You went from "there are no role models" to "being actively told that you are not made out for x". Of course I understand the latter. This article was about a conference where by accident no minority group ended up on the speakers list. That is not the same thing as telling minorities "no, you can't do that".
But sorry, I am a white male, so I guess my very existence tells every woman and non-white person on the planet that they can not be a programmer? That just doesn't make sense. It's not my fault that black parents tell their kids not to go into computing, or that parents in general discourage girls to use computers.
I repeatedly said in my comments that I understand the statistical likelihood of people being less exposed to computers in their youth. But of course, you didn't read that. You only read what you wanted to read, which is "hey presto, here is another one I can vent my accumulated rage to".
Thank god people like you understand so much. You make the world a better place.
Also, who exactly tells black kids computing isn't for them? Any citations? The media? Parents? Gang members? Peers? Teachers? They really do that, they actively say "computers are not for you"?
> But sorry, I am a white male, so I guess my very existence tells every woman and non-white person on the planet that they can not be a programmer? That just doesn't make sense. It's not my fault that black parents tell their kids not to go into computing, or that parents in general discourage girls to use computers.
You're personalizing this as an attack on you when it's nothing of the sort. Nobody is claiming that anything is your fault. Unclench.
All anybody is saying here is that it'd be nice if, in addition to you and me and every other white male with a similar upbringing, there were a visible number of people of other people with dissimilar backgrounds to serve as inspiration to other groups of people. And that takes some effort on the part of community leaders and conference organizers to actually try contacting some of the brilliant speakers out there who come from diverse backgrounds, instead of just reaching out to a bunch of people like them and then throwing their hands in the air and hijacking the narrative with cries of tokenism when nobody is calling for anything of the sort.
You're a frequent, angry voice in gender-related discussions on HN. You really need to walk away from the computer and start asking yourself some hard questions about why it is that people talking about this issue is making you so angry and defensive when it is in no way, shape, or form an attack on you.
> Also, who exactly tells black kids computing isn't for them? Any citations? The media? Parents? Gang members? Peers? Teachers? They really do that, they actively say "computers are not for you"?
Yes. Yes to all of the above. People really say that. All of those groups actually send that message to kids. If you really don't understand how systemic this is, why do you feel so strongly correct in your opinions? Danilocampos gave his account. Another in mentioned briefly here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/11/tech/innovation/black-tech-ent... . There was a linked blog post on HN not too long ago of a black woman giving her account of how she came to be in the industry, and the push-back she received from her father, who didn't feel it was a sensible career for someone like her. I cannot for the life of me manipulate the search function into turning it up for me, though.
I don't think BritRuby had to be cancelled because "it would be nice to have more diversity". Of course this is an attack - and since I am a white male, it is also an attack on me.
I would actually welcome more diversity, I just don't think people should be blamed for not making the extra effort. It's nice that some people have figured out how to attract women to IT, and I am sure more and more people will learn from them. In the meantime, the people who don't know how to do it yet are not evil, they just were more concerned about other things.
And I am sorry, but laws that prefer a specific gender or race just seem unfair to me (that is what is bein pushed in Europe), so that makes me angry.
As for black parents and so on discouraging their kids to go into IT: how about educating those parents then, instead of blaming "white males"?
But sorry, I am a white male, so I guess my very existence tells every woman and non-white person on the planet that they can not be a programmer? That just doesn't make sense. It's not my fault that black parents tell their kids not to go into computing, or that parents in general discourage girls to use computers.
I repeatedly said in my comments that I understand the statistical likelihood of people being less exposed to computers in their youth. But of course, you didn't read that. You only read what you wanted to read, which is "hey presto, here is another one I can vent my accumulated rage to".
Thank god people like you understand so much. You make the world a better place.
Also, who exactly tells black kids computing isn't for them? Any citations? The media? Parents? Gang members? Peers? Teachers? They really do that, they actively say "computers are not for you"?