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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

"Minority" is a code word for "Black/Hispanic". Asians don't count.

In software development, in the mainland US, my experience is that Oriental and Indian women are disproportionately over-represented, and black women are almost non-existant statistically (I've known of a grand total of 1 black female programmer in 25+ years, for example.) Some white women, but a disproportionate number of them are Russian or Eastern European immigrants rather than natural born citizens.

Minority should not be absolute. "Underrepresented minority" only makes sense in context.

Well, the point is that "minority" in this context (well, in any racially-related context in the US) is a PC euphemism for black/Hispanic.

The term "underrepresented minority" is misleading.

In any state where nonhispanic whites are a minority (e.g., CA), they are typically an underrepresented minority (only Asians tend to be truly overrepresented). I've never heard whites described as "minority" as a result of this.

That's because (for the time being), they have a plurality, even if they don't have a majority.

Non-hispanic Whites are not a minority in California [1]. And even if they were, I'd be very interested in seeing any statistics that show them as underrepresented in any context of significance (i.e. not prison).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Raci...

Nonhispanic whites are 44% of CA. That's a minority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority-majority_state

Nonhispanic whites make up only 32% of UC Berkeley. That's underrepresented.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/racial-breakdown-of...

OK, you are correct.

Though I still think the statement, "any state where nonhispanic whites are a minority (e.g., CA), they are typically an underrepresented minority" is very much hyperbole, which was the point I was trying to make.

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