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Further: > They often have less shared cultural knowledge with their instructors, meaning they often encounter lectures, problem sets, and exam questions that

Further: > They often have less shared cultural knowledge with their instructors, meaning they often encounter lectures, problem sets, and exam questions that use cultural references they may not know, unfairly resulting in lower grades. Is this unfair? A culture exists - we cannot "de-culturalize" every single thing in our society in the hopes that it somehow overcomes this problem. I also find this to be a flimsy excuse, particularly when it comes to CS, because most of the questions are very abstract and separated from culture or normal human affairs. When they are phrased in cultural terms, more than anything it is an attempt to use metaphor or parable to make an abstract topic more accessible to people, not the other way around. > But it’s not just students and faculty, but the content of classes as well. Despite abundant research from Black scholars on computing and information, most of what they will read is written by White men who say nothing of racism; most of the technologies they learn were made by White men that believe technology is neutral. Yes, this is generally what White people believe. There have never been any laws that prevented a Black person from buying a computer, from writing a program, from posting on the Internet - in fact, we wouldn't even know if you were white or black or any other flavour of person online unless you reveal it and make that into the subject of discussion. > Ignoring this is a kind of educational gaslighting, as if we’re saying the racism they’re experiencing doesn’t actually exist. This sentence itself is gaslighting: she's establishing without evidence that all of the White (and Asian, and Jewish, and so forth) contributors to computer science are racist - through the omission of a racial narrative from their textbooks! Once again, with this sort of view, it is shown that it is simply impossible for a White person to be compliant; you can't be not a racist; even if you've done your absolute best to never comment on the subject whatsoever you're still 'gaslighting' people of color somehow, in a way you cannot rectify. If you ask what you're doing wrong, you've just committed the Kafakaesque sin of not knowing what you've done wrong, like a person in a failed relationship arguing with their partner. > The only way to explain these discrepancies in students’ in and out of class experiences is that the program is designed for the White and Asian students majority—by me, and my faculty. No, that's not the only way. Again, asserted with no evidence; meanwhile it's easy for anyone to see the anti-intellectual bent that is predominant amongst the lower classes (you're "acting white" if you spend your time on the computer, and so forth). This, coupled with the aforementioned psychometric situation, makes it easy to predict the "in and out of class experience" of someone who is barely staying above the water line in their program, who may know they're only in their class because of an affirmative action or other quota mechanism, and worse, who know that their peers know this, and will never afford them respect because of their knowledge that you wouldn't be there if it wasn't for such a program. Makes it even more difficult for the Black person who actually does get into the program 100% on their own merits without any requirement for the admissions program to bump them up for diversity's sake, too.

core-questions 6y ago
Further... I ended up writing a lot here. > Black students report to us a very different experience. They may have never been selected for an internship because of implicit bias in resume reviews or interviews. They hear about fewer opportunities from friends, because their social networks are often segregated. The companies they might meet at our career fairs tend to address problems that resonate with our White and Asian students because White and Asian people run those companies. This runs completely contrary to what I've seen in the industry, which is hungry for any amount of diversity it can get - whether that's for honest reasons or to cover as an insurance policy against Cancel Culture is a different story, of course. What are these "problems that resonate with White and Asian students" that don't resonate with Black students? And where are Hispanics, and Jews, and Indians, and Native Americans in this narrative? Do the problems resonate with them? Why or why not? I get it, most SaaS companies are working on totally bullshit twee products for taking pictures of cats and toast and whatever other bugman crap they think they can make money on. Doesn't resonate with me either, but I need to be employed, much as a tradesman might not give a shit about the ugly building they're employed to build, but they still show up to do the work. For the average grad, the ability to select your employer is a huge luxury; many people don't have that opportunity. If you don't like the selection of jobs available in your area, move; if you don't like the selection of jobs in your industry, maybe you took the wrong major. > Of course, all of this is despite the existence of Black-owned technology companies across the country, and companies that have an abundance of Black engineers. We just don’t know about those companies, or have relationships with them, which is its own form of structural racism. She doesn't name any examples. I don't know about these companies either, mind you; but as someone who chooses products based on the products rather than the social narrative of the company in question, I don't think I should have to care. Let the work speak for itself and success will follow, generally speaking. Having to choose products based on the race of the owner of the company seems like a huge step backwards. > But it goes deeper than that. Many have CS faculty have argued to me that even if those structures are racist, and even if one is in charge of those racist structures, they still don’t have the responsibility to fix it, because the world simply isn’t fair. They say: Yes, Black Americans might have to be an order of magnitude luckier, work an order of magnitude harder, and be an order of magnitude more resilient just to achieve the same things that White and Asian students do. But that’s their problem, not mine, and I can’t change our country’s racist history. They’ll just have to work harder than everyone else. This, I believe, is the heart of why academic programs continue to be anti-Black: program leaders deny a basic principle of fairness in education, do not want to have to do the work to achieve that fairness, or do not see how achieving fairness will help them personally. They don't have to be an order of magnitude _anything_. They merely have to be at the same level, and this is the problem, of course; but Ko can't look at the data on that (hatefacts!), nor could she address it, so under the rug it goes, in favour of a narrative that presents anyone around her who is not using their sinecure to virtue signal on Medium as an oppressor that won't hire someone because of their race.

core-questions 6y ago

Further... I ended up writing a lot here. > Black students report to us a very different experience. They may have never been selected for an internship because of implicit bias in resume reviews or interviews. They hear about fewer opportunities from friends, because their social networks are often segregated. The companies they might meet at our career fairs tend to address problems that resonate with our White and Asian students because White and Asian people run those companies. This runs completely contrary to what I've seen in the industry, which is hungry for any amount of diversity it can get - whether that's for honest reasons or to cover as an insurance policy against Cancel Culture is a different story, of course. What are these "problems that resonate with White and Asian students" that don't resonate with Black students? And where are Hispanics, and Jews, and Indians, and Native Americans in this narrative? Do the problems resonate with them? Why or why not? I get it, most SaaS companies are working on totally bullshit twee products for taking pictures of cats and toast and whatever other bugman crap they think they can make money on. Doesn't resonate with me either, but I need to be employed, much as a tradesman might not give a shit about the ugly building they're employed to build, but they still show up to do the work. For the average grad, the ability to select your employer is a huge luxury; many people don't have that opportunity. If you don't like the selection of jobs available in your area, move; if you don't like the selection of jobs in your industry, maybe you took the wrong major. > Of course, all of this is despite the existence of Black-owned technology companies across the country, and companies that have an abundance of Black engineers. We just don’t know about those companies, or have relationships with them, which is its own form of structural racism. She doesn't name any examples. I don't know about these companies either, mind you; but as someone who chooses products based on the products rather than the social narrative of the company in question, I don't think I should have to care. Let the work speak for itself and success will follow, generally speaking. Having to choose products based on the race of the owner of the company seems like a huge step backwards. > But it goes deeper than that. Many have CS faculty have argued to me that even if those structures are racist, and even if one is in charge of those racist structures, they still don’t have the responsibility to fix it, because the world simply isn’t fair. They say: Yes, Black Americans might have to be an order of magnitude luckier, work an order of magnitude harder, and be an order of magnitude more resilient just to achieve the same things that White and Asian students do. But that’s their problem, not mine, and I can’t change our country’s racist history. They’ll just have to work harder than everyone else. This, I believe, is the heart of why academic programs continue to be anti-Black: program leaders deny a basic principle of fairness in education, do not want to have to do the work to achieve that fairness, or do not see how achieving fairness will help them personally. They don't have to be an order of magnitude _anything_. They merely have to be at the same level, and this is the problem, of course; but Ko can't look at the data on that (hatefacts!), nor could she address it, so under the rug it goes, in favour of a narrative that presents anyone around her who is not using their sinecure to virtue signal on Medium as an oppressor that won't hire someone because of their race.