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Is anyone else troubled by this? "Black Girls CODE is an international non-profit organization with local chapters in San Francisco, Memphis, Atlanta, Chicago,
by nhangen 13y ago
Is anyone else troubled by this?
"Black Girls CODE is an international non-profit organization with local chapters in San Francisco, Memphis, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and New York. They teach girls of color (ages 7-17) to become the masters of their technological futures by teaching them classes in game design, web development, robotics and more!"
Why not teach all girls or call it, 'Impoverished Girls Code?'
- tokenizerrr 13y agoYep, racism goes both ways.
- hackinthebochs 13y agoTo imply that this is "racism" is just pure insanity. People really need to stop diluting the meaning of words to suit their agenda.
- gizmo686 13y agoHow is calling this racism a dilution of the word. The name clearly suggests that it is treating black people differently from non-black people. The fact that the word "racism" has been stigmatized to the point where an activity must be both racist-proper and harmful to a recognized marginalized group is irrelevant. We can argue about wheather or not the racism in this group is significant or even negative, but that is irrelevant to the fact that, at least the name, is racist.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago>The name clearly suggests that it is treating black people differently from non-black people. That's not what racism is. And don't bother digging up the 4th definition in some random online dictionary as your "proof". Dictionaries chronicle common usage, they are not the arbiters of meaning. One can understand the meaning of a word by comprehending its usage in culture and literature over the span of many decades. Once you do that you won't be able to claim that racism is "treating races differently".
- djent 13y agoDiluting the meaning of "black" or diluting the meaning of "racism"? The meanings of those words seem pretty black and white to me.
- eliteraspberrie 13y agoIgnorance, not insanity.
- nawitus 13y agoIt's racism by definition.
- jkelsey 13y agoLove this argument: um, I looked up the word 'racism' in the dictionary and it says to exclude based on race, so that's what this event is: racist! To that, I say, how convenient it is that you've just turned off the critical reasoning process in your brain for just this issue. Thanks for completely ignoring the history of racial subjugation and discrimination in this country and in the world.
- gizmo686 13y agoYour right, the problem is in how you define rasism. I personally have a problem with including in the definition of most words "and is bad", as that inherently complicates the issue. I much prefer to answer the question "is this racist" without involving the question "is this bad". I cannot think of any reasonable definition of racism that satisfies this, and does not include "Black Girls Code" as an example. Now, can we talk about the "is this bad" question?
- hackinthebochs 13y agoYou are absolutely right; the question of whether this is racist is a red herring. The question is really: "is this bad". You seem to think it is. How about you begin the discussion by stating how this is bad.
- jkelsey 13y agoWell, please, lets. Is it bad? No, it is not. It's meant to expose and encourage some kids who, statistically, are otherwise unlikely to be exposed to computer programming in the same way that other kids have been by providing a comfortable environment filled with others like them. I suspect, however, since there's more comments than upvotes here, that a significant amount of Hacker News readers have a problem with that. I read comments like, 'oh, they should allow kids of all colors and sexes in there', and I think to myself, are you really so blind to the reality that the kids in this highly underrepresented demographic would be crowded out by other kids who already have the privilege of and exposure to computer programming. No one is trying to prevent anyone from being programmers with Black Girls Code. They're just trying to create some comfortable space for these kids so that they can grow their computer skills as they grow up and become tech-literate adults in our ever-increasing information economy and culture that can compete on a fair playing field. That so many people here have a problem with that is highly concerning.
- rimantas 13y agoI am afraid this is a lost cause already. Too many are already trained to stop thinking and react in knee-jerky-white-knighty way to any mention of race or gender. This is sad, bet the worst is that it stops people from rally digging into problems and solving them.
- isomorph 13y agoWhy not teach girls of all races? Why not teach black people of all genders? Why not teach everyone? (I am not saying I believe anything implied by any of these questions)
- undoware 13y agoBecause -- and I say this as someone who has been hurt repeatedly by various kinds of segregated space -- it doesn't work as a pitch, and no, I don't know why. Consider: Black girls code (cool!) People from challenging backgrounds code (ok) People from challenging backgrounds do impressive things (...) Eventually you get out to the 'thin' ethical properties and you end up just running a campaign to promote The Good.
- hackinthebochs 13y agoI love how suddenly people want to pretend that marketing isn't an actual thing.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- wellboy 13y agoBecause then you can also call it "Girls Code" and then you can also call it "People Code". You always have limited resources, so it's better to pick out a tight vertical to start out from, where your resources, experience and skill have a much bigger impact.
- nawitus 13y ago>You always have limited resources, so it's better to pick out a tight vertical to start out from, where your resources, experience and skill have a much bigger impact. Why does picking a "tight vertical" have a much bigger impact?
- tptacek 13y agoBecause people are more receptive to messages that are narrowly targeted at them.
- nhangen 13y agoSo you're OK with white girls code, hispanic girls code, european girls code, etc?
- rdl 13y agoI'd be seriously troubled if it were the only program in the world teaching anyone to code, yeah. However, it's not. I don't mind if there's some specific "help children of fallen 9/11 firefighters" program, or "black girls code", or whatever, because there are plenty of other programs for other people. I donated $10, which thanks to the magic of Alexis, is $20. It took less time than to write this comment.
- nawitus 13y agoWhere're the free events to help white men code? Maybe they exist, but I haven't heard about them.
- tptacek 13y agoYou mean, "where is practically every other free coding event ever"?
- nawitus 13y agoYes, I haven't heard about them in Finland. I've only heard about Rail Girls events here.
- gress 13y agoAre you seriously saying there are no other coding events of any kind in Finland?
- nawitus 13y agoI'm saying I haven't heard about them. (Note, I'm talking about events where people are taught to code). I've seen some "make a game over the weekend", but they're for experienced developers. There was also an event for young children (but that's not an event where adults can learn as far as I know).
- 13y ago
- crystaln 13y agoNo. Because black, like it or not, people stereotype themselves and others by race and color. People put themselves and get put in boxes based on the expectation implied by these characteristics. Black girls don't have role models or encouragement to peruse coding the way white men or even white women do. Programs like this open the door to new groups and welcome them. A general purpose program would by default, perhaps unintentionally, set a high barrier for black girls to join. It's a sort of "affirmative action," which I'm often opposed to, but in this case I am not because the opportunity is focused in a massive deficit. On a side note, it's interesting that your outrage applies to race but not gender separations.
- nhangen 13y agoActually, I feel the same about gender separations. And I think I used the term 'troubled' and not 'outraged.'
- smtddr 13y agoEvery time... Theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441795 Potential examples: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885123 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6448409 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6857739 5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035263 - This is the most obvious one. 6. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6902563 - Cover up. 7. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6907915 I'm going to just keep on collecting these links and post the list on every instance I see. This will be added as the 8th link.
- gizmo686 13y agoA charity is asking for donations, and someone is raising a concern about the charity. How is this not relevant?
- yetanotherphd 13y agoYour theory doesn't really accord with the evidence you posted. Your theory is that anything positive about Black people is pounced on by trolls. To me, evidence of this would be a story about an individual Black programmer, for example, or (as you say) programmers in Oakland. But this is a story specifically about a program for Black girls learning to code. Race is not incidental, it is central to the story. So for you to claim some kind of hidden agenda because people with differing views on race post in these stories, is ridiculous.
- mladenkovacevic 13y agoWhat I am more troubled by is that of a 100 or so comments there are about 2 or 3 saying "this is cool how can I help." The rest are arguing the validity and political correctness of inviting black girls to code.
- gizmo686 13y agoThat would suggest that this community (or at least a vocal minority of this community) has a problem with this charity. I much prefer a community that voices concerns over charities rather than blindly donating to whoever asks for money.
- dragonwriter 13y agoPresumably, the particular problem that the founders perceive and want to deal with is that coding isn't accessible to black girls. Poverty may be a component of the problem they are seeking to address, but it may not be the only component. Whether or not it should be the case, different demographics -- whether divided by race or gender -- are socialized differently and its not unreasonable to think that they may be best reached by different means, and that part of the reason certain groups are underrepresented is that existing routes into the field serve some groups better than others, and that equalizing access means, in part, finding better ways to serve those groups that are currently underrepresented. There are groups whose focus is gender but not race, e.g., http://www.girlswhocode.com/ http://www.girlswhocode.com/