Category: Diversity

The importance of supporting diversity

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Culture Diversity

The Jena 6

The big story in these parts today is the protest rallies in support of the group of black youths known as the “Jena 6”. Jena is a small town in Louisiana, and the focus of about 10,000 protesters from all over the country, today.

It’s difficult to find the facts to the story of the Jena 6, because there’s no person in the world better at burying unpleasantness than a Southerner.

Ostensibly, two events happened that no one disputes:

The first event is that during a high school assembly a black student asked the principal if the black kids could sit underneath the ‘white tree’– a big old shade tree that had previously been occupied by white students. The very next day, three white kids hung three (and I’ve heard two) nooses from the same tree in the town square

A noose is a known symbol in the South for lynching. More specifically, whites lynching blacks. The principal expelled the students, but the school superintendent overrode the Principal and gave the white kids in-school 3 day suspensions. It jez a prank, everyone says.

The second event takes place three months later. Six black kids are identified as having beaten up a white kid in the school hallway. The white kid ends up in the hospital, is treated, and released two hours later. The six black kids are charged with attempted second degree murder.

Right off that bat, you probably noticed, as I did, that it’s hard to think of a school fight as an attempt or a conspiracy to commit murder. At the same time, fair play suggests that it’s wrong of of a group of students to gang up on another. This isn’t Rosa Parks we’re talking about here, the lines are not cut and dried.

But then the story gets even more interesting. I want to point out two writings on this event.

The first is by Mel Didier a teacher in a nearby Lafayette Parish high school. Mr. Didier wrote that there were more than just these two incidents, and in fact there’s a pattern of racist violence in this small town:

A black student was beaten at a social function, and no one was charged. The DA goes into a hastily-called assembly and, looking directly at the African-American students, warns them that he can end their life with the stroke of his pen.

A white graduate pulls a gun on three black students who take the gun away and no charges are brought against the white grad, but the students were charged with theft when they didn’t give the gun back.

A white student taunts a black student beaten at a party and is jumped and beaten by six African-American students. Fox News points out that Justin Barker went to the hospital and was released the same day, attending a ring ceremony and social function that same day.

The DA charges those guilty of the attack with aggravated assault, and, when certain teachers and locals object, he ups the charges to attempted second-degree murder.

It’s difficult to deny a pattern of racial tension in this predominantly white community. What’s absolutely fascinating, though, is to read the front page of the Jena Times today, with a so-called timeline of events.

I’d copy text excerpts, but the paper actually made the story into a JPEG image and then inserted this into a frame. So I did the next best thing and copied pieces of the JPEG, highlighted phrases, and am copying the result here. I encourage you, though, to read the original. If it gets pulled, let me know and I’ll post a copy.

Part of the Jena Times newspaper article

I can’t be the only one who finds it odd that the author kept downplaying any racial tension in the community, while listing event after event that is inspired by racial tension. In addition, the author also stressed the ‘playfulness’ of the request about sitting under the white tree, when from other accounts, this wasn’t a playful request. In addition, it’s pretty obvious that when white kids are mentioned, they’re mentioned in a positive or neutral manner, but the actions of the black kids are portrayed negatively.

In fact reading this timeline, I feel like I’ve been transported back in time to the late 50’s and early 60’s, when white kids beating up blacks was considered nothing more than ‘juvenile spirits’. What’s amazing is that the town newspaper thought to publish this to downplay the racial problems the town has, when all it did for me was convince me that they exist.

According to an MTV story at one assembly where white students and black sat separate from each other, the DA held up a pen and said, specifically to the blacks, with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear. Of course one person who lives near the area said the DA is more of a megalomaniac than a racist, but the end result is the same: justice is not prevailing.

I’m not fond of Al Sharpton who is leading much of the protest, and not condoning what the kids did: no matter how angry, six against one is wrong (if there were six, that hasn’t necessarily been proved). But this isn’t a case where these black kids decided to jump this white kid for nothing. Even the town’s most fervent supports acknowledge the white kid taunted the black kids. This was a hall fight triggered by anger that got out of control, and should have been prosecuted this way.

Attempted second degree murder?

Other weblogs covering this story.

The weblog that seems to be following this event the closest is Pursuing Holiness, including a detailed weblog post on the events the day of the fight.

update

From the Chicago Tribune today:

The judge overseeing the racially-charged case of the Jena 6 declined Friday to release the only one of the six black teenagers still being held in jail, despite the fact that the youth’s conviction for aggravated second-degree battery was vacated a week ago by an appeals court, family members and court sources confirmed.
…

Bell has been jailed since the beating incident last December, unable to post $90,000 bond. That bond was rendered moot when Bell’s battery conviction was overturned by Louisiana’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 14, which ruled that Bell, who was 16 at the time of the incident, should have been tried as a juvenile. The local district attorney prosecuting the case, Reed Walters, has vowed to appeal that ruling, and to press ahead with his cases against the other five youths, who are free on bond.

But Bell remains in jail, and under the jurisdiction of juvenile court, because he is now being prosecuted as a juvenile on a count of conspiracy in connection with the beating. Mauffray’s ruling Friday means he declined to set any conditions for Bell’s release.

That will show us uppity outsiders how they do justice in Louisiana, yessir indeed.

Categories
Diversity Technology

Being Nice

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

O’Reilly has been running a series this month titled, Women in Technology. I contributed one of the earlier essays, titled So, What?.

I had ambivalent feelings about participating, not the least of which I wasn’t sure that grouping essays by a bunch of women together for publication during the same month was necessarily a ‘good thing’ for women. It becomes a little too much, “Powderpuff O’Reilly”, a little too easy to tune out. By lack of response from most of the regular O’Reilly writers, and readers, too, this concern has been born out, but it’s been interesting to see who has participated, and what they’ve written.

I don’t agree with all that’s written, and I have more than a suspicion that most of the other participants don’t agree with me, which is good because it just confirms my own decision not to write on this topic again–at least not in this environment or these pages. Especially when I read a post about one of the essays I disagreed with most strongly.

Flock of gulls

Carmelyne wrote:

Why does everyone argue negatively? The people who made comments argued negatively with the author. I can understand then why Amy didn’t like Articles about Women in Tech…Who needs that negativity? As Naruto would put it: “I like my positive chakra”. I don’t dwell any more on the negative side of being one of the few females in a male dominated environment/career.

This is not to pick on Carmelyne, who has a nicely designed site with a fun sense of color and pattern, in addition to a valid viewpoint: why dwell on the negative? Wanting to focus on the positive is understandable. What surprised me, though, is how much Carmelyne’s writing sounded like something else I had read, this time a comment by Tantek Celik in a post by Robert Scoble.

…thanks to all the social web technologies at our disposal, perhaps for the first time in history, people that are capable, humble, and nice can find each other in such numbers as to prioritize and focus their energies on each other rather than the emotional vampires that would otherwise sap them and drag them and their projects, companies etc. down with them.

Dave Rogers also made a small note on this general movement to niceness, but then moves on to discussions of Heroes (opinions of which, I agree with) and music because, really, what more is there to say?

Birds flying

Which leads me back to not writing on “women in technology”. I always felt I had to write on this topic: to point out the conferences where women were missing, the all male publications, the exclusively male panels–not to mention the lack of opportunities for women, as well as acknowledgment of what we’ve accomplished.

It’s not with disappointment but relief that I realized that such writings in this environment don’t work, haven’t worked, and are unlikely to work in the future. There are a hundred other things I’d rather write on, and now I no longer feel like I’m betraying womankind, and my own sense of responsibility, by doing so.

This series has been remarkably freeing for me.

Birds not

Categories
Diversity Technology

So What?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine. Part of the O’Reilly Women in Tech series.

A few weeks back, the book Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think hit the streets. What a terrific concept: get several prominent programmers to write about their own unique perspective on programming and donate the money to a good cause (Amnesty International). It was, and still is, a good idea and book. What problem could I possibly have with it?

A quick look at the Table of Contents gives you a hint: of the 38 programmers who contributed to the book, only one was a woman. Just one woman. Even by today’s standards with few women staying in the field—and even fewer entering—the ratio of men to women in this book, frankly, sucks.

A discussion arose about the lack of women authors in this book, which included the fact that some of the women who were invited to contribute declined. There were the usual statements, the usual questions asked: “Give us lists of relevant women,” “Who should we have invited?” Yada, yada, yada, business as usual.

However, there were several comments that I found disquieting because they reflected other discussions we’ve had in the last year about the issue of the declining numbers of women in technology. The wording used has differed, but the views basically reduced down to, “So what?”

There is only one woman who contributed to the book. So what?

There are no women presenting at the conference. So what?

No women are listed among these top designers/developers/experts. So what?

Before this last year—regardless of the situation and the participants, regardless of the reasons people give for the growing lack of diversity in the tech field, regardless of solutions offered—one thing all participants in these discussions seemed to agree on was that this lack of women was not a good thing. Lately, though, I’m seeing a disinterest in the whole issue; an increasingly vocal opinion that it just really doesn’t matter.

I never lack for opinion, but this one has me stumped. Here we are in 2007, in an era where the numbers of women in “non-traditional” professions have been increasing, sometimes even past the 50 percent mark. No longer do women have to stay at home or choose only “soft” professions. We now have more choices, and the only limits we seemingly face are those we bring with us. Women serve in the military and die in action, lead major corporations, argue cases in the Supreme Court, and are anything from rocket scientists to neurosurgeons.

Yet in the IT fields, our numbers are dwindling. Significantly. We all have ideas why this is occurring, but nothing concrete that we can point at and say, “There, that’s why!” It’s a true puzzle. What’s more puzzling, though, is how many in the technology field just don’t care. They don’t see that a field that is becoming increasingly only male is a problem.

Is it a problem? Probably not, if only men use the gadgets, only men use the software, only men are impacted by the applications, and so on. Yet, we know that women typically use software as much or more than men. Women use the Internet, as much or more than men. Women buy and use the gadgets. What’s happening is that all the population is using an increasing number of applications that are architected, designed, developed, quality tested, and documented by only half the population. Less than half, because the tech industry lacks diversity when it comes to race, too.

Maybe I’m just being a woman and all, but I look at this and I think to myself: are we really creating the best software? Are we really designing the best gadgets, the most useful web sites, the superior applications? How can we be, if more than half the population has no input in any aspect of the development and design process?

So, so what.

I’ve long felt that the IT field is one of the few where the participants are focused on the tools, rather than the tasks. I believe that integrating IT into the engineering field as a complete and separate discipline was a huge mistake—not the least of which is that engineering is the only other discipline where the numbers of women are dropping (big hint, there).

Our field would be better if it were integrated with the librarian sciences, psychology, business, English, art—associated with tasks and topics, rather than grouped around the tools and processes. This makes even more sense when you realize that many people who enter the field do so with no degrees or with degrees in completely unrelated disciplines. It’s not unusual to hear from both sexes that they drifted into development or design because of a growing interest that was unrelated to their initial course of study. Imagine how much stronger the IT field would be if we bring in all these diverse viewpoints right from the start.

My recommendation? Break up the computer science programs, split the participants into specialized fields within other disciplines, and stop spending all our time on talking about Ruby and how cool it is. See? There’s a solution, and all it requires is basically ripping apart the entire field and rearranging the chunks.

Whatever solutions we arrive at to increase the number of women in technology, none are going to work if there isn’t general consensus that the lack of diversity is a problem. That we all, at a minimum, agree that the computer field, as it is now, is broken. That we need to find solutions. More importantly that we all have to buy into the solutions, because whatever we come up with is going to impact on all of us, including those who say, “So what?”

Categories
Diversity Technology

Caltech: Glimmer and Glomming

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Susan Kitchens points out that the number of women in the freshmen class at Caltech has increased from 28.5 last year to 37 percent this year. That’s a significant rise, even though it doesn’t match other tech colleges (42 to 47 percent), or colleges in general (with 57 percent women).

Interesting how Caltech increased the enrollment of women:

Caltech officials said the school did not lower its admission standards, but did more actively and shrewdly recruit women this year.

For example, Caltech made its female applicants more aware that they could be physics majors but also study music and literature, said Rick Bischoff, director of undergraduate admissions.

“That’s not to say men are not interested in those issues,” but those seem to resonate more with women, Bischoff said.

In other words, Caltech made a specific decision to increase women’s participation, pursued such actively and was successful. In some circles hereabouts, the feelings seem to be that actively recruiting women as participants is equivalent to ‘lowering’ the overall quality of the participants.

Susan, and the article, both mention the concept of ‘glomming’, where groups of young men at Caltech will follow a young woman around, lie in wait for her, and sit staring at her.

Personally, everyone participating in this should be expelled from school. Such juvenile behavior belongs in Kindergarten, not college. Perhaps if these boys would be encouraged to take literature and music, they might act like well-rounded and healthy men.

The only issue I have with all of this is that I hope that bringing more women into Caltech isn’t seen as a way of making the educational experience better for the men–you know, more dates for the poor geeks. We do not exist to keep you guys from feeling lonely.

We don’t exist for you guys at all.

Categories
Diversity Technology

Where are the jobs? Where are the opportunities?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

As is typical for events such as these, mention is made in comments related to the “Beautiful code” book about providing a list of women–the typical “where are the women” these discussions always break down to. How many times do we have to do this? And in how many places? Are these genuine questions? Or just a convenient way to put the burden of the lack of diversity back on we women?

A better way of looking at this is, where are the jobs? Where are the opportunities? Where are the companies that genuinely want to hire more women in technology because they want to diversify their workplace? Where are the editors or conference givers who want to provide a richer experience by ensuring a balanced offering?

What we need is to start building a list of companies who are actively recruiting women techs. The same for conferences and books. Then we can publish these, with requirements, location, and other information, and let the women who are interested come to you–because you sure as hell are not coming to us any time we build yet another list.

If you think diversity is important, and you’re hiring, let me know and I’ll publish your job. I’ll put these into a separate category so that women can search on jobs, and close the job post when the position or positions are filled.

If you think diversity is important, and you’re looking for an author, writer, or conference presenter, let me know and I’ll publish a post about your book, magazine, or conference. Again, I’ll put this into a separate category so that women can also search on writing and presenting opportunities. If your conference speaker list closes, or you find the author of your dreams, I’ll close the post so you won’t be bothered, and the item no longer turns up on the active list.

Yes, I could create a wiki or an application and do the same thing, but that’s focusing on the technology; focusing on the technology has not worked once in the past. Enough with focusing on the technology, time to focus on finding a solution.

So, where are the jobs? Where are the opportunities for women?