Web Dev: Where's The Colored folks?

I wanted to re-read and share Molly Holtzschlag's short piece on the gender or race issue. Interesting she notes that women of color were 3 of the only 4 people of color she's met so far in her web dev career; though it's not always so.

I'm sure we'll be coming this way again, and thanks for the thought, Molly.

Gender roles? let’s talk race - published 7/10/04. Molly Holtzschlag:

"The “where are the women” adventure continues as Doug Bowman revisits the thread he originated last year. No matter what your persepective is on this issue, the mere fact that its got legs of its own proves that it’s something that people want to address.

So if we’re outing gender as a specific issue in our field, we have to also out a fact that bothers me personally far more than the gender issue, and that’s the issue of race integration in the web design and development field.

Stepping aside from the broader multinational aspects for a moment let’s ask this question: Where are the blacks? the Hispanics? The Native American Indians? I’m thinking over my entire career in IT and I can confidently say I’ve worked with or known exactly four black people in a 16 year career (three of them women, interestingly enough). Fewer Hispanics than that, even though where I live has a significant Hispanic population. One Native American, ditto on the significant population here in the desert.

I posted to Doug’s conversation a synopsis of my recent thinking on the gender issues, citing history, cultural expectations, and education as major factors. I believe the same concerns apply when we think about race integration, at least here in the U.S.

By the way, I don’t mean to leave out any specific race. If you feel your race is under-represented in our field, by all means say so."