I haven't seen a black american hired in tech in a decade. The last black american I saw in tech, they hired an indian manager, and the black guy was the first guy he fired.
Since then the only black guy I saw hired turned out to be from a suburb in africa.
My experience is the beneficiaries are people with well off parents from other countries.
Or white women.
The law of unintended consequences cannot be denied.
It's been a while since I've had to work in tech(thankfully), but I've seen atleast one instance of an absolute fuckup of a computer technician who was - yeap, you guessed it - black.
She was, arguably, not even the bare-minimum competent, and I got called in to fix her mistakes a few times.
There we even occasions where my boss had me do her job for her in specific situations that were sensitive due to old-fashioned-political reasons, and they needed someone whom could actually do the fucking job.
This is where some of the really harmful stuff comes up - when people see this person, doing a job and fucking it up alot, the question becomes 'Why haven't we gotten rid of them?'
I'm sure alot of the more innocent ask this question with honest confusion, only to receive a thousand-yard stare from their elders before the matter is quietly dropped. No one wants to say it, but everyone knows the reason: They're black, and if they're gotten rid of for incompetency, they'll scream bloody murder about racism and everyone will believe them, because racists, or something.
Simple solution: Just don't deal with the problem to start with. So when it comes time to seriously hire people, or who you're going to work with, guess who's going to get quietly shoved aside because the juice isn't worth the squeeze?
And so it goes...
I’ve tried to explain this. I pissed off my cousin once because I said if I’m looking at applicants social media and they have photos of them at the Floyd “protests” or any sort of “I support the current thing” red flags I’m not hiring them. They are most likely going to be a problem child. Same goes for non-binary and so on.
Yeap.
I look at it this way. If I'm hiring someone, any random(white) sclub off the street - if he's reasonably okay, might have some rough edges around him, might need some time to get trained up, and that's fine. Cause if he's a complete and utter fuckup, I can kick him out and no one's going to bat an eye because no one cares. I can take the risk, because the risk overall is rather minimal.
Reasonably well put-together black guy - might not know his stuff, but looks to be trainable in his role. Alright - but what if he can't be trained? What if the mask slips, and he's abrasive toward other people? What if he refuses to learn? And if I have to get rid of him, what then? Is this going to blow up in my face with accusations of racism - or, even worse, I won't be able to get rid of him until I have undeniable proof to show others that, yes, he's a complete screwup that can't do his job. Sorry about the project that's on fire, that's just the price you pay to prove a point. High risk, medium-ish reward.
I'll take the guy whom I can throw out on his ass any day of the week versus the other guy who might devolve into a screaming clusterfuck if he turns out to be useless.
Larry Elder once said that when he sees an old white lady clutching her purse when she sees him, he doesn’t get mad at her, he gets mad at the black thugs who have given him a bad name. Same principle applies here I think. You could have a great black candidate who isn’t someone who whines about race but due to the last few lousy black employees his resume will be quietly pushed to the side.
If an applicant mentions their race (any race) in a cover letter or on their resume, it's an automatic rejection from me.
Definitely a red flag. Bringing it up without being asked. If I never hear about race again I’ll be very happy