Where are the blacks in tech?
08 Jan
Posted by: geekycyberdad in: My Thoughts, Random Thoughts, Tech
Now before you worry, I’m not about to complain about “the man” and his oppression of the black man. However, I have worked in the IT industry for over 10 years now and have noticed a very disturbing trend. While I have mostly worked in small to medium sized companies, I would dare to say the trend is common in larger organizations as well. There is a very vast shortage of minorities, namely blacks in the tech industry.
With over 800 facebook friends and roughly 2,000 twitter followers I’d like to think that I’m pretty knowledgeable about the happenings in the social media world. I regularly read popular blogs such as TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc and do my best to stay up to date on the latest news in the tech industry.
I’m not blaming this issue on anyone in particular or trying to call anyone out, I’m simply curious as to why this has turned into such a large void of representation. If I were in search of black people in the sports and entertainment industry online there would be no such shortage as the web is super saturated with these personalities. I keep seeing lists of the top/key individuals in the industry, yet I never rarely see someone who looks like me.
It would be nice to not always be the only brown skinned person in the room when I attend tech events. It would be nice to not be the only black guy in the office. Can someone please tell me what gives?
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2 Responses
Carlos
09|Apr|2010 1Hey my brother, we’re around, but like you pointed out, we’re not represented enough numerically. I’ve been fortunate like you to have been contributing and experiencing the IT world for over 18 years and along that one fact has been consistant, not enough blacks in the field. I don’t really know why the deficit is so great but I do always find that those of us who are in it are deeply devoted to it.
Anjuan Simmons
05|May|2010 2I asked myself a similar question a couple of years ago and wrote a blog post about it called “Black, Male, and in IT” (http://www.transmyth.com/blog/?p=72)
While we are not well represented in the IT industry, a growing number of studies indicate that black people for a large part of the online population, especially when it comes to Twitter (http://butyoureagirl.com/2009/11/12/black-people-on-twitter/). I think this is good in many ways, but I hope it results in black people choosing careers in IT and not only consuming media but also creating it. Social media provides an almost unprecedented opportunity for people of all demographics to become content owners, and I hope that we take advantage of it.
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