While walking among the 2,700 technology companies and hundreds of thousands of participants at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show two weeks ago, it became evident to me that there were very few African-Americans in the crowd. The majority of blacks I met at the event did not actively work as creative engineers or computer scientists for any of the companies. Most worked as journalists or bloggers reporting on the conference or as marketing and sales professionals; and even in those positions, African Americans were few and far between.
I immediately asked myself, “Who is to blame for this apparent lack of black representation at one of the mainstay conferences meant to inform and prepare the world about the technologies that will shape our future?†Unfortunately, the answer seems obvious. At this point in history, we as a community can blame no one but ourselves. The majority of us have become so enamored with consuming technology that we aren’t making a serious effort to be involved in creating and producing it.
If this phenomenon of black invisibility had taken place 10 or 20 years ago, I would be quick to attribute it to racism. And believe me, I do not underestimate the role that subtle, institutional racism still plays in making African- Americans feel out of place and inferior within the halls of academia, in computer science and engineering, or even perhaps on the HR roles at Google and Facebook.
In my opinion, though, the problem is now more so rooted in our parenting. Black parents are raising a generation of financially and educationally underpowered wimps, who’ve become experts at mastering the inconsequential. That may sound harsh, but look at the facts.
How can it be that African American youth spend 50% more time with entertainment media than whites, but the achievement gap between whites and blacks is almost equal to three grade levels. The majority of black students can’t even get to the upper echelons in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers to prove or disprove that racism exists there because most are struggling to pass algebra, biology, and physics in high school.
With the exception of Hispanic and Asian households, African American households spend more money annually on consumer electronics than whites, according to data gathered by the Consumer Electronics Association (And keep this in mind: African American households have the lowest median household income of all races while Asian Americans had the highest). With all the money we spend on consumer electronics you might think we were running gangbusters behind the scenes as computer scientists, software developers, and engineers. Yet, blacks play little to no part in developing the technologies that we love to spend our money on.
Some people think it’s a victory, that African Americans get more use out of their cell phones than any other race. But my colleague Robin Goode asked me the other day, “How can a race of people who have the highest unemployment rate and lower salaries than any other racial group on all levels of education†afford to purchase more cell phones and collect more data charges than the rest of the country. “What [Blacks] are spending is disproportionate to what we are making,†she said.
As it was reported last week, the digital divide between blacks and whites is indeed narrowing, but African Americans are not taking advantage of the Internet and social media in a way that will empower them individually or as a whole. For example, blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to use Twitter than whites, but both groups are underrepresented on LinkedIn, the place employers are starting to look to the most for quality employees.
Without seeing higher numbers of black representation behind the scenes in technology the only response I can give is that our priorities are out of whack, we are being pimped, and it is our own fault.
That’s not to say that we don’t have what it takes to excel in math and science. We do. There are too many examples of people who look like us who are doing it, but there are not enough; they are just that, examples, not the norm. What it will take that we haven’t exhibited is enough discipline, sacrifice, and a willingness to do things differently than others around us.
So what do we need to do to stop the madness? This may sound a little off topic, but African American parents need to adopt some of the rules detailed in Battle Hymn of the Mother Tiger by Amy Chua.
Last week Chua, received a lot of publicity, mostly negative, for her extremely harsh parenting methods. While I don’t agree with most of the sentiments that Chua expressed in her book–especially the ones where she insults her children and picks their extracurricular activities–here are a couple of things she got right:
TURN OFF THE POWER: Study and preparation should come before fun and entertainment. If it’s not there to directly assist in the learning process, then it should be shut down during and until all homework is done and grades are exceptional. Period.
APPLY THE RULE OF 10,000 BY MALCOLM GLADWELL: In his book Outliers, Gladwell developed a theory that exceptionally talented people aren’t always naturally talented. They simply had the opportunity to get more practice; 10,000 more hours of practice, in fact. While your child is mastering the art of the newest video game you bought them for the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii, children with mothers like Chua are mastering higher level physics and math by using rote repetition ad naseum. As a consequence, these kids are mastering the skills necessary to not only play video games, but to create the next generation of video game consoles and 3D televisions.
DON’T ACCEPT FAILURE OR EVEN AVERAGE RESULTS: We don’t need to insult our youth like Chua, but we shouldn’t be afraid to tell them when their performance is unacceptable.
And we need to hold our standards higher than most people think are reasonable. A B- in science may not be grounds for punishment, but it is grounds to incorporate more study time and less talk time on the phone. Parents should require more from their kids, and when a kid falters, parents need to stick to a suitable punishment but let their children know that they have what it takes to get the A+.PUT YOURSELF TO WORK: Realize that producing overachievers in math and science means you need to walk through the process with them. It’s not good enough to send your child to their room to do their math homework. Parents need to be directly involved in making sure that their children not only complete their trigonometry assignments, but that they are learning it and absorbing it. If that requires a parent to pick up the book and learn the topic themselves, so be it. How will you know if your child is getting it right or wrong if you don’t know yourself?
Without adding these additional parenting techniques our children will continue to be behind the curve in school, and the high paying STEM careers will remain unattainable when they reach adulthood. So what are you doing to change that?
Also read these related stories…