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>One of the spaces you might think would be a gateway for developers of color to enter the industry is through open source software development. You don't have
by goggles99 13y ago
>One of the spaces you might think would be a gateway for developers of color to enter the industry is through open source software development. You don't have to know somebody or have a degree in software engineering or get hired to participate in an open-source project. You can jump right in and start writing some code.
This sounds like the author is resigned to the fact that colored people don't go to college. Is that the premise of this article? What about the tiny percentage of colored college students why have any interest in software development?
>But in Haibel's experience, the open-source world is even whiter and more male than the world of proprietary software. "It's very clear that the open source community is whiter than the software community as a whole," she says.
Wait, this seems to imply that the fact that there aren't many women or colored coders is because the white men in charge refuse to hire them on this basis. This is in stark contrast to reality where the fact that is not mentioned here is that there is little or no interest to code from these groups.
>There are larger societal factors that contribute to the whiteness of the tech world, more broadly. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to attend under-resourced schools, they're underrepresented in math and science fields at every level of higher education and increasingly so the higher they go, and are less likely than whites to
This is such garbage. Blacks and Latinos in the same schools and in the same socioeconomic status as their White, Asian and Indian counter parts become coders at the same rates. Why do journalists always try to make everything about race unfairness?
There is no story here. Blacks and Hispanics aren't coders very often because they don't have ambition to do that. Wither it be cultural or genetic is not exactly known but it is not because they are disadvantaged. what is all this crap about them contributing to open source?
Would we ever see an article about how Indians and Persians are overrepresented in gas station and liquor store ownership (a very lucrative career) and how white people should do x to catch up? White people don't aspire to do that, end of (non) story.
- steveklabnik 13y ago> colored people Just for your own sake, in case you're not a native speaker: you shouldn't ever, ever say this. The words you use send social signals to others, and 'colored people' sounds really, really, really racist. This is distinct from 'person of color,' which is not. Use it instead. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color
- funkdat 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFKU_hwj2o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFKU_hwj2o
- gaius 13y agoColoured is a normal saying in South Africa and isn't an absurd politically correct euphemism for black. Before accusing others of racism, check your cultural imperialism.
- steveklabnik 13y agoI specifically did not accuse them of racism, I said that it sends a certain signal, which is obviously scoped to cultures. HN is largely about California culture, so many readers will have a US-centric reading. Understanding what effect the words you use has on your audience is important. You'll also note that the South Africa bit is specifically mentioned in the "people of color" link.
- jbdurruti 13y ago> I specifically did not accuse them of racism You're sure you didn't do exactly that to an audience of about 12K followers on Twitter? https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/409697629321195520 https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/409697629321195520
- steveklabnik 13y agoI do not think they are racist. I think they said something that sounds like they're racist.
- sergiotapia 13y agoThat is just so low and slimy of you. Yikes.
- mhurron 13y ago
- poppysan 13y agoExcept for the "colored people" comment I wholly agree with your take. As a black guy, there is little real understanding of the lack of barriers to becoming a programmer. This alone holds a lot of minorities back, without adding the myriad of other non tech related barriers. Stories such as this one seeks to help, but dont unfortunatly.
- goggles99 13y agoThanks for the reply. I meant no offense. The article uses the words people of color several times. I fail to see how using people of color and colored people are different. Sorry if this hurt your feelings.