Obstacles to 'coding while black'

[Recursion]

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35938633

As part of the programme, each student is provided with a living expense. When one of his students, who did not have a bank account, attempted to cash his cheque in a branch of the Atlanta Check Cashing Company, he was accused of attempting to submit a false or stolen money order. Police were called, and the student was threatened with arrest.

Sampson broke the story down into a series of tweets, and posted the stream on Storify. His posts have been shared hundreds of times.

It has started a conversation about barriers keeping low-income and minority students out of the tech field.

"We have to have the hard skills; but we have 2 be taught 2 navigate simple transactions like cashing a check, interacting w/ law enforcement," tweeted Sampson.

We absolutely cannot compete with the rest of the world if we're locking out 13% of our future potential coding geniuses up front. This shit has to end now.

[elljay]

1. I work in Silicon Valley

I am at my third corporation and the lack of African American technical personnel is very apparent. Programs like the one described in the article are essential if we do not want African Americans to be left behind in high tech.

[Recursion]

2. Same problem in systems administration, which is my field

There we have a bit more flexibility in hiring, but the diversity, both race and gender, is even worse than in development. We're cutting ourselves off at the ankles here.

[spooky3]

7. An old story: when I (f) graduated from

College in the early 70s, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but saw a help wanted ad that a big insurance company want to hire trainees to learn their systems. The first step after applying was to take the Programmer Aptitude Test. I did really well on it and the personnel guy was very excited to tell me all I had to do was meet with the guy who would be my supervisor.

Here's how that "interview" went:

Guy with big red sideburns, dressed casually, slouched in his chair: "Hello."

Me: "hello, I'm spooky3. Nice to meet you. I had an appointment to discuss the (job)."

Sideburns guy, not rising: "how old are you?"

Me: "20."

Sideburns: "Are you married?"

Me (getting uneasy; he's not smiling): "No."

Sideburns: "what's the matter? You hate men?"

I did not get an offer and did not further consider a career in technology.

[steve2470]

11. wow that sucks

It sounds like you made the right choice!

[Number23]

12. Good grief. I can't help but what wonder what would have happened if you'd responded

"Why, yes. Yes I do. Why do you think I want to go into the technology field? I want to learn the tricks of the trade so that I can single handedly build an all female robot army to take over the world!!1



It's too bad there's no statute of limitations on sexual discrimination. I think you'd have a winner there.

[spooky3]

14. Haha! Great response.

[heaven05]

3. america

has always squandered its assets, racially. Been very stupid that way, for generations.

[Recursion]

5. Hell, since the beginning

I once met Isabelle Wilkerson and asked her about what had stuck in my mind after reading her book: could the extreme poverty of the post-Great Migration south be traced to our loss of the most educated and employable African American southerners to the north and west?

(She's an academic, so she hemmed and hawed and said it's an intriguing idea but she didn't have direct evidence for it, and I obviously can't blame her for that.)

Anyways: whatever our past: we cannot afford this shit anymore. India and China are hungry, and they're going to eat our damn lunches if we don't figure out a way to stop suppressing some of our best producers.

[Number23]

13. You got that right. In a just world, my elegant, massively over read and educated grandmother

would have been running this country. But with two strikes against her -- black and female -- the amount of time and effort it would have taken to make it happen wouldn't have been worth the trouble.

[heaven05]

18. true

Last edited Tue Apr 5, 2016, 12:24 PM - Edit history (1)

and I have total awareness of american cultural, racial and social reality from the beginning all the way to here, the 21st century, 400+ years and counting, by GOD!!!!!!

[rickford66]

4. One answer is Postal Savings and Banking

Many countries have this and we in the USA once had this service. Bernie has proposed this. Let me guess who would be opposed to this .... hmmmm .... !! Could it be BANKSTERS ??

[Recursion]

6. I'm a huge fan of that; it was a reason I went O'Malley early because he was strongly in favor

I'll also add there's a kind of interesting "non profit check cashing" model in Oakland that I like too.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Plus 1000

Notice though how the -

Credentials, Educations and Ambition of the individuals in the OP - got pushed aside to run the Sanders Campaign?

[FighttheFuture]

9. Bernie has been for this and proposing it for several years, now.

Bernie Sanders's Highly Sensible Plan to Turn Post Offices Into Banks

OCT 20, 2015
:
"If you are a low-income person, it is, depending upon where you live, very difficult to find normal banking. Banks don’t want you. And what people are forced to do is go to payday lenders who charge outrageously high interest rates. You go to check-cashing places, which rip you off. And, yes, I think that the postal service, in fact, can play an important role in providing modest types of banking service to folks who need it."

Sanders: There’s No Need to End Saturday Mail Delivery

March 5, 2014
:
Second, the Postal Service should have the flexibility to provide new consumer products and services–a flexibility that was banned by Congress in 2006. It is now against the law for workers in post offices to notarize or make copies of documents; to cash checks; to deliver wine or beer; or to engage in e-commerce activities (like scanning physical mail into a PDF and sending it through e-mail, selling non-postal products on the Internet or offering a non-commercial version of Gmail).

A recent report from the Postal Service Inspector General suggests that almost $9 billion a year could be generated by providing financial services. At a time when more than 80 million lower-income Americans have no bank accounts or are forced to rely on rip-off check-cashing storefronts and payday lenders, these kinds of financial services would be of huge social benefit.

** This also appeared as a WSJ Op-Ed but you need a logon so I sourced from postalnews.com.

[spooky3]

8. This problem could be resolved easily if

Companies are genuinely committed to welcoming talented kids and taking steps to help them transition. All that is required is the will to do it.

[uponit7771]

19. +1

[wildeyed]

10. This failure to develop top talent is such a shame.

Everyone loses. I am a boss (not in tech), and I have begun to think of my staff like NFL GM would. I have a salary cap that must be respected. To win games I cannot rely only on expensive first rounders and free agents. I need to develop the talent that is unidentified and/or underrated. This seems like common business sense, but clearly the big bosses in silicon valley can't grasp it and continue to bid up the most obvious choices while ignoring large pools of potential talent. Crap, am I the ONLY one who read Moneyball?

Here is an interesting article I meant to post here as an OP, but never got around to about how minority students are underrepresented in gifted programs. Seems like a big factor is too few black teachers and the fact that "gifted" characteristics (excessive questioning, strong opinions, sensory issues that lead to emotional outbursts) in white children are tolerated and encouraged, but are seen as disrespect and misbehavior in black children. So the dysfunction, our inability to recognize and develop black intellectual talent, starts really early.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/why-are-there-so-few-black-children-in-gifted-and-talented-programs/424707/

It is a good article, I really should post it.....

[Starry Messenger]

15. Symbolic annihilation.

If you don't see yourself portrayed or represented in a role, it's much harder to get there. Others don't think of you as a "cultural fit."

[Recursion]

16. It's particularly striking to me because I *have* had to take paychecks from my IT job to the

check cashing place. But nobody there had any problem believing I was just an IT guy who didn't have a bank account (or was a conspiracy theorist who didn't trust banks, or just didn't want to drive across town to my bank, or whatever). That's white privilege in a scene right there: not that my life didn't suck at that moment, but that I was still allowed the tools to start un-sucking it.

[JustAnotherGen]

20. Black Financial Lives and Careers Matter!