I realize that the realities of the limited resources available for charities and non-profits is what leads to the ethnic and gender based targeting, but this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is it a good cause? Yes. Teaching any disadvantaged group a useful skill is a great thing, but solving a problem of exclusion with further exclusion is, in principal, bad.<p>I grew up in a poor, mostly black, rural county in Virginia. The opportunities for learning to code were zero. There was no computer science class, while students attending public schools in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia got to have programming classes starting in middle school.<p>People WANTED to learn to code, but they couldn't. These were poor people, of all colors and genders.<p>Will this make Women's Studies graduates and professors happy? Yes. Will it make African-American Studies graduates and professors happy? Probably.<p>I could point out the bullshit in this idea in so many ways, but I'll stick with just one:<p>Among black americans, which group has a lower graduation rate? Males or females? Which group is more likely to be unemployed, males or females? Which group is more likely to be incarcerated? The list goes on.<p>I know it's not cool to help boys/males these days, but all the statistics point to a dramatic problem with young men of all races today. It's too bad that there isn't a powerful special interest group backed up by a bunch of humanities professors looking out for the impoverished non-black non-females of America.<p>Charities should be based on need and helping the greater good, not on playing favorites.
There's a simple test I use for these cases... it's called the "Least Restrictive Subset Test", or LRST for short. You apply it to see if targeting a specific group is worthwhile.<p>It works by asking two simple questions:<p>1) If I marketed to a less restrictive subset, would I capture a smaller percentage of my target audience (in proportion to the population)? For example, if I said, "GirlsCode" -- would I still get ~10% black females attending? I suspect you'd get the expected percentage of white females attending, so if white girls were my target audience, I needn't restrict the audience any further. But for black females I would.<p>2) If I market to this restricted subset will I likely increase the total number of my target audience in attendance. For example, if I said, "WhiteMenCode" do I expect more white men to attend than if I said "MenCode"? I suspect probably not (at least not people serious about coding, versus just trying to prove a point about race). But BlackGirlsCode probably will increase the total number of black females who are serious about learning to code.<p>I think BlackGirlsCode passes the LRST.
Wow, such a lot of negative comments. HN really sounds mean sometimes. Sure, it is a charity program targeting a specific group of people. But that's true of essentially all charities. The Boy Scouts only help boys, PyLadies only teaches women to program in Python, the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria doesn't help people with cancer. The organizers are adding to the social good and helping a deserving group of girls. Good for them.
What I love about this initiative is it solves several problems at once, and builds a foundation for related groups (women in general, and black people in general) to gravitate to this field. They'll naturally find people similar to them and make it easier to relate to their peers.
I've been following this program for a while and even got to meet Kimberly at O'Reilly Fluent earlier in the year.. her enthusiasm is infectious! As important as her work is to the girls, though, I particularly hope she inspires other <i>adults</i> to take on this mentoring role so that everywhere can have its equivalent.<p>Things like this are springing up all over. For example, here in the UK, Code Club has been founded by two women to create and support after-school programming clubs: <a href="http://codeclub.org.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://codeclub.org.uk/</a>
One line here stuck out for bad statistics:<p>"According to research gathered by BlackGirlsCode, African American women make up 4.8 percent of graduate enrollment in computer science programs, while only 0.03 percent of female Hispanic freshmen intended to major in computer science in 2006."<p>To start with, the line implies that these two statistic are related, but they are about different ethnicities, at different education levels comparing completely separate metrics!<p>Secondly, the 4.8 percent statistic seems to imply that this is under-representation, but being that African Americans make up ~12.6% of the population and women are very roughly half of that, 4.8 percent seems really close to demographic representation.
This is great, and good for them.<p>However as often happens, people are now complaining that they shouldn't have a programme just for black girls since it's racist/sexist. It's not. People/groups who need help and are disadvantaged, should be helped. If 2 babies are born, and one is very healthy and one is very sick, we should give the sick one more medical attention than the healthy one. We should not give everyone the same amount of help, we should try to ensure that everyone has the same chance. That means giving one group more help than another. 'Everyone having the same chance' is what happens when we get rid of racism/sexism (we're not there yet).
This is such an important initiative! Several teens that were in my Media course (focused on Minority Women in Technology) are attending the Atlanta Session.
Ok, cool. Everyone has their ideas, they all make sense (we're all reasonably rational people here) and, in an ideal world, I agree that we should not need or have these groups. Except... the under-representation is already there, so we have to deal with it. And I think BGC is a damn fine way to deal with part of it.<p>Is there anyone here who is NOT a white male and would care to comment?
"Our mission with BlackGirlsCode is to “change the ratio” of women of color in technology and that begins with introducing computer programming and STEM subjects to girls of all colors at an early age. "<p>It's not only for black girls.
I suspect it's for all but white though so they still exclude based on color. And of course age and gender.<p>I really wish people would stop reinforcing racial discrimination of all sorts. Even the age discrimination is a bit offensive. I understand it may be easier to get funding when you can present a narrow group.
There are 3 ways to respond to the critics of BlackGirlsCode:
1) The weakest response is to grow upset and say nothing
2) The average response will post a comment in defense of good sense
3) The best response is to take action. So hit this link up and give Black Girls Code a boost of support and morale <a href="http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.blackgirlscode.com/help-us-grow.html</a><p>Finally, when PoorPeopleCode, WhiteBoysCode or Latina Hackathon call upon the Hacker News community for support, for the sake of whatever you believe in, GIVE BACK so that others can do what you do. It is NEVER about exclusion. The _meme_ is about recognizing "I'm blessed with talent, skill and experience so I help to pay it forward".<p>I just took the highest level of action by sending my gift of support of $100.<p>Don't just sit there shaking your head; do something!
Why not NonCodersCode?<p>There are plenty of poor, uneducated white girls and boys who could benefit from programs like this.<p>Oh, what's that you say? We already have <i>enough</i> people with their skin color in the computer science field? Shame on me! You're right -- ignore the white trash.<p>The (attractive, affluent, <i>privileged</i>) whites who enjoy ignoring white trash are right -- poor, uneducated whites are unimportant. In fact, poor, uneducated whites (especially the toothless ones) are less important and less worthy of help than attractive, affluent, privileged people with more melanin.
I volunteered for BGC a few months ago and I am a white woman. The problem that this group is trying to solve can be summed up in the fact that there were plenty of black girls learning how to code, but not plenty of black women teaching them. I remember that we had two white women, one Asian woman, three white men, and two black women volunteering total. So I guess it's great that the internet community is so intent on over analyzing everything, but I'm pretty sure all of us would like to be able to teach any child how to code. However, Black Girls Code is clearly better at marketing themselves than all the other groups that I've never heard of.