Just to be clear, when I point out the disparity between my city's black population (30%) and my personal experience with black developers here (<1%), I'm not trying to harp on any minute differences in percentages. If the city had a 30% black population and 28% of the developers were black, I don't believe there'd really be much of a story. There's no reason why every career field must (or even, should) perfectly match the demographics of the surrounding area.
And, if economic opportunities for blacks in America in general were on par with those of whites, then I also wouldn't care much about the disparity. Because, if everything was generally "equal" - in terms of overall opportunity - then it wouldn't much matter if blacks were underrepresented in one particular field. Such data anomalies can happen without necessarily being driven by systemic racism.
But when the overall landscape for black Americans is tilted against them, and the landscape in this particular career field is so severely tilted against them - it gets my attention. And it weighs on my mind.
Just to be clear. I was mainly just trying to address the comments about the situation in the UK.
When people talk about this in the UK, too often they don't ground what they say in reality, and just make claims.
When it comes to the UK, I wasn't even particularly targeting "developer" as a role. I point out that there is indeed a small underrepresentation in scientific and technological fields.
I was simply trying to address the claims above which, as far as I can tell, are pretty inaccurate and not grounded in reality.
I don't know any of the actual numbers for the representation in America, as I don't live there. I would agree that it seems from what I know there is an economic disparity in America between black Americans and other ethnic demographics.
But it seems to me you hit the nail on the head when you say "Such data anomalies can happen without necessarily being driven by systemic racism". I think there are good indicators of why there is this disparity in America, and if systemic racism is one of them, I think it would represent a very small part.
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Just to be clear, when I point out the disparity between my city's black population (30%) and my personal experience with black developers here (<1%), I'm not trying to harp on any minute differences in percentages. If the city had a 30% black population and 28% of the developers were black, I don't believe there'd really be much of a story. There's no reason why every career field must (or even, should) perfectly match the demographics of the surrounding area.
And, if economic opportunities for blacks in America in general were on par with those of whites, then I also wouldn't care much about the disparity. Because, if everything was generally "equal" - in terms of overall opportunity - then it wouldn't much matter if blacks were underrepresented in one particular field. Such data anomalies can happen without necessarily being driven by systemic racism.
But when the overall landscape for black Americans is tilted against them, and the landscape in this particular career field is so severely tilted against them - it gets my attention. And it weighs on my mind.
Just to be clear. I was mainly just trying to address the comments about the situation in the UK.
When people talk about this in the UK, too often they don't ground what they say in reality, and just make claims.
When it comes to the UK, I wasn't even particularly targeting "developer" as a role. I point out that there is indeed a small underrepresentation in scientific and technological fields.
I was simply trying to address the claims above which, as far as I can tell, are pretty inaccurate and not grounded in reality.
I don't know any of the actual numbers for the representation in America, as I don't live there. I would agree that it seems from what I know there is an economic disparity in America between black Americans and other ethnic demographics.
But it seems to me you hit the nail on the head when you say "Such data anomalies can happen without necessarily being driven by systemic racism". I think there are good indicators of why there is this disparity in America, and if systemic racism is one of them, I think it would represent a very small part.