3 ms·

>I suspect the Bay Area is extremely nondiverse and homogeneous I moved there from Ohio to work for a FAANG for six months. It's not nearly as bad on the grou

by jcims 6y ago

>I suspect the Bay Area is extremely nondiverse and homogeneous I moved there from Ohio to work for a FAANG for six months. It's not nearly as bad on the ground as it might seem but you do witness spectacles with much more frequency. Racially and culturally its definitely not homogenous but there aren't any black folks to be found. Alameda county is the only one around the bay to break double digit percentages, mostly because of Oakland. SF at ~6% is on par with Colorado Springs and Portland lol. The rest (Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Napa, Marin, etc etc) are on the order of 1-2% black, and based on my short experience living and working there I imagine a good chunk of those are immigrants. I had no idea and when I first noticed it I got extremely creeped out. Not because I'm some diversity champ, it's just that everybody else is there and you realize there's clearly some kind of filter at work.

renewiltord 6y ago
SF did shove black people out with urban renewal but aren't demographics mostly like this in the West since the slave trade wasn't as extensive? The real indicator for the tech industry's lack of diversity is that CA's 39% Hispanic population reflects as some minor fraction of the tech population. Some extraordinary filter is occurring somewhere that's keeping Hispanic people out. Not alleging malice, just the scale is so huge.
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  No. Lots of black Americans moved from former confederate / "late era slave" states to the west coast, midwest, and northeast during the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_Ameri...
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    That Wikipedia article has a measure for every 10 years from the Census starting with 1990: 1900 0.70% 1910 0.90% 1920 1.10% 1930 1.40% 1940 1.80% 1950 4.40% 1960 5.60% 1970 7.00% 1980 7.70% and then you can fill in the rest with Census / ACS data 1990 7.40% 2000 6.40% 2010 6.20% So, overall, it looks like it's about right. Black people were mostly in America through the slave trade and spread to areas adjacent to the South. The West saw very little increase. Anyway, thank you for sharing that. It was enlightening. I do have to leave this discussion, though. I promised not to participate in non-tech here.

by jcims 6y ago

renewiltord 6y ago

SF did shove black people out with urban renewal but aren't demographics mostly like this in the West since the slave trade wasn't as extensive? The real indicator for the tech industry's lack of diversity is that CA's 39% Hispanic population reflects as some minor fraction of the tech population. Some extraordinary filter is occurring somewhere that's keeping Hispanic people out. Not alleging malice, just the scale is so huge.

tomjakubowski 6y ago
No. Lots of black Americans moved from former confederate / "late era slave" states to the west coast, midwest, and northeast during the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_Ameri...
- renewiltord 6y ago
  That Wikipedia article has a measure for every 10 years from the Census starting with 1990: 1900 0.70% 1910 0.90% 1920 1.10% 1930 1.40% 1940 1.80% 1950 4.40% 1960 5.60% 1970 7.00% 1980 7.70% and then you can fill in the rest with Census / ACS data 1990 7.40% 2000 6.40% 2010 6.20% So, overall, it looks like it's about right. Black people were mostly in America through the slave trade and spread to areas adjacent to the South. The West saw very little increase. Anyway, thank you for sharing that. It was enlightening. I do have to leave this discussion, though. I promised not to participate in non-tech here.