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They get preferential treatment on a scale that makes affirmative action in academia seem like peanuts. Every owners of a small tech firm I know- and I know a lot, run one myself- gets in a bidding war when a talented black person comes along. They want to put their face "by accident" on every PR photo every media outlet takes of their company.
The ugly truth is, talented black engineers are unicorns.
I am not black, like I said, I am not disagreeing with anybody, I just want QUALIFIED black engineers get the equal opportunity. nothing more, nothing less.
I used to think that it is great that people want to hire combat veterans. I started volunteer at va hospital and realize there is gross bias against war fighting combat veterans in the workplace. They don't necessarily get hired easily.
But then again, I might be comparing apples to oranges.
This isn't some kind of government bean counting job where you just need a warm body in a seat, so you can choose whichever color/race/gender/species you want to fill some "diversity quota". Computer engineers actually need to have education, experience, and they need to know what they're doing.
I worked in Washington as a computer security contractor, and every time we'd visit the break room to grab something to eat or drink, regardless of the time of the day, we'd see the same group of government workers chatting and watching soap operas or America's funniest home videos. These people, who take your tax dollars, believe that working a job means showing up and watching TV all day. They've never had a real job in their life, so of course they're clueless.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Originally Posted by Lucario
Considering that virtually all the owners are white, maybe there should be more diversity there. I love it how the Reicht always brings up the NBA. That is actually, with all other sports, one of the few meritocracies we have.
WHY should that be limited to sports? WHY should merit be the hiring criterion of Silicon Valley rather than race?
WHY should that be limited to sports? WHY should merit be the hiring criterion of Silicon Valley rather than race?
I didn't say merit should be limited to sports - just that with it being such a lucrative business and such a tiny pool of people whose services on the court are profitable, it is meritocratic by default.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,389,283 times
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Originally Posted by Lucario
I didn't say merit should be limited to sports - just that with it being such a lucrative business and such a tiny pool of people whose services on the court are profitable, it is meritocratic by default.
Nor did you voice any opposition to those promoting the idea of hiring based on qualities other than merit.
Nor did you voice any opposition to those promoting the idea of hiring based on qualities other than merit.
I didn't know I was required to. I do know that hiring in any other corporate environment is not a meritocracy, so why would I be expected to advance that idea when I know it is impossible except for very limited circumstances - such as on the basketball court or soccer field.
A group of Black state lawmakers is stepping up pressure on Google, Facebook, Twitter and others to diversify their workforces in 2015 through more robust outreach, training and hiring in minority communities.
The unvarnished numbers display a grim picture. At Google, for example, 1 percent of its tech staff is Black and 2 percent Hispanic. Meanwhile, Asians make up 34 percent of the company’s workforce.
Jesse scored a big shakedown of Intel the politicians want their cut.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,389,283 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucario
I didn't know I was required to. I do know that hiring in any other corporate environment is not a meritocracy, so why would I be expected to advance that idea when I know it is impossible except for very limited circumstances - such as on the basketball court or soccer field.
You know this how? And why do you believe professional sports teams are (should be) different than any other corporation?
I am not black, like I said, I am not disagreeing with anybody, I just want QUALIFIED black engineers get the equal opportunity. nothing more, nothing less.
And the point is, they are about as rare as unicorns. Tech does not care about your skin color, it cares about skill/knowledge/ability.
A bunch of fellow techies have echoed my own experience in that none of us have ever seen any of these black engineers you speak of, and if we have, it is exceedingly rare. I have worked with thousands of IT-STEM-tech folks...exactly 3 of whom were black. And I have remembered one other black person I have met in an IT capacity, and that was at a week long training class in Irvine, CA back in 1998. Dude was an embedded systems programmer (hardcore Assembly coding right there...woot woot) for some card manufacturer and one of the biggest geeks I ever met.
But that's it. In countless hours of high school and university classes, more hours than I can count at various geek gathering locales, and rolling up on my 17th year in the IT gig, and now even thinking back to computer camp in my teen years and just hanging out in arcades back in the late 70s...black people in the STEM-tech-geek world are very, very rare.
No, I do not for a second think "them" incapable or anything. I am simply saying it is my experience that the black racial demographic simply produces much fewer geeks as a percentage of their population than whites and Asians seem to.
No idea why that is, but the qualified black STEM applicants that can compete with the global labor pool that is SV tech jobs...yeah...they are virtually non-existent, and it's nobody's fault per se, it just is what it is.
But again, for $10, anyone can buy the greatest Java based OO programming book ever written. In that book, it tells you how to download and set up all the tools you'll need, for free, in order to begin your Java programming life. Toss in a book on HTML, PHP, and MySQL...and for $50 in books and maybe $300 for a cheapo laptop...anyone can start getting the skills and knowledge to jump in the game.
Think of the money you spend on your kids and how few things you'd need to cut in order to save $350. It's not that much. Hell, that's like a month of nickel and dime from any of my nieces or nephews.
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