Systematic racism is very much real in the United States, putting minorities at a disadvantage exactly because of the color of their skin - socioeconomic background and upbringing aside. Affirmative action, and presumably this effort by SoftBank, is intended to address that.
Bluntly: there's probably a lot that you can't see.
When the James Damore essay swept google, I briefly asked my female friends if they could simply tell me what discrimination they experience. But they were too worn out from every male colleague asking them the same thing to explain it all to each one.
What I realized I needed to do was start listening to women's stories more, and start believing things even when they don't make sense to me. I needed to be curious and look for problems that I had previously been blissfully unaware of. And with that change in mindset I started to see them.
We have to do the same with people of color. We need to listen to their stories and believe them. It's hard to give you a bulleted list which would clearly explain discrimination just as it was hard (and tiring) for women to explain their discrimination to me. But if you take "there are things you are not seeing about racism at the workplace" to be true, you can begin to cultivate a mindset that allows you to learn what is happening.
Great read, there is several chapters explaining the parents comment
So perhaps you do not see racism because you've assumed its not happening, and because it's not happening to you? From what I know about racism (as a white person), it must be impossible that the tech world is simply free of racism. It's just hard to see when you are not the victim. The answer I've found is to listen to people of color when they say they experience racism. Don't challenge each assertion, take it to be true and then look further for corroborating stories. You will find them.
Regardless if they get in the pipeline an issue a disadvantaged minority will have will be getting railroaded by say, an engineer who doesn't like said minority regardless of his competence level.
I think that your making assumption based on a lifestyle you don't live. You in the response a being flippant in saying well its not that bad. The fact is I doubt you have any idea. The fact is no is plenty of evidence that say with the same financial/education level a minority is disadvantaged and even with a greater financial/education level they are more disadvantaged.
I think your living in a reality of how you think the world should be instead of the one that exists.
For founders dealing with VC, it's a different equation, so your intuition about "the tech world" doesn't exactly apply. Still, I agree with you. There isn't some untapped vein of black and latino American founders that other VC's are currently missing out on.
But is the solution “we will only consider people of specific racial backgrounds. We will reject you on the sole basis of your race”? Affirmative action has been firmly grounded in policies for decades. At what point do we do away with it, or decide that it needs to be rebalanced for groups that had potential reduced because of the results of affirmative actions good intentions? It’s made getting into college and many positions as an Asian American pure hell, despite being minorities and many coming from poverty.