Hackernews And The ‘dirty’ Black Founder Question | Hacker News Reader

Hackernews And The ‘dirty’ Black Founder Question

oonwoye.com

20 pointsOoTheNigerian14 comments

Some people like to base their identity on the intrinsic elements of their genetics or demographics. Other people prefer to base their identities on their actions, interests and achievements.

It's merely my hunch that most HN users are in the latter group and are perhaps turned off by the idea of identifying people primarily by demographic or genetic factors. This does not invalidate the discussion but is my hunch as to why many people may have flagged it nonetheless.

Someone in that thread argued that it's naïve "if you don't believe that people naturally discriminate for people who look like them." People might, but I'd hope that the smart, usually rational and mostly intellectual crowd that HN attracts isn't the average joe on the street. Female, male, fat, thin, black, white, gay, straight and in-between.. I want to work and socialize with the best people and while I am not blind to the genetic hand you were dealt, it doesn't figure into my heuristics.

Fair point.

But we cannot just wish away real life issues.

If you're referring to discrimination against certain groups, I totally agree. If there are people who happen to be gay, black, white, female, or whatever, and they're being discouraged from doing something or actively discriminated against, that's wrong and we should stigmatize people who engage in it.

The stories on HN about female engineers and the like do tend to be more about specific instances of discrimination and less general discussion about demographic ratios as the original post was, though.

Sorry, but if this were true, then wouldn't the post about the lack of female founders also be similarly flagged?

It makes sense that the post on women founders wouldn't be similarly flagged if the difference is related to comfort level.

Comfort comes from trust and exposure, among other things, and I'd say that most white men have more relationships with women than with people of color.

The legacy and history of the feminist struggle and the civil rights struggle, although related, are vastly different. I would be careful equating the two under any circumstances.

I think many of them are. The topic comes up every couple of weeks in various forms. The ones that seem to do well, however, are more specific and link to well written external posts rather than "Hey, how come there are only X women in Y Combinator?" chatter.

Racial disparity doesn't just result from racism or "like preferring like". There are many institutional and structural issues that are partially causal and a frank discussion could help uncover them as they relate to the startup world. Sadly, frank discussion of race is very difficult in this country.

Btw, I do agree that the valley is very meritocratic so I don't think racism is a big factor.

The author writes:

  From my understanding of how HN operates, there are
  two possibilities to explain this anomaly

  * It was moderated by the admins
    (Which I do not believe was the case)
  * It was flagged seriously
    (which I believe was the case)

There is another force at play. Items which are text, and not links to external sites, are penalised. I don't know how severely, or whether this is enough to explain all of the ranking differential you perceive, but it is very definite.

Just saying there may be things that were missed.

its also my understanding that submissions that are controversial (a lower upvote to comment ratio) weighted lower.

See: http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574

"The mutual suspicion has to stop. People like PG Fred Wilson, Scobelizer, Mike Arrington and other powerhouses in the startup world should feel as comfortable talking about it as they do, talking about the absence of women in technology."

----

I think they avoid that topic as much as they can as well, everyone has a side to blame and it just gets nasty (I've been on the end / in the middle of this a few times)

I don't quite get your point here,

"Something happened on Hackernews that made me conclude on what the real issue is as regards to the absence of black founders."

Okay.. but your point is I'm not sure

Black people don't get covered enough on techcrunch / HN enough?

I don't know about you but I just a startup on its merits not on if the founder is male/female black/white british/american, You seem to be actively looking for this information with each post on TC (looking at your http://oonwoye.com/2010/04/05/black-founders/) post

"High profile and connected black founders should endeavour to speak about this issue. My post last year only got traction after a Retweet from Tristan Walker."

This could / is also be said about women and any minority, I run a conference in the UK and the percentage of women that actually apply is minimal let alone women that fit our speaking criteria.

"The truth is that a vast majority of my tech friends in Europe are white (obviously) and they are some of the nicest people I have met (The co founder of my last startup Joel is actually British). They are extremely helpful and I have NEVER noticed any form of discrimination. i assume it is the case in the US too. Which is the reason I am a bit confused as to why discussing this issue is a problem."

I'll admit I have a problem discussing this because its very easy to say the wrong thing and things get taken the wrong say, I've had the same discussion with women in technology and things were twisted and any points I came up with were rebutted with "your an average white male so you don't know" and that argument gets old pretty quickly when your trying to have a discussion..

Trying to start a controversy where there isn't one. Money $$$$ talks and it sees no color. The IT people tend to be rational. They are swayed by a good, well explained idea that has potential - rather than anything else like a race or gender. So do not expect to be discriminated in the IT world, but at the same time do not expect that the color of your skin, or gender, or anything else gets you an advantage. Please, stop blowing smoke. I personally do not care how many founders are black, white, green, German, Polish, Russian, or Jewish. This does not concern me. I judge your idea and it's usefulness to my situation and not anything else.

Well I don't know of how many previous black founders were in YC, however, I know for sure there is at least 1 in the current batch.

I've attended one of the YC dinners only last week, and I saw him there, though i did not have the opportunity to talk to him.

If you read to the bottom of the article you'll find a link to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349723 which tells you who that founder is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com