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Black Girls Code launching in Miami
- fidotron 13y agoIt's very true that if you aren't based in SV but visit it regularly this is something that jars every damn time. Doing something positive about it is great. The other side is the rest of us should see it as an opportunity, given that the effective monoculture in SV gives them a sort of blindness to certain product areas.
- fchollet 13y agoI never thought of SV as a monoculture, when it comes to nationality and race (it does suffer from a bad case of groupthink though...) In SV you will find engineers, designers and managers from all over the world --Russia, China, Europe, etc., and when it comes to race you will find very large numbers of highly successful Asians and Indians. Likely more so than in other US industry.
- saltyknuckles 13y agoWhat you just wrote didn't include black or hispanics. So now you have Black Girls Code.
- fidotron 13y agoPrecisely. It's also struck me that the vast majority of the female engineers seem to work at a tiny handful of companies. For example, Google is quite diverse, the attendees at I/O were not.
- elwell 13y agoI wasn't thinking about race; now I am. I believe minority focused groups, such as this, perpetuate racial discrimination. Can't we all just be one big group of humans? Disagree with my viewpoint? Please comment before you downvote. I'm willing to rethink my views.
- dethstar 13y agoTrying to join the masses of white males have often resulted in failure, should those black women that are trying to learn something wait until they might be accepted instead of starting their own safe spaces, just to please your idea of "one big group of humans"?
- stephp 13y agoThis is the problem exactly. As a woman, I never felt that I was welcomed and struggled to "belong" among the typical coders/programmers. There are too many contributing factors to even begin to list here, but I've spoken to enough other women about their feelings regarding tech and the tech space to know they were never individual to me. But then I never felt quite right about chick groups either, if only because it isn't the REAL tech scene. It's just another subculture with its own idiosyncrasies. You can stay there as long as you want, and still be intimidated by the larger tech space where all the big stuff is happening, thus making no substantial dent in anything. So I do believe the problem they're trying to address is a real and important one; this way of dealing with it just doesn't seem ideal to me.
- tinco 13y agoNo one cares if you are thinking of race, because obviously it is not about you. It's easy to not think about racism when racism isn't an issue in your environment. It's not as if now that you're exposed to racism, that you will perpetuate it, right?
- bayesianhorse 13y agoI'm a bit sceptical of initiatives that carry their ethnic and gender requirements in their name, but I guess those initiatives can't exactly hurt "diversity" either. But even "diversity" isn't the right moniker for this movement. I think "undiversity" or segregation, especially in tech is the result of "biased sampling" for all sorts of reasons. Hard to counter, but necessary!
- tomasien 13y agoI'm really, really worried about this thread. Holding my breathe. (Edit: for context, when I posted this, there was 1 comment by Bsharp.)
- tomasien 13y agoOh my good lord that was fast
- consonants 13y agoThreads like this provide a moment to gaze into the abyss
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tomasien 13y agoOh my god this turned to shit before I even hit post on my comment. Amazing.
- consonants 13y agoIf this stayed on the frontpage we would be swimming in gold. Oh well, time to read them all and lose some faith in humanity
- hjw 13y agoLikewise. There are already some pretty biting responses to expressions of opinions.
- tomblomfield 13y agoI really value initiatives that teach people to code, and I've taught at a few myself. But I wonder at the value of this increasing focus on certain minorities. Should we have classes focussed on teaching gay people to code?
- nostromo 13y agoI take your point, but in my experience gay men are over-represented in tech, not under-represented.
- coralreef 13y agoBeing gay may make you a minority, but not an obviously visible minority that people could instantly discriminate against. The reason any of these kinds of initiatives exist is because the end results are skewed. That is, some population is statistically under-represented relative to major population. In this case, you might look at the number of black women in tech and wonder why its so low. The creators of this initiative must therefore think that the resources of inspiration/training/education or whatever may not be making it to enough young black girls to persuade them into technology. Hence the desire to "correct" it.
- Bsharp 13y agoI think they are simply trying to get an under-represented group interested in coding, with people they will likely be more comfortable around. This isn't an elite group of hackers excluding other sexes and races, it's meant to be a springboard into coding for a demographic which generally doesn't.
- gtremper 13y agohttp://www.ostem.org/ http://www.ostem.org/
- Bsharp 13y agoThis is great, thanks for sharing! Hopefully it's able to stick - I live in Miami and there is little-to-no tech culture around.
- nicholassmith 13y agoThis is awesome, targeting minorities early is a fantastic way to get them into the tech scene. Kudos to them, I really hope it works well.
- jlebrech 13y agoI believe such group can become a subdivision of the greater coding community rather than a segregation of it. they can learn among themselves and still be part of the greater community.
- crazygringo 13y agoIt's clear that the goals are extremely laudable -- to help a disadvantaged group gain experience. But this indeed asks the question, which as far as I can tell is completely unaddressed on their website: why create a group that excludes others by sex and race? How do they explain to a black 14-year-old that their group isn't going to help him? Or a Hispanic 14-year-old girl? Or any 14-year-old whose parents are below the poverty line, who also wants to learn to code? Why can't we just help disadvantaged youths in general? I mean, limiting to a certain location (Miami) is fine. Limiting the number of students who can participate is fine. But I really have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of telling a black boy that they won't help him, because of the gender he was born as.
- pekk 13y agoIf you want to start a group for black boys, then do it.
- shanelja 13y agoDid you even read the comment? It's not about helping black people or women or Chinese people or men, it's about helping everyone.
- pekk 13y agoSeems to me that it's about complaining when someone else starts groups to help people. Helping people is never wrong.
- Karunamon 13y agoSomething something good intentions. "Helping" doesn't automatically mean you're doing it right or are free from criticism or comment.
- pekk 13y agoIf Black Girls Code is not actually helping the black girls, then it's not helping. "You didn't help everybody" is not a valid criticism of an initiative to help some people. If you have some other people you want helped, then help them yourself rather than shooting down other people's altruism.
- alasano 13y agoWhile it may seem on the surface that a racially/gender motivated coding class is superfluous, I think that the founders are seeking to appeal to the complete opposite of the coder stereotype (aka white male). Raising awareness and breaking down stereotypes is a good thing and it seems to me that it's hard to do without seeming like some type of segregation whilst doing it. Empowering people isn't about making them better than others, but simply raising everyone to the same level.
- tlarkworthy 13y agoHopefully they will make tons of money and make coding cool so that girls in general might want to code too.
- DanielStraight 13y agoThis is an organization started by a black woman who has learned to code for helping black girls learn to code. Can we just give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows more about reaching people with similar experiences than we do?
- pekk 13y agoThe idea is so innocuous. Nobody is being hurt by it. Maybe some people will be helped. It doesn't prevent anyone else from being helped the same way. There's no real use stirring up a shitstorm about it. Some political zealots are ruining nice things for the rest of us because all they care about is their own ideology.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- hjw 13y agoThis exchange of opinions is not constructive. Helping people is never wrong. The only objectionable part about this is that it isn't helping everyone, but only a select group. Helping a select group could build a sense of community, or it could potentially segregate groups of individuals. But it is undeniably beneficial for the individuals that the service is targeting. If anyone wants to take the initiative to help disadvantaged youth in general I'm sure no one would object.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- loso 13y agoI don't care about the geopolitical implications of a group like this. I don't care what message it sends to other groups. All I care about is that it help those girls who attend the event. Why? Because I know movements like this can work. As a black kid growing up I had no tech role models to look up to.It starts to get in your head that you can't possibly have a career in tech because you see no one that looks like you. It is similar to a popular joke in black neighborhoods for decades about "ain't no way you will see a black president" or "they will shoot him the first day he is elected". If you're not exposed to it, even if it is really out there, then you will tend to doubt if you can do it. It wasn't until I was older that I learned about minorities in tech. I was exposed to the internet at 18 and from then on split my time between working security in the clubs, going to college for business management and learning how to code at night when the clubs let out. Exposure to possibility is very important part of development. So as long as these girls are getting that exposure and it helps them achieve their dream I will worry about the ramifications later.
- roderick3427 13y agoWhy is it when we talk about gender, race, and technology together we get so bent out of shape? It’s a fact that in the US the tech scene is predominantly made up of white males. Because of that we have some people who want to add some diversity to our community. And these people have designed and built special programs to address this. Try and remember what got you interested in the tech scene may not work for the next kid.
- sn 13y agoOne of my friends very young girls are black. My friend is raising them to be geeks and the girls are unhappy about how few super heroes look like them. Without programs like this, presumably their distress will extend to other areas as they grow older. Kudos to Kimberly for starting this.