Posted on 07/31/2013 11:39:36 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Silicon Valley, one of the country's most diverse melting pots, is inexplicably short on one ingredient: black people. Why?
Penny Speight spent much of her childhood trying to find a place to fit in.
Raised in her grandmother's home in Stockton, she spent little time outside of school, church and with her family. "I wouldn't say there were a ton of black people," she says of her hometown, "but I was raised by my black family and I was always around them." Her life at home had a soundtrack—grandma approved of Whitney Houston tracks "I Believe in You and Me" and "Joy to the World," while Snoop Dogg, Outkast, Fugees and BET videos were off-limits. The sounds were accompanied by the familiar smell of collard greens, fried chicken and candied yams. But life outside the home wasn't always so easy.
Speight is bi-racial, both black and white, and despite the fact that she identifies herself as African American, she found that as she was growing up, her classmates didn't see her as such, based on the fact that she had lighter skin. In high school, she moved to Clearlake, a town with few black people. College would be different, where Speight, 21, anticipated more diversity and a larger black population at San Jose State University. "I was overwhelmed with all the people and all the things you could do, because Clearlake is very small," Speight says. "When I came to San Jose State, I became more open-minded. It was like a whole new world."
What she didn't encounter, to her surprise, was a strong African American presence, on campus or in the city.
"I was hoping there were going to be more black people here, because in Clearlake there were like five black people," Speight says. "I was disappointed with the lack of community. We are so small, we should be more united, but we're not."
Santa Clara County is one of the most diverse areas in the country, and yet the black population has remained remarkably low over the last half-century and is even shrinking.
According to the most recent county census, the white population peaked in Santa Clara County in 1960 at 96.8 percent. According to the 2010 census, Caucasians accounted for 47 percent. (It wasn't until the '70s when Latino/Hispanic became its own category.) Over time, though, the Asian and Latino communities have substantially increased.
The Asian population was below 3 percent in the '50s and '60s, but grew to nearly 8 percent in the '80s, 17.5 percent in the '90s and 32 percent in 2010. The Latino community has experienced similar growth, going from 12.2 percent in 1950 to 20.5 percent in 1980 and 26.9 percent in 2010.
Meanwhile, the black population has remained surprisingly low, from less than 1 percent in the '50s and '60s to 1.7 percent in the '70s. African Americans accounted for 3.7 percent of the population in the '90s, but by 2010, that percentage dropped back down to 2.6, or about 46,428 people.
Steven Millner, an African American studies professor at San Jose State, has lived in Santa Clara County since 1968, and over the years he has seen the black population's ebbs and flows.
Many African Americans moved to San Jose in the 1940s and 1950s for job opportunities in the cannery business, Millner notes. Cannery jobs, located near the black communities, were a sufficient means of income at the time. But when the canneries closed, Silicon Valley's working class also left the area.
In the 1960s, Millner says, technology firms recruited black engineers, making San Jose one of the country's most educated African American clusters. But many of these engineers have since retired and migrated out of the area.
"In the last 10 years, it's been a flow away from Santa Clara County," Millner says, pointing out that the African American children of those who prospered in the '60s have dispersed throughout California and the nation.
"A lot of times the children of black professionals go to historically black colleges," Millner says, listing several prominent schools in the South.
Meanwhile, San Jose has grown and attracted a diverse collage of cultures with the growth of Silicon Valley's technology industry, according to Tomas Jimenez, a sociology professor at Stanford University.
"In this area there's a huge demand for people in the science, technology and math industries, and so we draw internationally for a high skilled workforce," Jimenez said.
In 1968, San Jose State students and Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos made civil rights history, raising their black-gloved fists as a salute to black power during the medal ceremony at the 1968 games in Mexico City.
While a statue of the two men stands on campus to commemorate the iconic moment, there is little connection to the students of today, says Reverend Jethroe Moore, president of the NAACP chapter in San Jose.
"San Jose State was the birthplace of a great civil rights movement, but San Jose does not teach that, advertise that or promote the fact that this was started by blacks," he says. "They tend to hide it, and black people tend to be one thing that this county hides."
Moore adds that the minimum wage ordinance in San Jose began as a campaign started by an African American student at San Jose State, a fact that is often overlooked.
In the '60s and '70s, employment opportunities in the manufacturing industry attracted black workers, but "there were choices and decisions made that hindered the growth of the black community," Moore says. He says that part of Northern California's institutional racism has been keeping those who live in other cities from getting to San Jose. "We are one of the biggest cities in the nation but there isn't a black community," Moore says. "BART was never extended to San Jose. Why?"
Answering his own question, Moore claims that BART was originally designed in such a way as to lessen opportunities for people of color or low income. He notes that at the time there was economic prosperity in Silicon Valley and a large tax base to pay for the extension of BART, but the rail line wasn't expanded. With many African Americans living in the East Bay, transportation impediments made it harder to commute.
Rick Callender, vice president of the California and Hawaii NAACP, adds that institutional racism can be as subtle as established cultures hiring those with similar backgrounds.
"If jobs weren't there and your community isn't there, then you go where jobs and your community are," Callender says.
Judge LaDoris Cordell, who now serves as San Jose's independent police auditor, has lived in Santa Clara County since 1971, when she started attending Stanford University. She has seen housing prices skyrocket since that time, which especially affects lower-income families, such as many African Americans and Latinos. "I see a great divide getting bigger and bigger between the haves and have-nots," Cordell says. "I'm not happy about what I'm seeing.... My daughters don't live here because they can't afford it. They would like to come back, but they can't.
"How do you break the cycle? I don't know."
Although the African American community continues to shrink, those emigrating from Africa to Silicon Valley seem to have increased. "Those who are African American tend to be African, and their emergence in this area has been one of the more fascinating developments," Millner says. "They have refugee status, which is recognition that they come from a war-torn background as opposed to waiting 10 to 12 years for an immigrant visa." But as more people from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Nigeria come here, a shift is taking place in the black community.
Although first- and second-generation African families may appear to be the same as those whose ancestors were brought over on slave ships, their experiences tend to differ, Millner says. "There is a divide between the black community and Africans," he says. "If there is going to be black growth, it's going to come from those groups."
As for Speight, she has not given up on San Jose's potential to be an attractive place for young African Americans.
"Overall my experience has been good," she says. "I've met a ton of great people, but I really envision us being closer together and uniting for a common goal: equality. I see us doing great things here, but we have to come together."
Lack of CPU??
Actually, I'd ask the opposite question: what percentage of electrical or software engineers are black?
You can't live in San Jose unless you have an upper-middle class income --- the housing costs are too high. And, the only people that are going to pay those costs are the people that want to live close to work. Since the upper-middle income jobs in San Jose/Silicon Valley are largely technological, that's who you should expect to live there.
If you accept my premise, the question should be: why are blacks under-represented in the technology professions?
It's BART's fault?
BART employees in the 1970s.
BART was built in ther 1960s and 1970s to get people from outlying cities into San Francisco. Richmond was one of the first lines.
Silicon Valley didn't emerge as an economic center until the early 1980s.
-PJ
I am well and truly bloody tired of people looking with a racially biased eye at things, whether it be the number of all-black institutes, more or less blacks in a particular area, or the specific percentages in any particular industry. During all My years there, we never paid attention to how many of any particular race was anywhere at any given time, whether it was all through our school years or later on in our careers. We hung out and worked with all races and nationalities without thinking about it, unless you were a blatant racist like this author so obviously represents themselves. Whether it be La Raza, Black Power, Mexican Mafia, or the CBC, only the true racists give a great bloody bedammned cow-fart about such things. Speaking of which, just where is the Congressional WHITE Caucus, exactly? Or the Congressional ASIAN Caucus? Perhaps the Congressional Slavic Congress, anyone?
When are we going to finally see an end to allowing racists blowholes to spout their skewed perspectives on public forums without let? Oh and in case it is not clear yet; to everyone else, the classical definition of 'Racist' sums up to mean: distinguishing or identifying by Race.
Unless you are Black. Then it just means 'You hates n***ahs (black persons)'.
Of course, I fully expect to be branded a (gasp!) 'Racist' for being so politically incorrect. Go right ahead. Being of mixed heritage, I can always use a good laugh.
I remember Jesse Jackson set up shop in San Jose for his road show. He got some air time and moaned in a portentous manner that he’d like to know WHY the only real minority presence in San Jose was represented in the janoitorial industry. Those people who come from all of the world, some of them sleeping under their desks at work while extreme coding, were...uhmmm....not impressed. His race baiting died with a whimper. There were PLENTY of minorities working in Silicon Valley, just not the ones he preferred. Everyone there was working so hard and didn’t have time to deal with his tender feelings. It was odd, like someone let the air out of his show. He packed up and left after not being able to explain to those who made their way across the world why his preferred race should have their jobs if they hadn’t applied for them.
Even Dionne Warwick didn't know how to get there.
Thank you for that post. You sum up what I have experienced in My career in Silicon Valley exactly.
That was my point also.
"Overall my experience has been good," she says. "I've met a ton of great people, but I really envision us being closer together and uniting for a common goal: equality. I see us doing great things here, but we have to come together."
What a racist bitch. She's surrounded by smart interesting prosperous people and she rejects them becuase they are not black.
Why doesn't she trying looking at people for the content of their chracter rather then for the color of their skin for a change!
You make an excellent point. One of My favourite teachers in High School was Mr. Davis. If I recall correctly, he was the son of a cannery worker (Del Monte) and got himself accepted into college to finally acquire a teaching degree.
I had never seen a black man swell up and turn purple with rage until one of My fellow students had the nerve to tell him that he could not understand the course because it was not 'African' enough and he (the student) being black could not possibly be expected to understand it.
Over the years, the memory of his raging chastisement of the poor befuddled utterer of that statement has always made Me laugh in rememberance.
race is irrelevant. no f*cks given about it.
either you can do the work.. or you can’t.
and it’s painfully obvious in an interview if you’re clueless
Technology jobs require intelligence, a diligent work ethic, personal responsibility and the ability to work with little direct supervision.
The government will require the creation of do nothing jobs in the technology sector for blacks just as in most other companies and government agencies.
Oh yes, They paid Blacks to move out and sold real estate to developer. Now we have IKEA, and other big stores plus new million dollars single family homes.
On average, as a group, the IQ’s of Asians .... well you know the rest.
Very Very Very few black native born in the USA software developers in general. Off the top of my head I can remember one and I know hundreds of developers. I see many from other countries, just not from the USA.
Did they actually write code day in and day out or were they in other areas?
But they fund Democrats who act to impose it on the rest of us.
BART was designed to lessen burglary opportunities in places like Marin County, Danville/Blackhawk, Los Gatos, and Hillsborough/Atherton, yes - because residents in those areas knew exactly who the system would be bringing into their communities for a late night dessert and wanted nothing to do with it.
Let me take a stab at this “problem.” Why are there relatively few African-Americans in the Silicon Valley? Well, it’s the center of the world’s IT industry, for starters. And the IT industry needs people who are well-educated and technically proficient.
Now, visit the engineering and computer science departments of your local colleges and universities. You’ll find blacks are under-represented as students and faculty, for several reasons. First, many black students are products of failing government schools, which means they are unprepared for the rigors of computer science, engineering, math or any other discipline that would prepare them for any number of jobs in IT. Instead, many black university students are steered towards “safe” majors like African-American studies, criminology and communications. Like many of their white counterparts, they “graduate” to a dead-end job, because their academic skills and experience aren’t a good match for Apple, HP, Google, or any other tech firm.
BTW, it would be fascinating to know the percentage of Google’s Bay Area workforce that is black, in comparison with the overall percentage of African-Americans in the local population. I’m guessing that blacks are under-represented, but since Google is a “progressive” company and a media darling, no one mentions that their workforce is dominated by whites and Asians. But then again, Google didn’t reach its place in the tech industry by hiring unqualified workers.
Re post 14 (graph): It doesn’t matter whether it’s genetic or cultural. That just is the way it is, in my experience.
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