"Why so few minorities in tech jobs "

[schneiderguy]

I'd guess that about 20% of my coworkers are white. I was the only white person in the graduate course I took last semester.

I guess if you define "minority" as black or hispanic then yeah, there's definitely a lack of minorities in the tech industry.

When do I get free shit from the government for being a minority? :hmm:

 

[HamburgerBoy]

My dad's favorite coworker (in electrical/computer engineering) is a black, body-building wine-connoisseur that listens to true heavy metal.

 

[tcsenter]

WTF is a Asian?

The gooks, slant-eyes, and the pigmented towel headed Muslims who actually are not Muslim.

 

[Ns1]

I bet East/West coast dominated by Asians while Central areas dominated by Whites.

Yes/No?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The gooks, slant-eyes, and the pigmented towel headed Muslims who actually are not Muslim.

Location: Central California

 

[amdhunter]

Wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan

:sneaky:

D:

Bullshit, Hitler just had a hard-on for Asian women and needed to do something so he could keep banging an inferior race.

 

[nehalem256]

Asians are minorities in the way that white southerners with a southern drawl are minorities when they move far North, or vice versa. Or when a male enters the female-dominated nursing profession. Some people make snarky comments behind their back, yes, but otherwise, there is large acceptance and discrimination is just not (or rarely) an issue.

Why don't you just come out with what you really think. Minority is just a dog-whistle for "can't compete with white men".

 

[anjuan]

This thread reflects the underlying problem that the article addresses:

1. A statement is made about the lack of diversity in technology
2. Racist and sexist comments are made in response to the statement.
3. The people making those racist and sexist comments fail to see the hostile environments they create and wonder why minorities and women feel uncomfortable pursuing technology.
4. Repeat.

Regards,

Anjuan Simmons
http://www.MinorityTech.com

 

[Svnla]

Everytime a story is about "whaaaaaaaaaa...we do not have enough minorities in colleges, high paying jobs, good role models, <fill in the blank good stuffs> or too many minorites fail in school, in prison, <fill in the blank bad stuffs>", we see nothing about Asians, again, as usual.

Last time I check, Asians is more minority <less of them in total US population, both in number and percentage> than blacks and hispanics.


Edit:

This thread reflects the underlying problem that the article addresses:

1. A statement is made about the lack of diversity in technology
2. Racist and sexist comments are made in response to the statement.
3. The people making those racist and sexist comments fail to see the hostile environments they create and wonder why minorities and women feel uncomfortable pursuing technology.
4. Repeat.

Regards,


Anjuan Simmons
[URL]http://www.MinorityTech.com[/URL]

Do tell us more about those horrible hostile environments (from tech firms/high schools/colleges/companies) that affect certain minorities (blacks and hispanics) so much yet do not affect the Asian minority group as much (if any). Do tell us the reason(s) or what do you think the reason(s) is/are.

 

[nehalem256]

This thread reflects the underlying problem that the article addresses:

1. A statement is made about the lack of diversity in technology
2. Racist and sexist comments are made in response to the statement.
3. The people making those racist and sexist comments fail to see the hostile environments they create and wonder why minorities and women feel uncomfortable pursuing technology.
4. Repeat.

Regards,

Anjuan Simmons
http://www.MinorityTech.com

Perhaps you could point out these "racist" and "sexist" statements?

Regards,

nehalem256

 

[bradley]

This thread reflects the underlying problem that the article addresses:

Anjuan Simmons
http://www.MinorityTech.com

Welcome to the forum. I personally would focus on making yourself the best Anjuan you can be. Make yourself desirable to these companies with lots of hard work and discipline. You are going to competing against lots of people who might be working even harder than you.

Otherwise no one is caring (or giving a damn) about you as much as yourself.

Then once you establish a position of power based solely on merit, you can try to help those who you perceive to be similar to you. I don't understand this mentality, but I do respect it. However I believe you will frustratingly discover more have an ultimate desire in becoming the next Lebron vs. begrudgingly becoming the next Page and Brin.

 

[tcsenter]

Why don't you just come out with what you really think. Minority is just a dog-whistle for "can't compete with white men".

It's evident in the (lessening) power structure of white America (men). Asian women = desirable, trophy wife. Black women = undesirable and nappy-headed. Asian culture = respectable, industrious. Black culture = low-class, non-intellectual. African culture = completely fucked-up.

Nobody denigrates Chinese or Japanese language like they do "Ebonics". Anglophones poke fun of how Asian languages sound to the Anglophone, which is different from making value judgements that reflect on the intellectual merits or capacity of its speakers. e.g. Ebonics not only sounds funny, it's speakers are said to be stupid or ignorant or uneducated.

Nobody but NOBODY has endured the widespread common hostility and denigration toward their culture the African-American has, for as long as the African-American has. Hell, we don't even like their women, as we do Asian and Latino/Hispanic women, unless they have caucasoid features, are light brown and have straightened hair.

So yeah, technically Asians are a minority, but a minority isn't a minority isn't a minority. Reminds me of a joke I once heard.....An Asian, white, Mexican, and Jew were fighting over who gets to move in to the neighborhood, while they were busy, a black person moved in and they all stopped to proclaim "Oh hell, that's it, I'm moving!"

Well OK, I just made that one up but it isn't so detached from the reality of things now is it....

 

[nehalem256]

It's evident in the (lessening) power structure of white America (men). Asian women = desirable. Black women = undesirable and nappy-headed. Asian culture = respectable, industrious. Black culture = low-class, non-intellectual. African culture = completely fucked-up.

Nobody denigrates Chinese or Japanese language like they do "Ebonics". Anglophones poke fun of how Asian languages sound to the Anglophone, which is different from making value judgements that reflect on the intellectual merits or capacity of its speakers. e.g. Ebonics not only sounds funny, it's speakers are said to be stupid or ignorant or uneducated.

Nobody but NOBODY has endured the widespread common hostility and denigration toward their culture the African-American has, for as long as the African-American has. Hell, we don't even like their women, as we do Asian and Latino/Hispanic women, unless they have caucasoid features, are light brown and have straightened hair.

So yeah, technically Asians are a minority, but a minority isn't a minority isn't a minority. Reminds me of a joke I once heard.....An Asian, white, Mexican, and Jew were fighting over who gets to move in to the neighborhood, while they were busy, a black person moved in and they all stopped to proclaim "Oh hell, that's it, I'm moving!"

Well OK, I just made that one up but it isn't entirely detached from the reality of things now is it....

The whole problem with your argument is that Latino is counted as a minority whereas Asian is not.

While you could make a point for blacks being treated worse. I think you will have a hard time arguing that Latinos have been treated worse than say Japanese people. I mean the government never rounded up Latino citizens and put them in internment camps.

 

[KlokWyze]

My dad's favorite coworker (in electrical/computer engineering) is a black, body-building wine-connoisseur that listens to true heavy metal.

lol @ "is a black"

 

[Insomniator]

It's evident in the (lessening) power structure of white America (men). Asian women = desirable, trophy wife. Black women = undesirable and nappy-headed. Asian culture = respectable, industrious. Black culture = low-class, non-intellectual. African culture = completely fucked-up.

Nobody denigrates Chinese or Japanese language like they do "Ebonics". Anglophones poke fun of how Asian languages sound to the Anglophone, which is different from making value judgements that reflect on the intellectual merits or capacity of its speakers. e.g. Ebonics not only sounds funny, it's speakers are said to be stupid or ignorant or uneducated.

Nobody but NOBODY has endured the widespread common hostility and denigration toward their culture the African-American has, for as long as the African-American has. Hell, we don't even like their women, as we do Asian and Latino/Hispanic women, unless they have caucasoid features, are light brown and have straightened hair.

I don't consider a black coworker of equal skill/intelligence any less desirable than one of any other race. Then again, I don't think of the ones i've worked with are in a worldstarhiphop video throwing chairs at each other in a diner at 4am. That kind of behabviour doesn't usually lead into a tech job.

The rap/gang/ghetto/hood culture does its own damage to itself. Indians and Asians aren't denigrated the same because they don't come off like complete small brained animals in common life.

 

[brandonb]

Nobody denigrates Chinese or Japanese language like they do "Ebonics". Anglophones poke fun of how Asian languages sound to the Anglophone, which is different from making value judgements that reflect on the intellectual merits or capacity of its speakers. e.g. Ebonics not only sounds funny, it's speakers are said to be stupid or ignorant or uneducated.

The difference here is that Ebonics is not a language. It's English. It's just English that has been brutalized by gang culture. So if you wish to speak it, you are associating yourself with that culture. Which is why it receives the scorn it does.

I once heard in the past that Ebonics was not a choice, and Blacks just can't pronounce things properly due to genetics which is why Ebonics exists. That is false. Any intelligent non gang banging criminal black man or woman can say "ask" correctly.

I have a black woman at my job who came home from school speaking Ebonics one day from high school and her black father kicked her ass and said "How do you expect to get anywhere in life if you can't speak proper English? Why would you choose to be looked upon as an idiot." Bless that man.

BTW. I hire people at my job, and have had only 1 minority even apply out of hundreds of resumes. Yup, it's tech, it's software engineering. That man we interviewed, and he could speak English just fine. By the gods. He was not hired because he was asking for twice as much as most others who scored in same on my programming test.

 

[BoberFett]

What are the percentages of people contributing to open source projects by race?

I don't think commits to Sourceforge take race into account.

So is the problem racism? Or is the problem that certain subcultures choose to pursue certain careers over others?

 

[tcsenter]

The difference here is that Ebonics is not a language. It's English. It's just English that has been brutalized by gang culture. So if you wish to speak it, you are associating yourself with that culture. Which is why it receives the scorn it does.

Ebonics is a dialect of English, like any other dialect or creole mashup of English. It is heavily derived from some Southern dialects that are in decline. If you go to Louisiana, you can hear PLENTY of whites, particularly older whites born before 1940, mangling the word "ask" or "asked" by pronouncing it "aks" or "axt" just as some blacks are harangued for doing. But nobody made a big deal of it until it became associated as a 'black thing'. It was just a dialectic peculiarity of the South, like many others, and the North has them, too.

The dialects spoken by many whites in Northern Minnesota or the UP of Michigan get a chuckle from those who are not accustomed to hearing it but nobody posts a rant about them mangling the English language due to being ignorant or uneducated. It's only when it's black people that it becomes some sort of offense-worthy departure from an established English 'norm'.

 

[Insomniator]

It's only when it's black people that it becomes some sort of offense-worthy departure from an established English 'norm'.

No. Gang thing, and its not everyone else's fault that young blacks happen to be associated with gangs/crime.

 

[tcsenter]

No. Gang thing, and its not everyone else's fault that young blacks happen to be associated with gangs/crime.

OK, correction: It's only when it's black people that a slang-heavy dialect associated with those of lower education attainment and poverty gets pinned on being associated with gangs/crime.

 

[purbeast0]

Ebonics is a dialect of English, like any other dialect or creole mashup of English. It is heavily derived from some Southern dialects that are in decline. If you go to Louisiana, you can hear PLENTY of whites, particularly older whites born before 1940, mangling the word "ask" or "asked" by pronouncing it "aks" or "axt" just as some blacks are harangued for doing. But nobody made a big deal of it until it became associated as a 'black thing'. It was just a dialectic peculiarity of the South, like many others, and the North has them, too.

The dialects spoken by many whites in Northern Minnesota or the UP of Michigan get a chuckle from those who are not accustomed to hearing it but nobody posts a rant about them mangling the English language due to being ignorant or uneducated. It's only when it's black people that it becomes some sort of offense-worthy departure from an established English 'norm'.

it flustrates the hell outta me when i hear anyone say axe instead of ask.

 

[Stannell]

Deleted.

 

[Kadarin]

I work for a large tech company in the Bay Area, and this place is a kaleidoscope of different nationalities. I see two issues: While there are a lot of women here, most of them work in non-technical fields. Secondly, there are very few black people here.

These are separate social issues. The first one needs to be addressed over the long term by encouraging women to excel in STEM fields in highschool/college.

The second issue needs to be tackled by taking on the problem of black ghetto culture.

 

[ch33zw1z]

it flustrates the hell outta me when i hear anyone say axe instead of ask.

srsly, I spent half of my life in a small city and this drove me crazy. crazy I tell you, CRAZY.

 

[nehalem256]

I work for a large tech company in the Bay Area, and this place is a kaleidoscope of different nationalities. I see two issues: While there are a lot of women here, most of them work in non-technical fields. Secondly, there are very few black people here.

These are separate social issues. The first one needs to be addressed over the long term by encouraging women to excel in STEM fields in highschool/college.

Or we could just accept that men are more interested in STEM fields than women?

There are plenty of other fields that men are dominate such as oil drillers, coal miners, ocean fishermen but oddly you don't see people complaining about that.