You have a big question at the top of this blog and my question to you is; do you want the red pill or the blue pill. In the rabbit hole I have to come to find a variety of conditions affecting the job security of the black male. Especially in a technical, brainy field like Web 2.0 and User friendly Design. Do they question your know how? Yes! Do you feel alienated, alone and out of the box? Hell Yeah!

I know I do on a few projects off and on site with project managers on my back while I sift through speggetti code. There is a lingering sense of unsure perception when I am assigned to certain projects around certain people. It may be all in my head, but then again why did I find yor blog?

You have enough courage and concern to step forward and ask these sensitive questions and you brought out the need for me to add to this question being in some of the same positions myself. So, here is how I see it.

We are not seen as critical thinkers, highly intellegent, or as technolgically driven as other races.

We have a lot of famous people, weak minded and cognitive misers to thank for it. You find them playing roles as Homosexuals, accepting a history of an opposing people, never anaylzing their true history or building any major corporations that support young black males. It’s sad that 70% of the jail population is young black males in my city. Oh and Obama is chosen by an elite people and will show his loyalty for them, not us.

I just wanted to make a contribution to this discussion. I live in the Silicon Valley area of California, and I found the following statistics recently which actually surprised me:

African Americans are flourishing in the valley’s tech industry. The number of black households in Santa Clara County with incomes of more than $150,000 a year increased substantially from 1999 to 2006, to about 1,200 households — a 29 percent increase.

The real decline has been among middle-class households: black families earning $50,000 to $150,000. Their numbers have declined by about 1,700 households, or about 20 percent, since 2000. Meanwhile, the number of black households with incomes less than $25,000 is up.

I currently work for my own company Blue Monitor offering managed IT services, and remote technical support for mostly small to medium businesses. I have been involved with several black owned and venture funded technology start ups. Most of which eventually have to take in outside money to survive and grow the business, so whats starts as an all black company, most of the time doesnt end of. That being said, what we need is access to capital. Any thought?? Any elders in here ready to step up?

Toby “URBANTECH” Morning

1. Over half of the respondents were from non-US regions that effectively have no black populations, so it’s not surprising that the proportion of black respondents was so low. (If you look only at the U.S., the proportion of black respondents doubles. If you then add in the typical margin of error for a sample this size, you’ll find that black representation in the web design profession is only slightly less than our participation in the overall workforce. )

2. The results simply tabulated the responses. The authors made no attempt to infer conclusions about the population from the sample, which would require more sophisticated methods (and a representative sample—which this was not.)

On a personal note, I occasionally participate in the development of web applications and I echo what others have said about being the only black person in the room. Or the building.

I just celebrated my 1-year anniversary in the afrosphere. I’ve seen the development of Afroshere Bloggers Association and The AfroSpear.

I hope that you and other Black web professionals will make plans to be presenters at the Blogging While Brown conference in Atlanta in July 2008 *or* the National BDPA Technology Conference in Atlanta in August 2008.

Anyhow…great post!

peace, Villager