7 ms·

Black Conservative Programmer

11 points by BracketMaster 4y ago

I'm an African American programmer who's been writing software since I was 7(born in the late 90s). I currently run a small company that does consulting for Machine Learning and Rust programming. I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be many black programmers(I've only met one) where I am(U.S.), and certainly not many conservative ones. Curious about the experience of others. Also acknowledging ahead of time that HN isn't always the best place for certain social topics.

EddieDante 4y ago
I'm only acquainted with two black programmers (and I shared this link with them in case they want to comment on their own) but neither of them are conservative. For my part, I have a hard enough time fathoming why working-class white people like me would buy into conservatism; the movement has become more blatantly populist and authoritarian since 2001, and its economic aspects only seem to benefit the already-wealthy. Most of them do it because of cultural conservatism, which does them few favors either. I won't even attempt to speculate on why black people would choose conservatism since most of my few conservative neighbors are still nostalgic for Jim Crow.
- worker_person 4y ago
  Read some works by Thomas Sowell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell Would highly recommend Basic Economics/ Gives a good foundation on the fiscal side of conservatism. I didn't even realize the author was black until a few years after I read the book.
  - BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
    I find that the question of why someone would or wouldn't be fiscally conservative for fiscally conservative reasons seems to have departed long ago in the US from the one of being "conservative" without some hyperspecific qualification. How does/can/should a modern political subject reconcile themselves to support a movement that is so much bigger than just finance based on finance alone, black, white, or otherwise? I personally have some properly fiscally conservative values, but I can't reasonably call myself "a conservative" in the US because not one of the conservative leadership are fiscal or even legislative conservatives. The ones who drive political direction on the biggest issues of the age tend to be fundamentalist christian nationalists wanting to facilitate rule based on a particular version of "god says that abortion is bad and gays are bad and guns are good and the poor and the sick deserve it because everything is according to His plan" evangelical protestantism. So thinking of myself as conservative means thinking of myself in league with, collaborating with even, a movement that ultimately seeks to eliminate me. Independent? Sure. Hard right religionism? Yes. But what "conservative" politic is there in the US really?
    - worker_person 4y ago
      You make lot of false assumptions Social conservative believe poor should have opportunities and self determination. Work hard, plan smart. Make money. Keep your own money and build wealth. High taxes and regulation stop that. Welfare creates dependence on government and destroys morale. Why work hard if you get free money? Oh you decided to get a job to earn a bit. Let's cut off all your welfare so you're stuck forever. Guns are two fold. * Do you have the right to defend yourself? * Keeping government from getting too out of control. China is locking people into buildings, letting them starve to death. Anyone that disagrees is silenced or disappeared. They have death camps where they are committing genocide and using them for cheap organ harvesting. If those people had a 2nd amendment then much of that nonsense wouldn't be possible. 49 senators just voted to allow a 9 month old baby thats half way out to be killed. Anyone that supports this or votes for someone that does is just plain evil.
      - EddieDante 4y ago
        > 49 senators just voted to allow a 9 month old baby thats half way out to be killed. Are you talking about HR-3755? https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755... I'm reading this now and I'm not seeing any references to "intact dilation and extraction" or "partial birth abortion". It specifically limits abortion to before the point of fetal viability unless the mother's life is at stake: > (a) General Rule. — A health care provider has a statutory right under this Act to provide abortion services, and may provide abortion services, and that provider’s patient has a corresponding right to receive such services, without any of the following limitations or requirements: > (snipped) > (8) A prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure. > (9) A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health. Have you even read this bill for yourself, or are you reacting to some journalist's interpretation of the bill's text?
      - wbsss4412 4y ago
        > If those people had a 2nd amendment then much of that nonsense wouldn't be possible. The US rounded up Japanese people and put them into concentration camps during WWII, the second amendment made no difference. Protection against the government comes from organization and political consensus, arms can be acquired as a consequence. The second amendment movement is mostly based on mythology, not on reality.
  - EddieDante 4y ago
    I've read Basic Economics by Sowell. I've also read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. When I was a much younger man I found the simplicity of right-libertarian politics and Austrian economics appealing. I've since come to suspect that neither are workable except in an "ideal" world that has no room for the vast majority of the people who live in this world.
- BracketMaster 4y ago
  I can comment a bit as a black programmer(as aformentioned). I'm mostly for small government. I think the left simply exploits social issues every four years before election cycles without providing actual solutions. I think looking to gov't for solutions is a dead end and that in general, the gov't should be much smaller...
  - EddieDante 4y ago
    > I think the left simply exploits social issues every four years before election cycles without providing actual solutions. I don't wholly disagree with that. IMO, Queensrÿche diagnosed the fatal flaw of US leftists back in 1988 in their song "Spreading the Disease": "Fighting fire with empty words / While the banks get fat and the poor stay poor / And the rich get rich and the cops get paid / To look away as the one percent rules America". I personally find social justice advocates hilarious. Whenever I talk to one, they seem to expect me to take individual and personal responsibility for systemic issues I had no part in creating, and expect me to remedy injustices that occurred long before my birth. They don't want justice; they want revenge for the past. However, I'm not convinced that "small government" is the answer. Many of our economic issues are due to the issue of a few megacorporations dominating their industries, but "Small government" advocates are typically OK with letting corporations do as they please as if the Constitution didn't explicitly list the regulation of interstate commerce among the powers delegated to Congress.
    - BracketMaster 4y ago
      > However, I'm not convinced that "small government" is the answer. Many of our economic issues are due to the issue of a few megacorporations dominating their industries, but "Small government" advocates are typically OK with letting corporations do as they please as if the Constitution didn't explicitly list the regulation of interstate commerce among the powers delegated to Congress. All good points. Actually, overall - your answer has a refreshing sense of humor to it. Even as a small gov't advocate, I will concede that we probably need a military given the number of nation that want to blow the U.S. off the map - and yeah, divesting ATT in the 80s and the subsequent 10x drop in phone call prices probably wasn't all that bad either. But fast forward 20/30 years later, and people use whatsapp, FB, and telegram - I can't help but wonder if monopolies will work themselves out eventually as technology re-invents itself.
codefreeordie 4y ago
I worked for a big tech company for a while, and there were a moderate number of black engineers. Not tons, but not "almost none" either. Politics is harder to judge. At that big tech company, it was not safe to be conservative, or indeed anything other than the extreme left. In my time there, I found maybe a dozen people who could reasonably be described as "conservative" -- but because being outed had such strong negative consequences, I'm sure there were tons more that I never detected. None of the black engineers that I knew expressed explicitly conservative views, though one did mention quietly that they didn't like how uncomfortable everybody made it for him to express his Christian faith and the degree to which it was just a tacit assumption that everybody was atheist. Religious, though, isn't the same thing as conservative.
- worker_person 4y ago
  Yep. It's getting really hard. Used to not matter much as people didn't talk politics or religion outside of small groups. I'm finding more and more that company meetings are open grounds to bash white males. Particularly any straight and / or Christian ones. The people that preach inclusiveness are the most bigoted people I know. Nothing like having co workers explain to me how reluctant they were to hire me based on race. Only that there were desperate for someone that could actually do the job. Decades spent trying to treat everyone fair and equal is now out the window and you're called a racist for doing so.
billions 4y ago
My bet is HN will downvote this post because HN fights hard to "conserve" against alternate viewpoints such as those of the author
- worker_person 4y ago
  I've found HN to be a mixed bag. Mostly liberal, but not always. Biggest thing is to keep your argument well written and reasoned. Unlike reddit where people are in a cult mindset. Anything remotely against the grain will get dozens of downvotes in seconds. Outright lies by the left get thousands of upvotes. Want 5,000 points? Just bash Trump in world news.
  - krapp 4y ago
    It depends entirely on who shows up first, because top posts tend to dominate a thread regardless of their quality. I've seen plenty of 'liberal' topics get burned to the ground here because the other side is triggered or wants to brigade or do damage control for someone. >Want 5,000 points? Just bash Trump in world news. I bash Trump all the time - and i just get downvoted and flagged. I've seen plenty of what you would probably consider 'lies from the left' treated the same way. It's all relative.
- BracketMaster 4y ago
  hope I don't owe you money - it got flagged - sigh
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    For what it’s worth I think you’ve been completely reasonable and engaged in productive discussion.
wbsss4412 4y ago
I’m somewhat confused by this question. Stats show that there are fewer black programmers than there are in the general population, and that African Americans tend to vote for democrats over 90% of the time. Add to that the general political slant of the tech industry, and it’s not surprising that there are few black conservative programmers. What are you looking to glean from this post?
- BracketMaster 4y ago
  Yes - this is well known. I'm wondering if anybody has had a "black conservative programmer" sighting I guess - that's all. Now why am I interested in sightings - IDK... I also wanted to answer any questions others might have about why I might be a black conservative programmer.
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    Ok I’ll bite, why are you a conservative?
    - BracketMaster 4y ago
      This is sort of a braindump - so pardon me... But here goes There are a number of reasons. I like small gov't. I'm actually not entirely against gov't programs - but having grown up 20 miles outside the hood, wellfare just seems to breed more wellfare. Also, my parents worked their butts off to get where they are. One of my parents is an immigrant, the other grew up lower middle class. One went to MIT and did quite well. Growing up and hearing these stories and growing up in strict discipline really instilled the value of hard work and making lemons from lemonade. Liberal values just seem to want to coddle everybody's issues. All this talk about hate speech and don't offend somebody else sickens me. If somebody says something racist to me in public, I don't get mad. I'll actually sit down and have a conversation with them to understand why they feel that way.
      - wbsss4412 4y ago
        As someone on the left, my read is that welfare programs are designed to fail, and that’s a bipartisan consensus. Republicans don’t want to spend the money and democrats only want to help people who “need” it. So you can’t get food stamps if you have more than $2,500 in the bank, which sends the clear message: don’t even bother trying to get ahead.
xilinx_guy 4y ago
Montreal (white) engineer here: I've been working as an FPGA guy here in Canada for 30 years, and black programmers and engineers are as rare as hens teeth up here. I have met only 2 or 3 over the span of 3 decades and there are zero black managers in engineering/software. It's mostly a question of supply, only 4% of the province identifies as black. I see far more asians and Indians than blacks, which is a bit sad, since I learned digital logic design from a black engineer in Los Angeles when I started out.
- BracketMaster 4y ago
  This is very interesting! I actually tried doing an FPGA related contract for a customer a year ago now. FPGA engineers are so few and far between these days - and a rather under-appreciated skill...
- BracketMaster 4y ago
  Are you in FPGA/finance or FPGA/defense?
gregjor 4y ago
I just interviewed and gave a thumbs-up to a Black programmer. I didn’t inquire about his politics, not relevant. In my 40 years in the software business I have worked with quite a few Black programmers and technical managers, but they do seem under-represented. Women were more common in my workplaces until the mid-80s, then seemed to disappear for some reason. Until recently it seemed understood that the workplace was not the forum for airing political or religious views, so I probably worked with people I’m not particularly aligned with on those issues, but we didn’t conflict because it didn’t come up at work. I did have to fire a conservative programmer once because he insisted on bringing a handgun into the office, asserting his rights. Management (and I, and his other co-workers) did not agree. He had vocally expressed his conservative views at every opportunity but no one seemed to care until he armed himself at work.

11 points by BracketMaster 4y ago

EddieDante 4y ago

I'm only acquainted with two black programmers (and I shared this link with them in case they want to comment on their own) but neither of them are conservative. For my part, I have a hard enough time fathoming why working-class white people like me would buy into conservatism; the movement has become more blatantly populist and authoritarian since 2001, and its economic aspects only seem to benefit the already-wealthy. Most of them do it because of cultural conservatism, which does them few favors either. I won't even attempt to speculate on why black people would choose conservatism since most of my few conservative neighbors are still nostalgic for Jim Crow.

worker_person 4y ago
Read some works by Thomas Sowell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell Would highly recommend Basic Economics/ Gives a good foundation on the fiscal side of conservatism. I didn't even realize the author was black until a few years after I read the book.
- BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
  I find that the question of why someone would or wouldn't be fiscally conservative for fiscally conservative reasons seems to have departed long ago in the US from the one of being "conservative" without some hyperspecific qualification. How does/can/should a modern political subject reconcile themselves to support a movement that is so much bigger than just finance based on finance alone, black, white, or otherwise? I personally have some properly fiscally conservative values, but I can't reasonably call myself "a conservative" in the US because not one of the conservative leadership are fiscal or even legislative conservatives. The ones who drive political direction on the biggest issues of the age tend to be fundamentalist christian nationalists wanting to facilitate rule based on a particular version of "god says that abortion is bad and gays are bad and guns are good and the poor and the sick deserve it because everything is according to His plan" evangelical protestantism. So thinking of myself as conservative means thinking of myself in league with, collaborating with even, a movement that ultimately seeks to eliminate me. Independent? Sure. Hard right religionism? Yes. But what "conservative" politic is there in the US really?
  - worker_person 4y ago
    You make lot of false assumptions Social conservative believe poor should have opportunities and self determination. Work hard, plan smart. Make money. Keep your own money and build wealth. High taxes and regulation stop that. Welfare creates dependence on government and destroys morale. Why work hard if you get free money? Oh you decided to get a job to earn a bit. Let's cut off all your welfare so you're stuck forever. Guns are two fold. * Do you have the right to defend yourself? * Keeping government from getting too out of control. China is locking people into buildings, letting them starve to death. Anyone that disagrees is silenced or disappeared. They have death camps where they are committing genocide and using them for cheap organ harvesting. If those people had a 2nd amendment then much of that nonsense wouldn't be possible. 49 senators just voted to allow a 9 month old baby thats half way out to be killed. Anyone that supports this or votes for someone that does is just plain evil.
    - EddieDante 4y ago
      > 49 senators just voted to allow a 9 month old baby thats half way out to be killed. Are you talking about HR-3755? https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755... I'm reading this now and I'm not seeing any references to "intact dilation and extraction" or "partial birth abortion". It specifically limits abortion to before the point of fetal viability unless the mother's life is at stake: > (a) General Rule. — A health care provider has a statutory right under this Act to provide abortion services, and may provide abortion services, and that provider’s patient has a corresponding right to receive such services, without any of the following limitations or requirements: > (snipped) > (8) A prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure. > (9) A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health. Have you even read this bill for yourself, or are you reacting to some journalist's interpretation of the bill's text?
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      > If those people had a 2nd amendment then much of that nonsense wouldn't be possible. The US rounded up Japanese people and put them into concentration camps during WWII, the second amendment made no difference. Protection against the government comes from organization and political consensus, arms can be acquired as a consequence. The second amendment movement is mostly based on mythology, not on reality.
- EddieDante 4y ago
  I've read Basic Economics by Sowell. I've also read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. When I was a much younger man I found the simplicity of right-libertarian politics and Austrian economics appealing. I've since come to suspect that neither are workable except in an "ideal" world that has no room for the vast majority of the people who live in this world.
BracketMaster 4y ago
I can comment a bit as a black programmer(as aformentioned). I'm mostly for small government. I think the left simply exploits social issues every four years before election cycles without providing actual solutions. I think looking to gov't for solutions is a dead end and that in general, the gov't should be much smaller...
- EddieDante 4y ago
  > I think the left simply exploits social issues every four years before election cycles without providing actual solutions. I don't wholly disagree with that. IMO, Queensrÿche diagnosed the fatal flaw of US leftists back in 1988 in their song "Spreading the Disease": "Fighting fire with empty words / While the banks get fat and the poor stay poor / And the rich get rich and the cops get paid / To look away as the one percent rules America". I personally find social justice advocates hilarious. Whenever I talk to one, they seem to expect me to take individual and personal responsibility for systemic issues I had no part in creating, and expect me to remedy injustices that occurred long before my birth. They don't want justice; they want revenge for the past. However, I'm not convinced that "small government" is the answer. Many of our economic issues are due to the issue of a few megacorporations dominating their industries, but "Small government" advocates are typically OK with letting corporations do as they please as if the Constitution didn't explicitly list the regulation of interstate commerce among the powers delegated to Congress.
  - BracketMaster 4y ago
    > However, I'm not convinced that "small government" is the answer. Many of our economic issues are due to the issue of a few megacorporations dominating their industries, but "Small government" advocates are typically OK with letting corporations do as they please as if the Constitution didn't explicitly list the regulation of interstate commerce among the powers delegated to Congress. All good points. Actually, overall - your answer has a refreshing sense of humor to it. Even as a small gov't advocate, I will concede that we probably need a military given the number of nation that want to blow the U.S. off the map - and yeah, divesting ATT in the 80s and the subsequent 10x drop in phone call prices probably wasn't all that bad either. But fast forward 20/30 years later, and people use whatsapp, FB, and telegram - I can't help but wonder if monopolies will work themselves out eventually as technology re-invents itself.

codefreeordie 4y ago

I worked for a big tech company for a while, and there were a moderate number of black engineers. Not tons, but not "almost none" either. Politics is harder to judge. At that big tech company, it was not safe to be conservative, or indeed anything other than the extreme left. In my time there, I found maybe a dozen people who could reasonably be described as "conservative" -- but because being outed had such strong negative consequences, I'm sure there were tons more that I never detected. None of the black engineers that I knew expressed explicitly conservative views, though one did mention quietly that they didn't like how uncomfortable everybody made it for him to express his Christian faith and the degree to which it was just a tacit assumption that everybody was atheist. Religious, though, isn't the same thing as conservative.

worker_person 4y ago
Yep. It's getting really hard. Used to not matter much as people didn't talk politics or religion outside of small groups. I'm finding more and more that company meetings are open grounds to bash white males. Particularly any straight and / or Christian ones. The people that preach inclusiveness are the most bigoted people I know. Nothing like having co workers explain to me how reluctant they were to hire me based on race. Only that there were desperate for someone that could actually do the job. Decades spent trying to treat everyone fair and equal is now out the window and you're called a racist for doing so.

billions 4y ago

My bet is HN will downvote this post because HN fights hard to "conserve" against alternate viewpoints such as those of the author

worker_person 4y ago
I've found HN to be a mixed bag. Mostly liberal, but not always. Biggest thing is to keep your argument well written and reasoned. Unlike reddit where people are in a cult mindset. Anything remotely against the grain will get dozens of downvotes in seconds. Outright lies by the left get thousands of upvotes. Want 5,000 points? Just bash Trump in world news.
- krapp 4y ago
  It depends entirely on who shows up first, because top posts tend to dominate a thread regardless of their quality. I've seen plenty of 'liberal' topics get burned to the ground here because the other side is triggered or wants to brigade or do damage control for someone. >Want 5,000 points? Just bash Trump in world news. I bash Trump all the time - and i just get downvoted and flagged. I've seen plenty of what you would probably consider 'lies from the left' treated the same way. It's all relative.
BracketMaster 4y ago
hope I don't owe you money - it got flagged - sigh
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  For what it’s worth I think you’ve been completely reasonable and engaged in productive discussion.

wbsss4412 4y ago

I’m somewhat confused by this question. Stats show that there are fewer black programmers than there are in the general population, and that African Americans tend to vote for democrats over 90% of the time. Add to that the general political slant of the tech industry, and it’s not surprising that there are few black conservative programmers. What are you looking to glean from this post?

BracketMaster 4y ago
Yes - this is well known. I'm wondering if anybody has had a "black conservative programmer" sighting I guess - that's all. Now why am I interested in sightings - IDK... I also wanted to answer any questions others might have about why I might be a black conservative programmer.
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  Ok I’ll bite, why are you a conservative?
  - BracketMaster 4y ago
    This is sort of a braindump - so pardon me... But here goes There are a number of reasons. I like small gov't. I'm actually not entirely against gov't programs - but having grown up 20 miles outside the hood, wellfare just seems to breed more wellfare. Also, my parents worked their butts off to get where they are. One of my parents is an immigrant, the other grew up lower middle class. One went to MIT and did quite well. Growing up and hearing these stories and growing up in strict discipline really instilled the value of hard work and making lemons from lemonade. Liberal values just seem to want to coddle everybody's issues. All this talk about hate speech and don't offend somebody else sickens me. If somebody says something racist to me in public, I don't get mad. I'll actually sit down and have a conversation with them to understand why they feel that way.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      As someone on the left, my read is that welfare programs are designed to fail, and that’s a bipartisan consensus. Republicans don’t want to spend the money and democrats only want to help people who “need” it. So you can’t get food stamps if you have more than $2,500 in the bank, which sends the clear message: don’t even bother trying to get ahead.

xilinx_guy 4y ago

Montreal (white) engineer here: I've been working as an FPGA guy here in Canada for 30 years, and black programmers and engineers are as rare as hens teeth up here. I have met only 2 or 3 over the span of 3 decades and there are zero black managers in engineering/software. It's mostly a question of supply, only 4% of the province identifies as black. I see far more asians and Indians than blacks, which is a bit sad, since I learned digital logic design from a black engineer in Los Angeles when I started out.

BracketMaster 4y ago
This is very interesting! I actually tried doing an FPGA related contract for a customer a year ago now. FPGA engineers are so few and far between these days - and a rather under-appreciated skill...
BracketMaster 4y ago
Are you in FPGA/finance or FPGA/defense?

gregjor 4y ago

I just interviewed and gave a thumbs-up to a Black programmer. I didn’t inquire about his politics, not relevant. In my 40 years in the software business I have worked with quite a few Black programmers and technical managers, but they do seem under-represented. Women were more common in my workplaces until the mid-80s, then seemed to disappear for some reason. Until recently it seemed understood that the workplace was not the forum for airing political or religious views, so I probably worked with people I’m not particularly aligned with on those issues, but we didn’t conflict because it didn’t come up at work. I did have to fire a conservative programmer once because he insisted on bringing a handgun into the office, asserting his rights. Management (and I, and his other co-workers) did not agree. He had vocally expressed his conservative views at every opportunity but no one seemed to care until he armed himself at work.