Jim Crow in Silicon Valley is Exposed

[Newsjock]

Source: Black Voice News

By Harry Alford, co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce

This is the age of high technology. IT companies are leading the way in job growth and high paying jobs as the word does business at the speed of thought.

No place else in the world concentrates in this industry better than the Silicon Valley of California (Palo Alto – San Jose area). So with California having a minority population of 52 percent logic would dictate that this is a place of much diversity and opportunity for Blacks and Hispanics. Sadly, that, according to investigative reporting from the San Jose Mercury News is not the case. This industry in this location is probably the most segregated and discriminatory place in the United States. The hiring and training by companies like Google, Apple, Yahoo, Oracle, Applied Materials, Hewlett Packard, Cisco and others are acting more like the Ku Klux Klan than a good corporate citizen.

... Collectively, only 2.1 percent of the workforce is Black while only 5.2 percent of the workforce is Hispanic. The News states “Of the 5,907 top managers and officials in the Silicon Valley offices of the 10 large companies in 2005, 296 were Black or Hispanic, a 20 percent decline from 2000, according to U.S. Department of Labor work-force data obtained by the Mercury News through the Freedom of Information request. In 2008, the share of computer workers living in Silicon Valley who are Black or Latino was 1.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively – shares that had declined since 2000.

... What these racial culprits are doing should be punished by the U.S. Justice Department. It is blatant discrimination and must be stopped. Now that it is exposed we must put serious pressure on this activity. What they think they can do is import a massive amount of Asians via H-1B visas and count them in their collective minority numbers. First of all, only US citizens can be counted in these numbers and all groups, especially Black and Hispanic, must not be under represented. It violates law and should prohibit these corporations from doing business with the federal government or any other entity that receives federal funding or benefits from a federal program or regulation.

Read more: http://www.blackvoicenews.com/commentary/more-commentary/44104-jim-crow-in-silicon-valley-is-exposed.html

[EFerrari]

1. I think I was 14 before I even saw a black kid in my Sunnyvale school.

It was the quietest, most amiable segregation you can imagine. In fact, it's a mystery how my mother got anyone to sell her our house with her Spanish accent. Maybe it was a slow day at the track sales office.

[mrdmk]

2. The discrimination issue is beyond pale, there may also be a economic discrimination problem

along with the aforementioned. With these type of policies, I wonder who they expect to buy their products?