Who you calling a "Black Googler"?

I watch 101 & Charleston on the BGN everyday to keep up with the latest in Valley hip hop.

Some of those programmers from southern India are very swarthy. Do they count?

Why is it any business of Maxine Waters?

"How many [of Google's employees] are African-American?"

"Ummm...I dunno, why don't you Google it?"

@Pop Socket: Thank you. People just don't use the word "swarthy" enough nowadays.

Perhaps Google doesn't keep track of the race of its employees? Keeping that sort of information could be legally dicey.

The term is Google-American!

Seriously though, Google isn't the problem, the problem is the lack of Black CIS Phd's from top schools.

@Neef: affirmative action is supposed to make that not-a-problem

Most employers keep EEOC records to prove their diversity. But the numbers are based on voluntary answers, typically in the formal application you have to fill out when applying for a job. I proudly put "other" and Celtic anytime someone asks me that question...

@Jordan Golson: Actually, if Google holds certain kinds of US Government contracts, they are legally obligated to track the information and report it as part of their Affirmative Actions plans.

Arnold Rampersad was my prof at Stanford and he is probably the most self-hating black person I met there. His books about always try to down play the significance of race in Black Americans writing careers. He's the John McWhorter of African American literature.

So, its sort of fits.

"Um, if two Asian-Americans and one South Asian-American equal one African-American, then we're doing just fine!"

@sassenach: Either you are joking, or you work for Laszlo. Or both.

@PopSocket and Jabru
Are the Google employees who go on summer vacation or even to the neighborhood tanning bed to get a "swarthy" hue considered African American too?

google the search engine is god. google the company sucks in many ways. Race for instance.

@Ted Dziuba: Affirmative Action was supposed to give everyone a fair shot at being a bus driver, or a factory worker, etc. Something where selection critera are fairly lax, and therefore subject to racial bias.

AA doesn't apply to things like working at Google, or being chosen for the Olympic team, where strong objective criteria exist.

Aren't a lot of Google people Ron Paul supporters?

I'm all for being fair to the Negroes when it comes to getting jobs, but hope that The Google doesn't go the way of that dag-burned NBA, which is about the dumbest thing on satellite TV these days.

"Working for Google" might be a formidable contender for the next StuffWhitePeopleLike post.

I'm black and when I was interviewing to work at Google, I asked them about diversity and diversity programs and the HR person kept saying, "Google is welcoming of all types of people". I finally was like, "Look, I'm black and I'm wondering if there are any support networks for black people?" Again, "Google is a great place for all types of people."

This was about a year ago and I wasn't even interviewing for an engineering position. Considering how many people they hire for customer service, the "there aren't enough African-Americans in CIS" isn't really that good of an explanation for what's going on at Google. By the way, I have no idea what the hell is going on at Google in terms of race.

I ended up withdrawing from the interview process to accept another job, but the above conversation had nothing to do with that.

@OaklandTechie: I always put native american, i was born here

I wonder if Google has any support networks for it's white people? That's what I'd like to know.

first off what does it matter how many black people work there? either a person is qualified or not. color shouldn't give a person an edge over the other. and second why do people constantly refer to black americans as african americans? an african american would be a first generation born of an african immigrant to the US. after that we are all americans.

@optimistic_notreally:

I had no idea "swarthy" fell out of favor. I just called a Sri Lankan co-worker swarthy the other day. Granted, I've called him worse like terrorist, Osama, Pakistani gun runner, and unintentional pedophile, but it's all in good fun. Yay for diversity!!!

@Pop Socket: Laszlo is probably using the Helen Bannerman race chart. Expect Google to buy more pancake mix.

I hate it when white people mark "other" to seem more interesting and feel justified - you absolutely should not be proud of that. I know minorities (not Asians) that mark "caucasian" just to prove that they DON'T need the help. You would never actually mark "other" when you could be discriminated against (job situation), but I'm sure you put "other" on your college applications, trying to get the help. Pathetic.

About this article... I guess I don't understand, does Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, et al all have a ton of black people working there and Google doesn't? Do we know the numbers of any other companies? If not, why is this news?

Google realizes that they're not 3/5 of a person anymore, right?

LOL

@T-Will: They sure do. Its called the Stanford Alumni at Google Facebook group.

@westphalia:

I hate it when white people mark "other" to seem more interesting and feel justified

Wait, what? You telling me what to do honky? I hate it when ignorant know it alls try to tell me what to do.

I know minorities...

OMG!!! You mean like real, honest to goodness, live ones????

You would never actually mark "other" when you could be discriminated against

Uhh, to quote Cartman, " I do what I want!" It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee (or potential employee) based on race, and I think....now I'm going out on a limb here...that they'll be able to tell by looking at you...crazy I know. Thus, what you put on an AAP form will not hurt you...nice try though. I recommend Logic 101.

****************************************

BTW, for all the other commenters: Westphalia (ohhhh soo gangsta!!!) went to Swarthmore, the prissiest, most honkylicious university in the Philadelphia (see thats the "phalia" part...clever ehh?) area. It is outside the Philadelphia city limits, and inhabited by rich folks. Oh, and no where near west philly.

Keep on looking down your nose hypocrite....from a true west philthy boy.

@westphalia: Oh, you are just too precious for words. Can I pinch your cheeks?

@Scout: Their benefits package conveniently includes 40 acres, a mule, and seats at the back of the shuttlebus.

Search Google for "black people at google" -

[www.google.com]

...and you get five results, including Addy Fox's blog post. BUT! The original Gawker "Casual Racism" item comes up only after clicking "repeat the search with omitted results included." On Ask.com, the Gawker item shows up straightaway. Heh.

"Plenty"=2?

@TONYWONDER: Because no one likes being the only one who looks like them somewhere - for a long time. Are there a bunch of people who look like you where you work?

hahahahaha you think this photo is actually me?? Do a Google Image Search for "guy," this stock photo of a white guy in a swarthmore tee is on the first page. Go ahead, do it.

Wow, you took that extremely seriously. I feel sorry for you.

@Oh No I Di'n't.: Why would you need a support group?

Jason Calcanis doesn't mind hiring the Blacks, but they all get hired up by the USPS and Muni before he can recruit them!

I don't work at Google, but where I work - I have an african-american female boss. But the number of black people is probably not on par with the Bay Area % of population. This isn't just a Google issue - it's a Valley issue. When I moved to the Valley the one thing that struck me as odd was how few black people I saw at work. When I ask people about it, I get deer in headlights looks. You don't talk about that.

@matto: Jason Calcanis loves Matto's casual racism!

@technobee- you're right on the money. there are hardly ANY black people in silicon valley and esp. at Google. There are definitely lots of black engineers out there, but more importantly, lots of black mba-types who could fill in basically every other role that isn't engineering- advertising, bus. development, etc etc.

I think that there are a few reasons for the scarcity of blacks:
1. Most intelligent blacks don't live in the bay area, let alone in SV. They live in New York...and DC.
2. Most blacks don't even know you could work at Google. Seriously. A lot of people don't know you can work there in general, but blacks especially.
3. Google hasn't done any recruiting whatsoever to blacks.
4. Generally speaking, most blacks that didn't attend the most elite schools hang out with mostly other blacks, so the information they're getting is from them- people who also don't know about Google. If they talked to more white peers, they'dknow about Goog jobs. Yet, blacks at elite universities tend to have more white friends (and priviledge, but the friend part is more important) and thus know about GOOG jobs.

It's all about who you know.

Plus, GOOG would take an asian (korean/japanese/chinese. then south asian) first, over a black potential employee ANY day. And the real stats on how many blacks are there? My sources (friends who work there, and when I visited numerous times for lunch/tours etc) tell me that it's about 1%. No joke.

Well. I disagree. If I were African-American, I certainly have a better chance at getting a position at Google. The issue here is that today a lot fewer smart, intelligent blacks go into engineering, physics (Just like African-Americans, who are very smart, enlist in the military rarer, and the pentagon now sees Latinos as their replacement for canon fodder). As a student at Harvard, I see more and more smart African-Americans pursue Chemistry, Life Sciences, Psychology, and pursue medicine and health. The remaining half head into the social sciences, economics, pre-law, etc.

Google has not very many black people at all. They probably double up in engineering, design and their PM org with summer interns. And then those people leave and work somewhere with more black people.

It's all about who you know,always has been in the valley, but that is true of Media, in London in 10 years I've met about about 5 black people who work in Media. It's a lot to do with the 'black $'

@dalejo: Seriously? Because, it is nice to have people like you to talk to about issues that you might feel alone about. Seriously? Did I just have to explain that to you? WTF?!