Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

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Black is pretty clearly what she means, given her mention of Oakland.

   I’ve lived several places in the Bay Area: San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, 
   San Bruno. All places I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. I walked around 
   and saw scant few other black women.

The peninsula and south bay are very diverse with the exception of black people. eg san mateo county is 63% white (notably less than the fraction of the US as a whole), 25% asian, and 25% latino. [1] Santa Clara is similar [2].

Also, from her article, the sole time she mentions being happy at work is this:

   our team was predominantly black. I could relate to my teammates without 
   having to conform. I didn’t have to be anything different than who I was and 
   I flourished there. I was mostly happy at work [...]

Simply put, she wishes to be around black people and work with black people. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I don't see how you didn't see that in her writing.

[1] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06081.html

[2] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06085.html

I'm personally racially mixed and feel comfortable many different races but can understand her feeling of Oakland. I personally can't speak for Sunnyvale, Santa Clara or San Bruno but do have personal experiences in Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. Oakland has a more comfortable feeling while in the city. Oakland feels welcoming more so than the other cities to me personally.

From my experience, if a white person is around lots of people of color, they're likely to be more welcoming and inclusive of people of color.

So not only could the woman in the story be more comfortable because there are more black people, but also other races who are typically more welcoming

I think that's true -- but she didn't seem to like nyc either, and I think you'll have a tough time finding people not comfortable with black folks in nyc. They're your neighbors, friends, and coworkers...

I mean you say that, but nyc has one of the toughest stop and frisk policies which seem to largely target black men. I think we are talking about a different kind of comfortable.

I believe in NYC the type of comfort is more forced and the wage gap is probably much larger. It's more of a "deal with it because I have to" and being comfortable with black folks because it's easiest, not because they see black people as equals. My suspicion is mostly because of the support NYC'ers seemingly have of elected officials that espouse "zero tolerance" and "stop-frisk" policies.

I'm speculating quite a bit here, it would be nice to here if my theory matches anyone’s real world experiences with both places.

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