What's stopping someone from signing up for Jopwell when you don't fit their racial criteria? Surely once they find out that you're not the race they're looking for, they can't deny you services because of your race.
Regardless, diversity is an issue that the tech industry certainly does needs to tackle, and things like this are one way of going about it; I just feel like it's the wrong way. Denying opportunities to people based on race might achieve the goal, but it does it in a way that's only going to breed contempt. It also ignores that poverty, while vastly more common among the specified races, still does exist for some whites and asians.
I believe the metric we should be using for programs like these should be total family income, not the color of your parents skin. Is systematic racism a problem? Probably in some industries. But these days, recruiters at tech companies are not turning people down due to their opinions about their race.
"But these days, recruiters at tech companies are not turning people down due to their opinions about their race."
Not even github? They seemed to want to aggressively reduce the percentage of white males at their company, and bragged about their success in doing so.
That doesn't contradict grandparent. They could be doing so by increasing recruitment and hiring of non-whites and non-males. I expect that most people in this thread believe that's exactly what they're doing.
Yes, they could be doing so in this way, and I believe that companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and such are doing so.
But as long as github retains staff members like Danilo Campos, I have absolutely no faith that github isn't taking a more draconian and explicitly racist approach.
"Yes, github sticking it to the most oppressed of minority groups: straight white dudes."
Are they trying to reduce the percentage of straight people there as well? I thought that gay white males might be an unintended casualty of the racism and sexism at github.
There is an argument to be made that poor white males may indeed be one of the most disadvantaged groups, at least in the US. It depends on how you weight various criteria.
Frustrated by the people who are claiming that this piece or the company is racist/unexceptional, or that this man's success is due to exclusively hard work. They are missing a greater point that hard work and circumstance are both needed and one is significantly less useful without the other, and that there are structural social challenges that should be addressed.
It's also very possible to praise this, and everyone else's, achievement without: comparing starting circumstance in an attempt to one-up each other on the tragedy train, discounting luck, or discounting other struggles.
It's pretty easy to argue against that comic. Most of it is made-up anecdote. 2 of the 3 testable claims it makes are completely and nonsensically wrong, almost to the point of complete fabrication. The third testable claim I don't know how to google.
Poor Americans don't live in overcrowded homes. Only 3.3% of those homes have "severe physical problems" (what I'm interpreting the comic to mean), and they typically have 2 rooms/person.
I don't have stats on classes sizes - do you? I suspect the author of that comic didn't bother to google before writing it.
I'm not even going to try and refute the made-up anecdotes, e.g. dying father, parents who don't care about academics, and a boss who looks like a dog.
You seem like just the type of person I wanted to read that comic when I decided to put that in. You're fully missing the point (forest through the trees type of thing) with those stats; the unarguable part is that life circumstances often allow some people to snowball minor successes/advantages and prevent the same from happening to others.
Basically, that comic represents a very realistic, though maybe not statistically significant if it were to be taken literally, situation. It illustrates that results are not dictated by hard work and there is not equal opportunity. It is an attempt to help people empathize.
It's not saying that the guy on the left is a shit (though maybe unaware of his blessings), but rather that the woman on the right (anecdotally representing marginalized society) may be trapped no matter how hard she works. Sure she can beat it, but look at everything else she has to overcome to do so.
The point is that while circumstances like what are described in the comic are super rare. If we want to take into account ridiculously rare circumstances and call it "very realistic", why stop there?
Richard's parents sent him to personal trainer who taught him to be a track star. Paula had her legs chopped off by Islamic terrorists.
Richard's parents taught him to ground his electronics projects. Paula got struck by lightning 3 times.
Richard didn't like to go to the beach. Paula had her right hand eaten by a shark.
etc.
You can prove anything if you pretend wildly improbable freak situations are somehow representative of reality.
If you want to claim we don't have equal opportunity, I don't disagree. Some folks have advantages - e.g. the author of this blog post was born into the right race to get major bonus points in the educational system, had a mother who knew how to game that system, had US citizenship, etc. In contrast, all I had was US citizenship. Most folks don't even have the citizenship, and a large number of them are members of a race that's treated even worse than mine.
But if you want to talk about the practical significance of this - whether she's actually trapped or whether she just needs to work 10% harder - then you need to think about the details, which the comic gets wildly wrong.
"You can prove anything if you pretend wildly improbable freak situations are somehow representative of reality."
That's true, but what is represented in the comic is far from "wildly improbable" and in fact comes across as pretty realistic. That's why many people like it.
It can't be that hard to believe that there are many situations where a person has several small things, often not worth studying, wrong in their lives that compound over time. That's the point.
At the end of the day, I think that we both agree more than not and that you're more taking issue with the fact that I said "impossible to argue" than the larger point, which is totally fine because it was a melodramatic thing to say.
Details the comic got right (btw, comic depicts Australia I believe, but it's equally applicable to US so we'll go with that, it's also hard to attribute the later panels to one given, testable factor, as what's depicted is the result of all the small things in life):
Houses with extended family: "57 million Americans now live in some sort of multigenerational configuration. That number has doubled since 1980," including 36% of young adults [1]
Frequent illness: "The Connecticut Commission on Children reports that children who live in poverty experience more illness than children in more affluent homes." [2]
Parents working 2 jobs: "more than 7 million people in this country were holding 2 or more jobs. That’s 5% of the total workforce" [3] The Bureau of Labor Statistics number doesn't count jobs for cash etc.
low income=shitty schools. not even going to bother to search that one.
working while in school (less time to network, study etc.): "over 78% of undergraduate students work" DOE [4]
Citing a bunch of statistics about non-poor people who work multiple jobs, and irrelevancies like multigenerational configuration, are not really supporting the comic.
It's quite true that people with lots of money (like Richard's parents) tend to work long hours. And 5% of the workforce - most of them non-poor - might work 2 jobs. That's almost exactly the opposite of what the comic portrays.
Similarly, attributing things like poor people getting sick more on things like a damp house (or otherwise lacking money) is simply wrong. We now have an actual randomized trial to demonstrate this. http://m.qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/2/687
Most likely some third hidden factor (for example low conscientiousness resulting in poor work habits and poor health habits) causes both poverty and poor health.
I'm not disputing the idea that some folks have a leg up on life. I'm simply disputing a comic that wildly misleads about the actual nature of that leg up.
Also, on the thing you are "not even going to bother to search", the question is not whether poor schools have bad outcomes. The question is whether those schools are significantly worse themselves - i.e., if we were to reduce class sizes, would outcomes improve? (Most studies suggest that small class sizes - like virtually every educational intervention - would barely change outcomes.)
I'm sorry what? Your interpretation of the comic is that it's claiming that poor Americans all live in the worst 3.3% of homes and have dying dads and bosses who look like dogs?
The comic is saying that poor children have reduced access to resources and opportunities. That is testable, and widely accepted as true. Are you saying it's false?
Panel 2: Paulas house is full of people and not much else. It's damp and noisy and she keeps getting sick.
My interpretation of this is that Paula's house is overcrowded and has severe physical problems that make her sick. How do you interpret it?
Panel 3: That's why they're working two jobs.
My interpretation of this is that Paula's parents are working two jobs, and as a result cannot help her with homework. In contrast, Richard's parents in the left side are doing exactly that. How did you interpret it?
Like I said in grandparent, I interpret it as saying that poor children have reduced access to resources and opportunities. Which is testable and widely accepted as true.
The comic also explicitly claims that poor Americans are all named Paula, have been recommended Eazee Finance, and work as cater-waiters. Why didn't you take those literally? I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure at least one of those is also false. I think I met a poor person once who said she'd never heard of Eazee Finance. She might've misheard me, what with her poor hearing because the house she grew up in was so damp and noisy. Her name was Paula though, so anecdotally that checks out.
So we are now agreed that none of the factual matters described in the comic are remotely representative of poor Americans? And actually all these extreme examples are just somehow representative of some nebulous and vague "reduced access"?
Incidentally, "reduced access" is not a testable prediction - how would I test it? What does it even refer to?
You may be surprised to learn that none of the factual matters in the story of the hare and tortoise are remotely representative of real hares and tortoises. Not only have there been no recorded instances of hares or tortoises using human speech, scientists are fairly sure that they are physiologically incapable of human phonology.
I don't understand what you're saying. There is a consensus that poor Americans are at a disadvantage when it comes to school, business, and health. Are you challenging that that's the consensus, or do you acknowledge that that's the consensus but you're challenging whether it's true?
It has to happen in real life to be an anecdote. Did the comic give the impression of being biographical accounts of two people who coincidentally end up interacting at an event where one of them is being congratulated?
That's a really good comic. I grew up very privileged and it's easy to give in to some of the thoughts that are displayed. I know far too many of my peers who probably wouldn't see the irony in it if you chopped off the right half.
"comparing starting circumstance in an attempt to one-up each other on the tragedy train"
This kind of thing is all too common among those who advocate for ideologies which they believe would make the world a better place. They lose the audience, and undermine their own claimed goals. As someone that cares about social justice, I think shining a light on this (and other unfortunate parts of 'the movement') is one of the most important things to do at this point.
You just proved the point. You're arguing socioeconomic cirumstance (which I think should be helped out) over race. If you're solidly middle/upper class, shouldn't matter what colour you are.
The title is wrong. The title should be "How I ended up successful in tech through the hard work and perseverance of my mother and myself, with a side dish of good fortune."
Because "we" want to raise the standard of programming so "our" experience is actually valued? Depending how driven you are, you can "max out" a programmer career in 5-15 years today.
actually, i would say yours is the narrow point, and it's also a POV whose reach you are looking to broaden. The negative aspect of your POV is that some of us get tired of hearing it over and over (and I'm not picking on you, just explaining the different attitude) Labelling our worldview negative is also a negativity.
My goal in reading hacker news is not helping contribute blasts of cold air in order to preserve every little snowflake; but every little snowflake is welcome, nay, invited even, to read sober analysis of what processes are really going on. That's real math, science, and engineering.
I had to laugh the other day when I saw an effort to promote STEAM. STEAM? It's STEM, but including the Arts! OMG. Did we leave anybody out?
No, I got that point and indeed I do agree with it. In truth, I was just commenting on the title with the point that most everything is by chance - most importantly our very existence as individuals. No negativity was intended.
He was privileged to be a black man since this drastically improved his odds of getting into Princeton. It's not anywhere near as much of an achievement as you are making it out to be.
As of 2006, between 2/3 and 5/6 of black students in the top 25 schools are there only due to race.
So with high probability, it wasn't that much of an achievement to get into Princeton.
It's certainly far less of an achievement than it would have been if he were Asian.
(If anyone has more current numbers I'd love to see them. I've seen more recent numbers on state schools, which suggest 23% of blacks are only there due to race. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-what-happens-when... But nothing at the ivy level.)
I don't think we need another litigation of Ivy admissions (and affirmative action), posted as commentary on a particular person's story. When you make statements like "it wasn't that much of an achievement to get into Princeton" and "It's certainly far less of an achievement than it would have been if he were Asian", you're inevitably putting that person down, and that's not right. Your unspoken assumption—that all other things are equal and history began the day they applied to Princeton—is facile to begin with, but particularly uncharitable when applied to someone's life.
Dang, the guy who wrote the article characterizes his success as luck. I'm agreeing with him and pointing out the fallaciousness of a claim that he's wrong. How is that off-topic?
Imagine someone cited the fact that I've worked for American companies as evidence of my skill and accomplishment. Under some circumstances, this very easily could be evidence of that. To work for American companies, some people need to bust their ass hard until 12th standard to get into IIT, get top marks at IIT, demonstrate kickass skills to companies 12,000 miles away and get one of them to sponsor the visa. That surely is an accomplishment.
But actually I just happened to be born on the right side of an arbitrary border.
And if someone were to cite my work for American companies as accomplishment, where I claimed it was merely luck, it would be perfectly valid to point out my US citizenship and how that helps me.
I feel like you are simply objecting to my mood affiliation, and perhaps trying to make HN seem more welcoming to people who wish we didn't point out true facts like this.
> He was privileged to be a black man since this drastically improved his odds of getting into Princeton.
His guidance counselor pretty much knew this and the article spelled it out...
> She thought that my math and science scores made me a good candidate, as did the fact that I was an African American male — something which we all know the engineering world is lacking.
>As of 2006, between 2/3 and 5/6 of black students in the top 25 schools are there only due to race.
Thats a pretty bold claim that assumes
1. Any minority at Princeton falls neatly into that trend, and isn't simply an outlier.
2. Princeton & Ivies weigh SAT scores significantly as part of the admissions process.
3. Princeton & Ivies use raw objective performance as the primary basis for acceptance.
If 2 & 3 were true, you wouldn't see as much pressure for students to play 3 sports, 9 instruments, and have 300 other extra-currics to remain competitive for those spots. Anyone who believes that they just rank applicants by SAT scores and take the top N is a little bit delusional.
So 2/3-5/6 of black students at the top 25 schools are outliers? Or black students are wildly disproportionately likely to play 3 sports, 9 instruments and have 300 extra-currics?
I'd love to see data supporting this claim.
That sure goes against stereotypes, which suggest it's mainly Asian students who do that.
>So 2/3-5/6 of black students at the top 25 schools are outliers?
Princeton's total undergrad class size is about 2000 of which 7% identified as African-America (2000 * 7% * 25=3500). BLS says that was from a pool of 2.2MM students. (Assuming even population distribution of 13% African-American=286000).
So of the potential 286000 African American students every year, 3500 are going to top 25 schools - which is 1.2%. Is it far fetched to assume that the top 1% of Black students are outliers (to your "study")?
Keep in mind Asians are 5% of the American population, but make up 22% of Princeton's undergrad class. To me - it just looks like you are grasping at straws to make this conclusion. Basic statistics overwhelmingly backs up your "stereotype". To imply the admissions officers are giving minorities a whopping 80% preference to minorities, based of the data, shows that admissions officers are either incredibly incompetent at giving preferential treatment to minorities, or you are just talking out of your ass.
Lets go with your 3500 number. In 2006, 976 blacks scored above 700 in SAT math, and 1117 scored above 700 in SAT verbal.
1117 is a lot smaller than 3500. (Or the 3000 number the study uses.)
(Note: 1400 SAT, or whatever that translates to on the current 2400 pt test, is table stakes for getting into a top 25 school.)
I don't know why you put "study" in quotes - do you consider the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education to somehow be an "illegitimate" source?
To imply the admissions officers are giving minorities a whopping 80% preference to minorities, based of the data, shows that admissions officers are either incredibly incompetent at giving preferential treatment to minorities, or you are just talking out of your ass.
I don't understand. If you take 1200 qualified black students and turn them into 3000 enrollees, how is that not a highly successful preferential treatment program?
Similarly, the relevant comparison when looking at Asians is not what percentage of the American population they make up. A more relevant comparison would be what percentage of the top students are Asian. I can't find top scores, but a quick google search suggests Asians do in fact outperform everyone else on average.
At the Ivies, you've got piles of white and Asian kids with perfect scores on the SAT, 4.0+ GPAs, etc. So you've got to do something to separate yourself from that herd in some way or another that catches the eye of somebody in the admissions office or otherwise ticks enough boxes on whatever rubric they are using this week.
Competition for some of these places is completely insane. I remember the campus newspaper publishing admissions statistics and it was something like 8-9% of applications were accepted, at one of the smaller and less well-known ones. Of those, you have a few dozen with the same last names as buildings on campus, a couple hundred international students paying every dime, and maybe another hundred recruited athletes. They could admit an entire class of high school valedictorians and salutatorians if they felt like it.
What a dismayingly nasty thing to say. I read such comments nearly every day on this site, unfortunately, yet I still wince at how nasty and personal people get when demeaning the experience of others.
Please don't comment like this here. Whatever substantive point you might have is lost amid the snark and bile, and those are two acids we need less of.
What's nastier: noting that Princeton's a pretty good head start in life, or an admin stating that someone's comment was 'dismayingly nasty' and implicitly threatening to ban the commenter?
I didn't think it was 'dismayingly nasty' or bilious; I thought it was mildly snarky and made an important substantive point which was not lost.
"Noting that Princeton's a pretty good head start" is so angelic a summary of that comment that I'm guessing you happened to agree with it. People judge snark as mild when (i.e. because) they agree with it. That's human, but no basis for moderation, nor for community, since it just leads to tribes of people smacking each other.
Btw I didn't threaten to ban. I try to be careful that way, and this was a "please don't", not a "we ban accounts that do this, so please don't".
The same point could have been made with a completely different tone.
You cannot have meaty discussion amongst people with diverse points of view from diverse backgrounds without an expectation of civility and respect. If that isn't enforced, then minority viewpoints have no hope of being taken seriously. It becomes an echo chamber and the oxygen gets sucked out of the community. This can also drive away your most valued contributors and/or make their contributions toxic in a way they can't stop.
There is all kinds of problems with saying that it is okay to express a valid point in a nasty fashion.
You do realize that Princeton increases one's chance at success massively? The sarcasm is justified because you can blog about whatever you want but as soon as you name-drop "Princeton", everything else is a rounding error. Just my opinion, but your policing of HN is getting more proselytizing and distorting of what's actually being written.
Well, yes, and other things diminish one's chance at success massively, and no one knows how these factors objectively sum up—but that doesn't stop them from believing they do and angrily making judgments about others.
Tell me what diminishes ones chances like Princeton increases ones chances. Also there is no judging happening. This is disconnected from any one person.
A young black man with a single mother from East Orange, NJ getting into Princeton itself is the achievement.
The avg houshold income is ~50k, and over 20% of their residents are under the poverty line.
Yes, he skipped Econ recitations, but I think you're being almost absurdly reductionist for a fairly decent reflection on how someone ended up in a job they never expected. Not to mention the last sentence where he even states he feels "ridiculously privileged".
There are entire states with lower avg household incomes. 20% below the poverty line is also substantially lower than many rust belt cities (detroit metro: ~39%, flint: ~55%, gary: 48.5%).
Pieces like this are dangerous because they distract us from the often insurmountable challenges many children in america are born into
I don't think this is absurdly reductionist. As someone born in a poor country, my family's income was barely $2000 per year. Even allowing for a conversion factor of 10 while going to the USA, that is less than half of 50k.
So it might be worth mentioning that this young man has a lot of advantages merely by being born in an average household in a first world country, and being located close enough to Princeton so he could talk to professors there, etc. That should not detract from his achievements, but maybe it can help put them in some kind of perspective.
Dont waste your time. We have our white/male privilege, and that is golden ticket on its own. Btw my father paid whopping $60/month child support for 5 children.
It sounds like you've faced some major challenges. That's something we can all respect. But please don't channel that experience into resentment-filled comments on Hacker News. You make the discussion and the community worse when you do so. Instead, find a way to share your experience that does it justice in its own right. That would be more constructive, more interesting, and more dignified.
The issue isn't that he was at Princeton. The issue is that he is discounting what he did, chalking his mom's perseverance (and foresight), his intelligence and work ethic, up to "luck" and "chance".
Stop being coy and pretending like you just "stumbled" into being successful. Own it. It is okay to be successful.
> Stop being coy and pretending like you just "stumbled" into being successful. Own it. It is okay to be successful.
It's OK to acknowledge the tremendous set of fortuitous coincidences that _allowed you to make yourself successful_ -- doing so does not diminish you. This guy understands this.
I count my own luck starting with being born in a wealthy country at peace. I moved to other wealthy countries not at war (including, right now, the USA which by any real measure faces no existential threat and is follows a rule of law). Yes I also won the sperm-ovum lottery and by changing countries am now considered part of the "accepted" race. There are roads not taken, and opportunities missed and its worth losing at them to see how more people can have the opportunity to succeed.
> I moved to other wealthy countries not at war (including, right now, the USA which by any real measure faces no existential threat and is follows a rule of law).
The United States is at war all over the entire damn world. A couple days ago its ramifications were clearly displayed when 100 people were shot in Orlando.
The US is waging war all over the damned world but its paying little attention to it. I think it's fair to say that at least 300 million Americans' lives would be the same whether that was happening rt not, except their taxes could be about 10% lower (defense budget is about 16% of the federal budget -- it couldn't be completely eliminated).
You're more likely to be killed by someone behind the wheel but looking at their phone than you are by some loony trying to tie the US's external activities to something he or she was going to do anyway. The country faces no existential threat, which is why people have time to argue about picayune crap like ISIL.
You want existential threat? People in Syria are facing existential threats (and yet the US has its oar in there too). My parents grew up in towns bombed by invading forces while they were kids (on different continents); my mum's family had to flee into the jungle. My in laws' town (in yet another continent) was bombed flat while they were kids too. Even the attacks of September 2001 did not threaten the existence of the republic or the country, despite the massive and expensive thrashing of the subsequent "immune response."
The interesting thing about luck is that you can make it yourself. In this case both Randy Brown and his mother worked extremely hard and smart to bring around circumstances where something that seemed "lucky" (being accepted to Princeton, meeting someone who introduced him to Paul Graham's writing) was more likely to happen. It's a very inspiring story.
Someone might over-simplistically state: "fortune favors the prepared". Sure opportunity presented itself - and one might even call it luck - but in order to capitalize on it, it took Randy Brown's and his family's perseverance and intelligence to do so. Kudos to him and his family!
Some of the things mentioned struck a close chord with me. My parents are immigrants and - though they would have liked to help - they had no higher education nor any advice to provide me when I was doing things like choosing the college to apply/attend, filling out/submitting financial aid forms, figuring out how to pay for college myself, even choosing my major, let alone helping me with suggestions on my future professional career! I was born here in the U.S., so i was "lucky" to not have language as an additional barrier. And as other posters stated, being in certain geographic regions of U.S. is helpful...But still, navigating your way through some aspects of life without having sage advice from experienced people, and people who can help with things like careers, college, etc. is freaking really hard!
Again, congrats to Randy Brown - and all the Randy Browns of the world - for this kind of accomplishment. To echo @simonw's perfect statement: very inspiring story!
"Reverse racism", or whatever term you prefer has widely been accepted as a means to level the playing field. I think your comment is dead on; if this were a firm dedicated to hiring Whites and Asians, it would be lamented and thoroughly castigated, as it and this start-up should be.
It's a dangerous path, and sadly somehow you're seen as a racist if you speak out against it - I'm willing to accept down votes to speak the truth, as we all should.
Singling out specific ethnic groups to hire is wrong, it's that simple.
"Not to mention that class privilege trumps all other privileges combined by an order of magnitude."
Absolutely. I mean, there are numerous disadvantages that are race specific independent of class (rich black people were still disproportionately harassed by the police the last time I looked at the data), but on the whole, with regard to your overall empowerment, access to education, access to jobs, medical care, everything - class trumps race by far.
Regardless, diversity is an issue that the tech industry certainly does needs to tackle, and things like this are one way of going about it; I just feel like it's the wrong way. Denying opportunities to people based on race might achieve the goal, but it does it in a way that's only going to breed contempt. It also ignores that poverty, while vastly more common among the specified races, still does exist for some whites and asians.
I believe the metric we should be using for programs like these should be total family income, not the color of your parents skin. Is systematic racism a problem? Probably in some industries. But these days, recruiters at tech companies are not turning people down due to their opinions about their race.