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Named Innovators/Developers of Color?
i_c_andrade asks: "Apple and other tech companies were in the past called to task for the lack of Hispanics and African-American's on their Board of Directors, so after doing some research I came to the conclusion that I just did not know a lot of named IT/OSS/Web/CS innovators/developers that were not white (or American) specifically Hispanic or African-American. The first (and only) name that I could think of was Miguel de Icaza, and well I can only blame my own ignorance for not knowing any more, or are there? I know there is a big BSD movement in Brazil (they created the The FreeBSD LiveCD Project; but where else are there developers 'of color' and what are they working on?"
I haven't seen anyone "of color" in the entire computer science program at any of the three colleges that I've been at, except for four Indians, but they obviously aren't black/hispanic.
Maybe they aren't represented in the industry because they aren't entering the industry in significant numbers, but I may have just been at three colleges that were unrepresentative of the nation as a whole.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Dunno. It's all a social construct after all. We do stupid things like tell a Panamanian to check off a box to say whether he's black or latino, when in fact he's a Spanish speaking person of mostly West African descent, some Spanish and a bit of several Indian tribes (who don't see themselves as belonging in the same category than a Irishman thinks of himself having the same ethnicity as an Albanian.
If he's mostly European, Tosatti would be stuck having the check of the Latino box. But who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if many "white" Brazilians would qualify as octaroons under the old miscegenation laws in the US.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I haven't seen anyone "of color" in the entire computer science program at any of the three colleges that I've been at...
Don't go holding your breath:
And I had worked so hard to earn all that good Karma.Sigh...
I resent that. I didn't have anything handed to me on a silver platter and I'm as white as it gets. I've had to work my arse off to get where I am and I'm not even that far. It's going to take over a year of working in a test department at a software company just to get enough money to go finish my associates degree.
It's not about color, it's about social class. Sure, maybe there's more latinos in the low end, but there's plenty of us crackers there too. Hell, I went to apply for a grant and the only thing that kept me from getting it was that I wasn't latino or female. So I'm going to have to earn my education.
DONT PANIC
And yet Indians and south-Asians seem to do fine.
Maybe it's just specific shades of brown that people discriminate against?
Or maybe... you should take the fucking chip off your shoulder and realize that 'discrimination' is just an excuse?
Chris Rock (a black comedian) says that even the poorest and sorriest white American would hesitate to trade places with him "and I'm rich!" he points out. Think about it dude. We subconsciously notice all the discrimination that takes place against blacks, and that is why people balk at the "trade places with me" suggestion from Chris Rock...
I knew someone at school who was Caucasian who came to the US from Egypt. During the height of the Political Correctness movement on campus, he wrote a letter to the school paper mocking the phrase "African-American". His point was that, technically speaking, he is more "African-American" than most people who claim the title, since he was, in fact, born on the continent of Africa (Egypt being his birthplace), but he had emigrated from there to the US.
He also asked the question as to whether he should be allowed to claim "African-American" status, since such a claim would be very beneficial in many situations (admissions, scholarships). Basically, he said that he saw nothing wrong with claiming such status for himself since he technically met the definition, despite the fact he was white.
The letter caused quite a stir among the PC crowd, and it pointed out the stupidity of such labels.
Also, I have heard people refer to anyone who is black as being "African-American" even if there are not American. Apparently, to some people, this term refers to anyone who is black, regardless of their nationality, which does not make any sense.
Finally, I have heard from people who are Latino that the term Latino/Hispanic is entirely orthogonal to race. There are "black Latinos" and "white Latinos"; however most non-Latinos fail to make this distinction.
Basically, we are all people and we should be judged as such, rather than as members of some nebulous grouping.
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
I don't really see that. I grew up with little to no money, I wore hand-me-down clothes, both my parents worked, a box of tuna helper was dinner for 5, I never owned a computer until I managed to buy an old commodore from goodwill for $5, I rarely had all the school supplies that I needed, I never had air conditioning, I never had heat, other than 1 year I never had the means to participate in any sports, and still I couldn't find a grant to pay for school. When I began searching for grants and scholarships I found many that I would've qualified for if I were a minority... or, since you brought it up, of a different ethnicity, son of a veteran, woman, etc... I have issue with all discriminatory scholarships that are not based on merit or need, but since this was a thread about race I didn't want to cloud an already hotly discussed issue.
To continue with my defense for the "woe is the white male crap" I want to say that I too grew up in a small town. In the town that I lived in if you were under the age of 18 and it was after 11pm a police officer would stop you when they saw you walking along the streets and try to take you home, but the police implemented a policy of not stopping black children because they didn't want to appear racist. I am by no means trying to give a sob story and talk about how bad my life is, but I am more pointing out that despite this idea that minorities are the only ones who experience discrimination, white men are discriminated against just as much.
So educational opportunities are still not being realized for blacks and hispanics. Admission rates still lag behind whites and asians, and as of 2001 were actually declining.
This is true, admission to 4 year universities is declining, but many believe that this is due to an increased enrollment in lower cost 2-year community colleges at first.
That "head start" takes the form of better schools, better access to health care, better living conditions, and the like. If you don't help those that are disadvantaged, they will remain disadvantaged for a long long time.
But how long should we give those who were disadvantaged an advantage? A generation? two? Until they are equally represented? What if that never happens? Maybe it's not a problem with society, but a problem with the culture of the underrepresented groups.
You complaining about a compartively small amount of programs, focusing on that as the source of all your problems
None of this is the source of all my problems. I'm very happy with my life, I hold no animosity towards anyone. If there was a scholarship available for my ethnic group I'd surely take it. I really just wanted to point out that I dislike how every time someone takes issue with an underrepresented group in any industry, if that group is a minority, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame society rather than the members of that group. The general trend is then to talk about the lack of privilege, I wanted to point out that a lot of those groups have programs in place to help them pay for college, something I didn't have.
Perhaps you should have done more research into financial aid. Perhaps you should have studied harder in high school. No. Of course not. It's the negros.
Perhaps they should have worked harder, perhaps they should have attempted to get into college. No. Of course not. It's society.
You don't know what discrimination is. Stop grandstanding. You're emberassing yourself.
How am I grandstanding? I'm simply relating my personal experience. How is my personal experience emberrassing?
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
"The usual tech magazines do not have articles in spanish;"
Ah-ha! Now language is a different matter than race. That's a legitimate quest to be looking for a Spanish-language IT magazine, or at least Spanish-speaking IT innovators, whatever their color.
"nor do they focus on minority based start ups trying to make it."
But then this statement makes it clear you are not just talking about language, you are talking about race. Why should they focus on a startup based on the ethnicity of the people starting the company? That is blatantly racist! They should be completely colorblind, paying race no more attention than eye color, dammit!
"How can a Latin American kid (who only speaks spanish) learn about OSS (or anything tech) if all they see are white dudes talking english?"
What if the "white dudes" were talking Spanish? Would that be good enough, or is the fact that they are "white" (which I dare you to define) make their views less valid to a Latin American kid?
"Christ I messed up on the submission, badly wording it;"
I'm not sure you did. You stated you were looking for IT "innovators/developers that were not white (or American)[,] specifically Hispanic or African-American.". You haven't refuted that with later posts, including this one. You are still searching for role models based on ethnicity, not language. That's racist. Racism is wrong, period. Perpetuating racism is really wrong. Stop it, please.