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During a recent session with my Center’s Paul Robeson and Anna Julia Scholars (a program for interdisciplinary academic engagement and social justice work at the University of Pennsylvania), we were discussing final exams preparation, and I floated what I thought was a fairly simple question. As we unpacked it — via healthy debate — I quickly realized that it was much more complicated than I had imagined.The question was, “Would you consider turning your phones off while you were in serious exam prep mode?”How did reading that question make you feel? Did you experience immediate shock, wondering how I could utter such words? Did you have a mini panic attack, imagining what you might be missing? Did you begin reaching for excuses (“What if my momma calls me?”) as a rationale to keep your phone on? Did you even consider what it might be like to turn it off, or did you brand this question as sheer foolishness and move on with your life? Do you even know how to turn your phone off (without having the battery die because you forgot your charger)?So here’s the thing with me. I’m from the generation that came into adulthood without having a phone in our pockets. I remember beepers (and I still don’t know why we had them, but we figured out how to make them send the most basic text messages, so you’re welcome for that) then not-so-fancy flip phones with monochrome screens and poor reception. Pulling the antenna up made you feel better about the possibility of a better signal, but didn’t really help. I also remember having a bunch of separate things — an iPod, a digital camera, a calculator, a video camera, a notebook, a calendar/planner, a voice recorder, a flashlight, a flip phone, a bus schedule, a GPS, a debit card, a coupon book, a USB drive and a portable TV (I didn’t actually have a portable TV, but I wanted one). Now our phones are all of these things and more. Which is the gift and the curse.I also remember landlines. They are still a thing, but they used to be the only thing. Many years ago I was reading a book on how to be a more productive human being, and there was a point that stuck with me. The author said that phones are convenience items. Referring to the landline era, it was important to remember that when the phone would ring, you had the option to answer it or not. People used to break their necks hopping out of bathtubs, running down steps, jumping over pets and small children to pick up the house phone before the last ring. Except during dinner time. I remember that vividly. If someone called during family dinner, my parents would be like, “Who would be calling now while we’re eating?” and just wait for the call to go to voicemail (I also remember when we first got answering machines and voicemail. #GameChangers). Needless to say that after reading that book, I began strategically answering the phone only when I felt like it wasn’t interrupting my flow, and I haven’t changed since. The rise of telemarketers and bill connectors most certainly fueled my selectivity. And when caller ID entered the equation, it basically meant that if I didn’t recognize your number, we probably weren’t going to be talking.  You all get that. You have absolutely no issues ignoring calls from friends, strangers, family and foes. I’ve seen you do it, and I respect your game. But all that other stuff you do with your phones. That’s a problem.When I meet with students, I’m constantly amazed by how many things are going on in their phones. Something happens and then you get a notification that it happened. So that’s two things. You might think that you get to decide what you will pay attention to, but even quickly acknowledging an alert breaks you away partially from whatever you were doing before the alert and forces you to determine whether this new thing that just occurred somewhere in the world and got routed to your phone is worth further investigation now — or can it be handled later, if at all. Thirty seconds after that there’s another alert so you have to repeat the process. How many times a day do you go through this? Hundreds? Thousands? For me, it’s only a few dozen, and mostly just because of direct text messages. I’m not (and never will be) in any group texting apps and I’ve turned most of my notifications off, because I absolutely could not function if every other second something was buzzing to get my attention.The other elephant in the room that we must address is when you want to use your phones to proactively procrastinate. You pull up Twitter to see what’s happening, then two hours later, you’re still there, and the same things are happening. But you know what isn’t happening? Studying. (And you know what could happen next? You decide to start studying but then you quickly get tired because your brain has been processing two hours of tweets, so you take a nap).With December upon us the bitter reality is that each day counts even more than the previous one. Final exams and papers are going to proceed as scheduled whether you’ve used your time wisely or not. It’s up to you to understand how you’re managing your focus and making the most of each moment. Maybe you’ve never truly thought about how much your phone may be getting in your way, and how costly each little alert or temptation to see how many likes you have is pulling you away from really zeroing in on the things you need to get done. Maybe you’ve never given yourself the opportunity to be single-minded and phone-free. I encourage you to give it a try, even if just for a couple of hours a day. No question, your phone puts a whole lot of power in your hands. Putting your phone down does,...

We previously reported on Silicon Valley's diversity problem and how it's actually getting worse with time, not better. And those who somehow manage to squeeze their way into the majority white bubble have to struggle with an array of microaggressions. The New Yorker recently published a piece entitled, "The Tech Industry's Gender-Discrimination Problem," which detailed the many ways in which women have been discriminated against or otherwise degraded.One particular reported incident stood out. Erica Joy Baker, now a senior engineer at Patreon, worked as an engineer providing tech support to top executives at Google from 2006 to 2015. She alleged that most opportunities went to white guys within the company. “Throughout my career at Google, there was the standard thing: ‘I know you want to work on this thing, but we’re going to let a white dude work on it. Sorry, we’re going to let a white dude go ahead of you,’” said Baker. “That was really frustrating.”But, it was the story of how Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt mistook her for an administrative assistant that really took the cake!Baker told the story of how her colleague Frank was out of office and Schmidt was looking for him. “He’s not here, is there something I can help you with?" she recalled asking Schmidt. Schmidt then described a technical issue to her that she was actually more qualified to help him out with.“I said, ‘Oh, I can take care of that for you.’ And he said, ‘Oh, you’re not his assistant?’ ” Baker said. Baker even said that Schmidt then suggested that she put a sign on her door noting her role, even though other offices didn't incorporate this practice.She also claimed that she was routinely mistaken for the only other black woman with a technical job on her team as well. “We used to jokingly call ourselves the Twins, even though we don’t look anything alike,” she quipped. Google did not provide comment on the alleged...

An Oakland-based organization dedicated to increasing the representation of young black men in tech just received a $1 million grant from the philanthropic arm of Google – Google.org. Presented at a “Tech Slam” event held in Silicon Valley, the generous donation goes to support The Hidden Genius Project in their continued mission to connect young black males with the skills, mentors, and experiences they need to become high-performing entrepreneurs and technologists in the 21st century, global economy.Founded by five black male tech entrepreneurs, The Hidden Genius Project was inspired by their dearth of black men employed within the local technology sector. Although Oakland is less than an hour’s drive from the heart of San Francisco, it's more than half black and Hispanic ethnic makeup does not translate to diversity in Silicon Valley. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, 14-year-old, Desmond Pare said, "None of my friends had ever really talked about focusing on the tech field, but when I go to the Hidden Genius Project everyday everyone [teachers and students] looks like me.”Justin Steele, a principal at Google.org, wrote a blog post attesting to the impact of The Hidden Genius Project: "I first met The Hidden Genius Project when they were finalists and then winners in our 2015 Google Impact Challenge. Since our initial $500,000 grant, they’ve reached more than 1,700 Bay Area students through their 15-month intensive CS and entrepreneurship boot camp program, as well as events and workshops exposing young black men to mentors, basic computer programming, and various careers in tech, like sports analytics and video game...

With the 2013 launch of the Googler-in-Residence (GIR) Program, Google piloted a partnership with Howard University with a long-term goal of promoting diversity and preparing future leaders in the STEM industry. Since then, the GIR has expanded to six additional colleges including Hampton University, Fisk University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, Xavier University and Dillard University, embedding Google engineers as faculty at the HBCUs.On Thursday, Howard University released a statement that they will be partnering with Google to up the ante on this black tech excellence with the launch of Howard West.The three-month summer agenda will provide opportunities for rising juniors and seniors in the University’s Computer Science program to complete a residency at Google’s Mountain View campus in Silicon Valley. The residency includes a dedicated workspace and a generous stipend to cover housing and other expenses.“Howard West will produce hundreds of industry-ready black computer science graduates, future leaders with the power to transform the global technology space into a stronger, more accurate reflection of the world around us,” said Howard University President Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick. “We envisioned this program with bold outcomes in mind – to advance a strategy that leverages Howard’s high-quality faculty and Google’s expertise, while also rallying the tech industry and other thought leaders around the importance of diversity in business and the communities they serve.”Google credits the prestige HBCU for the vision and groundwork to make the program happen. "During my time at Howard, I worked side-by-side with future lawyers, doctors, writers, entertainers, architects and business leaders. The spirit of total possibility put me on my path to Harvard Business School and ultimately Google,” said Bonita Stewart, Google’s Vice President of Global Partnerships. “Howard West will continue Howard’s tradition of providing unprecedented access to opportunity, only now with a presence in the heart of Silicon Valley."Howard West will serve the entire tech ecosystem. Completion of the program, set to matriculate 740 students within the next five years, will count towards 12 graduation credits through an immersion curriculum. The program is a huge step in bridging the cultural divide between declaring a major in Computer Science and landing a job in tech. Kudos to Google and Howard University for creating a platform for our future dreamers and creators in tech.Loving Blavity’s content? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss a...

Over a year ago, YouTube faced tremendous backlash for its lack of diversity and failure to promote the black creator community on the platform. In response, the #YouTubeBlack initiative was devised at a YouTube summit last year in an effort to celebrate and mentor black YouTubers.This week, YouTube partnered with Howard University to launch #YouTubeBlack FanFest during their 150th Homecoming celebration. The inaugural YouTube FanFest debuted in Singapore four years ago, #YouTubeBlack FanFest was the first event of its kind stateside.The event gave fans an opportunity to get up close and personal with their favorite YouTube stars at the meet and greet before the show.TPindell (2M+ subscribers), a seasoned YouTuber known for his sketch comedy videos hosted the event. The show featured an array of performances by YouTube stars who have over 15 million subscribers combined. The line up included a comedic act from Dormtainment (1.1M+ subscribers), a heart-wrenching performance by Tré Melvin (3.2M+ subscribers), soul-stirring vocals of RandomStructureTV (1.5M+ subscribers) and Summerella (579K+ subscribers), poetry by Spoken Reasons (1.9M+ subscribers) and a variety of others. Breakout R&B star Daniel Caesar closed the show with his rhythmic performance and live band.YouTube streamed the event live for those that could not attend in person. The excitement of Howard’s Homecoming energized the performers and the crowd alike. The unconfirmed threats of an active shooter earlier in the day led to increased security, but the event went off without a hitch. All in all, it was an excellent showcase for black content creators and a great kickoff to Howard University's...

A male senior software engineer at Google decided on Friday to share his opinion about Google's diversity initiatives by circulating a 10-page document to his colleagues condemning the initiatives and including policies and suggestions that encourage "ideological diversity" instead. The document is going internally viral after being shared on an internal network and Google+.In the manifesto titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," the author tries to argue that the gender gap in technology is not a product of discrimination, but inherent biological differences between men and women in general. "We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” he writes. The memo comes while Google is currently battling a wage discrimination investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which found that Google often pays women less than men who serve in similar roles.According to Googlers on Twitter, the author of the controversial document also said that Google shouldn't offer programs for underrepresented racial or gender minorities.“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes," the document reads. “When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem. Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber.”Motherboard reported on the story first, speaking anonymously with a number of Google's employees who received the document. Many employees also took to Twitter to condemn the manifesto and its anti-diversity concept.Today's rage-read (at work): doc essentially saying that women are unsuited for tech because they like people, whilst men like things.— Aimee (@aimeeble) August 4, 2017Internal article circulated at work today describing how gender rep gap in SW is due to biological differences btwn men/women.— Sarah Adams (@sadams007) August 4, 2017That garbage fire of a document is trash and you are wonderful coworkers who I am extremely lucky to work with.— Andrew Bonventre (@andybons) August 4, 2017Write a doc about how inferior women are, then try to be a hero by offering help to save the *vulnerable* 🤢🤢🤢 Still shaking in anger.— Jaana B. Dogan 👀 (@rakyll) August 4, 2017If HR does nothing in this case, I will consider leaving this company for real for the first time in five years.— Jaana B. Dogan 👀 (@rakyll) August 4, 2017The author is now in contact with me explaining why he received *supportive* response + more are going to leave if we don't fix the culture.— Jaana B. Dogan 👀 (@rakyll) August 4, 2017Google's new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance Danielle Brown issued a memo to Google employees about the document. With just a couple of weeks at Google under her belt, Brown immediately dived in to address the issue. Brown's statement was also obtained by Motherboard."Many of you have read an internal document shared by someone in our engineering organization, expressing views on the natural abilities and characteristics of different genders, as well as whether one can speak freely of these things at Google. And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. I’m not going to link to it here as it’s not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages."Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul. As Ari Balogh said in his internal G+ post, “Building an open, inclusive environment is core to who we are, and the right thing to do. ‘Nuff said."See the full document on Gizmodo and read Brown's full...

The stories have been the same for many years now: we’ve seen countless pieces trying to get to the bottom of why Silicon Valley is so white and so male, a growing alarm at the gentrification of San Francisco and sober looks at pay inequality based on gender in America’s most forward-looking industry.To show that they acknowledge and are working on the problem, tech companies have taken to releasing their diversity figures of late.Today, social media titan Facebook released its numbers for 2017. One guess as to whether there’s been a startling uptick in representation or not.In the press release announcing their newest diversity figures, Facebook explicitly said that it is trying to do better, noting, “We aren’t where we’d like to be.”The company also highlighted its hiring over the last year, touting wins for black and Latinx workers as well as women. The black and Latinx populations both increased by one percent this year, and 27 percent of new engineering hires were women. But how did those increases affect the company’s overall numbers?When it comes to gender, Facebook is 35 percent female; 19 percent of its technical team is made up of women. The company only breaks down race data for the United States, where three percent of its workforce is black. And where only one percent of its technical team is black.Let’s take a look at how Facebook stacks up to its peers.At Uber, just 15 percent of the technical team is women, and nine percent of the overall workforce is black.Google’s technical force is 20 percent female. Overall, Google is two percent black; its technical workforce is one percent black. 23 percent of Apple’s technical talent is female; the company as a whole is nine percent black, and its tech team is a respectable (for Silicon Valley) eight percent black.So, overall, Facebook isn’t Silicon Valley’s worst company when it comes to diversity, but it very clearly has a long way to go. How is it going to get there?We wondered the same thing, so we called up Maxine Williams, Facebook’s global director of diversity, to find out.Williams reiterated that Facebook has made great strides. “Since 2014 when we first started publishing numbers to now, we’ve been able to move blacks in non-tech from two to six percent … six percent of 20,000 [employees] is a much bigger volume than two percent of, at that time, nearly 5,000 people.”After the math lesson, Williams went on address the one percent black engineer figure. “That is our most stubborn area to move.”To increase that number, Williams said, “We are trying so many different things.”One thing Facebook is trying is porting diversity initiatives that seemed to contribute to the non-technical side’s growth to the technical side.Some of you bright young CS majors might have noticed that Facebook doesn’t recruit at your school. Williams said that the company is working on that. “We have increased the number of schools that we recruit at … we now recruit at about 300 schools around the world.” And if you attend an HBCU, Facebook also has some good news for you. “We have deepened our relationships with … historically black colleges.”Williams also fêted the success of an internship program specifically for underrepresented minorities called Facebook University. Students start the program after freshman year; those that do well are invited back after sophomore year, and so on. Williams said that so far, more than 500 students have gone through the program, but wouldn’t go on record saying how many of those 500 received full time offers. “We don’t say how many we give offers to.” At least a few have gotten offers, however. “We have people … who are full time now, who started in that program.”According to Williams, a key problem is that black youth are not aware of Facebook’s myriad opportunities.A 2016 Bloomberg piece profiled black engineers trying to get into Silicon Valley; a few decided to stop applying, either because they were discouraged or because they found the culture to be unattractive.With this in mind, we asked Williams if black engineers were self-selecting out of Facebook’s potential talent pool.“I don’t have any data that says people are choosing not to apply; I have data that says people [do] not [have tech] as much on their radar as it is in other populations.”The data Williams was referring to come from a Facebook-commissioned McKinsey study that found 77 percent of black youth’s parents/guardians/mentor figures did not know how to guide their wards into tech. Perhaps because of this, Facebook isn’t putting all of its diversity eggs into the talent development basket.Williams said that the company recognizes there are a lot of black engineers that work for other companies that could be future Facebook employees.To begin getting on good paper with them, the company is trying to do better with networking with black engineers. “We started something called Blacks in Tech in the Bay Area where we literally reached out to all the blacks in tech working in the Bay Area.”Beyond this initiative, there is also an engineering bootcamp for underrepresented minority engineers that is similar to Facebook University. These engineers are brought to “do real work,” and at the end of the program — if they do well — they are offered full time employment.Making the company more diverse is a task far harder than say, convincing people to make their names, appearances and biographical information available to anyone who cares to look. But the difficulty of the endeavor doesn’t daunt Williams or her colleagues. “We’ve seen the proof of the great things that come from having a more diverse population in tech.”In recruiting more black talent and fixing its pipeline problems, Williams said, “The last thing we believe is people can’t, what we believe is they can. We just need to get them from that ‘I can’t’ to ‘I...

It’s always great to see when organizations that give back to the youth are thusly rewarded for their efforts in a such way that they can continue to effectively pay it forward.Such is the case with Blue1647, which we previously covered for their #ChiBreakTheCycle event.Blue1647 is a Chicago non-profit tech hub based in the city's Pilsen neighborhood that focuses on tech and entrepreneurship training for underserved communities.Founded by Emile Cambry in 2013, Blue1647 has assisted in providing over 16,000 youth with resources in technology, STEM and entrepreneurship.Thanks to a $500,000 grant from Google's philanthropic subset Google.org, that number will expand in a significant way. ChicagoInno reports that the new grant will help Blue1647 boost its STEM programs, including its web development workshop-based Code Chicago, Latina Girls Code and Paige & Paxton, a STEM introductory course for children.Other programs include 21st Century Youth Project, a tech and entrepreneurship training program for teenagers and CiviBLUE1647, a civic tech and data initiative."We’re making it so we’re a town hall for social innovation but also a town hall for youth STEM programming," said Cambry. "That’s really exciting for us."Cambry said that Blue1647 has had a long relationship with Google, and that this grant is "our chance to focus on programs, impact, and just really do some things we’ve never been able to do before."Speaking of growth, Cambry confirmed that Blue1647 is also partnering up with Uptake, a predictive analytics startup which will help the hub boost its workforce development and data science training.Additionally, the nonprofit recently launched BlueFUND, a nationwide crowdfunding platform.Finally, Blue1947 is physically growing as well. The nonprofit will be moving to a new 250,000 square-foot space in order to make room for all of its new programs."We want to be the place where people get started," Cambry concluded.This is dope! Congrats to Blue1647 and we continue to wish much...

Attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson teamed up with Google to launch a website on that will teach the public about the horrific history of lynchings and extrajudicial killings of black people in America.This interactive site entitled "Lynching in America" contains a map detailing the number of lynchings recorded in each state. Viewers will also be able to virtually travel back in time via victim profiles and stories about why many were killed. Among the interactive visuals, there is an 80-page report that serves as the basis of the project. And there is a film called "Uprooted"  that documents the journey of a lynched man's family as they search for answers regarding his death. “This site features painful stories of America’s history of racial injustice,” site says. “In order to heal the deep wounds of our present, we must face the truth of our past. After slavery was formally abolished, lynching emerged as a vicious tool of racial control to reestablish white supremacy and suppress black civil rights."From 1877 to 1955, lynchings served as public displays of barbaric terrorism to keep black people in place. During that long period, more than 4,000 African-Americans were murdered across 20...

We've just observed Equal Pay Day. The fact that such a thing has to exist is frustrating, but not as frustrating as the numbers we’re about to share with you. You might think that things are getting better. But according to the American Association of University Women, things aren’t. The group recently analyzed wage parity progress. Their findings showed that if the wage gap continues to close at its current rate, men and women won’t be paid equally for equal work until 2152. That’s right: you and I won’t live to see it. And our children probably won’t either.Noting this statistic, and in order to shed light on the problem, Hired took Equal Pay Day as an opportunity to crunch its tech industry wage data. As with the Association of University Women, the findings were dire. Overall, Hired found that, in tech, women make less than men for the same work 63 percent of the time. How much less? On average, four percent less, but up to 50 percent less.Does race play a factor? As a matter of fact, it does. Black women are paid the least; white men, surprising no one, are paid the most. For every dollar a white male tech worker makes, a black woman in the same job makes 79 cents. At least, Hired thinks so — the authors of its study note that they had to develop a special model to reach that number, as there were too few black women employees to perform a direct comparison.Women in the LGBTQ community make about 10 percent less than their white male counterparts. No data were available for black women in the LGBTQ community, but extrapolating, one imagines the gap to be more of a canyon. Let’s put all those percents into dollars. Say Google hires a straight, white engineer at $120,000 per year. Following the 79 cents to a dollar numbers, if it hired a black woman alongside him, she would make $94,800 a year.You might say, “I wouldn’t mind making $94,000 a year.” Neither would most Americans, but fair’s fair, and remember, too, that’s an average.If we look at the most extreme cases that Hired found, where women make 50 percent of what their male colleagues do, our example woman would instead be making $60,000, while her white male co-worker, doing the same job, would take home $120,000.And, as saddening as all that is, it bears mentioning that the wage gap problem is faced only by women who can get in the door. Hired found that 53 percent of the time no women at all were interviewed for open tech positions. That 2152 target is making all the more sense now. Let us suggest a novel idea: companies, hiring managers, stop trying to save a buck, stop offering people as little as you can get away with, stop discriminating based on skin color and gender. Pay people as much as you can, and pay them what they are...