9 ms·

BlackGirlsCode Raises $21,000 To Fund Summer Of Code Program

101 points by MRonney 14y ago

dusing 14y ago
I like the idea of the program, but specifically "Black girls"...
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  Why not? This is one of the hardest hit economic demographics in the country. I don't think targeting it to be specifically for them is bad; in fact I think it is probably best. This demographics tends to get lost in the "need more women in tech" crowd.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Unless they edited the post, it sounded to me that dusing agrees and likes the idea of it being that specific demographic.
  - IanDrake 14y ago
    >Why not? I agree - IF we can also agree that groups for "White Women", "Bald Hispanic Men Under 40", etc... are also allowed. Society needs to come to a consensus on this. Either there is a useful purpose to segmenting private groups by age, gender, race, income, etc... or there isn't. If there is a valid purpose, then we should all agree that all possible combination of these factors are equally valid. The end result is that some poor white woman won't be able to attend because of the color of her skin. I'm not sure what happens to her mulatto friend...I guess it depends how black she looks.
    - jbattle 14y ago
      I think the general rule keys around the relative level of privilege a group holds in the relevant society. I don't see society coming to consensus on this any time soon - but a lack of consensus doesn't and shouldn't stop private meetings that don't clearly cause or promote or contribute to harm to others
    - rmc 14y ago
      Not all defintions of racism mean "Any segmentation based on skin colour". Some people define racism as a privileged powerful racial group discriminating and holding back a disadvantaged racial group. So yes, a programme that targets helping black people in tech is not racist, but helping white people in tech is racist.
      - unit_testing 14y ago
        Are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than wealthy, affluent blacks? If you believe so, you're a bigot. Also, are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than poor, uneducated blacks?
        rmc 14y ago
        Poor uneducated people (yes including whites) are a disadvantaged group compared to rich people. We should set up a group targetting them. There are numerous advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Some people are in 1 or 2 or lots. We should try to end all disadvantagness. I don't see a contradiction.
        unit_testing 14y ago
        I can't reply to your comment, so I'll comment here. Let's think about some poor, uneducated white kids living in a trailer park without an internet connection. What should they feel when they hear of programs like this? "I'm not important enough to help, because people who look like me already have good jobs?" How should they feel about the myriad of programs and scholarships which explicitly exclude them? At this point, being black isn't a disadvantage in-and-of-itself. Being poor is a disadvantage, and blacks are more likely to be born poor due in no small part to slavery. But all things being equal, being a poor white person is more difficult than being a poor black person. And they shouldn't be excluded.
        wpietri 14y ago
        > being a poor white person is more difficult than being a poor black person Evidence? I'd especially like to see a video of you visiting the trailer parks and public housing projects of America and asking people if they agree with that. I'm not sure which group would take more exception to it. Regardless, as a former poor white person, I think it's bullshit.
    - dinkumthinkum 14y ago
      But this is nothing more than naive pedantry. There is a very large economic demographic in this country that is apparently at a disadvantage. It's called black girls/females. It's not bald hispanic athiests, or freckle-faced Irish mormons or celebrity scientologists that have blond hair. There is a real problem that can potentially be solved. You can play this game if you want but there is quite clearly a qualitative difference between groups like "black girls" and "bald hispanic men under 40." It's just ridiculous; it's sophomoric to conflate the two. As to your last point, so the perfect is the enemy of the good? The end goal is to help real people, not sit in an ivory tower and debate about whether "race even exists" or any of this nonsense. If calling the group "Black Girls Can Code" allows the group to raise more money and help a very specific group of girls, then that is good. I think there is a good reason to think that if there was a group called "Woman Can Code" that this particular group/demographic would not benefit as much as it might as it is currently labeled (perhaps less participation, perhaps drowned out by the others, etc). We can be pedantic and cry foul that "Wah, there is not a White Women group or a Native American Transgender" group but that doesn't end up helping anyone. The world is more complex than that. "Bald Hispanic" is not a comparison to "black girls" any serious person would make.
      - IanDrake 14y ago
        >There is a very large economic demographic in this country that is apparently at a disadvantage. It's called black girls/females. The only point in your reply that I understand is that you believe black women are poor, therefore typical social rules regarding segregation don't apply. >If calling the group "Black Girls Can Code" allows the group to raise more money... By this logic you are OK with a group called "White boys can code" IF it helped that group raise money? And why not, these could be boys from Appalachia who have Mountain Dew and Snickers for dinner every night. I think this is a conversation worth having. At some point we need to go beyond convenient stereo types and get to the root of the problem.
        dinkumthinkum 14y ago
        > The only point in your reply that I understand is that you believe black women are poor, therefore typical social rules regarding segregation don't apply. I don't know why you're having trouble understanding this. This stuff is pretty basic to understand. Your view is childish and pedantic. "Wah realizing there are social mores in effect in the real world is just segregation." > By this logic you are OK with a group called "White boys can code" IF it helped that group raise money? And why not, these could be boys from Appalachia who have Mountain Dew and Snickers for dinner every night. No, I think there are qualitative social implications that we all recognize when we stop making silly statements like "Why is there not White Entertainment Television." But I do think having groups as you suggested is a good idea but I think the naming of them should pay attention to social realities.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Society does pretty much have a consensus on this. If you're working to reduce privilege and increase fairness, some selectivity based on race, gender, and sexual orientation is allowed. So a group for helping women is considered cricket, but one focused on white women probably wouldn't be, because white people are already privileged enough.
- sp332 14y ago
  Are you racist or sexist or both? Tongue-in-cheek but I don't understand your problem.
- natrius 14y ago
  The goal of these types of programs is to change cultures. If under-representation isn't caused by biology, then it's caused by culture. If the programs didn't target people within the cultures they're trying to change, they wouldn't succeed. They'd be full of the people who are already likely to be interested in programming, which isn't a problem in itself, but isn't the goal of the programs.
  - baddox 14y ago
    What if under-representation is caused by collectivism? After all, the solution to slavery wasn't reversing or evening out the ethnicities of slave and master, it was getting rid of slavery altogether.
    - natrius 14y ago
      I don't understand. How is collectivism not culture? Slavery was abolished because American culture began to frown upon it.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      What do you get rid of here? Black culture?
- moron 14y ago
  That's kind of how I feel, I don't think there's anything wrong with it but it does seem weirdly specific. It makes me wonder if other industries with poorly-represented population groups have such specific programs. Surely the demographics of other fields need to be shaken up as well as tech. Nursing comes to mind.
- TwiztidK 14y ago
  To me it seems that if every thing is going to be broken down demographically to this extent, there will have to be: Black Girls Code, Hispanic Girls Code, Native American Girls Code, and then additional groups for minority males. At that point it seems to get kind of ridiculous as every potential minority-gender combination will need its own group which just seems kind of inefficient to me. I could be horribly wrong though, but that's just how it seems as a white-male outsider. To an extent, I think that black people, and black girls specifically, not going into CS is really a symptom of a bigger problem. I went to a high school with a lot of black guys and girls and, at least for my graduating class, it really didn't seem like many went to college. Although, Black Girls Code could help get people interested in going to college to further study CS or anything else really. Either way, it'll be really interesting to see how it goes.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    If people started every one of these, and actively pursued it, that would be a fantastic problem to have. You seem to be saying "don't make any of them because it is unfair." I am saying "make any or all of them so that more smart and motivated people can get a hand up and make cool things so the future is great." If I would get paid and have adequate organizational support I would be all about targeting education at Native Americans on the reservation. Can't you see how petty it would be to say that nobody should try to help Native Americans because it seems somehow "racist" to white males?
  - sp332 14y ago
    A lot of hacker groups are already effectively "whites code" or even "white men code". So "black girls code" is just actually just as specific as some existing groups.
    - TwiztidK 14y ago
      I'm suggesting that any group that limits itself accoring to race or gender is unaccecptable. If these hacker groups are white only, then we need to break down the barriers that are keeping minorities and women out rather than starting new groups and self-segregating.
peterwwillis 14y ago
What I love about this initiative is it solves several problems at once, and builds a foundation for related groups (women in general, and black people in general) to gravitate to this field. They'll naturally find people similar to them and make it easier to relate to their peers.
- taphangum 14y ago
  "They'll naturally find people similar to them and make it easier to relate to their peers." Relatability is the key thing. You're spot on here.
petercooper 14y ago
I've been following this program for a while and even got to meet Kimberly at O'Reilly Fluent earlier in the year.. her enthusiasm is infectious! As important as her work is to the girls, though, I particularly hope she inspires other adults to take on this mentoring role so that everywhere can have its equivalent. Things like this are springing up all over. For example, here in the UK, Code Club has been founded by two women to create and support after-school programming clubs: http://codeclub.org.uk/ http://codeclub.org.uk/
- zbuc 14y ago
  I volunteered for when they come to Detroit!
summiyah 14y ago
This is such an important initiative! Several teens that were in my Media course (focused on Minority Women in Technology) are attending the Atlanta Session.
JPKab 14y ago
I realize that the realities of the limited resources available for charities and non-profits is what leads to the ethnic and gender based targeting, but this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is it a good cause? Yes. Teaching any disadvantaged group a useful skill is a great thing, but solving a problem of exclusion with further exclusion is, in principal, bad. I grew up in a poor, mostly black, rural county in Virginia. The opportunities for learning to code were zero. There was no computer science class, while students attending public schools in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia got to have programming classes starting in middle school. People WANTED to learn to code, but they couldn't. These were poor people, of all colors and genders. Will this make Women's Studies graduates and professors happy? Yes. Will it make African-American Studies graduates and professors happy? Probably. I could point out the bullshit in this idea in so many ways, but I'll stick with just one: Among black americans, which group has a lower graduation rate? Males or females? Which group is more likely to be unemployed, males or females? Which group is more likely to be incarcerated? The list goes on. I know it's not cool to help boys/males these days, but all the statistics point to a dramatic problem with young men of all races today. It's too bad that there isn't a powerful special interest group backed up by a bunch of humanities professors looking out for the impoverished non-black non-females of America. Charities should be based on need and helping the greater good, not on playing favorites.
- _pius 14y ago
  I read your rant a few times and I've yet to see your point. Charities should be based on need and helping the greater good, not on playing favorites. This isn't a charity. A black woman started this program to address a legitimate need that she saw. Others who agreed with her gave her money to do it. Where is the bad in this? How is this anything but a net positive for the world?
  - JPKab 14y ago
    The bad in this would be a young black girl trying to bring her hispanic friend. Exclusion is exclusion. If this were the WhiteBoysSew club, you would call it racist, despite the fact that very few white boys learn to sew.
grannyg00se 14y ago
"Our mission with BlackGirlsCode is to “change the ratio” of women of color in technology and that begins with introducing computer programming and STEM subjects to girls of all colors at an early age. " It's not only for black girls. I suspect it's for all but white though so they still exclude based on color. And of course age and gender. I really wish people would stop reinforcing racial discrimination of all sorts. Even the age discrimination is a bit offensive. I understand it may be easier to get funding when you can present a narrow group.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  That is why (for example in Python) there is PyLadies, and that is why there is every other general Python group, in which there is no group-wide disadvantage for white men. Most of these groups I have been to, have mostly been white men with lots of alpha-nerding going on. I can't say I have seen any overt instances of racism but I still totally appreciate that minorities could be uncomfortable and benefit greatly from a support system that could increase their comfort level in the community and make them feel more assured. I don't see this as a zero-sum war against white people and I hope you don't either.
  - grannyg00se 14y ago
    I don't see it as a war against anybody but whenever you discriminate based on race you are encouraging others to do the same. I don't like to see race brought up in every facet of life. If it wasn't such a commonly used differentiator then everybody would feel comfortable in any group because race would be insignificant. Taken to the extreme, it becomes downright immature and pathetic. Do we really need a group specifically for blacks, and one for asians, and one for mixed black asians, and one for mexicans, and one for indians... etc? Give me a break. I wish we could all just collectively grow up. Actually that's not quite right. Young children don't tend to segregate like that. They have us beat in that area. It's only once they learn our ways that they start to do it. Again, because it is continually reinforced as a part of society.
- mrmusa 14y ago
  since when do all colors exclude white?
natrius 14y ago
Several comments claim that targeting by race is inherently wrong. I disagree. Anyone want to back that claim up with logic?
- Produce 14y ago
  I was just about to call out the gender discrimination myself. You're not alone.
  - natrius 14y ago
    I edited the comment to remove the gender reference before you replied, as several people have now brought it up.
- rmc 14y ago
  Sometimes people in the privileged group (male and/or white) don't like targetting based on race/gender when it's negatively affects them.
  - fiblye 14y ago
    This kind of "logic" really bothers me. Just because a chunk of a certain demographic is comparatively "privileged", we should gloss over all those who struggle to make a living simply because they were born a white male? If anything, being born poor and white can be more difficult because people bitch about your "privilege" each time you ask for the slightest degree of help. If you're poor and white, you're pretty much screwed when it comes to being able to afford colleges. Most scholarships serve people that belong to a certain (non-white) race, religious, or military background. You don't get access to any tutoring and you're usually working after school to help support your family, so it's borderline impossible to get a 4.0 GPA and even begin qualifying for non-racial scholarships. Outside of racial profiling within America's law enforcement (which is a huge, huge, huge problem that desperately needs to be fixed), there's really no "white privilege" in America. It's "high-income privilege." Anybody born of a wealthy family has a chance, and anybody who isn't suffers. The problem is that we're still looking at race when determining how much support to offer instead of looking at how much a person needs it.
KuangEleven 14y ago
One line here stuck out for bad statistics: "According to research gathered by BlackGirlsCode, African American women make up 4.8 percent of graduate enrollment in computer science programs, while only 0.03 percent of female Hispanic freshmen intended to major in computer science in 2006." To start with, the line implies that these two statistic are related, but they are about different ethnicities, at different education levels comparing completely separate metrics! Secondly, the 4.8 percent statistic seems to imply that this is under-representation, but being that African Americans make up ~12.6% of the population and women are very roughly half of that, 4.8 percent seems really close to demographic representation.
cschmidt 14y ago
Wow, such a lot of negative comments. HN really sounds mean sometimes. Sure, it is a charity program targeting a specific group of people. But that's true of essentially all charities. The Boy Scouts only help boys, PyLadies only teaches women to program in Python, the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria doesn't help people with cancer. The organizers are adding to the social good and helping a deserving group of girls. Good for them.
- rmc 14y ago
  The Boy Scouts only help boys And only straight boys! No gays allowed there (in general).
rmc 14y ago
This is great, and good for them. However as often happens, people are now complaining that they shouldn't have a programme just for black girls since it's racist/sexist. It's not. People/groups who need help and are disadvantaged, should be helped. If 2 babies are born, and one is very healthy and one is very sick, we should give the sick one more medical attention than the healthy one. We should not give everyone the same amount of help, we should try to ensure that everyone has the same chance. That means giving one group more help than another. 'Everyone having the same chance' is what happens when we get rid of racism/sexism (we're not there yet).
- colmvp 14y ago
  'Everyone having the same chance' is what happens when we get rid of racism/sexism (we're not there yet). Indeed. Someone wrote a post about how being born white and male in America is like starting a character in an RPG with boosted stats. It does have a hint of truth to it. There is literally nothing a white man can't do in America whereas other races have significantly less chance of achieving the same success, especially Asian Americans.
kenjackson 14y ago
There's a simple test I use for these cases... it's called the "Least Restrictive Subset Test", or LRST for short. You apply it to see if targeting a specific group is worthwhile. It works by asking two simple questions: 1) If I marketed to a less restrictive subset, would I capture a smaller percentage of my target audience (in proportion to the population)? For example, if I said, "GirlsCode" -- would I still get ~10% black females attending? I suspect you'd get the expected percentage of white females attending, so if white girls were my target audience, I needn't restrict the audience any further. But for black females I would. 2) If I market to this restricted subset will I likely increase the total number of my target audience in attendance. For example, if I said, "WhiteMenCode" do I expect more white men to attend than if I said "MenCode"? I suspect probably not (at least not people serious about coding, versus just trying to prove a point about race). But BlackGirlsCode probably will increase the total number of black females who are serious about learning to code. I think BlackGirlsCode passes the LRST.
- accountswu 14y ago
  I can see your point but I think it is pretty clear that most of the minority groups are at a disadvantage to start with (Asian and Jewish minority in US are exceptions, their income is higher than average, the proportion of Jewish representation in law schools, for example, is disproportionately higher, perhaps 35% at Harvard, but that's an exceptionally well-accomplished group). If the parents don't have enough money to feed the kids, the first thing on the mind would not be the next programming language to learn, it would be about the meal for the next afternoon. Compare that kid to someone whose parents are able to afford the education of kids at the top, most expensive business school or law school of the country. They are not competing at an equal level. Unfortunately the average black happens to be much poorer than the average white (although there are more poor whites than the total number of poor blacks but that's because the blacks are about 13% of total, whites are about 72% of the total). [edited] I don't think anyone in Brazil would have an event "Latina hackathon" but a "Latina hackathon" in US would be understandable. http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-median-wealth-for-single-black-women-at-5-236905/#ixzz210IRpCE3 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-medi... Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5 Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.
unit_testing 14y ago
Why not NonCodersCode? There are plenty of poor, uneducated white girls and boys who could benefit from programs like this. Oh, what's that you say? We already have enough people with their skin color in the computer science field? Shame on me! You're right -- ignore the white trash. The (attractive, affluent, privileged) whites who enjoy ignoring white trash are right -- poor, uneducated whites are unimportant. In fact, poor, uneducated whites (especially the toothless ones) are less important and less worthy of help than attractive, affluent, privileged people with more melanin.
malvim 14y ago
Ok, cool. Everyone has their ideas, they all make sense (we're all reasonably rational people here) and, in an ideal world, I agree that we should not need or have these groups. Except... the under-representation is already there, so we have to deal with it. And I think BGC is a damn fine way to deal with part of it. Is there anyone here who is NOT a white male and would care to comment?
- tikhonj 14y ago
  While agree with your comment, I think your last comment is unwarranted. Just because somebody is a white male does not devalue their point. Moreover, you should really never judge an argument based on the person making it.
  - malvim 14y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly with your point, and as I said before most of the ideas presented here, either for or against this initiative, make sense! It's a difficult subject and one that should be discussed. It just seems to me that we all have lots of ideas about stuff most of us have never been through, and it might be nice to hear from people who've actually been through them.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Hi! White male here. I am absolutely less qualified to comment on racism. Because I very rarely experience it, and often don't notice it when it happens. Similarly, I also believe that one should be suspicious of non-technical managers who have opinions on how to code. Experience matters.
  - king_jester 14y ago
    > Just because somebody is a white male does not devalue their point. The people least affected by racism, both personally and systemically, absolutely have almost no value to their comments. How can they? In the US, white-ness is the norm. If you aren't white, you get treated differently automatically and people don't hesitate to call you racist when you try to do something to help people just like yourself. > Moreover, you should really never judge an argument based on the person making it. This is true, but when someone claims to have knowledge about a thing they cannot by definition experience, they should absolutely be called out on it. Also, talking over actual people of color to give a white opinion is erasing and serves to make those people, already hard to find in tech circles, even more invisible.
aMtnViewer 14y ago
this is a racist organization that doesn't let whites or asians in!
mrmusa 14y ago
There are 3 ways to respond to the critics of BlackGirlsCode: 1) The weakest response is to grow upset and say nothing 2) The average response will post a comment in defense of good sense 3) The best response is to take action. So hit this link up and give Black Girls Code a boost of support and morale http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html Finally, when PoorPeopleCode, WhiteBoysCode or Latina Hackathon call upon the Hacker News community for support, for the sake of whatever you believe in, GIVE BACK so that others can do what you do. It is NEVER about exclusion. The _meme_ is about recognizing "I'm blessed with talent, skill and experience so I help to pay it forward". I just took the highest level of action by sending my gift of support of $100. Don't just sit there shaking your head; do something!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
suprheavn 14y ago
I volunteered for BGC a few months ago and I am a white woman. The problem that this group is trying to solve can be summed up in the fact that there were plenty of black girls learning how to code, but not plenty of black women teaching them. I remember that we had two white women, one Asian woman, three white men, and two black women volunteering total. So I guess it's great that the internet community is so intent on over analyzing everything, but I'm pretty sure all of us would like to be able to teach any child how to code. However, Black Girls Code is clearly better at marketing themselves than all the other groups that I've never heard of.

101 points by MRonney 14y ago

dusing 14y ago

I like the idea of the program, but specifically "Black girls"...

dinkumthinkum 14y ago
Why not? This is one of the hardest hit economic demographics in the country. I don't think targeting it to be specifically for them is bad; in fact I think it is probably best. This demographics tends to get lost in the "need more women in tech" crowd.
- petercooper 14y ago
  Unless they edited the post, it sounded to me that dusing agrees and likes the idea of it being that specific demographic.
- IanDrake 14y ago
  >Why not? I agree - IF we can also agree that groups for "White Women", "Bald Hispanic Men Under 40", etc... are also allowed. Society needs to come to a consensus on this. Either there is a useful purpose to segmenting private groups by age, gender, race, income, etc... or there isn't. If there is a valid purpose, then we should all agree that all possible combination of these factors are equally valid. The end result is that some poor white woman won't be able to attend because of the color of her skin. I'm not sure what happens to her mulatto friend...I guess it depends how black she looks.
  - jbattle 14y ago
    I think the general rule keys around the relative level of privilege a group holds in the relevant society. I don't see society coming to consensus on this any time soon - but a lack of consensus doesn't and shouldn't stop private meetings that don't clearly cause or promote or contribute to harm to others
  - rmc 14y ago
    Not all defintions of racism mean "Any segmentation based on skin colour". Some people define racism as a privileged powerful racial group discriminating and holding back a disadvantaged racial group. So yes, a programme that targets helping black people in tech is not racist, but helping white people in tech is racist.
    - unit_testing 14y ago
      Are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than wealthy, affluent blacks? If you believe so, you're a bigot. Also, are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than poor, uneducated blacks?
      - rmc 14y ago
        Poor uneducated people (yes including whites) are a disadvantaged group compared to rich people. We should set up a group targetting them. There are numerous advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Some people are in 1 or 2 or lots. We should try to end all disadvantagness. I don't see a contradiction.
      - unit_testing 14y ago
        I can't reply to your comment, so I'll comment here. Let's think about some poor, uneducated white kids living in a trailer park without an internet connection. What should they feel when they hear of programs like this? "I'm not important enough to help, because people who look like me already have good jobs?" How should they feel about the myriad of programs and scholarships which explicitly exclude them? At this point, being black isn't a disadvantage in-and-of-itself. Being poor is a disadvantage, and blacks are more likely to be born poor due in no small part to slavery. But all things being equal, being a poor white person is more difficult than being a poor black person. And they shouldn't be excluded.
        wpietri 14y ago
        > being a poor white person is more difficult than being a poor black person Evidence? I'd especially like to see a video of you visiting the trailer parks and public housing projects of America and asking people if they agree with that. I'm not sure which group would take more exception to it. Regardless, as a former poor white person, I think it's bullshit.
  - dinkumthinkum 14y ago
    But this is nothing more than naive pedantry. There is a very large economic demographic in this country that is apparently at a disadvantage. It's called black girls/females. It's not bald hispanic athiests, or freckle-faced Irish mormons or celebrity scientologists that have blond hair. There is a real problem that can potentially be solved. You can play this game if you want but there is quite clearly a qualitative difference between groups like "black girls" and "bald hispanic men under 40." It's just ridiculous; it's sophomoric to conflate the two. As to your last point, so the perfect is the enemy of the good? The end goal is to help real people, not sit in an ivory tower and debate about whether "race even exists" or any of this nonsense. If calling the group "Black Girls Can Code" allows the group to raise more money and help a very specific group of girls, then that is good. I think there is a good reason to think that if there was a group called "Woman Can Code" that this particular group/demographic would not benefit as much as it might as it is currently labeled (perhaps less participation, perhaps drowned out by the others, etc). We can be pedantic and cry foul that "Wah, there is not a White Women group or a Native American Transgender" group but that doesn't end up helping anyone. The world is more complex than that. "Bald Hispanic" is not a comparison to "black girls" any serious person would make.
    - IanDrake 14y ago
      >There is a very large economic demographic in this country that is apparently at a disadvantage. It's called black girls/females. The only point in your reply that I understand is that you believe black women are poor, therefore typical social rules regarding segregation don't apply. >If calling the group "Black Girls Can Code" allows the group to raise more money... By this logic you are OK with a group called "White boys can code" IF it helped that group raise money? And why not, these could be boys from Appalachia who have Mountain Dew and Snickers for dinner every night. I think this is a conversation worth having. At some point we need to go beyond convenient stereo types and get to the root of the problem.
      - dinkumthinkum 14y ago
        > The only point in your reply that I understand is that you believe black women are poor, therefore typical social rules regarding segregation don't apply. I don't know why you're having trouble understanding this. This stuff is pretty basic to understand. Your view is childish and pedantic. "Wah realizing there are social mores in effect in the real world is just segregation." > By this logic you are OK with a group called "White boys can code" IF it helped that group raise money? And why not, these could be boys from Appalachia who have Mountain Dew and Snickers for dinner every night. No, I think there are qualitative social implications that we all recognize when we stop making silly statements like "Why is there not White Entertainment Television." But I do think having groups as you suggested is a good idea but I think the naming of them should pay attention to social realities.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Society does pretty much have a consensus on this. If you're working to reduce privilege and increase fairness, some selectivity based on race, gender, and sexual orientation is allowed. So a group for helping women is considered cricket, but one focused on white women probably wouldn't be, because white people are already privileged enough.
sp332 14y ago
Are you racist or sexist or both? Tongue-in-cheek but I don't understand your problem.
natrius 14y ago
The goal of these types of programs is to change cultures. If under-representation isn't caused by biology, then it's caused by culture. If the programs didn't target people within the cultures they're trying to change, they wouldn't succeed. They'd be full of the people who are already likely to be interested in programming, which isn't a problem in itself, but isn't the goal of the programs.
- baddox 14y ago
  What if under-representation is caused by collectivism? After all, the solution to slavery wasn't reversing or evening out the ethnicities of slave and master, it was getting rid of slavery altogether.
  - natrius 14y ago
    I don't understand. How is collectivism not culture? Slavery was abolished because American culture began to frown upon it.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    What do you get rid of here? Black culture?
moron 14y ago
That's kind of how I feel, I don't think there's anything wrong with it but it does seem weirdly specific. It makes me wonder if other industries with poorly-represented population groups have such specific programs. Surely the demographics of other fields need to be shaken up as well as tech. Nursing comes to mind.
TwiztidK 14y ago
To me it seems that if every thing is going to be broken down demographically to this extent, there will have to be: Black Girls Code, Hispanic Girls Code, Native American Girls Code, and then additional groups for minority males. At that point it seems to get kind of ridiculous as every potential minority-gender combination will need its own group which just seems kind of inefficient to me. I could be horribly wrong though, but that's just how it seems as a white-male outsider. To an extent, I think that black people, and black girls specifically, not going into CS is really a symptom of a bigger problem. I went to a high school with a lot of black guys and girls and, at least for my graduating class, it really didn't seem like many went to college. Although, Black Girls Code could help get people interested in going to college to further study CS or anything else really. Either way, it'll be really interesting to see how it goes.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  If people started every one of these, and actively pursued it, that would be a fantastic problem to have. You seem to be saying "don't make any of them because it is unfair." I am saying "make any or all of them so that more smart and motivated people can get a hand up and make cool things so the future is great." If I would get paid and have adequate organizational support I would be all about targeting education at Native Americans on the reservation. Can't you see how petty it would be to say that nobody should try to help Native Americans because it seems somehow "racist" to white males?
- sp332 14y ago
  A lot of hacker groups are already effectively "whites code" or even "white men code". So "black girls code" is just actually just as specific as some existing groups.
  - TwiztidK 14y ago
    I'm suggesting that any group that limits itself accoring to race or gender is unaccecptable. If these hacker groups are white only, then we need to break down the barriers that are keeping minorities and women out rather than starting new groups and self-segregating.

peterwwillis 14y ago

What I love about this initiative is it solves several problems at once, and builds a foundation for related groups (women in general, and black people in general) to gravitate to this field. They'll naturally find people similar to them and make it easier to relate to their peers.

taphangum 14y ago
"They'll naturally find people similar to them and make it easier to relate to their peers." Relatability is the key thing. You're spot on here.

petercooper 14y ago

I've been following this program for a while and even got to meet Kimberly at O'Reilly Fluent earlier in the year.. her enthusiasm is infectious! As important as her work is to the girls, though, I particularly hope she inspires other adults to take on this mentoring role so that everywhere can have its equivalent. Things like this are springing up all over. For example, here in the UK, Code Club has been founded by two women to create and support after-school programming clubs: http://codeclub.org.uk/ http://codeclub.org.uk/

zbuc 14y ago
I volunteered for when they come to Detroit!

summiyah 14y ago

This is such an important initiative! Several teens that were in my Media course (focused on Minority Women in Technology) are attending the Atlanta Session.

JPKab 14y ago

I realize that the realities of the limited resources available for charities and non-profits is what leads to the ethnic and gender based targeting, but this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is it a good cause? Yes. Teaching any disadvantaged group a useful skill is a great thing, but solving a problem of exclusion with further exclusion is, in principal, bad. I grew up in a poor, mostly black, rural county in Virginia. The opportunities for learning to code were zero. There was no computer science class, while students attending public schools in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia got to have programming classes starting in middle school. People WANTED to learn to code, but they couldn't. These were poor people, of all colors and genders. Will this make Women's Studies graduates and professors happy? Yes. Will it make African-American Studies graduates and professors happy? Probably. I could point out the bullshit in this idea in so many ways, but I'll stick with just one: Among black americans, which group has a lower graduation rate? Males or females? Which group is more likely to be unemployed, males or females? Which group is more likely to be incarcerated? The list goes on. I know it's not cool to help boys/males these days, but all the statistics point to a dramatic problem with young men of all races today. It's too bad that there isn't a powerful special interest group backed up by a bunch of humanities professors looking out for the impoverished non-black non-females of America. Charities should be based on need and helping the greater good, not on playing favorites.

_pius 14y ago
I read your rant a few times and I've yet to see your point. Charities should be based on need and helping the greater good, not on playing favorites. This isn't a charity. A black woman started this program to address a legitimate need that she saw. Others who agreed with her gave her money to do it. Where is the bad in this? How is this anything but a net positive for the world?
- JPKab 14y ago
  The bad in this would be a young black girl trying to bring her hispanic friend. Exclusion is exclusion. If this were the WhiteBoysSew club, you would call it racist, despite the fact that very few white boys learn to sew.

grannyg00se 14y ago

"Our mission with BlackGirlsCode is to “change the ratio” of women of color in technology and that begins with introducing computer programming and STEM subjects to girls of all colors at an early age. " It's not only for black girls. I suspect it's for all but white though so they still exclude based on color. And of course age and gender. I really wish people would stop reinforcing racial discrimination of all sorts. Even the age discrimination is a bit offensive. I understand it may be easier to get funding when you can present a narrow group.

slurgfest 14y ago
That is why (for example in Python) there is PyLadies, and that is why there is every other general Python group, in which there is no group-wide disadvantage for white men. Most of these groups I have been to, have mostly been white men with lots of alpha-nerding going on. I can't say I have seen any overt instances of racism but I still totally appreciate that minorities could be uncomfortable and benefit greatly from a support system that could increase their comfort level in the community and make them feel more assured. I don't see this as a zero-sum war against white people and I hope you don't either.
- grannyg00se 14y ago
  I don't see it as a war against anybody but whenever you discriminate based on race you are encouraging others to do the same. I don't like to see race brought up in every facet of life. If it wasn't such a commonly used differentiator then everybody would feel comfortable in any group because race would be insignificant. Taken to the extreme, it becomes downright immature and pathetic. Do we really need a group specifically for blacks, and one for asians, and one for mixed black asians, and one for mexicans, and one for indians... etc? Give me a break. I wish we could all just collectively grow up. Actually that's not quite right. Young children don't tend to segregate like that. They have us beat in that area. It's only once they learn our ways that they start to do it. Again, because it is continually reinforced as a part of society.
mrmusa 14y ago
since when do all colors exclude white?

natrius 14y ago

Several comments claim that targeting by race is inherently wrong. I disagree. Anyone want to back that claim up with logic?

Produce 14y ago
I was just about to call out the gender discrimination myself. You're not alone.
- natrius 14y ago
  I edited the comment to remove the gender reference before you replied, as several people have now brought it up.
rmc 14y ago
Sometimes people in the privileged group (male and/or white) don't like targetting based on race/gender when it's negatively affects them.
- fiblye 14y ago
  This kind of "logic" really bothers me. Just because a chunk of a certain demographic is comparatively "privileged", we should gloss over all those who struggle to make a living simply because they were born a white male? If anything, being born poor and white can be more difficult because people bitch about your "privilege" each time you ask for the slightest degree of help. If you're poor and white, you're pretty much screwed when it comes to being able to afford colleges. Most scholarships serve people that belong to a certain (non-white) race, religious, or military background. You don't get access to any tutoring and you're usually working after school to help support your family, so it's borderline impossible to get a 4.0 GPA and even begin qualifying for non-racial scholarships. Outside of racial profiling within America's law enforcement (which is a huge, huge, huge problem that desperately needs to be fixed), there's really no "white privilege" in America. It's "high-income privilege." Anybody born of a wealthy family has a chance, and anybody who isn't suffers. The problem is that we're still looking at race when determining how much support to offer instead of looking at how much a person needs it.

KuangEleven 14y ago

One line here stuck out for bad statistics: "According to research gathered by BlackGirlsCode, African American women make up 4.8 percent of graduate enrollment in computer science programs, while only 0.03 percent of female Hispanic freshmen intended to major in computer science in 2006." To start with, the line implies that these two statistic are related, but they are about different ethnicities, at different education levels comparing completely separate metrics! Secondly, the 4.8 percent statistic seems to imply that this is under-representation, but being that African Americans make up ~12.6% of the population and women are very roughly half of that, 4.8 percent seems really close to demographic representation.

cschmidt 14y ago

Wow, such a lot of negative comments. HN really sounds mean sometimes. Sure, it is a charity program targeting a specific group of people. But that's true of essentially all charities. The Boy Scouts only help boys, PyLadies only teaches women to program in Python, the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria doesn't help people with cancer. The organizers are adding to the social good and helping a deserving group of girls. Good for them.

rmc 14y ago
The Boy Scouts only help boys And only straight boys! No gays allowed there (in general).

rmc 14y ago

This is great, and good for them. However as often happens, people are now complaining that they shouldn't have a programme just for black girls since it's racist/sexist. It's not. People/groups who need help and are disadvantaged, should be helped. If 2 babies are born, and one is very healthy and one is very sick, we should give the sick one more medical attention than the healthy one. We should not give everyone the same amount of help, we should try to ensure that everyone has the same chance. That means giving one group more help than another. 'Everyone having the same chance' is what happens when we get rid of racism/sexism (we're not there yet).

colmvp 14y ago
'Everyone having the same chance' is what happens when we get rid of racism/sexism (we're not there yet). Indeed. Someone wrote a post about how being born white and male in America is like starting a character in an RPG with boosted stats. It does have a hint of truth to it. There is literally nothing a white man can't do in America whereas other races have significantly less chance of achieving the same success, especially Asian Americans.

kenjackson 14y ago

There's a simple test I use for these cases... it's called the "Least Restrictive Subset Test", or LRST for short. You apply it to see if targeting a specific group is worthwhile. It works by asking two simple questions: 1) If I marketed to a less restrictive subset, would I capture a smaller percentage of my target audience (in proportion to the population)? For example, if I said, "GirlsCode" -- would I still get ~10% black females attending? I suspect you'd get the expected percentage of white females attending, so if white girls were my target audience, I needn't restrict the audience any further. But for black females I would. 2) If I market to this restricted subset will I likely increase the total number of my target audience in attendance. For example, if I said, "WhiteMenCode" do I expect more white men to attend than if I said "MenCode"? I suspect probably not (at least not people serious about coding, versus just trying to prove a point about race). But BlackGirlsCode probably will increase the total number of black females who are serious about learning to code. I think BlackGirlsCode passes the LRST.

accountswu 14y ago
I can see your point but I think it is pretty clear that most of the minority groups are at a disadvantage to start with (Asian and Jewish minority in US are exceptions, their income is higher than average, the proportion of Jewish representation in law schools, for example, is disproportionately higher, perhaps 35% at Harvard, but that's an exceptionally well-accomplished group). If the parents don't have enough money to feed the kids, the first thing on the mind would not be the next programming language to learn, it would be about the meal for the next afternoon. Compare that kid to someone whose parents are able to afford the education of kids at the top, most expensive business school or law school of the country. They are not competing at an equal level. Unfortunately the average black happens to be much poorer than the average white (although there are more poor whites than the total number of poor blacks but that's because the blacks are about 13% of total, whites are about 72% of the total). [edited] I don't think anyone in Brazil would have an event "Latina hackathon" but a "Latina hackathon" in US would be understandable. http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-median-wealth-for-single-black-women-at-5-236905/#ixzz210IRpCE3 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-medi... Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5 Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.

unit_testing 14y ago

Why not NonCodersCode? There are plenty of poor, uneducated white girls and boys who could benefit from programs like this. Oh, what's that you say? We already have enough people with their skin color in the computer science field? Shame on me! You're right -- ignore the white trash. The (attractive, affluent, privileged) whites who enjoy ignoring white trash are right -- poor, uneducated whites are unimportant. In fact, poor, uneducated whites (especially the toothless ones) are less important and less worthy of help than attractive, affluent, privileged people with more melanin.

malvim 14y ago

Ok, cool. Everyone has their ideas, they all make sense (we're all reasonably rational people here) and, in an ideal world, I agree that we should not need or have these groups. Except... the under-representation is already there, so we have to deal with it. And I think BGC is a damn fine way to deal with part of it. Is there anyone here who is NOT a white male and would care to comment?

tikhonj 14y ago
While agree with your comment, I think your last comment is unwarranted. Just because somebody is a white male does not devalue their point. Moreover, you should really never judge an argument based on the person making it.
- malvim 14y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly with your point, and as I said before most of the ideas presented here, either for or against this initiative, make sense! It's a difficult subject and one that should be discussed. It just seems to me that we all have lots of ideas about stuff most of us have never been through, and it might be nice to hear from people who've actually been through them.
- wpietri 14y ago
  Hi! White male here. I am absolutely less qualified to comment on racism. Because I very rarely experience it, and often don't notice it when it happens. Similarly, I also believe that one should be suspicious of non-technical managers who have opinions on how to code. Experience matters.
- king_jester 14y ago
  > Just because somebody is a white male does not devalue their point. The people least affected by racism, both personally and systemically, absolutely have almost no value to their comments. How can they? In the US, white-ness is the norm. If you aren't white, you get treated differently automatically and people don't hesitate to call you racist when you try to do something to help people just like yourself. > Moreover, you should really never judge an argument based on the person making it. This is true, but when someone claims to have knowledge about a thing they cannot by definition experience, they should absolutely be called out on it. Also, talking over actual people of color to give a white opinion is erasing and serves to make those people, already hard to find in tech circles, even more invisible.

aMtnViewer 14y ago

this is a racist organization that doesn't let whites or asians in!

mrmusa 14y ago

There are 3 ways to respond to the critics of BlackGirlsCode: 1) The weakest response is to grow upset and say nothing 2) The average response will post a comment in defense of good sense 3) The best response is to take action. So hit this link up and give Black Girls Code a boost of support and morale http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html Finally, when PoorPeopleCode, WhiteBoysCode or Latina Hackathon call upon the Hacker News community for support, for the sake of whatever you believe in, GIVE BACK so that others can do what you do. It is NEVER about exclusion. The _meme_ is about recognizing "I'm blessed with talent, skill and experience so I help to pay it forward". I just took the highest level of action by sending my gift of support of $100. Don't just sit there shaking your head; do something!

deleted 14y ago

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suprheavn 14y ago

I volunteered for BGC a few months ago and I am a white woman. The problem that this group is trying to solve can be summed up in the fact that there were plenty of black girls learning how to code, but not plenty of black women teaching them. I remember that we had two white women, one Asian woman, three white men, and two black women volunteering total. So I guess it's great that the internet community is so intent on over analyzing everything, but I'm pretty sure all of us would like to be able to teach any child how to code. However, Black Girls Code is clearly better at marketing themselves than all the other groups that I've never heard of.