5 ms·

I talk a lot about this with my wife. She's half mexican-american, I'm a quarter so we compare notes. Not everyone has what it takes to code. I played the hell

I talk a lot about this with my wife. She's half mexican-american, I'm a quarter so we compare notes. Not everyone has what it takes to code. I played the hell out of video games for hours and hours on end as a kid. I'm kind of a natural fit for sitting in front of a computer for hours, trouble shooting until I succeed. My parents, my siblings, my friends I grew up with... not so much. Not scientific, but I kind of think we won the lottery for brains and the personality to do the kind of work we do for long stretches of time.

arionhardison 8y ago
I 100% agree ... so allow me to reframe my argument around "tech" and not just "coding". No matter if you can sit for hours etc... going into tech is much more likely to allow you the economic freedoms I am speaking of than trying to make it to the NBA or as a rapper etc... Edit: e.g. as a product manager, product manager, graphic designer etc...
- eropple 8y ago
  It seems that visibility into these tech careers is very low amongst lower-income groups. I don't say that to expand your statement past black communities, but rather as a coincidental point--I am a white man and grew up in a fairly poor, overwhelmingly white area, and it was certainly the case there. What's been related to me (and maybe you can speak to this) is that it's similar in lower-income black communities, yeah? It's ingrained because it's ingrained, and it's what people think about because it's what they're shown. (Perhaps the aspirational targets are different--where I grew up it was not NBA players or rappers. Rather, reality-TV stars and the like. But the idea is similar.) If anything, seeing more and more NBA players (who tend to be extremely savvy businessmen, at the high end) getting into tech as investors--Steph Curry as a founding investor of Slyce, as an example--might bring visibility into that. A few years after the NBA dress code implementation--and there are things to talk about with regards to that, but that's kind of orthogonal--you saw players like Kevin Durant consciously dress "nerdy", with glasses and sweater vests and the like. I thought Wesley Morris wrote a beautiful piece[0] on the topic, and how, reluctantly or not, those NBA players who are themselves aspirational targets are trying to redefine the possibility space for the people watching them. Maybe that'll help. [0] - http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-nba-nerd/ http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-nba-nerd/
  - arionhardison 8y ago
    > "It seems that visibility into these tech careers is very low amongst lower-income groups. I don't say that to expand your statement past black communities, but rather as a coincidental point" You are correct, and you should expand my statement past black communities. I apologize for my bias here as I grew up in an all black poor neighborhood so I often associate this with race but the truth is that its much more socioeconomic than it is racial.
    - eropple 8y ago
      I mean, nothing to apologize for, yeah? Everyone has their take. I grew up in a poor white community, so that's what I see. I do wonder what can be further done; the social consciousness of the NBA is one of the reasons I feel good about watching it, and I have anecdotally heard it's made some inroads, but that seems like it's bailing out the ocean. Structural problems, structural fixes...

arionhardison 8y ago

I 100% agree ... so allow me to reframe my argument around "tech" and not just "coding". No matter if you can sit for hours etc... going into tech is much more likely to allow you the economic freedoms I am speaking of than trying to make it to the NBA or as a rapper etc... Edit: e.g. as a product manager, product manager, graphic designer etc...

eropple 8y ago
It seems that visibility into these tech careers is very low amongst lower-income groups. I don't say that to expand your statement past black communities, but rather as a coincidental point--I am a white man and grew up in a fairly poor, overwhelmingly white area, and it was certainly the case there. What's been related to me (and maybe you can speak to this) is that it's similar in lower-income black communities, yeah? It's ingrained because it's ingrained, and it's what people think about because it's what they're shown. (Perhaps the aspirational targets are different--where I grew up it was not NBA players or rappers. Rather, reality-TV stars and the like. But the idea is similar.) If anything, seeing more and more NBA players (who tend to be extremely savvy businessmen, at the high end) getting into tech as investors--Steph Curry as a founding investor of Slyce, as an example--might bring visibility into that. A few years after the NBA dress code implementation--and there are things to talk about with regards to that, but that's kind of orthogonal--you saw players like Kevin Durant consciously dress "nerdy", with glasses and sweater vests and the like. I thought Wesley Morris wrote a beautiful piece[0] on the topic, and how, reluctantly or not, those NBA players who are themselves aspirational targets are trying to redefine the possibility space for the people watching them. Maybe that'll help. [0] - http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-nba-nerd/ http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-nba-nerd/
- arionhardison 8y ago
  > "It seems that visibility into these tech careers is very low amongst lower-income groups. I don't say that to expand your statement past black communities, but rather as a coincidental point" You are correct, and you should expand my statement past black communities. I apologize for my bias here as I grew up in an all black poor neighborhood so I often associate this with race but the truth is that its much more socioeconomic than it is racial.
  - eropple 8y ago
    I mean, nothing to apologize for, yeah? Everyone has their take. I grew up in a poor white community, so that's what I see. I do wonder what can be further done; the social consciousness of the NBA is one of the reasons I feel good about watching it, and I have anecdotally heard it's made some inroads, but that seems like it's bailing out the ocean. Structural problems, structural fixes...