>To accomplish this, we created a new fund with Limited Partners who are exclusively cultural leaders including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Shonda Rhimes, Will and Jada Smith, Quincy Jones, Kevin Durant, Chance the Rapper, Nasir Jones, Charles Phillips, Edith Cooper, John Thompson, Robin Washington, Richelieu Dennis, Shellye Archambeau, and more. The fund was raised by our partner Chris Lyons.
This just depresses the hell out of me. This is the list of pre-eminent African Americans they could come up with to lead a Technology initiative. That's right black kids, you should look up to entertainers, business moguls, and basketball players. Those are your only role models. That is the heights to which you are capable of achieving. There's no such thing as black scientists, engineers, or mathematicians; that stuff is for white folk.
It's always the same. Every single "diversity" measure needs to be chaired by a hip-hop producer or a fashion designer. This is why blacks will never be seen as true equals in our society. We are a sideshow to these people, whose place in the world is to shuck and jive for their entertainment and mutual guilt appeasement.
This is a ridiculous view. Growing up people like Nas & Quincy Jones were idols even if I was never interested in making a career in music, simply because they made it. Representation in culture matters and to see these people held up as icons is not only inspiring to other minorities but often times these people give back; just look at LeBron James school that he opened in Ohio [0]. Chance The Rapper has also done lots of great work for youth in Chicago. [1]
This is an extremely short cited view and I think you're projecting your own insecurities as an African American onto A16z's initiative.
>Growing up people like Nas & Quincy Jones were idols even if I was never interested in making a career in music, simply because they made it.
My intention wasn't to denigrate the achievements of black entertainers. My point is that these people are constantly held up as the model of "making it", reinforcing the idea that "making it" in life is equivalent to "earning lots of money", regardless of what you spend your life actually doing.
Combine that with the astronomical odds of actually succeeding in those fields versus, say, just encouraging people to stay in school and strive for decent careers (as white parents/society teaches white kids), and this attitude becomes a huge contributing factor to African American poverty in my opinion.
> My point is that these people are constantly held up as the model of "making it", reinforcing the idea that "making it" in life is equivalent to "earning lots of money".
I agree broadly, though I think 'earning lots of money' is held up as 'making it' for white kids too. It's that all of the examples are people who made money through celebrity, sports, or some other similarly non-intellectual activity.
The point isn't that black entertainers can't contribute substantially in other areas.
The point is that black people are not associated with achieving fame through primarily academic routes. This reinforces the perception that black people can be famous...as long as they are society's entertainers first and foremost.
The Lebron James school is great for the kids who get to attend. I am sure of that.
But, I find it interesting that so many overlook it’s dependence on a celebrity savior and shortcomings of addressing the charter school contentions contributing to the disparities in so many thousands of disctricts nationwide.
We need to repeatable dignified education systems.
I know little about the school, but I would be hard to convince they would do worse.
I think just going to a school where there is a sense of positivity and opportunity is in itself useful, but without resources, it may not be. This school, as far as I know, will have greater resources.
The staff, assuming they are being paid well and given access to more resources, will absolutely do a better job.
I am really not a fan of the school, and fear it’s largely a tax write-off and publicity stunt, but knowing how bad a lot of these marginalized populations have it in public school, I just can’t imagine it being worse.
I would argue dignified is necessary for effectiveness. Are you suggesting that educational environments that are undignified might motivate desperation for achievement? Or some similar bootstrapping theory? If so, I find that immoral even if it were an evidenced theory.
Maybe you’re making some sort of IQ-population argument. If so, I would not accept that we can make that assumption. But, if so, I would nonetheless assert equal schooling resources for every child (which is largely what i mean by “dignified”) is a moral imperative.
> This is the list of pre-eminent African Americans they could come up with to lead a Technology initiative.
1) They're the LPs, they're not leading the initiative.
2) They're explicitly working with cultural leaders. Maybe you could count someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson, but the list is pretty short. We haven't really had scientists as legitimate cultural leaders since the days of Timothy Leary.
The issue is more just that it's hard to really call him a cultural leader because, at least so far as I can tell, there's nothing especially novel about what he's doing.
E.g. NDT is pretty similar to Bill Nye, but neither are on the level of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, etc. And both are largely derivative of Mr. Wizard and others who had done similar programs before.
Nas on the other hand created one of the most groundbreaking albums of all time. And it provided a completely different look at NYC as compared with Sex and the City, which was released only four year later.
I don't like caping for VC firms, but this irked me, so I've got to respond.
1) Since when have VC's been scientists, engineers, or mathematicians? I think they'd be horrible at it.
2) In the article, they go over a whole list of technical and non-technical people of color that they've funded:
> So, when we started the firm in 2009, it made logical sense to us that as software eats the world and technology’s primary target audience becomes consumers we would focus on this unique talent pool. In the early days, this meant hiring African Americans in the firm and backing the best African American entrepreneurs such as Paul Judge, Tristan Walker, Diishan Imira, Donnell Baird, Steve Stoute, Ryan Williams, Debo Olaosebikan, and most recently Chris Bennett.
3) If you were expecting a VC firm to solve racism, you were always going to be disappointed.
I see the same thing; why aren't there more business leaders and technologists? Also this description bothers me:
> African Americans invented all modern forms of music from jazz to blues to rock and roll to hip hop. In the United States, most fashion, dance, and language innovation has come from this relatively small community. ... / So, when we started the firm in 2009, it made logical sense to us that ... we would focus on this unique talent pool.
While it's true in one sense, it also defines African Americans by their skin color: Past cultural innovators had black skin, therefore current people with black skin are cultural innovators - "entertainers, business moguls, and basketball players", as you said.
Personally, I think the situation is simple: If you give people freedom and opportunity, they thrive - that's the American promise, the American dream, the American faith: in freedom. African Americans have only been given freedom and opportunity in a few fields, predominantly entertainment and sports, and so people have thrived where they could.
In fairness to the Cultural Leadership Fund, they are aiming to provide more opportunity in other areas:
> The basic goals of the CLF are twofold:
> * Connect the greatest cultural leaders in the world to the best new technology companies
> * Enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry
Not knowing the details of the intended operation I tend to agree with this view as this statement stands. Many names on the list know little of investment in tech and seem to merely "tick the necessary boxes" for the creation of an African American-focused fund, as seen by an SV investment group. Then again, maybe I'm just being cynical.
> It's always the same. Every single "diversity" measure needs to be chaired by a hip-hop producer or a fashion designer. This is why blacks will never be seen as true equals in our society
Hm, maybe in the short term, but I think the idea is that this fund will change that in the long term. Take Kobe Bryant's investment in Body Armor - it practically doubled his net worth, which means he has more funds to invest. If this fund is closely guided by a16z, it stands to reason that they'd benefit handsomely as well, thus hopefully funding more black scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.
The fact that current VCs worked in tech before is a red-herring - that hasn't always been the case. Those VCs ostensibly raised money from people who never worked in tech, and possibly knew nothing about "the business world". Have hope. This can definitely change.
Also, realize that raising money from Kevin Durant is materially better than raising money with the same terms from another VC. The marketing mojo is really effective.
They needed black LPs with lots of money... engineer or doctor money doesn’t make you an LP at A16z. Where are they going to get them? There aren’t too many black startup founders or hedge fund managers. So they went where the money is. (I’m not sure if you’re aware that this list contains several tech executives such as John Thompson, former Symantec CEO).
Well these are “cultural” leaders so they are going to be in pop culture and similar professions. The Ben Carsons and Lonnie Johnsons and Robert Smiths aren’t cultural leaders.
Why is it that surprising that blacks who have succeeded would head up diversity measures to help other blacks succeed?
If the big vehicle for early black success had been engineering might you see a lot of black engineers heading up diversity efforts to get more blacks into acting, sports, and music?
1. it's a VC - what do you expect? do you think these people are really interested in lifting up the impoverished and downtrodden? what i'm saying is no duh they're going to marginalize black people - that you are surprised says more about you than them (maybe re-examine your idolatry of tech...?).
2. who do you believe would be appropriate /cultural/ black leaders? music, tv, and sports define culture today. what i think you underestimate is the extent to which these people have influenced mainstream culture (nas, quincy jones, shonda rhimes).
I find it more depressing reading people like yourself who think that black people want the same things as everyone else. Maybe most black people don't want to be scientists or programmers? Maybe most of them want to be sports stars?
I say this an Australian and here we don't just expect aboriginals to stop hanging out in the bush and become a programmer. If that's what they want to do with their life, living the traditions of their parents that is admirable. To be honest I see it as disempowering to claim they aren't achieving much because they aren't enough aboriginal scientists or CEOs.
Why should it be the monolithic white culture that gets to decide what for blacks for success is?
It's hard to untangle the confused premises in the parent. What people want isn't dependent on their skin color. A person in the United States who has black skin has nothing at all to do with people in Australia who are aboriginals.
> Maybe ...
If I understand correctly, the parent is saying that they have no idea. Maybe people with red hair like orange marmalade, but I don't know what I'm contributing by saying that.
> they ...
An underlying problem is that word; it should be 'we'. We're not talking about Martians, but people in the same country and culture as the majority (plurality?) of readers. It says a lot about HN that the word is 'they'.
> It's hard to untangle the confused premises in the parent. What people want isn't dependent on their skin color.
Never said anything like that. Aboriginals are white in tasmania anyway but the OP used black so i assumed that was what people want to use.
> A person in the United States who has black skin has nothing at all to do with people in Australia who are aboriginals.
I don't get what your trying to say. Are you making the tabula rasa claim that race is just skin color or some kind of weird pseudo-science?
> If I understand correctly, the parent is saying that they have no idea. Maybe people with red hair like orange marmalade, but I don't know what I'm contributing by saying that.
So i proposed an idea that different ethnicities that have evolved in different environments with different cultures have different ideas of what classifies success. I don't pretend I know what indians want for india or Japanese for japan and it would be ignorant to just apply my cultural norms to them.
> An underlying problem is that word; it should be 'we'. We're not talking about Martians, but people in the same country and culture as the majority (plurality?) of readers. It says a lot about HN that the word is 'they'.
Because im making a classification between european-americans and african-americans? How can i do that with we?
> Are you making the tabula rasa claim that race is just skin color or some kind of weird pseudo-science?
I'm saying the fact that people have the same skin color does not make them similar in any other way; people in Australia who are aboriginals and people in the United States who have black skin have nothing to do with each other. Because you bring it up, I do agree that race has no validity other than in the eye of the beholder, partly because it's not defined, and totally because it predicts nothing but the response of racists.
> i proposed an idea that different ethnicities that have evolved in different environments with different cultures have different ideas of what classifies success.
Obviously, the parent didn't propose this idea; it's an old one. To suggest it is novel and needs to be addressed from scratch (tabula rasa indeed!) is disingenuous.
> it would be ignorant to just apply my cultural norms to them.
It is equally ignorant to ignore their humanity and the universal things that humans share, or to assign to them anything particular based on their skin color or 'ethnicity'.
> Because im making a classification between european-americans and african-americans?
That is precisely the problem, and one we know well, which has led to more misery than perhaps any other human failing. Defining people by their race, rather than letting people define themselves, is to do the ignorant thing the parent says they wish to avoid.
Also, ethnicities are as undefined as race. Look at 'european-american' - Europeans in Europe often despise each other based on what they perceive as distinct 'ethnicities'; Russians and Ukrainians are shooting each other; think of Serbs and Croats; Brexit voters who want the other Europeans out; Germans and French (and many others) were shooting each other in the 20th century; in the U.S., Italians and Irish would riot, Catholics and Jews were persecuted; but there's an historic European-American ethnicity? What people mean by this conservative ethnicity is 'what I perceived at a certain time should be fixed in concrete, and applied to all these individuals'; but what they perceived was only a snapshot of a rapidly changing landscape, and of course was highly subjective. And the individuals get do define themselves.
> 'm saying the fact that people have the same skin color does not make them similar in any other way; people in Australia who are aboriginals and people in the United States who have black skin have nothing to do with each other.
You would have to be pretty damn ignorant of aboriginal politics if you think they have nothing to do with african-americans.
In any case, i brought them up as an example I am familiar with since there isn't many african-americans in australia and there are many parallels between the two groups if you just open your eyes.
Another example is the culture, most aboriginals identify with american black culture and adore those african american hip hop artists.
> Because you bring it up, I do agree that race has no validity other than in the eye of the beholder, partly because it's not defined, and totally because it predicts nothing but the response of racists.
Ah so you are a tabula rasa believer. Maybe you should read up on the topic a bit more as the genetic evidence that racial divergence evolution has occurred is pretty much settled science at this point. Also just looking at the quantitative evidence with books like the bell curve which still haven't been formally disputed it's very difficult to hold the position that all racial differences are simply caused by racial oppression.
> It is equally ignorant to ignore their humanity and the universal things that humans share, or to assign to them anything particular based on their skin color or 'ethnicity'.
I don't ignore out universal commonalities? You just assume that the only thing we don't share is skin features. Like from what you say it seems like you would even reject the claim that asians have a relatively high ability in rote memorization because that's racist.
> That is precisely the problem, and one we know well, which has led to more misery than perhaps any other human failing.
And you think just ignoring racial differences will lead to no human suffering? If so you are truely not looking at reality. How about a chart looking at the state of marrige of black america and the amount of children being born out of wedlock.
We know this is directly feeding into the crimainal gang problem which is causing genocide in cities like chicago to these poor kids but what could the problem be if things are the worst they have every been? Are you going to say it's caused by racism? That racism peaked above and beyond slavery and jim crow in the last few years?
I find the idea we are more racist now than 100 years ago to just be such an immature way of seeing world.
> Also, ethnicities are as undefined as race. Look at 'european-american' - Europeans in Europe often despise each other based on what they perceive as distinct 'ethnicities'; Russians and Ukrainians are shooting each other; think of Serbs and Croats; Brexit voters who want the other Europeans out; Germans and French (and many others) were shooting each other in the 20th century; in the U.S., Italians and Irish would riot, Catholics and Jews were persecuted; but there's an historic European-American ethnicity?
I could do the same song and dance with arabs. None if it really discounts the idea of race because when it comes to all those different europeans settling in america, they had more in common with each other than the african american, the american indians, the arabs, the chinese, the indians, etc.
If your going to claim that the only reason why people back then otherised asians the same way asians still otherwise other races was because they couldn't get past the skin color then don't bother responding because it's not going to get us anywhere.
Why does this seem like the VC version of "...but I have Black friends"?
On a less cynical note, I guess it has to start somewhere and these folks have demonstrated how to build a business and a brand. Well, maybe not Durant, but we'll see.
The language used in the post just feels so mechanical, like "black people are great because they've contributed to culture a lot, and we want to get involved with more culture, so it's a good reason to get together with black people".
Maybe I'm alone in reading it this way, but it comes across as treating black people as this "other" that can only be approached through "culture" and not as neighbors, friends, and people you know and work with.
I read it in the same way, and it just felt really off to me.
Also just factually incorrect. I'm fairly certain "most fashion" in the US has not come from the Black American community. A lot, sure. Most? Name me a top 10 fashion brand that is run / was started by a person of color.
From my point of view, this is a PC-washed way of folding Black wealth into the venture capital behemoth. I'm also pretty uncomfortable with the identification of "cultural leaders" with "media celebrities with plenty of coin". Yes, they are very accomplished people, but the term "cultural leadership" is a bit too strong o use primarily for folks who made their living catering to popular tastes.
FYI for folks interested in diversity in VC, there is also Backstage Capital. I posted a few things about them to HN a few months ago and it didn't get serious traction. But it has been covered in such big name publications as Forbes.
> all of the fees and carry associated with the fund will be donated to non-profit organizations that enable African Americans to enter the technology industry.
if i were a founder, why wouldn't i be bothered by this? if i'm going to be working monomaniacally to make the a16z LPs rich, i want to be making the GPs rich too. if they're funding me out of the CLF, they won't be getting rich so they won't want to help out as much.
Another view might be that they are playing the long game, and they think that increasing the pool of minority founders is +++ev for them. This is my personal view.
My personal take on this issue is that a big challenge in funding African American tech businesses is that the deal flow starts seeing a bottleneck before many of these potential founders are even college age. This has been discussed on HN before (I will try to find the link and post it in a reply).
"Lock my body can't trap my mind, easily
Explain why we adapt to crime.
I'd rather die enormous than live dormant that's how we on it. Live at the main event, I bet a trip to Maui on it" Jay Z.
This just depresses the hell out of me. This is the list of pre-eminent African Americans they could come up with to lead a Technology initiative. That's right black kids, you should look up to entertainers, business moguls, and basketball players. Those are your only role models. That is the heights to which you are capable of achieving. There's no such thing as black scientists, engineers, or mathematicians; that stuff is for white folk.
It's always the same. Every single "diversity" measure needs to be chaired by a hip-hop producer or a fashion designer. This is why blacks will never be seen as true equals in our society. We are a sideshow to these people, whose place in the world is to shuck and jive for their entertainment and mutual guilt appeasement.