a solution. If you don't try to actively correct for these things, you just end up favoring the status quo. It's not avoiding a choice. It's just choosing the path of least resistance.
It is getting tough these days to decipher intentions of those who wish to combat racism with racism, however was definitely not the intention of OP.
One could start a business with their family, friends (who are likely to be the same race), or even other interested people in their community. Finding good founders is quite hard, to narrow it by race is even harder, but that shouldn't discourage underrepresented people who share similar values to organize.
That's such a big, intimidating risk. I don't mean that to be snarky; starting a business for means of primary income is prohibitively scary to me.
I have a few ideas that I could probably implement to make some passive income. It wouldn't be crazy initially, but it also wouldn't be an amount to scoff at. I think they all have the potential to grow or be bought. The thought of taking that giant risk and failing...
Aside from the ramifications of selectively hiring from my minority group, starting a business makes me shudder.
Not only that, it's much more legal to be racially biased in who you choose as your customers. The laws in the US that require nondiscrimination in hiring, regardless of how effective they may or may not be, don't apply at all to choosing a NoSQL vendor or whatever.
Which part isn't plausible? There's plenty of evidence that competitors are biased in various ways. For tech startups, customers and investors are rarely aware of the racial mix of employees, unless maybe they're in the news for not being diverse enough.
Underrepresented groups tend to have less financial security. (That's part of why they're underrepresented in the first place; the term means that there's less of them in some particular space than their fraction in society as a whole, not that they are a minority in terms of underrepresented numbers.)
Venture capital is great for taking someone who has some amount of financial security, but not quite enough to entirely bootstrap their venture, and giving them enough more. But it's not particularly effective at helping someone who really needs a low-risk (even if low-reward) option because they have no fallback if their company fails. (To be absolutely clear, this isn't the fault of any venture capitalist, nor is it a thing I think a venture capitalist can reasonably solve in the short term, so this is not a complaint about venture capitalists, just a statement about how the world is. Perhaps in the long term, YC's experiments with UBI might help, but that's an experiment and it won't become a reliable source of financial security for anyone for many many years.)
Race doesn't line up perfectly with financial security, and it certainly does not determine financial security. But in the US, today, it's pretty strongly correlated.
Unsurprising. I tell all of my minorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. The increase in callbacks always shocks me. You can do this experiment in reverse yourself if you already have an American sounding name.
Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too much many in tech to for the incumbents to leave it to merit.
This is one reason why I advocate giving your kids (if in America, at least) really boring names. Just scratch anything remotely strange off the list, and forget about it.
If you can't imagine a Kennedy or a character on 1950s US TV having the name, don't use it. Having a "special" name is unlikely to bring any benefit, and may well have significant social costs (plus having always to repeat yourself and spell your name, correcting misspellings on forms, et c.)
With my three young kids I already regret the very, very slightly unusual name we used for the first one (ordinary spelling for the name, name has a long history but it's almost homophonic with a 20x more common name, which we should have just used instead). Just don't do it.
There are plenty of people who regret having the common name, too. Hard to find them online, sometimes you get a mixup with someone else's arrest warrant or credit report, etc.
Male with the most common American male name from 1950-2000 here (and top 5 for the last 100 years or more). I don't even hear my name when spoken in public, I only hear familiar voices or my last name (I usually give a fake name when ordering food or waiting for tires, etc). I went to a large high school and a small college. There were 3-4 persons with my same name in every class. Eventually everyone refers to you by your last name or a nickname. This has not stopped even into adulthood.
Even as a professional working for a small business, I get re-introduced over and over again to the same people. I'm sure that my words and appearance play a role in that as well, but surely my name is not helping.
It's not really as clear-cut as that, Australia for instance had some study results* led by a Hardvard Grad show the opposite, that blind recruitment generally favored the white male majority as it precluded affirmative action hires.
If a truly anonymous (which I'm skeptical that study was, but I'll give them the benefit of doubt) hiring method yields more white people, then that's 100% OK. The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc; not to implement a quota resulting in a certain percentage of people from backgrounds being hired.
"The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc"
One would think, no?
But there's a considerable number of people who don't feel that way - they think that 50/50 gender balance is a 'moral imperative' for example.
Surely, it's their right to think that, even promote it. But I'm weary of that kind of ideology being used to shut down other voices - which I think happens frequently.
I believe that the Guardian article (and the Graun as a whole, I read it every day and see the pattern) speaks to this: that specific minorities are underrepresented in certain roles 'must be due to racism' I think is unfair. Surely it plays a part, but there are so many other factors.
Anonymity as a solution assumes that the problem ends at hiring. It's unlikely that whatever forces cause people to racially discriminate during hiring are going to go stop causing problems once somebody gets the job. And some decisions, like promotions and pay-raises, can't feasibly be done anonymously.
Why would this be the case if they stated Asians and other minorities have not been affected? Black and Latino names are way more common in the US than Asians / Indians. Are you saying that silicon valley will hire every other minority besides black and latinos?
Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses.
Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?
i did one of these interviews at a bank. I was asked to sit behind curtain and answer questions . It felt totally weird. you are right they should have masked out my voice too.
There exist people who are good at providing correct answers and code, but are incredibly toxic to a human organization. They're fairly rare, and if you work in a healthy well-run company, you may never have met one. But if you interview a lot, you surely have (they get a lot of interviews, because they look good on paper.) The risk is that you'd end up with a lot of these types.
I'm not saying a pure audition model can't work, just that you should know what the pitfalls are.
> isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?
No, they're merely a technical fit, maybe, depending on what you ask. (Your blinding process would also mean preventing interviewers from seeing any open source contributions which may be far more indicative of technical fit than anything you'd ask in an interview.) Technical fit might be enough for most roles, more blinding at least at the initial filtering stages might be a good idea, but culture fit is important for a lot of firms. At the very least people will want person-to-person interviews to maximize their odds at detecting a permanent asshole (and other toxic types), since typically no one wants to work with one even if they're skilled.
"prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice"
And what happens representation becomes even more skewed?
The fact is the Valley employs gender/ethnicity almost perfectly commensurate with those graduating with CS degrees.
It's borderline bigoted to imply that 'it's all due to racism'.
Yes, surely there are gender/ethnic issues, but the funnel is 90% of the problem.
There's no fair way to hire 50% females if only 15% of applicants are female.
I get there's 'dynamic feedback' (i.e. more women in tech encourages more younger women in tech) but again, it's the responsibility of people to make choices in life.
I have enough East/South Asian friends to roughly grasp the soft-racism they faced growing up, and they've done very well both as individuals and as a group.
This issue needs nuance and few people are willing to speak in those terms.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
We're tired of obsessing about race.
We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.
The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.
CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.
Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.
There's plenty of evidence that people care about skin color, irregardless of race. Are you serious?
Talking about Asians is a red herring. Asians actually suffer similarly to blacks once you look at Asians other than eastern ones (e.g. Japanese, Korean).
The idea that Asians are a model minority is simply propaganda used to victim blame Hispanics and Blacks as well as create a division between them. This also happened between low income whites and blacks. I encourage you to do some research.
TLDR: comparing Asians with blacks is literally like comparing apples with oranges.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
We're tired of obsessing about race.
We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.
The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.
CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.
Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.
'“There have been no changes for Asians or any other minority over time – men or women,” said Buck Gee, the study’s co-author and an executive adviser to Ascend, a US-based research group that advocates for Asian representation in businesses.'
The claim is that, despite increasingly visible/vocal attempts at diversity, the industry does not reflect this. We've noticed a regression in black/Latino hiring and stagnancy for Asians. This implies that there is racism at work.
No I don't believe it does. Causation != correlation.
Just because a company goes on a PR campaign to openly discriminate based on race and attempt to hire minorities, does not mean more minorities will present themselves in the application pools.
Again, until urban minority cultures begin to value education - nothing will change.
Or it means any number of things such as the visible/vocal attempts at diversity failing to achieve their stated goals, the difficulty in attracting appropriately skilled developers from what is already a much smaller subset of the population etc.
The angle of the study, if not the actual result, is already a foregone conclusion considering it's from an Affirmative Action-lobbying organization but even then some of the complaints are a bit nonsensical (hard to know if it should be chalked down to the Guardian or the actual report though), for instance that it's twice as likely to find white men and women as CEOs than asian ones, when the amount of whites are fourteen times the one of the asian population in the US.
Does it though? Or does it suggest that the problem is not (just) racism, and that all the noise is making it harder to identify and solve the root problems?
> The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education.
I have no interest in deleting your comment, but I am interested in rational debate.
1. What is your evidence for this?
2. Why would this explain a decline in representation? Do you believe that "urban black" culture has started devaluing education?
3. If, indeed, you're tired of thinking about race, why is your analysis based on "urban black" culture? Why not urban culture in general? There are plenty of inner-city whites and Asians, no?
1. I don't think I need to provide evidence that black culture does not value education. Call me racist, whatever you want - but this is an obvious truth.
2. This is difficult to quantify, maybe it's gotten worse - the underlying issue remains.
3. I specify "urban" culture because I believe the issue of representation is due almost entirely to culture and socioeconomics. You will not see black kids from double-educated-parent households from the suburbs struggling in academia or the workforce. Totally agree, race is non-issue. Could be white, asian, latino, whatever.
> 1. I don't think I need to provide evidence that black culture does not value education. Call me racist, whatever you want - but this is an obvious truth.
I don't think calling you racist will be productive. But I am perfectly happy to call you uninterested in reasoned debate if you cannot produce even the slightest shred at evidence here.
> 2. This is difficult to quantify, maybe it's gotten worse - the underlying issue remains.
So you have no reason why representation would worsen other than "maybe."
> You will not see black kids from double-educated-parent households from the suburbs struggling in academia or the workforce.
Again, can you provide evidence here? One form of evidence is looking at the number of students from such households who go to college for CS, and what the proportions are by race of people who get hired and promoted in tech. If those proportions are on par with the number who graduate college, then you'll have demonstrated your claim.
Well, maybe if you weren't an actual racist you wouldn't get accused of being a racist every time.
>The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education.
What do you know about "latino culture". In fact what the fuck does that even mean? Why are you grouping people from an entire continent under an umbrella? What do you think an Argentinian has to do with a Mexican? Do you think we have the same culture?
> Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process.
Well except we do, and we are often so competitive that puny white supremacists like you feel threatened by our very existence, and start shouting "dey tuk our jerbs!" the moment they feel there are "too many" of us.
I imagine, that as tired of you are hearing about it, it is worse for the people who are subject to discrimination every day. Like the assertions that you just made about how certain races value education.
So, basically, stop being such a snowflake.
Also, next time, try not to directly contradict yourself in the same comment:
> urban black CULTURE does not value education
> CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR
That's exactly what I meant, you can see me explain in other comments.
Assume good intent in people, come on guys.
Since we're talking about minorities, I felt the need to specify "urban black" culture, but I agree. "Urban <any race>" culture is suffering from anti-intellectualism.
Black people, living in a predominately black neighborhood, surrounded mostly by blacks do indeed have an awful culture that perpetuates ignorance and calls speaking without ebonics, "talking white".
It's cool you use big fancy words like "socioeconomic issue" to describe what is, in essence, black people behaving like black people!
There are no evil white men pulling their strings forcing them to be ignorant and not get educated, they just don't want to be a part of modern society and would rather rely on government subsidies than getting out and getting a real job or career.
If the majority of black people everywhere they go create ghettos and create this shitty "culture", then its the black peoples fault themselves, not some magic boogeyman "culture" that liberals are so inclined to throw around.
You're asking for quite a lot. Black America doesn't value education because the culture was designed to devalue education. I know no one on this site wants to talk about it, but a culture was created for Black America during slavery.
Think about what was valuable in slaves. Physical Prowess (Stronger slaves means more work can be completed in the fields), and talent (slaves that can keep other slaves entertained mean they're not planning a revolt).
Keeping the slave master entertained by singing and dancing also brought perks for the slaves that are able to do so. Being able to produce more value in the field also brought perks.
Now think about the industries Black Americans dominate today... Athletics and Entertainment.
Being caught reading would get you killed, being caught writing would get you killed. Being white and teaching a black person to read or write could also get you killed.
The problem is the culture. Simply saying fix the culture when it's the result of a process that took hundreds of years to create will not solve the issue.
I certainly don't believe it's asking for a lot. It's racist to assert that minorities don't have any self control.
Every race in the world has been enslaved at some point. We are just animals, transcend this.
Let's start here: is it too much of a stretch to say that I think it's ridiculous that the most commonly understood career path for black youth is drug dealer -> gangster rapper, or athlete? These kids deserve better role models, for one. This is an obvious truth and should not require citation.
This recent thinking that almost every problem or every deficiency with group(s) of humans is to be blamed on whites, it is absolute nonsense.
The real problem is IQ. Repeat that acronym with me: I, Q.
You cannot just import an Africa tribesman, put him into a lab coat and hope for the best; there exists differences. Massive differences. In fact if all races were "equal" as we say there are then there would not even be a discussion to have, since the transition would be seamless.
This comment violates the guidelines. You've made highly provocative and controversial claims without support, which is also called flamebait. This doesn't bring us any closer to actual learning or insight. That's what this site is for.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
Any opinions, thoughts and ideas that are expressed on ycombinator that are not left-wing and don't tow the liberal line are being deleted.
It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles, it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who express opinions that aren't "correct".
Nonsense. If the majority of a race gravitates to having such a shitty "culture" that values ignorance, then calling it a "culture and socioeconomic issue" is simply tap dancing around the actual issue.
Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are welcome and needed but this news article is, frankly, junk.
I always like to look at data from the source, so I downloaded the original report, which The Guadian couldn't be bothered to link to.
Let's start with the title of the article:
> Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows
However the report is about Asian representation, and although it includes some data on other groups it states:
> Although we include the figures for black and Hispanic men and women, we do not use them for comparative purposes because EPI figures for those cohorts are highly sensitive to small changes.
This is right in the executive summary.
The next problem is that the article represents the study as being of "Silicon Valley" and the "tech industry", but the study is of just five companies: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. These are all large corporations and there is no evidence given to suggest that this is a "Silicon Valley" problem and not a "Corporate America" problem. That's not to say that you can't draw conclusions from studying these companies, but you can't make sweeping statements about the tech industry based on them. Especially when so much of Silicon Valley is made up of startups. The valley is a dynamic place: two of those corporations no longer exist.
Obviously problems exist, but I see no reason here to single out the tech industry for special blame, especially when no attempt is made to compare tech with other industries and "tech" is taken to mean a handful of large corporations. Worse still, by misrepresenting the nature and origins of these problems, we set ourselves up to fail when we try to address them. Uber's appalling culture, for example is firmly rooted in that of finance, why don't we talk about that? What do the finance industry's diversity statistics look like?
>Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are welcome and needed
I posted a top level comment that links to a study and another link to an article which links to several studies and got downvoted to oblivion. I don't think this sort of thing is _actually_ welcome here.
All: if you're going to comment on this thread, please make sure to post civilly and substantively, as the guidelines ask. If you have any questions or issues outside of the topic of discussion, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com.
I started a sports betting company that turned into an analytics company. We had zero women or minority (other than asian) employees or even applicants. One new employee became vocal about it, so he was made our "diversity officer". He was made part of our recruiting division and was present in every interview. We got one (white) woman employee. She quit soon after joining. Now there is an opening for a "diversity officer" inside the company. No takers yet.
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[ 0.33 ms ] story [ 95.4 ms ] threadTake a look at typical black culture in largely black only areas. You'll find that speaking without using ebonics is, "talking white". You'll find the culture doesn't value education and shuns literacy, mathematics and sciences as "white people stuff".
Why does it always have to be a white persons fault? Are liberals subtly admitting that black and latinos only live and work at the behest of white people? Are they admitting that if it wasn't for white people there wouldn't be any silicon valley jobs for blacks and latinos to even work in?
If blacks and latinos are equally as capable as white people, why can't they start their own silicon valley and hire blacks/latinos only?
Why is it the white mans job to nurse, baby, coddle and farm out black/latino talent? Why are they incapable of doing all these things themselves?
Why does the burden of an entire race's existence fall upon white people?
Why are blacks and latinos incapable of doing these things themselves without white peoples help?
As a white man, why in the world should I give a shit about black/latino problems? When was the last time a black or latino person gave a shit about my problems?
Why as a society has the narrative been flipped to blame all problems on white people?
Take a look at typical black culture in largely black only areas. You'll find that speaking without using ebonics is, "talking white". You'll find the culture doesn't value education and shuns literacy, mathematics and sciences as "white people stuff".
Why does it always have to be a white persons fault? Are liberals subtly admitting that black and latinos only live and work at the behest of white people? Are they admitting that if it wasn't for white people there wouldn't be any silicon valley jobs for blacks and latinos to even work in?
If blacks and latinos are equally as capable as white people, why can't they start their own silicon valley and hire blacks/latinos only?
Why is it the white mans job to nurse, baby, coddle and farm out black/latino talent? Why are they incapable of doing all these things themselves?
Why does the burden of an entire race's existence fall upon white people?
Why are blacks and latinos incapable of doing these things themselves without white peoples help?
As a white man, why in the world should I give a shit about black/latino problems? When was the last time a black or latino person gave a shit about my problems?
Why as a society has the narrative been flipped to blame all problems on white people?
I think feelings on this are going to depend on whether you consider a silicon valley job as more "outcome" or "opportunity." I'd say making sure that black/latino people can obtain these jobs is just as important as making sure they have equal opportunity to attend a good college or good highschool. That puts me in a bit of a predicament though because I come to the conclusion that what's in the best interests of society requires these companies to go against what's in their best interests and pass up more qualified whites/asians. Thoughts?
That's a pretty common line of attack against this sort of thing but I don't think it holds water. There are plenty of "unqualified" white people who get jobs just by knowing the right person. In many industries (less so in tech because there's a shortage overall) there are plenty of qualified applicants of all races, it just takes some work on a few levels (overcoming your own biases, going out of your way to recruit, etc)
You know I think this is actually a good thing. I’ve been working as a dev for 12 years but after interviewing with tech companies more recently I’m done. I’m doing my own thing. The ‘technical interviews’ made sure of that, I presumably suck at them but I can’t be sure because no constructive feedback. Start your own thing, it will be more rewarding, I’ve learned more in 9 years of side projects than I ever did at the job and recently it’s really paying off. Oh yeah, there is no engineer shortage and there never has been, pay people decent and don’t be raise the bar to the point it’s in the clouds and you’ll see there are earnest, keen hardworking people eager and ready. Oh and I don’t know, may be invest in people a little instead too, people are life long learners, they have potential.
such a good point. i've heard that companies have rules expressly forbidding offering constructive feedback to candidates, because liability (or something). but it's a wasteful/destructive system. many companies seem to think working for them is the summation of earthly existence. but they still have churn.
it reminds me of the fact that the two WhatsApp founders had applied to Facebook but were rejected. https://medium.com/the-story-of-grip/5-things-every-founder-...
i wish you extreme success in your independent venture.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
>The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20161011-00/?p=...
>One of my friends is a woman of color, and not that long ago, she arrived with three male colleagues in the lobby of a building for a scheduled meeting. The administrative assistant came out, walked right past my friend, shook the hands of the three men, and welcomed them. My friend extended her hand to introduce herself, and the assistant asked, "Oh, you're with them?"
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site-ym.com/resour...
YC funding applications are due today. https://www.ycombinator.com/apply
Fight (assumed) racism! With (actual) racism!
The over-arching problem is that structural racism is subtle. It doesn't come from managers saying that don't want any [insert racial slur]s on their team. It comes from people making connections through their kids' schools in mostly-white neighborhoods, or getting along because they like the same music or share the same hobby. People like people who seem familiar, and it's harder from someone with a different cultural background to break through. And this is before we factor in the fact disadvantaged groups tend to grow up with fewer opportunities.
Being "neutral" isn't a solution. If you don't try to actively correct for these things, you just end up favoring the status quo. It's not avoiding a choice. It's just choosing the path of least resistance.
One could start a business with their family, friends (who are likely to be the same race), or even other interested people in their community. Finding good founders is quite hard, to narrow it by race is even harder, but that shouldn't discourage underrepresented people who share similar values to organize.
I have a few ideas that I could probably implement to make some passive income. It wouldn't be crazy initially, but it also wouldn't be an amount to scoff at. I think they all have the potential to grow or be bought. The thought of taking that giant risk and failing...
Aside from the ramifications of selectively hiring from my minority group, starting a business makes me shudder.
Venture capital is great for taking someone who has some amount of financial security, but not quite enough to entirely bootstrap their venture, and giving them enough more. But it's not particularly effective at helping someone who really needs a low-risk (even if low-reward) option because they have no fallback if their company fails. (To be absolutely clear, this isn't the fault of any venture capitalist, nor is it a thing I think a venture capitalist can reasonably solve in the short term, so this is not a complaint about venture capitalists, just a statement about how the world is. Perhaps in the long term, YC's experiments with UBI might help, but that's an experiment and it won't become a reliable source of financial security for anyone for many many years.)
Race doesn't line up perfectly with financial security, and it certainly does not determine financial security. But in the US, today, it's pretty strongly correlated.
Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too much many in tech to for the incumbents to leave it to merit.
i assume minorities here doesn't include Indians.
If you can't imagine a Kennedy or a character on 1950s US TV having the name, don't use it. Having a "special" name is unlikely to bring any benefit, and may well have significant social costs (plus having always to repeat yourself and spell your name, correcting misspellings on forms, et c.)
With my three young kids I already regret the very, very slightly unusual name we used for the first one (ordinary spelling for the name, name has a long history but it's almost homophonic with a 20x more common name, which we should have just used instead). Just don't do it.
Even as a professional working for a small business, I get re-introduced over and over again to the same people. I'm sure that my words and appearance play a role in that as well, but surely my name is not helping.
*https://pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/going-bli...
One would think, no?
But there's a considerable number of people who don't feel that way - they think that 50/50 gender balance is a 'moral imperative' for example.
Surely, it's their right to think that, even promote it. But I'm weary of that kind of ideology being used to shut down other voices - which I think happens frequently.
I believe that the Guardian article (and the Graun as a whole, I read it every day and see the pattern) speaks to this: that specific minorities are underrepresented in certain roles 'must be due to racism' I think is unfair. Surely it plays a part, but there are so many other factors.
We need cool, rational heads on this subject.
Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?
I'm not saying a pure audition model can't work, just that you should know what the pitfalls are.
No, they're merely a technical fit, maybe, depending on what you ask. (Your blinding process would also mean preventing interviewers from seeing any open source contributions which may be far more indicative of technical fit than anything you'd ask in an interview.) Technical fit might be enough for most roles, more blinding at least at the initial filtering stages might be a good idea, but culture fit is important for a lot of firms. At the very least people will want person-to-person interviews to maximize their odds at detecting a permanent asshole (and other toxic types), since typically no one wants to work with one even if they're skilled.
And what happens representation becomes even more skewed?
The fact is the Valley employs gender/ethnicity almost perfectly commensurate with those graduating with CS degrees.
It's borderline bigoted to imply that 'it's all due to racism'.
Yes, surely there are gender/ethnic issues, but the funnel is 90% of the problem.
There's no fair way to hire 50% females if only 15% of applicants are female.
I get there's 'dynamic feedback' (i.e. more women in tech encourages more younger women in tech) but again, it's the responsibility of people to make choices in life.
I have enough East/South Asian friends to roughly grasp the soft-racism they faced growing up, and they've done very well both as individuals and as a group.
This issue needs nuance and few people are willing to speak in those terms.
We're tired of obsessing about race.
We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.
The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.
CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.
Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.
Talking about Asians is a red herring. Asians actually suffer similarly to blacks once you look at Asians other than eastern ones (e.g. Japanese, Korean).
The idea that Asians are a model minority is simply propaganda used to victim blame Hispanics and Blacks as well as create a division between them. This also happened between low income whites and blacks. I encourage you to do some research.
TLDR: comparing Asians with blacks is literally like comparing apples with oranges.
Am I changing hearts and minds yet?
We're tired of obsessing about race.
We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.
The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.
CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.
Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.
The claim is that, despite increasingly visible/vocal attempts at diversity, the industry does not reflect this. We've noticed a regression in black/Latino hiring and stagnancy for Asians. This implies that there is racism at work.
Just because a company goes on a PR campaign to openly discriminate based on race and attempt to hire minorities, does not mean more minorities will present themselves in the application pools.
Again, until urban minority cultures begin to value education - nothing will change.
The angle of the study, if not the actual result, is already a foregone conclusion considering it's from an Affirmative Action-lobbying organization but even then some of the complaints are a bit nonsensical (hard to know if it should be chalked down to the Guardian or the actual report though), for instance that it's twice as likely to find white men and women as CEOs than asian ones, when the amount of whites are fourteen times the one of the asian population in the US.
Does it though? Or does it suggest that the problem is not (just) racism, and that all the noise is making it harder to identify and solve the root problems?
I have no interest in deleting your comment, but I am interested in rational debate.
1. What is your evidence for this?
2. Why would this explain a decline in representation? Do you believe that "urban black" culture has started devaluing education?
3. If, indeed, you're tired of thinking about race, why is your analysis based on "urban black" culture? Why not urban culture in general? There are plenty of inner-city whites and Asians, no?
1. I don't think I need to provide evidence that black culture does not value education. Call me racist, whatever you want - but this is an obvious truth.
2. This is difficult to quantify, maybe it's gotten worse - the underlying issue remains.
3. I specify "urban" culture because I believe the issue of representation is due almost entirely to culture and socioeconomics. You will not see black kids from double-educated-parent households from the suburbs struggling in academia or the workforce. Totally agree, race is non-issue. Could be white, asian, latino, whatever.
I don't think calling you racist will be productive. But I am perfectly happy to call you uninterested in reasoned debate if you cannot produce even the slightest shred at evidence here.
> 2. This is difficult to quantify, maybe it's gotten worse - the underlying issue remains.
So you have no reason why representation would worsen other than "maybe."
> You will not see black kids from double-educated-parent households from the suburbs struggling in academia or the workforce.
Again, can you provide evidence here? One form of evidence is looking at the number of students from such households who go to college for CS, and what the proportions are by race of people who get hired and promoted in tech. If those proportions are on par with the number who graduate college, then you'll have demonstrated your claim.
Well, maybe if you weren't an actual racist you wouldn't get accused of being a racist every time.
>The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education.
What do you know about "latino culture". In fact what the fuck does that even mean? Why are you grouping people from an entire continent under an umbrella? What do you think an Argentinian has to do with a Mexican? Do you think we have the same culture?
> Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process.
Well except we do, and we are often so competitive that puny white supremacists like you feel threatened by our very existence, and start shouting "dey tuk our jerbs!" the moment they feel there are "too many" of us.
First call me a racist.
Then conflate my comments about anti-intellectualism in urban cultures with all latinos.
Then call me a white supremacist.
Do you have an argument? You are the problem, dude.
So, basically, stop being such a snowflake.
Also, next time, try not to directly contradict yourself in the same comment:
> urban black CULTURE does not value education
> CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR
Pick one, but you don't get both.
Assume good intent in people, come on guys.
Since we're talking about minorities, I felt the need to specify "urban black" culture, but I agree. "Urban <any race>" culture is suffering from anti-intellectualism.
Saying "Urban <one or two races>" turns what's a non-race specific issue into a racial comment, good intent or not.
It's cool you use big fancy words like "socioeconomic issue" to describe what is, in essence, black people behaving like black people!
There are no evil white men pulling their strings forcing them to be ignorant and not get educated, they just don't want to be a part of modern society and would rather rely on government subsidies than getting out and getting a real job or career.
If the majority of black people everywhere they go create ghettos and create this shitty "culture", then its the black peoples fault themselves, not some magic boogeyman "culture" that liberals are so inclined to throw around.
However, I agree with you. Skin color is but one variable - you could just as easily discriminate on hair color, or height.
Lets just all agree that we are members of the human race.
Think about what was valuable in slaves. Physical Prowess (Stronger slaves means more work can be completed in the fields), and talent (slaves that can keep other slaves entertained mean they're not planning a revolt).
Keeping the slave master entertained by singing and dancing also brought perks for the slaves that are able to do so. Being able to produce more value in the field also brought perks.
Now think about the industries Black Americans dominate today... Athletics and Entertainment.
Being caught reading would get you killed, being caught writing would get you killed. Being white and teaching a black person to read or write could also get you killed.
African immigrants have no problem taking advantage of the education provided in america, so this isn't a genetic issue. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-10-13/it-isn-t-...
The problem is the culture. Simply saying fix the culture when it's the result of a process that took hundreds of years to create will not solve the issue.
Every race in the world has been enslaved at some point. We are just animals, transcend this.
Let's start here: is it too much of a stretch to say that I think it's ridiculous that the most commonly understood career path for black youth is drug dealer -> gangster rapper, or athlete? These kids deserve better role models, for one. This is an obvious truth and should not require citation.
The real problem is IQ. Repeat that acronym with me: I, Q.
You cannot just import an Africa tribesman, put him into a lab coat and hope for the best; there exists differences. Massive differences. In fact if all races were "equal" as we say there are then there would not even be a discussion to have, since the transition would be seamless.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(The guidelines also specifically ask you not to use uppercase for emphasis, but that's small potatoes at the moment)
It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles, it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who express opinions that aren't "correct".
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Why is it considered racist to postulate that perhaps blacks and latinos ARENT as capable as whites so therefore they require more assistance?
It has nothing to do with race. It's all about culture and socioeconomics.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I always like to look at data from the source, so I downloaded the original report, which The Guadian couldn't be bothered to link to.
Let's start with the title of the article:
> Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows
However the report is about Asian representation, and although it includes some data on other groups it states:
> Although we include the figures for black and Hispanic men and women, we do not use them for comparative purposes because EPI figures for those cohorts are highly sensitive to small changes.
This is right in the executive summary.
The next problem is that the article represents the study as being of "Silicon Valley" and the "tech industry", but the study is of just five companies: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. These are all large corporations and there is no evidence given to suggest that this is a "Silicon Valley" problem and not a "Corporate America" problem. That's not to say that you can't draw conclusions from studying these companies, but you can't make sweeping statements about the tech industry based on them. Especially when so much of Silicon Valley is made up of startups. The valley is a dynamic place: two of those corporations no longer exist.
Obviously problems exist, but I see no reason here to single out the tech industry for special blame, especially when no attempt is made to compare tech with other industries and "tech" is taken to mean a handful of large corporations. Worse still, by misrepresenting the nature and origins of these problems, we set ourselves up to fail when we try to address them. Uber's appalling culture, for example is firmly rooted in that of finance, why don't we talk about that? What do the finance industry's diversity statistics look like?
I posted a top level comment that links to a study and another link to an article which links to several studies and got downvoted to oblivion. I don't think this sort of thing is _actually_ welcome here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html