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Is There Still Racism in IT Hiring Practices?
noahz asks: "Today [now three days ago] in the United States marks Martin Luther King Day, remembering the birthday - and legacy - of the great civil rights leader. It's been over 40 years since his march on Washington, back when IT was still in its infancy and was exclusively a white, male field. But, how much progress has been made in the IT world? I recently had a recruiter tell me that I would have no problem finding a job in the current economy - not because I am enthusastic, well-educated and have good experience - but because I am caucasian - 'white'. This particular recruiter insisted that his years experience has led him to this conclusion - but I wonder: what the collective experience of the Slashdot readership has found?"
Racism is still prevalent. It is just a matter of degree as to how blatant.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
I think there is a bit or racism brought on by the off-shoring of IT jobs but overall I don't think it's as bad as it is in many other sectors with real earning potential. It's probably more xenophobic than anything.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Seem to me IT, thanks to virual offices and networking is probably the most race-blind industry in existance.
I would have to say that there is a little, but it is only in the name of "equal opportunity" and against caucasians. I have lost four jobs in the past to less (only slightly though) qualified individuals because they were minorities and the company had to meet the EOE minimum requirements... I am sure there is some stigma too, but anymore I doubt it.
Erutangis ym si siht.
I was hired by a dot-com at a job fair even though I had no experience. My boss later told me, he hired me because I was asian and wore glasses. So I suppose there are definitely stereotypes or racism.
We have a shop full of indians(big tech firm), and my boss pulled me to the side just today and asked me to make sure that I hired a white or a black guy for the spot that just opened up.
I plan to do just that.
So, there's racism in 2006 for you. Blacks and whites together, fighting for our jobs. BTW, we're white.
It seems a person's accent has a bigger impact. People with american (midwest, southern, whatever), Brittish, Irish, Kiwi or Aussie accent seem to have an easier time communicating with recruiters and interviewers than someone with a Chinese, Indian, or even Russian accent.
There is probably a lot more age discrimination in IT than race discrimination. Now for upper management there is a huge racial imbalance. A company might have a 50% minory staff, but often less than 10% minority management.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...that holding an MLK Day story for 3 days before posting it is just weird.
The editors should have saved it until April 1, so that the sense of cognitive dissonance I got from viewing it was well-deserved.
I recently got my first job in an IT office, and the one thing that really surprised me was the amount of women working there. Although men outnumbered women by a little less than 2:1, I hadn't expected to find that many women in the first place. And, when a female applicant arrived for an interview, it seemed that she was always given equal treatment as compared to a male applicant (dare I say, it may have even appeared that she was prefered, simply due to her sex).
http://nemilar.net - It's just a blog.
Funny.. I had a recruiter tell me just the opposite -- that I would have an easier time getting a particular job with a particular company if I was NOT white. So to answer your question - Yes, there is apparently still racism in IT hiring.
Your claim is that the Equal Opportunity Act requires employers to hire less qualified workers if they are minorities, and that this explains why you weren't hired.
These claims are false. Please check for yourself.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
Perhaps I should stop mentioning I was at Woodstock I during my job interviews.
And it wasn't because I'm female, which is what would be most people's first guess, but because I am not Jewish and was white. At one company I worked for all the good programming jobs went to the Jews (honestly! And 80% of them were Russian), all the good EE jobs went to the Vietnamese, and the scut jobs - maintenance and gatekeeping and the like - went to the white Christians. I stayed for four years because I was making so much money I was willing to put up with it, but in the end our entire division was closed.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
CIO: White female
Academic tech: white male (me)
Media Services: black male
Network manager: white male
Server manager: black male
Programmers: two white males, one white female
Staff support: white female
Hardware: white female
Help Desk: one white female, one black male
Total: 9 white, 3 black, 7 men, 5 women.
Seems pretty balanced to me given the local population. Then again, we tend to hire people with little experience and promote from within. (CIO started as a secretary years ago, server manager began as a help desk grunt, etc.)
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
There are so few industries like IT where pure chops are the only thing that matters. I don't care if you're a friggin mold... if you can run a server you're hired. There's more than enough "backroom" positions where you can hide bad personalities etc.
Christ! My department is like the freakin UN. I have a Brit, 2 black women, a kid of some undefined ethnicity and Swedish/Puerto Rican!
*I'm the white guy!*
This
Posting anonymously for a reason...
... unless they are perfect English speaking, tall, men.
... I even asked that outright for both the short and female examples.
I work primarily in the IT contracting arena for the US Federal government, in Washington DC. My employer has everything from network admins to programmers to technical writers. We are extremely diverse (ie, not all white) -- our CEO is a minority. We really don't give a rat's a$$ about your race, creed, etc.
That being said, some of the government managers we try to place people with are extremely racists, biased, etc. My current government manager has rejected candidates for numerous reasons which I consider wrong:
* didn't speak fluent English (he was Russian, but spoke well enough)
* were too short
* were female (my manager is female, very odd!)
And they get away with it. Businesses like my employer are in it purely for the profit, make no mistake. There is a huge amount of cash flowing out of the Federal government right now for contractors, and we can't fill seats fast enough
And none of them were rejected because of their skill sets
So yes, it still happens. Part of the problem is that people are afraid to speak up (myself included).
Hah! My first job out of college was tech support. And I forget how many people (women in particular) asked to be connected to a "real" technician. I even had one guy tell me he wasted his time talking to a woman.....
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
I would say racism in hiring persists -- subtly -- in academia. My hopeful prediction is that it will disappear in the next ten to twenty years. It is not longer blatant; more a question of the accumulation of subtle factors over the years. (Also, IMO, sexism is a problem as well, and much more obvious -- some think racism is anathama, but have no problem in discriminating against women.)
Racism is much more blatant at the undergraduate and graduate levels of education (i.e., before you go on the academic job market.) In many cases, it is the result of underprepared minority students not being given the attention and training they need to get up to speed after admissions offices have "taken a chance" on students they think are bright but poorly prepared.
Our universities are some of the most successful institutions in the country; it is natural that politicians would like to shift the burden of solving racism at much earlier levels (elementary, grade and high-school education) to the universities.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
I worked with a sysadmin who happened to be African American (well, back then he was "black"). Anyway, the guy was damn smart, had a Masters, and was well respected by the user community. I've worked with and for other's of a variety of ethnicities and generally come to the conclusion that if they knew their stuff they gained respect. Now I can't speak to racism in corporate America - I'm white as a sheet - but I've seen competence and excellence overcome staff level prejudice.
Maybe the original poster jumped to conclusions. Maybe he was just a crappy worker. But, I can point out countless examples in my career where managers treat their minority employees differently because of fear of lawsuits or EEOC sanctions. Basically, when it comes to these cases, they are heavily weighted for the person lodging the claim and the company has to "prove" that there was no discrimination.
Many companies are scared shitless that they will be targeted under civil rights laws because they appeared to (but actually dont, they just hire the most qualified people who happen to be asian or white for the most part) discriminate against blacks or if they fire a black worker for doing poorly.
Our civil rights laws have brought alot of needed progress to society but they are a double-edged sword, in their current (and largely unchanged form). There is definitely a subculture of minorities out there who like to use their minority status as a crutch and leveraging tool in the workplace.
"Disrespect" for who, exactly? And, do you know what that word means, or are you just throwing it out there because it seems like the thing to do?
I don't respond to AC's.
however, i would call IT an avenue to fight racism. programming, or any technically involved task, encourages meritocracy: either you can do the complicated task, or you can't. in other words, the more complicated the job, the less incentive there is for ignoring innate abilities. in other fields, where the work required is more rote and simple, other, more fickle reasons can come into play in choosing an employee, reasons like racism
it would be, for example, a lot easier to get away with hiring only white secretaries rather than only white IT workers. simply because a lot of people can do a secretary's job, so your selection criteria can be more and more shallow. but your business will suffer to your more enlightened competitors if you pass up on real talent in a limited pool for a shallow reason. therefore, the job market in highly technical fields takes care of racism all by itself. IT simply can't afford to be racist. to ignore a technically astute individual for the whim of skin color is too heavy a price for an employer to pay
and of course, this issue is framed in an era when IT departments everywhere are farming all of their work out to india! where's rudyard kipling to laugh at when you need him? "white man's burden?" pffft. well that's deliciously ironic dear mr. kipling: a century after you penned those patronizing condescending words suggesting how nonwhite peoples were naturally the "inferior" wards of "superior" europeans, your "superior" europeans are rapidly becoming the wards of nonwhite peoples. the entire information infrastructure of the western world is rapidly becoming the "brown man's burden"
so to speak of racism in IT is rather obtuse. IT is definitely one of the more egalitarian work fields in the worlds in terms of proportionate racial representation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If rascism means business wanting a pretty first world face to front up for a third world development team. Then the answer would be yes, I have experienced it. I don't believe there's any real rascism, other than a general preconception that if you were born in India, Pakistan, Africa, or some post soviet country, that you'll accept anywhere between 1/10th to 1/2 what a first world developer would. In time I believe this will all even out. Not that I believe the third world is going to be pulled up to first world standards, I just think business will continue to squeeze the labour market till we're all willing to work on the same basis.
As a black man myself, my own experiences in the IT field have been rather positive. In fact, I would rank my work environments as some of the most "incident free" places I've experienced. I attribute this partly to the nature of the field itself, as it favors intelligent open-minded people. We're also mostly from newer generations and, therefore, aren't as engrained in the racist attitudes of the past.
Many companies are scared shitless that they will be targeted under civil rights laws because they appeared to (but actually dont, they just hire the most qualified people who happen to be asian or white for the most part) discriminate against blacks or if they fire a black worker for doing poorly.
Now would be a good time to provide newspaper accounts of such things. Yes, I'm sure if this happened, many would be unreported. But surely there is one good man or woman out there who will speak up with a specific example?
While you're digging that up (no, angry bloggers don't count) perhaps you'd like to read the socialist-communist-worker's party's political organ, Businessweek, whose 2001 article claimed "in an increasingly multicultural U.S., harassment of minorities is on the rise".
There is definitely a subculture of minorities out there who like to use their minority status as a crutch and leveraging tool in the workplace.
Perhaps. Whenever there is a law, even a just law like EOA, there will be people who will try to use it for their personal gain. What is without doubt it that there is a subculture of white people who have gained and retain a significant advantage in the workplace on account of their race.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
You NASCAR people make me sick, and I'll use every trick in the book to make sure you don't get promoted or even hired.
At one point in my career I was a team leader for an IT group, both my manager (a woman) and I interviewed a female candidate and both I (for technical reasons) and my mgr (for personality reasons) didn't think that we should hire this candidate.
Our second line manager said we needed to hire this candidate as a matter of diversity (the IT group was 10 guys of varying races).
It wasn't like we couldn't find qualified candidates, it's just that they were all men, and when a woman came along our 2nd line manager forced us to hire her.
This woman didn't know how to reboot a solaris box and later took out one of our larger SANs.
To this day when I interview somebody, I tell my peers/mgmt that if somebody isn't qualified, I won't recommend them 'no matter what our diversity training requires'
The company I work for has very few blacks or whites working for them. It's not a US-based company, and though it's headquarters are here, many of the employees are from overseas.
At least on the IT side, of about 50 here there are 4 whites, and no blacks. In HQ, there are no more than maybe 15 whites, and 3 blacks - the rest being Indian, Chinese and Japanese (and a few other nationalities I'd guess).
For people claim that whites are the ones getting preferential treatment in hiring, all I can say is that the shoe is occasionally on the other foot. Do I care? No - they pay me, people are generally pleasant, and I figure that if I was able to get in the door, another white or black could get in given the right timing and skillsets.
Do they occasionally choose someone based on race? Absolutely. However, a lot of that comes down to the applicant's ability to speak the language, and that sort of thing. Therefore, while I don't like not being on the same playing field, I'm getting a fair enough shot that it doesn't hold me back significantly.
Does that "significantly" descriptor play a factor in the likelihood that I'll stay here though? You bet your ass. While I've been with these folks for about 6 years, it's made enough of an impression that if I was given another job offer and my company matched it, I'd leave.
So what you're essentially saying is that Black people are dumber than white people?
Nah, that's not controversial.
These claims are false.
They may or may not be, but citing a government publication stating how the act is intended to work, doesn't make a definitive case.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Age tends to be an issue because to older you get, the less bullshit you are inclined to put up with from employers for shit wages. Human Resources knows this, and so they go for the young and hungery employee who doesn't have many obligations beyond party money.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I have worked in IT over 25 years. I have seen this. It does happen.
Ability to communicate clearly with the rest of the team is vital in pretty much any IT job above the level of scutwork. In the US that (usually) means that you must be able to speak, and write, in clear, easy to understand English.
If you can't communicate clearly with the interviewer and recruiter, then you won't be able to communicate clearly with the rest of your team. That significantly decreases your value as a hire.
Of course this is all antecdotal, but when I first got out of college, I was told by one of my interviewers (a staffing company that was hiring VMS sysops for a huge multinational) that they were being told specificially to not hire any white males for any of the entry-level positions, because the company was receiving a lot of bad publicity for not being "diverse enough".
That's the neat part about the nation's obsession with skin color, we've managed to find a way to discriminate against everybody.
There is a useful distinction if you're studying sociology or psychology. Reverse racism occurs when there are racist actions taken against the dominant social group. This has different implications and consequences than when a minority social group is the target of racism.
Now would be a good time to provide newspaper accounts of such things.
Newspaper accounts? That's like saying if you see it on tv, it must be true. I'm not saying everything in the newspaper is false, but come on.
While you're digging that up (no, angry bloggers don't count) perhaps you'd like to read the socialist-communist-worker's party's political organ, Businessweek, whose 2001 article claimed "in an increasingly multicultural U.S., harassment of minorities is on the rise".
Same goes for magazines. You can choose to trust them, but I would research the topic first. The same way I would if I were reading a blog. Bottom line is, the only thing I trust is personal experience, and I don't see this bias towards minorities in the workplace. I do see a bias towards lazy and stupid, which anyone can be.
And on a side note, why are we asking for proof when the topic in questions was brought up because someone claimed some recruiter told him minorities are discriminated against? For all we know, the original poster is nothing more than a troll.
I don't doubt some people are discriminated against, the same as I don't doubt minorities get preferencial treatment at some companies. I'm just saying I have yet to see either happening on a scale worth my time to think about during a bowel movement.
Lighten up. Its only a post.
Your argument about racism is well-worn - you should read The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould, for an alternate perspective on the idea of "group IQ". In short, it sounds plausible (and perhaps appealing or convenient to some) that the average IQ of different racial groups could follow a bell curve, but it doesn't actually turn out to be that way in reality.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
"Racism" can be found wherever you look for it. Of course, not hiring someone because of skin color is not necessarily racism. Racism is the believe that people of one race are intrinsically superior to people of other races, not one race not hiring a person of another race - that's discrimination.
In a free country, people are allowed to discriminate, but the government is not. Here, we have it the other way around - government is allowed to discriminate but people are not. If someone doesn't want to hire me because of my race, bfd. There are plenty of jobs, and they'll be worse off over the long haul for such narrow minded practices.
Discrimination is kept alive by people like Jesse Jackson, who otherwise would be out of a career. Discrimination is propped up by "affirmative action" laws. Want to end it? Let's get back to a government that truly has equal protection under the law.
I was with you all the way until you got to the tired old argument that "blacks are dumber than whites".
I think a more accurate view would be that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to end up as programmers and engineers because of the lack of educational opportunities in those areas. That would be true of poor whites, poor blacks, poor Asians, or poor Martians. The fact is that the quality of education in this country depends on ones economic class.
I think a black kid from a upper-middle class home would be more likely to excel educationally than a poor white kid who lived in poverty.
Now it may APPEAR as if blacks are less capable academically because they, on average, might be more likely to grow up in poorer homes. However, it is important to keep in mind that CORRELATION DOES NOT INDICATE CAUSALITY. Now you would think that somebody like you who is supposedly a member of the "educational elite" would realize this, but I guess even posting on Slashdot does not necessarily indicate that one has the ability to think logically (in other words, even monkeys can click on the Submit button!)
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
I usally ask to speak to a real technician independantly of the sex of the person who answers the phone.
I hate calling tech support for anything these days. What should be a 5 minute problem usually blows out to wasting hours of my time trying to get in contact with somebody with 2/3 of a clue.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Why have people modded this up? He concludes the post with a paragraph of racist rhetoric.
I work for a historically black universty, and its amazing how many companies come to recruit our engineers (our engineering program is decent though) mostly because they are looking to fill a quota. The other university in town has a larger engineering dept and more status, but their job fairs don't bring in nearly the caliber of companies that ours do.
I worked on a project back in my undergrad days for a large government agency. At the end of the project, when the administrator was announcing to everyone that they had an opening for an engineer, I was politely told after the announcement that the opening was not for me because I wasn't a minority. I wasn't really interested in their peanuts anyway, but it kinda stuck with me.
And I know a lot more (even if you normalize for population size) whites who like to use their privilege to not have to be afraid of the police, to not get followed around in stores, to get into college because of Daddy's large gift or legacy status, so on and so forth.
Just want to point out the full story...
-bugg
To get ahead in America, you need to play the game. That game is "assimilate". Speak proper English, (optional: without a regional accent, if possible), don't stand out, "conform", stop complaining and get to work!
Disclaimer: I am "some white guy". However, my own family history is a case in point. I have none. I don't have any "culture" other than "American". My ancestors (as recently as grandparents) came from crappy Eastern European countries. They came here to be Americans. They did not want to be hyphenated-americans. Two generations in, nobody in the family speaks Ukranian, or Hungarian or whatever they spoke before we spoke American English.
I think culture is far more important than race. I am more likely to get along with a black man wearing dockers, who speaks standard English than I am with some pierced, tattoed, purple haired white kid with an attitude. But that is just me. And lots of other folks - so deal with it.
Stereo types are fun, but equal opportunity; If I say "Billy Bob lives in a trailer and shops at Wal-Mart" you know what I am talking about just as sure as "Latisha likes her fried chicken and watermelon" or "Let's go see Apu at the quicki-mart" - all are stereotypes. There are just double standards for getting insensed about it. It is ok to make fun of "white-trash", and for now, it is still funny in many quarters to assume Indians run all the hotels and 7-11's in the USA.
When you "lose your culture" what are you giving up? Face it, some cultures suck more than others. Pick one you think you will like, but if you don't pick a "white-bread" American culture, while in America, and then complain that you don't have the success in that culture the problem might not lie where you think.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
There's no such thing as Reverse Racism.
Racism is racism, no two ways about it.
We're mostly caucasian and asian where I work. (Aust. Gov't. Dept.)
There's no conscious policy, but selection is based on merit, and in western society, inequal opportunity means that those with social advantages (money, role models in family and peers, contacts, home location, etc) are able to better maximise the value they offer to employers.
So racism is the wrong way to be trying to explain this, in most cases. Social inequality is the real issue; I don't feel there's been a lot of progress in that area.
"There is a useful distinction..."
I can appreciate that distinction, but the implications of the term "Reverse Racism" are offensive to the majority. It creates the impression that only the majority are capable of racism and so racism by the minority is "reverse racism". Racism should be seen as ugly no matter who is the target. Sociologist and Psychologist should find another word without the unintentional connotation.
My IQ was rated at about 190 when I was 12
I've compiled a list of websites that you may want to spend more time on than slashdot:
http://www.mensa.org/
http://www.cerebrals.com/
http://www.smartgroups.com/
http://www.iqsociety.org/
You may feel more at home there ^_^
*dons flaimsuit*
I've worked in IT, and because I can calculate multi-dimensional state tables in my head I can sometimes out route a router.
Give me a god damn break. If you experience a lot of friction dealing with other people in your professional life, it's because of crap like this stemming from your obviously overblown ego.
I think a more accurate view would be that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to end up as programmers and engineers because of the lack of educational opportunities in those areas.
Actually, I think and even more accurate view would be that people tend to want to fit in with those they identify with. Call it cultural inertia, but dumping educational opportunities into poor communities doesn't make as big an impact as one would like to believe. In general, the culture in those areas ridicule intellect and honest ambition. I'll leave it to someone else to hypothesize why it got that way, but the end result is that children from those communities reject becoming like outsiders, as it might feel they are "selling out".
Even if the kids are moved to a better area, if they are recognizably different (e.g. black) they are likely to latch on to others that they see as similar. If that subculture is not education oriented, they won't be either. However, if the child has nobody obvious to identify with on race, they may choose to identify with some other group -- say "nerds" or "jocks" or whatever, and will likely pick up habits and culture from those groups.
It works both ways, as the more intellectual Asian and Jewish cultures tend to maintain their identity even when mixed in with any variety of other cultures with varying degrees of intellectual respect.
I recommend The Nurture Assumption for some insightful thoughts on this topic.
Cheers.
Through what test was your IQ determined? If you were that involved with a child psychologist, GC or therapist, surely you could have been relieved of your abusive household. Sorry, It just sounds a bit too much like pounding a pedestal as an excuse to brag about yourself. I guess I could have a hair trigger due to hearing the same thing every day from people on the internet and realizing what exactly goes into getting such an extremely high score.
If your IQ is still 190, the chances are you aren't going to fit in... whatever your skin colour.
So what does this say about the distribution of talent between races?
It means that the probability that someone in IT of a given race is either smart or dumb -- given no other information about them -- is neither 0 nor is it 1!
Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. for leading me see this profound truth.
Seastead this.
The fact is white skin carries privileges with it in the united states. Does that mean every person who is white has everything easy? No. It would be stupid for me to say that every white person had "XYZ" in common (for all non-trivial statements) but that's not what I said: I said I knew many more whites who profit from white privilege than minorities who abuse what the original poster might refer to as "minority privilege" - an idea that I think is ridiculous.
Does it mean you're less likely to have a cop bust you and a jail send you to prison for the rest of your days? You bet. Just look at how sentencing guidelines are applied, or the death penalty, or the laws against crack versus the laws against cocaine.
-bugg
Ok. Here's one. I don't know too much about insidehighered.com, but I doubt it's a front for the aryan brotherhood.
/., so RTFA is right out. ;->), white female candidate was one of the finalists for a job. Employer's EOO ADDED a male african-american candidate to the finalist pool. White female came in second from the top[1], while african-american came in second from the bottom. University gave the job to the african-american "candidate". Here's a link [pdf, you've been warned] to the decision by the seventh circuit to allow the case to proceed. So does she sound like she qualifies as "one good man or woman"?
:-P) that the number is between 1% and 2% (If it were under 1%, I would have expected the site to say so), it appears that there are between 910 and 1819 [less than 2%, after all ;->] reverse discrimination claims working thier way through the EEOC at the moment.
/me dons asbestos suit.
In summary (because this is
Then there is the case of University of California Regents v Bakke[2]. Where it was held that the UC system had discriminated against a white applicant by admitting lesser-qualified minority applicants. Yeah, that's academic reverse discrimination as opposed to employment. And it was back in the 70's so it's completely irrelevant... Except that the exact same issue came before SCOTUS again in 1996. Unless you think PBS is an angry blogger. There have been a host of similar decisions handed down over the last few years, btw.
In a more general way, this site [3] points out in #12, that "less than 2 percent of the 91,000 employment discrimination cases pending before the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission are reverse discrimination cases." Working on the assumption (because I'm too lazy to mine for the actual numbers
I don't really have a dog in the fight, and to the best of my knowledge have never been passed over for a job based on either my race or my gender. Nor do I know anyone IRL who has claimed to have been so discriminated against. But you asked for proof of "even one" example. While implying that such was a high burden. Btw, google is your friend.
A now await the flames and downmods.
[1] I'm personally curious where #1 fits into all this, but that's another issue.
[2] I don't think that Findlaw counts as an angry blogger-especially as it is just the literal SCOTUS decision.
[3] Which appears to be dismissive of the idea of reverse discrimination, btw.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
I hate to say it but I would guess most of the time it's not because you're black, it's because you're in technology. This describes almost every day of my life and I'm white. Take this website for example, someone makes a deep and insightful comment about quantum physics that actually advances our collective understanding, and three people will make comments that add no value but correct him on little details. "No fair, you got to be the smart guy today! That's my job!" I think it's a characteristic of the profession more than racial bias.
I admit up front, I have a name that is foreign. You wouldn't be able to put your finger on it, but it's Middle Eastern in origin. Point of fact, is that my parents are Pakistani, and that's where my name comes from.
I was fortunate enough to land a job last year thru a friend of a friend -- and it's worked out great. I am well respected, well treated, reasonably well paid (but we'd all like some more, wouldn't we?), and people know the quality of my work not based on my skin color (which by the way, is brown) but the delivery of my work.
After I got hired for this position, I still had the automated emails coming back to me from the CareerBuilders, HotJobs, Monster etc.. So for my own experiment I changed the name on my resume to read William Johannsen (or something to that effect.. very "white") and left everythign else identical and changed the email to something else so I wouldn't spam up my inbox.
It's amazing how many more emails I recieved. At first, I thought it may have been a fluke, so I sent to jobs I prior applied to under my real name and got denied or got no response. I got responses from them as well. Granted, not everybody sent a response and I don't want to give the illusion that everybody is racist or whatever.... but seeing is believing. If I changed my name to John Smith or whatever tomorrow, I believe opportunities would be far greater than if I stuck with my real name.
Is this a 'scientific' experiment? Not in the slightest... it was to satisfy my curiousity and I did it for only a month because I grew bored of doing it knowing that I wouldn't accept any of the jobs, even though some of them were decent. It just didnt make sense since I had already started to build a niche where I was.
I should note, that on the bottom on my resume with my real name, I'd put US CITIZEN on it, because my name tends probably to associate more with people who need H1 Visas or something that come from India or wherever... and I'm sure this is a distraction to a lot of employers who are not willing to sponsor somebody.
Either way... those are the depressing results of my small non-scientific experiment. You can take away from it what you will, but under my own view, I really do think chances improve if you have a white name.. I'm sure a white face only helps further but obviously I can't find any information to the contrary on that.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
No such luck for me! I was the only woman in our tech support department. We had three guys named Mike, but all the customer had to say was "I was talking to this girl..." I was completely screwed.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
OK I think you will going to maybe don't like it because I think almost every American people who have seen South Korean people with a black people thinks South Korean people don't like Black American people. And I'm a Korean.
e d cultural system. I'm very scared to say it but it is just every day normal thing to some country. And don't think that they all do is some hate and making fun of other people by De-Valueing other people. They even fight every single day and hurt everyone they meet!
You didn't think Korean or Japanese are that kind of freak? That's because they are already changed themselves to fit you. Because they maybe respected you even if they don't know how to repect you they tried and maybe failed.
I did not overblown anything about this japanese/korean/even chinese culture. We all are bad people compared to you american people if you see it in American Terms because we don't do things as American people does. We Korean call our Korean friend mo**** fu**** sh**ty s**t. And what are you gonna do if I say it is one way to express a friendship?
Now, you can just mod me as a racist.
Racism starts from the self-centered-view. And I think most of the people in the world still does that, and I think even the so called Anti-Rasists, also, does that.
I saw an american black guy seeing me like a some kind of freak at the Home Depot because I did not RESPECTed him in his way. When he asked me if I need a help for finding Home Depot product, I said no with: I did not looked into his eye and I was somewhat being defensive when I'm saying No. And he gave me "....Ohhh Kay.... Ohhh Kay..." feeling. Oh god. I understand that feeling. You give me that feeling when you think I am a racist.
But wait a minute. We Korean people are, at the first place, defensive to everything. We Korean people are, at the first place, do not stare into someone's eye unless you want to fight one.
Oh christ, we Korean people never do the Respect in the way American people does because it is not just what Korean people do. It's not because you are a black but it is because of what we are, we have totally different emotional/cultural/expression-of-emotion system and it has nothing to do with other *cultural* bases.
Of course some of so called Old-Aged-Extremely-Uneducated-Korean-People don't like black or white or hispanic or jewish or anyone other than their own town's people. Just like they don't like people from *our next town*.
In many other cultural bases' view, especially "nice and cool based cultural system guys" and "nice and cool and respect-based cultural system guys" will think we Koreans are something like a Haters or something.
Maybe. Compared to other "Good, Cool, Well-Respecting" people.
But we have another respecting system for that. We have another it's OK and cool system for that. We have another *that's nice* system for that.
I don't think it is a Racial problem, it's rather cultural problem.
Some people want to be RESPECTED in some way, but some people like that in Other Way.
Some people want to be Loved in some way, but some people don't do that in that way.
Now, from what you have described, I think that is just SO NORMAL JAPANESE!!!
They do that to their own people things like making bullshit of your RIGHT CHOICE. I mean, if they do that to their own people, why not to the Black American???? If they don't do that especially to the Black American, they ARE the racist but if they treat you just like they treat the japanese, I don't think they are. And you say they are a racist because they did not respected you in YOUR way? Did you ever respected THEM in THEIR WAY? Maybe they are just a racist and you are an innocent well succeeded from the hell Cinderalla Man. You got to know that, there are a LOT of country that has Hate/Sadness/Defensive/Bullying/MakingFunOfIt-bas
I would like to thank you for recognizing this and commenting on it. I also think this country has made tremendous progress over the years, but you would never know it from the way we are still continually harangued by the self-appointed spokesmen for the black community. For them, time is always frozen in 1859 or 1963, and America is always the most evil country in the world because of the way we have treated people of African descent.
I want to say this to the leftist race-baiters: The two institutions that did the most to eradicate slavery from the face of the Earth were the British Royal Navy and the Union Army of the United States. Yes, white people owned slaves, but we also abolished slavery. I don't think we get enough credit for that, and I think it's about time for a heartfelt thank-you from Jesse Jackson and his ilk, and an apology for the vicious and racist rhetoric they use when talking about white pople.
Muslims kept black African slaves before the Europeans ever did, as well as during the whole period of European/American slavery, and long afterwards as well. There are still black Christians and animists who are treated as slaves or worse by their Arab Muslim masters. Yet what does the racially hyper-sensitive black-studies major in this country do ? He drops his "slave name" and takes on a Muslim name. It's crazy, a symptom of profound historical ignorance, ingratitude, and misdirected anger.
One of my ancestors was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, smuggling slaves to freedom in Canada at great personal risk to himself, and another was wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga while fighting in the Union Army to free the slaves. My grandfather was a teacher who almost lost his job during the Red Scare becuase of his outspokenness, including his views on racial equality. My mom and dad hired black people in the 60's when nobody else in their line of work would even consider it, and lost some business doing so.
I don't buy into the "white guilt" that the extreme leftists and racial grievance mongers are ramming down our throats. My family has already done its share to help black folks. I treat them as equals and expect likewise in return. Jesse Jackson, Ward Churchill, and the rest of the angry anti-American quota queens can kiss my ass.
--ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Accents.
Not necessarily.
I am from the American South. Thus, I grew up experiencing whites to have a certain set of accents and blacks to have another set accents. With a *high* degree of accuracy, I could pick out the highly, "middle" and poorly educated of both races.
So, it was a great shock to me when I got out into the Real World and had hundreds of hours of long-distance phonecons with people up North who had "white" accents, but turned out to be black.
You can imagine that I'm much more cautious about labeling someone "black" based upon their accent.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
"I state the issue. They then rephrase the issue, adding something not really relevant to the issue but closely related to show how smart they are. I, out of politeness, say oh that's interesting, or some other meaningless drivel to show them that I too understand basic Calculus, OSI, or traffic law, etc. I then move on to state my idea for solving the issue."
No matter how smart you are, or how smart you think you are, you are never, never so smart that you are always right and don't have to listen to others. Going into a conversation knowing the answer means you're not really there. Not only is that rude, but it means if you're wrong you'll never know it. On top of that, people generally can tell (you didn't notice that because you weren't listening, right?) and won't be very happy about it.
I'm a consultant these days. I used to be pretty cocky, like I knew how to solve problems and those business folk just weren't as smart, but even someone as dumb as me figures out, after being thrust repeatedly into unfamiliar business situations (where the business people really do understand the problem domain better than me) that I don't know everything.
You sound like an interpersonal nightmare. I'd never want to work with a sysadmin who couldn't listen to the reasons he might be wrong. I'd much rather work with someone willing to work with the team, more interested in getting us all to the common goal than telling us how smart he is.
As for the racial thing, I know it exists,but my personal experience in IT and dev in NY is that it's been a meritocracy everywhere I've worked. One of the things, really, I've loved about the work. I've been on plenty of interviews where I didn't get hired, but absent feedback from the interviewer I can't see how I could ever make a statement as to why.
You know, you sound like you're a smart guy. The funny thing about this field (again one of the things I love about it) is how many smart guys there are in it. Whenever I start thinking about how smart I am, I meet someone smarter. As smart as you may be, there are smarter people out there. Unless you have recently won your third Nobel you ought to tone it down a bit, and think very seriously about what other people may have to offer you. Try listening.
I never accepted a block, from anyone!
That of course, would be why you succeed.
I often find women in particular complaining about the "glass ceiling", and I'm boggled at the idea of anyone expecting to be promoted to the top of a company. Company founders will seek out successors who remind them of themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that. If anyone wants to lead a business, they should expect it to be a business that they themselves started.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It happens. When doing a round of layoffs, I was once instructed (2002) by HR to select only middle-aged white males, because "they can't sue." Back in 1998, when doing a lot of hiring, I was instructed to "prefer" minorities when evaluating candidates to increase our diversity. If you think discrimination against non-minorities does not ever happen, you should get out more.
That reverse discimination card is overplayed
There is no "reverse discrimination." Discrimination is discrimination. Period.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
In certain situations it can be an extreme advantage to express your Jewishness. It can be a ticket to a sold out show so to speak. Prejudice goes both ways.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
One of my coworker was always facing discrimination because of his skin color. All his talent, knowledge, experience was overlooked in front of a white chic, who was miserably dependent on him for performing her duties.
Having stayed there, I have seen numerous examples. Canada is hell for Immigrants.
hilarious
And how recently were those tenured professors hired? Sure, older tenured professors are white males and will keep their job until they retire. But when the university goes to replace or add professors, then the discrimination kicks in.
Most of the profs I know are young, thirties or early forties. The black professor (actually not African-American, but Carribean-British) is I believe in his early forties. You continue to make up facts (actually, you're no longer even pretending to state facts, only opinions.)
When I was in college, I had a friend who was an assistant professor of chemistry, experienced and well-liked. A professorship opened up, and he applied, but was never offered the position. Instead, the university kept the position open for nearly two years, interviewing several dozen applicants, none of whom were white males. My friend, like many recently graduated chemistry doctorates, never did find a position teaching chemistry.
Professorships are hard to get. There are very few. Not to state the obvious, but even if your story ends with "and they hired a black person", your friend's inability to get a job does not mean it was the fault of his race. It is entirely possible -- although you perhaps would disagree -- that the applicant they hired was both better than your friend, and black.
Plenty of people get turned down for good reasons, and plenty get turned down for bad ones (a recent case in my department, e.g., where someone was sunk for petty personal reasons despite being popular and an excellent researcher.)
Cronyism is not automatically racist.
If you hire people because they are your friends, and all your friends are white, then, yes, it is racist, and you would deserve to get sued if a qualified black applicant was turned down in favor of a less qualified white applicant you took because he was your friend.
As I said before, I suggest you talk to friends of yours you trust -- not colleagues who you dislike and think should have been fired -- who are black. Ask them what they think about racism, tell them what you think. Have a discussion. You might learn something.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
... of course, I work in Japan.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
You're story about people reacting to your idea likely has little to do with race and significantly more to do with either 1) poor management, or 2) your attitude.
;)
I'm white, I grew up on a farm, the son of a tech ed teacher. I grew up constant trying to learn the hows and whys. I wiz my way through logic tests, rebuild my own engines, remodeled my own house, solder my own electronics etc...
When I got out of the military, I was a slightly younger guy who thought I knew it all and could figure the rest out. And I ran into numerous situations like the one you described.
It actually turns out that I was just an egotistical ass hat. Cocky and arrogant coming off of my last military tour.
It took a couple years, a wife, a kid, and a hell of a lot of hard knocks, but my ego finally deflated and I find myself getting a long with most people much better.
Let's face it, no matter what their skin color, all assholes are brown on the in side
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
There's still racism in hiring practices, but these days it's in favor of non-whites.
Having worked at a lily-white organization in a large northeastern city, this phenomenon became apparent when I noticed, over the course of some five odd years, middle management was falling over themselves to hire black sysadmins and support staff.
Some of these people were less than qualified, but what could anybody do? They're there to increase the minority head count, so management isn't going to fire them. This has a detrimental effect on morale, but non-minorities can't do a thing but pick up the slack, knowing they'll never be fired.
Worst of all, this has a terrible effect on the minorities who are well-qualified: They're brought on to do a job and other folks in the department automatically think: "oh...we're going to have to pick up the slack for this one...damn".
I saw an american black guy seeing me like a some kind of freak at the Home Depot because I did not RESPECTed him in his way. When he asked me if I need a help for finding Home Depot product, I said no with: I did not looked into his eye and I was somewhat being defensive when I'm saying No. And he gave me "....Ohhh Kay.... Ohhh Kay..." feeling. Oh god. I understand that feeling. You give me that feeling when you think I am a racist.
Or maybe it was because of your defensive response. Ever try just saying "No thanks" calmly and politely? I do that every time and I rarely make eye contact (mostly because I'm in the right area and I'm concentrating on finding what I need). If you look confused (and let's face it, anyone that's not looking directly at what they're going to buy looks confused to them), they're going to ask you that. Hell, sometimes they'll ask you that even if you're holding the product. It's part of their training. Ya know, that little thing called "customer service" that we're always bitching about. Anybody would likely have the same reaction that guy did. White, black, green, orange, it doesn't matter.
The only people I know of that want to be "respected" in a certain way are the gang members. But since they deserve no respect, they don't usually get any.
In public service areas, the percentage of blacks working at the fire station/police station has to be the same percentage as the number of blacks living in the area. Same goes for women. As a while male who's been a volunteer fireman for two years, and wants to pursue a career in the field, it is almost impossible because right now all they care about is meeting that quota. I remember asking some high up people about it, and they told me I'd either have to turn black or get my penis chopped off, because they won't be hiring any white males anytime soon. They'll hire a black male or woman with no firefighting experience, no physical strength, over someone like me who is certified, experienced, and dedicated to the job. I've forgotten the idea/dream of becoming a paid full time professional firefighter. Good thing I'm going to school for computer science/business administration, something else that I love in which I hope isn't taken away from me because of "reverse racism"
Sig: I stole this sig.
Flamebait or troll or not, I accuse you of flagrant exaggeration, if not outright lying. Your use of language, vocabulary, and compositional structure is self-evidently sharply below that level. As is the vocabulary and compositional quality of your other recent posts, eight of the last ten of which scored 1. Your expository and vocabulary also jarringly conflicts with your assertion of "a nearly insatiable desire to read whatever I could get my hands on."
The point of which is, don't lie on this forum. Making a knowing transgression of risking off-topic for this reply or not, I dislike letting that by, and it taints the rest of your post, the meta-moderation of which I would suggest ought consider whether the moderation points were deserved.
As an aside, also, the vast majority of IQ tests, including upper range IQ tests, are not designed to accurately test above approximately 170. Test calibration above that level is very challenging. Try and remember such tangential details the next time you fib, for better general congruence and background.
Sigh.
In inferiority complex, perhaps.
In the future, try posting without repeatedly referencing how smart you are, and how your brilliance is oppressed by vast forces opposing you. Your posts will implicitly convey deviation from the norm, if they can in fact exhibit such, without needing attempts at neon signage.
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." -Dante
Well it's a data entry job if they want no errors @ 9500 wph and you can't do that, why should they hire you? Doesn't matter what colour you are, or whether you wear dress shoes or sneakers or are barefoot. That sort of job seems easy to measure.
You cost significantly less than 7000/9500 of the candidate who can do 9500 wph? Or you are willing to work more than 9500/7000 longer (but remember there are only 24 hours in a day).
If the tasks involves entering ordered sets of data by a certain date, it could cost more to split tasks to 7000 wph people in such a way that a deadline can be met.
Now if you can show that a 5000 wph candidate with the same costs etc got the job and you didn't then something is fishy.
Both of those options will allow him to leverage extreme intelligence as well as mathematical and sales aptitude. Both will get him out from the oppressive man's foot quite rapidly. With a 190 IQ, he should be able to come up with a pile of other good alternatives, too.
Honest truth here. I'm a white bastard. And you know what? I've had the exact same types of conversations The Great Oppressed Black Genius described with people when I identify an issue. It's not a racial thing. It's an "I have a brain and that is intimidating to people that want to remain necessary and keep their job" thing.
*sigh* 190 IQ multi-linguil person works as a system admin where apparently people discriminate against him. I just don't buy the whole post. I think it's BS. None of the pieces fit together. One of our VPs is a black man and he is sharp as a whip. The company offered him a CTO position and he turned it down because he had a better offer on the table from elsewhere. He was really good and everyone respected him and though he was very bright, I bet he was not even close to an IQ of 190.
Well, anyway...
People with a high I.Q. can easily fake a lower one.
- "They misunderestimated me."
Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to be in a position to hire some developpers. A number of résumés where presented to me and I had to select from them. I interviewed and ended up selecting: an Iranian, a Check, a Chinese and a Pakistani (all of whom were recent immigrants). Here's what I got: a very dedicated, creative team who built software that allowed me to slaughter my competition. Competition who, as it turns out, happened to be racist and politically motivated. If I had chosen the same route as my competitors and let my judgement be clouded by neanderthal thinking, success would have eluded my organization. So, if you are the competition, by all means, please be racist, 'cause, if you do, I'm coming to beat you!!
*** Don't be dull.***
...I have felt I have had to work twice as hard to get noticed when working amongst non-Latinos/Blacks. It was the only way to be noticed. The Spanish last name makes people automatically assume English is my second language when in fact my entire family has been in the United States for over a century now. The Latino looks make most think I don't have any technical skill. Even when I open my mouth to speak (I have a BSCS, and can speak quite well, thank you), most still assume I have no technical skill.
No, it's not an issue of trying to prove myself as "overcoming the odds". I can care less about that. However, I do feel subtle stereotypes make most perspective managers feel at first glance that I'd be better suited for some ethnic studies position at best.
NOTE - I'm a tanned latino with brown skin. There are many light skinned latinos with more of a european influence which would make them more likely pass as "white". I am not one of those. Also, for you non-Americans out there, there are not many pure spaniards that live in the US, so no you can't try to argue that the last name could also imply I'm from spain.
Nonsense! It's a great measure of how good a person is at doing IQ tests...
http://outcampaign.org/
Because OF COURSE he subscribes to a Judeo-Christian religion...
http://outcampaign.org/
Umm, childhood IQ tests can't test above 180, furthermore if your IQ is 190 you might want to get hold of Mensa and the Guinness Book of Records because that would make you the brightest man in the world.
High IQ is no guarantee of high Machiavellian intelligence , in many instances it can hamper your social skills.
There are many different forms of intelligence , being able to dazzle a crowd with a recitation of hamlet from memory , is not a guarantee that you could explain and understand string theory.
Sure IQ is a measure of your logical problem solving skills , problem is , there are very few logical people .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Agreed. A sysadmin (or programmer, consultant, whatever) is there to solve business problems together with everyone else.
So what if the person you're talking to doesn't understand your job. They understand *their* job and it's up to you to listen to them because they may just have an idea that helps everyone.
If you go into conversations with a holier than thou attitude you'll not only be a crap sysadmin, you'll be convinced you're a really good one - and be shocked when you're pushed out on the next downsizing.
Im a Dutchie working in the IT field as a systems-/networkadmin for a detaching agency. I've recently found that The Netherlands (which used to be known as *the* most open multicultural country) sadly still knows many racist streaks in IT.
:P
My current assignment is for the government of the largest city in The Netherlands, and there are several external IT-ers running around here. One of them was Indonesian (he became a private contracter and left), another is Turkish, one is a Brit and the rest is native Dutch. We all work in the IT departement and we lunch together every day, having the most interesting conversations. Eventually the topic of racism came up (Muslims are a hot topic in The Netherlands at the moment) and i was stunned to find out that the Turkish guy had actually changed his name to a more West-European one to have an easier time getting a job here!
He shared his experiences about how he had submitted 2 different resume's to the same jobopening and changing only his full name (his real name is very obviously foreign). The version with a typical Dutch name enthusiastically got invited for an interview while the original version of his resume got shot down almost instantly. Nothing else was changed, all the skills, education etcetera was all exactly the same on both resumes. This was not a one-time event tho. Both the Indonesian guy and the Turkish had similar experiences. They had also experienced the same reaction over the phone, so its not just a burocracy-thing. And this is supposed to be "the" multicultural nation?
The whole racial thing is such an alien concept to me, it apparently makes me naive
"Sarcasm is for *winners*, Alan." - Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men)
I put your current IQ at about 110 - a typical pissed-off BOFH.
110 eh? About the size of your disk apace allotment in kilo-, no, just regular bytes.
>clickity clickity<
May the Maths Be with you!
Hey, how much progress has been made anywhere? I'd thought some...but then I was stunned to hear from a friend of mine... a male of true African descent who happened to be born into an otherwise very white family (don't ask) in the U.S., raised in the white burbs, well-educated with an MBA (well, some would argue that's an oxy-moron), cultured, etc. etc...and he often would be (and still is) subjected to racism based on what could only have been the colour of his skin - that was the *only* thing about him which was different from anyone else from that same background. An interesting observation was made by one of the ranters over at Indignation.org, where he talks about being in Mississippi for MLK day a few years ago. He says "I looked at this as an opportunity to get a glimpse into one of the most important tragic events in our national history, and planned to go down to Beale Street for the evening celebration. When I asked a few people (white people) about parking and other logistics, they all said, "Oh, you don't want to go down there tonight. Trust me." They didn't elaborate, but I could smell the fear and mistrust. Their eyes said, "If you, a white man from out of town, go down there tonight, you will be a target." (That full rant is at http://www.indignation.org/mlk-day-observed.)
Who else refers to themselves as "Continent-Country"?
Or should I give up and go with the flow... Im a "North American-German"?
I don't have any newspaper account of such things, but if you're interested, I can share a personal account with you instead.
A friend of mine was up for a promotion at her workplace (incidentally not in the IT industry). She was told by her manager that there weren't any other realistic candidates for the position and she was sure to get it. However, the person named ended up being another woman, who not only worked in a different department, but did not even have a college degree (stated as one of the minimum requirements for the position). My friend was shocked and confused.
Eventually, she learned from her manager that the other woman was black, and had threatened to sue under the Equal Opportunity Act if not given the job. She probably would not have won, but the company did not have the resources to defend itself against such a lawsuit, so they gave in to her demands.
As many people have already stated, discrimination is discrimination regardless of who is practicing it, or whom they are practicing it against. The sad fact is, you cannot legislate racism out of existence. The EOCC levels the playing field only in the sense that it facilitates racism for everybody, instead of just the majority.
I guess this wouldn't be racist, just a factor of Equal Opportunity.. One time as a junior engineer with a good technical sense I was asked to interview a candidate to gauge their "technical merrit". I did this and aksed so tough questions (I kept a list of questions, like a test, that I used on interviews). As it turns out, this guy could not cut it, so I scored him low on my review sheet. Turns out my tech lead did too. A day later the program manager called us both up and asked why we scored this candidate so low, as if we were being racist... The candidate was a mexican-american... Our PM said flat out, "do you know how hard it is to find a mexican-american engineer?". He then handed us back our yellow review sheets. We knew what to do. Gave him a 4 out of 5. His original score was a 2... I was young, and got a real lesson there, don't know what it was, but it did make me a bit mad. I for one like to have in depth, multiple phone interviews and have fact based questions that I can score to determine technical merrit and personality. Then I call for a face-to-face (usually I have made up my mind), and several times the person who showed up was not whitey, and I recommended them be hired "anyway". The phone is great way to avoid the issue, especially if you spend some time customizing your interviewing skill.
I met a white guy once whose name was Darius. About my age (early 30s now). His dad was a history buff and named him after the Persian king. He worked in IT.
... I'd say it still happens, yeah.
Once, for his job, he had to go be a liason for a brief period at another company. As it happened, this other company was one where he had applied for a job but hadn't gotten an interview the previous year. He liked the job he ended up getting, so he had no hard feelings.
Somehow the fact that he had applied at this other company came up when he was on-site. The person he was working with was actually one of the people who had reviewed his resume. "Oh, yeah, I remember you!" he said. "See, we thought you were black because of your name. Ha ha! If we had know, we probably would have given you an interview."
It's only one data point, but
jf
As a white 'caucasian' sixteen year old white male I started working for a small whitebox OEM company. My responsibilities included building the systems, installing Windows, performing the burn-in, and troubleshooting. When I came to work at the company I had a pretty big head on my shoulders. I thought there was nothing that was unsolvable for me to tackle and I could get to a solution in half the time it took other technicians. Until... I was handed a network issue at one of the client sites. I tried for two weeks to solve the issue exhausting everything solution I could think of. It finally came down to making it work or for the company pulling out of the deal so they sent me one day to meet-up with one of the head field technicians -- Dwight.
Dwight was an older blackman and he worked (and still does) in one mode, slow. When we began working together it fustrated me so much because he would take his (and my) precious time doing EVERYTHING. Even waiting on him to click the mouse could be excruciatingly painful for me a times. So let me say that patience is greatest value this man taught me, but more importantly he taught me how to think out problems before acting. Dwight has a determination to exhaust all possibilities before putting a practical and definitive solution into motion. Whereas most technicians, programmers, and just people in general will go into a situation with all their guns blazing using trail-and-error attacks until they get the appropriate response Dwight will methodically plan out his attack until he is sure it is going to work (for the long term).
Needless to say, in a matter of hours Dwight had the network up and going according to the client's specifications and after teaching this new pup a thing or two. This was only the beginning. Over the next two years Dwight taught me a lot about being a good technician but more importantly a good problem solver not only with computers but in life in general.
Today the values and traits Dwight taught me are still with me today as a software engineer. It has been six years since I was under his mentorship full time. Today if I had a problem in either a technical matter or a personal matter I know he is there to teach me. I have not learned as much from my peers, superiors, or college professors as much as I have from him. Besides my parents he will always be one of the greatest people who influence my life.
I know companies are out there who would not hire Dwight because of his color, age, and now he has a few medical problems which require regular care. To me this is ludicris because if he could teach some of the guys I have worked with in the past half as much as what he taught me it would be a grand investment.
I'd like to call bullshit on this post like a couple of other people have. Not that I think that the poster is lying, but I think that a large portion of discrimination is imagined because minorities are conditioned to think people are going to discriminate against them.
I've a personal example of this - myself. I grew up in a rural area where it wasn't hard to be of above average intellegence. Both my parents and my grand-parents are intellegent people and knew that education wasn't just school, but experiance. So they took me to art galleries, museums, their jobs, etc... so I could experiance things outside of my day to day life. Most of the kids I grew up with didn't have these oppertunities, so in addition to being of above average intellegence I was also fairly cosmopolitan. This pretty much made me an outcast. Further, because of my appitite for music I was listening to all kinds of stuff that kids in my area had never heard of (mainly old punk and industrial). I tended to dress in a manner similar to the fashion that these bands displayed in an area where wrangler jeans and cowboy boots was the norm. Yet another reason for persecution. By the time I got to college I had such a persecution complex that I was sure that everyone I met that was different than me was going to be close-minded and would hate me. It took me a while of living in the real world to realize that this simply isn't true and that people weren't reacting to my mode of dress or my intellegence, but rather my eliteism and my attitude.
The gentleman-parent-poster seems to suffer from the same affliction. In the movies people that are smart and persecuted tend to become mad scientists. In the real world they just become assholes.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps this genetleman lives in a small town and works for a small company where he really is the smartest person and all his co-workers and dumb racist rednecks. But I have one question about that. If this man is so smart and able, why isn't he surrounding himself with the same kind of people? If he's as good as he says he is, he would be working in a large company that LOVES intellegence and is blind to skin color.
Another personal example. The company I work for, which is very large and multi-national, has a very diverse technical staff. The networking group, for example, has only one white man in it. The rest are black Americans, a black jamacian, a gentleman from turkey, and an asian American. We have Chinese, Korean, an Angolan, Sweads, Russians, 2 Iranians (both women who both wear veils), Turks, Indians and a myriad of other people. My boss is a black man. His boss is a white woamn. Our VP is a black woman. We're mostly male, but we have the largest percentage of women in any IT department I've ever worked for.
If you're concentrating on race or any other minor thing that makes you "different" or another person "different" then you need to wake up. You're contributing to the problem. Only when EVERYONE, persecutor and persecutee alike stop seeing race, creed, religion, or whatever as a dividing line, rather than just seeing another person, will discrimination end.
Frankly, sir you're logic is flawed. You say people say things like "you wouldn't understand x because your black" but the whole point of your post seems to be "you wouldn't understand me because I'm black (or because I'm a "significant deviation from the norm.") but you're not. Your not the only man who has overcome diversity, or married outside his race, or done any of those things in addition to being highly intellegent. What makes you different is you expect to be treated special because of this. You're not special, or unique. Your a human being, just like everyone you work with. And if they discriminate against you, it's probably because you discriminate against them.
I've been in IT for about 12 years now as a systems integrator travelling throughout North America and have only met or worked with maybe 10 black colleagues in that time span. Although I have worked with probably twice that number of Indian colleagues and Asian. And even fewer women (3). Of course systems integration for industrial applications is a fairly small niche market. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's due to racism but more that I haven't seen a lot of black people pursuing IT careers in systems integration. There is, after all, quite a stigma associated with being a 'puter geek' and it seems to resound more so with white males with glasses and pocket protectors (you know who you are). But, if being a 'puter geek' means I'm getting paid then pass me that manual on Secure Wireless Deployment.
There's a difference.
Caucasians in America don't really have a common bonding experience. They never really had any inherent disadvantages just because of their skin color. Black people were treated like shit en masse, legally, up until about 40-50 years ago. There's still residual of that left over, and it will take a while to die down.
That said, I think the best way to get it to die down is to drop some of the PC bullshit and address the actual issues. I was so trained to automatically repeat "African-American" that it wasn't even until I got to college that I really considered that there were black people that didn't even fall into that category. Black people should be identified as black people, white people should be identified as white people. I still cringe when professors stumble over African-American to identify students that I know aren't even of African descent.
But even deeper than that, let's just stop defining ourselves by our heritage. Culture is fine. Celebrating it is fine. Making it one of the core elements of your being is what leads to half of the crap that's out there. You are not your father, or his father's father, or his father before him. You're an individual person, with individual ideas, and your heritage doesn't matter compared to what you have in front of you now. If America fucked you over, then you're responsible for some reparation. Maybe if it fucked over your father, even. If America fucked over your great-grandfather, then no, you're not. And I'm not talking specifically black or white, a couple acres and a mule, any of that shit. One of the things I'm actually thinking of specifically is the estate tax.
"best person for the job" is a tough nut to crack. I'll give an example that is not uncommon in the US.
The job might require the person to speak on the phone a lot and therefore have a native command of the language. There goes all the recently imported talent. Another requirement might be that they live within a certain distance of the office for emergency on-call situations. If the demographics of the technically qualified local talent pool are 90% white, then what? Would the person then be racist for not hiring someone that was of hispanic descent and spoke English with a Spanish accent?
I think racism exists in the tech market as much as anywhere else. I have worked in so many diverse environments because my area of the US (NY/NJ) is so diverse. I have even had conversations with US-born Indian workers where they complain about all the off shore outsourcing to India. Their parents came to the US for a reason and they don't want all the jobs to go back to India. I've had a co-worker of hispanic descent bitch about the "damn Mexican cleaning crew stealing laptops". I've worked with black people from the Caribean and Africa that distance themselves from US born black people because they consider them to be lazy.
The lesson is, stupidity knows no boundaries.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)