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First, I'm really sorry that things are the way they are for black people. It's simply enormously sad. And it's not just the tech industry. It happens in other
by hangonhn 8y ago
First, I'm really sorry that things are the way they are for black people. It's simply enormously sad. And it's not just the tech industry. It happens in other fields too. A really good buddy of mine is a top notch surgeon. He did his undergrad, med school, residency, and then fellowship at Ivy Leagues and Stanford. He's black. During his fellowship, one of the surgeons he worked under would always introduce him to other people at the hospital by always emphasizing his credentials. The catch here is that he only did it with my friend and none of the other fellows. My friend was the only black fellow. The surgeon meant well but he felt the need to assure all the patients that the black doctor is just as good if not better than all the other doctors. Little differences like that is what my friend lives with every day.
When my friend visited me in Silicon Valley he told me it's not that diverse -- at least not in the way we would want diversity to work. He told me that next time I go out to eat, I should look through the windows of all the nice restaurants I walk by and see who the customers are and who the workers are. My friend is right. There are under and upper classes in SV and it's often clustered by race. I never noticed because I'm Asian and I'm in the group that benefited.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoAll true, except the conclusion that it's directly due to race. It can also be socioeconomic class that creates the correlation, which is also correlated to race. Not much difference in the end of course, and still a major societal issue. But a different one.
- hangonhn 8y agoI'm not saying it's because of race -- if I wrote it that way then thanks for the correction. It just happen to correlate strongly with race. I don't know the underlying cause is and your hypothesis is close to my own. I mainly wanted to emphasize my own blindness to this trend because I had benefited from it.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoI'm in the same boat. Its easy to just accept folks in roles without thinking about it. E.g. I'm naturally gregarious, will chat up folks in line at the gas station buying a Coke etc. I noticed one day I didn't chat up anybody that didn't look like me. So I started.
- wpietri 8y agoThe two issues in America are not in practice totally separable. The relationship is not purely correlative. It's pretty clear in America that white people don't like to see some races "getting above their station" by climbing the class ladder. A pretty clear example are the Tulsa race riots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot Greenwood was a prosperous black area near Tulsa, doing so well that it was known as "Black Wall Street". White resentment eventually boiled over and 35 blocks were burned to the ground. Hundreds were killed, and it included many horrors, including white people using then-new airplanes to firebomb the neighborhood from above. If you read Loewen's "Sundown Towns" you can find plenty more incidents where white resentment of black success led to oppression, violence, and sometimes death.