Painting this social issue as racism is incorrect and using racism as a boogeyman, sweeps the real issues under the rug. I'm confident that now, especially in Silicon Valley, that no one in this social ladder is actively working against the issues of black and latino people.
Its my understanding is that you aren't actually seeing racism, but class discrimination. I wonder how many Indian or Chinese founders are actually immigrants from relatively well todo families that could afford to send someone half way across the world. I also wonder what is the class make up of white people in that same demographic. Are poor white people afforded the same opportunities? (which is another reason I'm opposed calling this "racism", you may be potentially leaving out an underserved demographic who is being told to "deal with it" because they were born white, yet poor - and alot of them don't exist in cities, but in Rural America)
Looking at it this way, you shift the problem from becoming one about chasing the racist white boogeyman who isn't giving black people jobs, and highlight a deeper social issue. Is the issue here actually that poor america has low social mobility?
Simultaneously, if we look at all the minorities in tech, what socioeconomic background do they come from? I'm willing to bet they are the same, and like me, college educated parents and high income.
So how come there are no poor white people at mcdonalds? Well whats the demo of san francisco's poor? The white poor may all be working at the mcdonalds in the flyover states.
The Hispanic immigrants are more likely from a lower class an much more likely to have arrived on something like a family visa with no higher education at all.
"When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population", thus "San Francisco is racist".
In other words, the system is failing people not because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin, but because of their class, which happens to roughly line up with race.
The difference between "You are poor because you are Mexican/from Mexico" and "You are poor because you started out poor, and it just so happens that you are from Mexico where a lot of people started out poor".
I imagine that college educated parents with high income (or lack thereof) is a better predictor of future earnings than skin color or sex. I don't have any kind of study to back this up, it's an educated guess. I would love it if someone found something and posted a link with evidence for or against.
I grew up in one of the richer flyover states (MN) and I can assure you that 20 years ago and even 10 years ago there were plenty of poor whites working all kinds of unskilled jobs. Here in Texas (where I live now) it's very uncommon to see whites mowing, painting, etc for a living. Where I grew up in MN it was basically all whites doing that kind of work.
From personal experience, I can say that it's not that expensive to send someone "half way across the world" (I grew up in Romania, but currently live in California). What is hard is immigration/getting a visa, but you can't really fix that with more money (unless you're going for the investor visa, which very few do).
Also, it's really easy to apply for BigCo (Google, Apple, Facebook) jobs in the Bay Area from outside the US (you get phone interviews at first, the get flown over for on-site interviews on the company's dime). It's really not money that's stopping people from getting "in".
This being said. What is brought up in this article is racism. Specifically the institution of racism. If you are not actively doing things to fix the institutions of racism, and sexism; then you are actively part of an institution of racism and sexism. Silicon Valley / San Francisco has done very little to fix racism, and sexism. If we all got together and wanted to defeat these institutions we could do so in 20 years; and work at places where the race, and sex of workers is representative of the general public.
If I'm not actively trying to stop murderers or fraudsters, am I "actively part of an institution" of murder and fraud? If not, then why would your assertion about racism and sexism be true?
If men for a job are getting paid more than women.. Don't put the blame on women for not asking for more. Fix your compensation system to be equal independent of sex / cultural background / racial background.. ie.. this job pays x if you meet these qualifications not more or less.. just this set amount.
Make the work environment feel safe. If you are in the minority it is a stressful enough knowing others can't share what you feel. I can only imagine the stress of being the only female in a large group of engineers. Let alone if one asks you on a date. Make strict rules about fraternization.. what is and isn't acceptable.
long term... fix the schools.. if you treat kids the same independent of their culture / race / sex ... and they have opportunity to the same quality of schools.. then individuals for a certain job will start to match the general public.
The myth that men are more likely to be engineers because thats what guys are interested in.. Is just that.. a myth. People are interested in things because they have had access to learn about said things.
>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American.
As someone who works in tech and lives in the Bay Area, I can tell you without a doubt there are many people in the industry who are indeed 'black and Mexican and Central-American.' Conversely (and somewhat anecdotally), I see plenty of Asian-Americans and whites working in fast food.
I am sorry I used to think that Tim Bray was a smart guy. Hell Indians in India are far more poorer than African Americans. Now if some indians worked hard and pulled themselves up, and got jobs / started companies in SF. But hey its still racism. There is no institutional racism, what exists is a black latino culture that looks down upon education. Thats the problem that needs to be addressed not some institutional racism boogeyman.
People want to work with other people who will help them succeeds in fact Asians and Indians show that SF is not at all racist.
I'll bite my tongue here for what I really want to say, but dear god was this an extremely ignorant and offensive thing to say.
You solve ignorance by involving ignorant in conversations..
Sure, some people get lucky, or work really hard. But on average, the game is rigged.
If you want to overcome your ignorance of this topic, you might want to check out Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog. He's excellent on these issues. Some starting points that relate to what you've written --
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/i-am-sti...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-cham...
It's rigged really badly against immigrants (counting H1B workers as immigrants too) as well.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/10/17/ethnic-mapping-3-fi...
Racism in Vancouver: We Need to Stop Pretending It Doesn't Exist (http://groupthink.jezebel.com/racism-in-vancouver-we-need-to...)
"No, no, no — it's okay. Because every Canadian will tell you it's NBD because they're not as bad as Americans. "
I have not read the whole saga of this, but this may positively or negatively his chances of getting another job in the tech sector.
Also, the comments are worth looking through, ageism has also been brought up (and, as an outsider looking at the Silicon Valley, is a problem IMO).
Hilariously, blacks and hispanics make up less than 2.5% of Vancouver's population:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Vancouver
But, please, lecture us more on the topic.
Personally, I live in Sacramento, America's most diverse city: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,340694,00... So I'm allowed to lecture ALL OF YOU regarding your privilege.
A couple examples: Bill Cosby[1], Jamaicans[2], black raised by whites[3]. (There are numerous others, but these are the easy three.)
Jamaicans for example, see African Americans as lazy and deserving of their place in American society and often hate being referred to as African American because it is both inaccurate, and because they do not culturally identify with them, seeing no conflict between their blackness and their ability to achieve the American Dream.
When you hear cries of racism, consider whether you actually see people being mistreated or considered inferior because of the color of their skin, or if their own (cultural) behaviors are ensuring their struggle. It's extremely unfortunate and my heart breaks for anyone suffering from cultural peer pressure or family pressures to not forsake their "heritage" by "acting white," especially since you don't have to act white in order to act successful.
My opinion is that you see this exemplified most in the Bay Area because you are viewing the top 0.1% of achievers in the tech industry. Adding a self-sabotaging cultural identity certainly cannot help, and I imagine going to non-top 20 public university probably also doesn't help, which is why so many in the Bay Area grads are from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, etc... graduates.
FWIW, I acknowledge that there ARE in fact some cultural pressure to conform to arbitrary FLOABW "white" behaviors, which have similar ramifications to racism, but that's not what I'm talking about here.
Lastly, self-sabotaging culture is not uniquely black, white, hispanic, etc... which is why it's has nothing to do with race or racism.
[1] http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/cosby.asp [2] http://www.jamaicans.com/articles/primecomments/1002_amerija... [3] Barack Obama, Halle Berry, numerous friends...
