{"id":11007,"date":"2008-01-05T03:10:43","date_gmt":"2008-01-05T00:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/05\/black-people-in-science-and-innovation\/"},"modified":"2008-01-05T03:10:43","modified_gmt":"2008-01-05T00:10:43","slug":"black-people-in-science-and-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/05\/black-people-in-science-and-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Black people in science and innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>It&#8217;s been a few times already that I heard the argument that &#8220;<em>black people made no contribution to computer science<\/em>&#8220;.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve also heard a few alternative versions, which were less or more specific, varying from &#8220;<em>African blacks<\/em>&#8221; and &#8220;<em>no innovations<\/em>&#8220;, to &#8220;<em>black women<\/em>&#8221; and &#8220;<em>no contribution to science<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on the overall direction of the discussion, variation of the argument, and sensibility of the opponent, it can be very easy or rather impossible to reason. For example, an argument like &#8220;<em>there is not one black programmer in the world<\/em>&#8221; is pretty trivial to destroy.\u00c2\u00a0 There are at least a few respectable <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perlmonks.org\">Perl Monks<\/a> of the black race.\u00c2\u00a0 Over the last few years, I personally have been in contact (IM, email, phone) with a few black programmers and system administrators.\u00c2\u00a0 On the other hand, a request for a name or a biography of a black computer scientist might be much harder.\u00c2\u00a0 I am not very good with names and biographies, and I don&#8217;t know many scientist by name at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Picking representatives of a certain race using my own memory is close to impossible.<\/p>\n<p>So, I asked <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/\">The Mighty Google<\/a> for a few names and biographies, and it replied.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few links that I picked from the results:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/webfiles.uci.edu\/mcbrown\/display\/faces.html\">The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.teachingk-8.com\/archives\/online_extras\/african_american_scientific_contributions_extended_list_by_john_cowens.html\">African American Scientific Contributions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.buffalo.edu\/mad\/computer-science\/cs-peeps.html\">Computer Scientists of the African Diaspora<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.factmonster.com\/spot\/afroambios.html\">Notable African Americans<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.infoplease.com\/spot\/bhmscientists1.html\">Black Scientists &amp; Inventors<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/rr\/scitech\/selected-internet\/africanamericans.html\">African Americans in Science and Technology<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have to admit that I was a little bit surprised by the low number of results.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding the above weren&#8217;t very easy.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, many links were very outdated.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes I&#8217;d come across a quote that slowed me down before I could &#8220;sink it in&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a couple of such examples:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>one quarter of one percent (.25%) of computer scientists are black<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>from the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.buffalo.edu\/mad\/computer-science\/cs-peeps.html\">Computer Scientists of the African Diaspora<\/a>&#8221; page, which seems to be from the 1990s.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Throughout the United States, there are only 32 African-American computer science (CS) professors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>from the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/sciencecareers.sciencemag.org\/career_development\/previous_issues\/articles\/3290\/a_model_for_department_diversity\">A Model for Department Diversity<\/a>&#8221; article, which was posted in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>I think that the above references are enough to convince any sane person that both science and innovation have benefited from black people.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether the benefits were to the same degree as those of the other races is a totally different question.\u00c2\u00a0 I am not going to debate it now, but perhaps I will come back to it later.<\/p>\n<p>(<strong>NOTE TO MYSELF<\/strong> for when and if I do: consider that most computer science innovation is happening in the USA [obviuos, but citation needed], and that black people make only about 12% of the USA population [<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Racial_demographics_of_the_United_States\" title=\"Wikipedia : Racial demographics of the United States\">Wikipedia<\/a>]. )<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>It&#8217;s been a few times already that I heard the argument that &#8220;black people made no contribution to computer science&#8220;.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve also heard a few alternative versions, which were less or more specific, varying from &#8220;African blacks&#8221; and &#8220;no innovations&#8220;, to &#8220;black women&#8221; and &#8220;no contribution to science&#8220;. Depending on the overall direction of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/05\/black-people-in-science-and-innovation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Black people in science and innovation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62],"tags":[1192,1302,1070,751,330,306,1117,655,1041],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-11007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","tag-computer-science","tag-ethnicity","tag-innovation","tag-opinions","tag-racism","tag-references","tag-research","tag-science","tag-statistics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27537,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/04\/26\/jpeg-huffman-coding-tutorial\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":0},"title":"JPEG Huffman Coding Tutorial","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across this rather useful and practical tutorial on Huffman Coding in JPEG images. \u00a0It looks at a very small and basic black-and-white image, and how the size of the data and overhead changes between different image formats, and then in more detail, how the Huffman Coding helps make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/huff_tree1-500x333.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10591,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/11\/29\/paper-is-not-going-anywhere\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":1},"title":"Paper is not going anywhere","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"(This post is a response to this Cyprus Blog Network Together!) Eight years ago or so I had a major argument with my wife about the future of paper. I was an extremely excited Computer Science student back than, and my visions were very polarized. I saw only black and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8558,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/01\/29\/things-to-say-when-youre-losing-a-technical-argument\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":2},"title":"Things to say when you&#8217;re losing a technical argument","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are 70 things you can say when losing an argument in technical (read: computer) discussion. If you think that all of these are just jokes and cannot happen in the real argument - think again. I have heard a few of these within the last few years. Better even,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25118,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/11\/computer-science-from-the-bottom-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":3},"title":"Computer Science from the Bottom Up","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Computer Science from the Bottom Up \u2014 A free, online book designed to teach computer science from the bottom end up. Topics covered include binary and binary logic, operating systems internals, toolchain fundamentals and system library fundamentals.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21007,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/03\/04\/papers-from-the-computer-science-community-to-read-and-discuss\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":4},"title":"Papers from the computer science community to read and discuss","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 4, 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"Papers from the computer science community to read and discuss","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29113,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/19\/faces-of-open-source\/","url_meta":{"origin":11007,"position":5},"title":"Faces of Open Source","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Faces of Open Source is an on-going photographic documentation of the people behind the development and advancement of the open source revolution that has transformed the technology industry. 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