First, I'm really sorry that things are the way they are for black people. It's simply enormously sad. And it's not just the tech industry. It happens in other fields too. A really good buddy of mine is a top notch surgeon. He did his undergrad, med school, residency, and then fellowship at Ivy Leagues and Stanford. He's black. During his fellowship, one of the surgeons he worked under would always introduce him to other people at the hospital by always emphasizing his credentials. The catch here is that he only did it with my friend and none of the other fellows. My friend was the only black fellow. The surgeon meant well but he felt the need to assure all the patients that the black doctor is just as good if not better than all the other doctors. Little differences like that is what my friend lives with every day.

When my friend visited me in Silicon Valley he told me it's not that diverse -- at least not in the way we would want diversity to work. He told me that next time I go out to eat, I should look through the windows of all the nice restaurants I walk by and see who the customers are and who the workers are. My friend is right. There are under and upper classes in SV and it's often clustered by race. I never noticed because I'm Asian and I'm in the group that benefited.