The San Jose State Human Rights Institute launched a new report highlighting racial, income and workplace inequalities minority Silicon Valley residents face and called on wealthy technology giants to reform their companies.
“We've been blindly accepting the system that only serves those in power,” said Briena Brown, president of the SJSU Student Homeless Alliance and a sociology senior. “Instead of running from the conflict of change, we must run towards it.”
The “Silicon Valley Pain Index: White Supremacy and Income/Wealth Inequality in Santa Clara County,” released its findings for the first time at a news conference in front of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library Tuesday. Leaders at the event said they plan to release the report every year.
Brown, who led the design for the index’s flyers and infographic, was one of three sociology students who were invited to speak on behalf of the institute.
William Armaline, director of the SJSU Human Rights Institute, said the institute, along with the report, aim to tackle current social issues that are taking place on a local, national and global scale, regardless of current political differences in the U.S.
“Today's first annual Silicon Valley Pain Index is a perfect example of this work,” Armaline said. “We hope to orbit off the index and keep our fingers in the source of inequality and the rights practiced in our region.”
Brown, alongside sociology classmates Elsa Salgado and Lana Gomez, addressed data collected and authored by SJSU sociology professor Scott Myers-Lipton. The index is based on 30 recent studies from Silicon Valley and comprises 65 statistics in total.
She said there needs to be more Black women and people of color within the tech industry because according to the report, statistics found that zero Black women are employed by the ten largest Silicon Valley tech companies.
Brown said this aligned with her own experience of being the only Black woman working at a Bay Area company she formally interned.
She shared how her experience with tokenism and comments about her Black cultural identity caused her to question her value as an employee.
“The lack of Black women in the tech industry prevents the normalization of my Black culture,” Brown said. “People often don't recognize the privilege of having colleagues that resemble them.”
Myers-Lipton compared this to another statistic in the report which states that the top 10 richest people in Silicon Valley are all white men, whose combined net worth’s total $248 billion.
“The overwhelming number of stats make it difficult for most to argue that our institutions are not fundamentally biased in favor of whites,” he said.
The report shows drastic income and educational differences between white, and Black and brown communities. It states the average per capita income of Latinos is roughly $29,000 and $41,000 for Black Silicon Valley residents, while white individuals average $83,000.
Myers-Lipton said if the total net worth of Silicon Valley’s richest white billionaires was split among the Black and brown community, every Black and Latino individual would acquire $459,000.
Approximately 15% of Black students and 21% of Latinos don't finish high school in Santa Clara County compared to about 5% of white students without a diploma, according to the report.
“It's just plain unjust and racist that so many have so little, while so few have so much,” Myers-Lipton said.
He added the report is a call to everyone in the county, especially large tech corporations, to “develop specific plans to end white supremacy in the institutions that we are connected to.”
Myers-Lipton said not only is change needed in police reform, but action is needed in all systemic institutions.
“Transformational change is necessary in all institutions and systems if we, the United States of America, are going to live up to the promise of a multiethnic, multiracial democracy where there is equality, freedom and justice for all,” he said.
Briena Brown also highlighted the 13.2% of SJSU students who have reported being homeless in the last year and shared her father’s experience as a homeless student in the late 1980s.
Brown connected the region’s homelessness crisis to systemic gentrification, which is often caused by tech giants that displace low-income communities.
“This whole Pain Index is just, you know, it's in the title. It's pain. It’s the sorrow that roams these streets,” she said. “It's not just here. It's everywhere. So homelessness probably is one of the greatest pains of Silicon Valley and it's swept right under the rug.”
Rev. Jeff Moore of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, also spoke at the event and challenged tech giants to take action against the racial inequalities.
San Jose assemblymember Ash Kalra also vocalized his support for necessary action and the work of Myers-Lipton and the Student Homeless Alliance.
The SJSU Human Rights Institute is set to release the Silicon Valley Pain Index annually hereafter to monitor whether institutions are making progress. Myers-Lipton said he hopes this data tracking will amend some of the injustices toward local communities affected by these inequalities.
Brown said there needs to be more Black and Latinx representation in high-income positions and encourages tech companies to hear their call.
“I see this index as an opportunity of enlightenment for the Silicon Valley. It's time for us to shine light on these issues,” Brown said. “Silicon Valley, we must do better, because if not now, then when?”
