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Think Black Lib/E: A Memoir
In this thought-provoking and heartbreaking memoir, an award-winning writer tells the story of his father, John Stanley Ford, the first black software engineer at IBM, revealing how racism insidiously affected his father’s view of himself and their relationship.
In 1947, Thomas J. Watson set out to find the best and brightest minds for IBM. At City College he met young accounting student John Stanley Ford and hired him to become IBM’s first black software engineer. But not all of the company’s white employees refused to accept a black colleague and did everything in their power to humiliate, subvert, and undermine Ford.
Yet Ford would not quit. Viewing the job as the opportunity of a lifetime, he comported himself with dignity and professionalism, and relied on his community and his "street smarts" to succeed. He did not know that his hiring was meant to distract from IBM’s dubious business practices, including its involvement in the Holocaust, eugenics, and apartheid.
While Ford remained at IBM, it came at great emotional cost to himself and his family, especially his son Clyde. Overlooked for promotions he deserved, the embittered Ford began blaming his fate on his skin color and the notion that darker-skinned people like him were less intelligent and less capable—beliefs that painfully divided him and Clyde, who followed him to IBM two decades later.
From his first day of work—with his wide-lapelled suit, bright red turtleneck, and huge afro—Clyde made clear he was different. Only IBM hadn’t changed. As he, too, experienced the same institutional racism, Clyde began to better understand the subtle yet daring ways his father had fought back.
In 1947, Thomas J. Watson set out to find the best and brightest minds for IBM. At City College he met young accounting student John Stanley Ford and hired him to become IBM’s first black software engineer. But not all of the company’s white employees refused to accept a black colleague and did everything in their power to humiliate, subvert, and undermine Ford.
Yet Ford would not quit. Viewing the job as the opportunity of a lifetime, he comported himself with dignity and professionalism, and relied on his community and his "street smarts" to succeed. He did not know that his hiring was meant to distract from IBM’s dubious business practices, including its involvement in the Holocaust, eugenics, and apartheid.
While Ford remained at IBM, it came at great emotional cost to himself and his family, especially his son Clyde. Overlooked for promotions he deserved, the embittered Ford began blaming his fate on his skin color and the notion that darker-skinned people like him were less intelligent and less capable—beliefs that painfully divided him and Clyde, who followed him to IBM two decades later.
From his first day of work—with his wide-lapelled suit, bright red turtleneck, and huge afro—Clyde made clear he was different. Only IBM hadn’t changed. As he, too, experienced the same institutional racism, Clyde began to better understand the subtle yet daring ways his father had fought back.
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First published September 17, 2019
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About the author
Clyde W. Ford
20 books31 followersClyde W. Ford is a software engineer, a chiropractor, and a psychotherapist. He’s also the award-winning author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction, whose most recent book, THINK BLACK: A Memoir will be published in September 2019 by Amistad/HarperCollins.
Clyde W. Ford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 1971, then worked as a systems engineer for IBM. In 1977, he returned to school, enrolling at Western States University in Portland, Oregon, where he completed his Doctorate in Chiropractic. Later, he undertook post-doctoral training in psychotherapy at the Synthesis Education Foundation of Massachusetts, under the direction of Steven Schatz, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of New York. Ford was in private practice as a chiropractor and psychotherapist, first in Richmond, Virginia, and later in Bellingham, Washington.
At sixteen, Ford traveled to West Africa in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, attempting to come to terms with the tragedy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, “The young man traveled alone that summer to the Elmina slave portal, on the continent’s west coast, and heard voices in a mystical experience that permanently marked him.” Looking back on the event more than 20 years later, Ford told the Plain Dealer, “The meaning of my own life is based in the meaning of those who have gone before. The ancestors are there, still informing, still influencing us.”
BODY-MIND HEALING
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Clyde wrote about body-mind healing; in the mid-1990s he concentrated on the healing of racial wounds; and in 2000, he wrote about mythology, and how myths could heal psychic wounds. Besides exploring healing issues in books and on the lecture circuit, he has conducted seminars and written numerous articles for Massage Magazine, Massage Therapy Journal, and Chiropractic Economics. In 1991 East West Magazine recognized Ford’s work in somatic therapy as one of the 20 trends reshaping society. Linda Elliot and Mark Mayell in East West Magazine described Ford as “an ‘engineer’ who’s building a bridge across the chasm that separates practitioners who focus only on body structures and those who concentrate specifically on the psyche.” From 1992 to 1996 Ford regularly taught somatic psychology at the Institut fur Angewandte Kinesiologie in Freiburg, Germany.
In 1989 Ford wrote his first book, Where Healing Waters Meet, about his many years of experience working with the healing of emotional wounds through touch and movement therapy, rather than talk therapy. That was followed in 1993 by Compassionate Touch, a book which amplified these themes and documented Ford’s work with adult survivors of sexual abuse, mainly women.
RACIAL HEALING
The riots and racial divisiveness in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict in 1992 left Ford feeling frustrated. After speaking to a number of friends who shared his frustration, he decided to write a book about social justice and racial healing. “When we’re dealing with an issue like racism,” Ford told Karen Abbott in the Rocky Mountain News, “So many people feel it’s a daunting issue and that they can’t do anything. A certain paralysis sets in. But anybody and everybody can make a difference.” While Ford remained optimistic, he also admitted that the roots of racial discord run deep. “It’s really not just African American’s place to deal with that,” he told Linda Richards in January Magazine. “We have in our history our own reckoning with that process. But the entire society needs to reckon with that.”
In 1994 Ford completed We Can All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take to Help End Racism. “Racism is a social issue,” Ford told Cynthia M. Hodnett in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It is important to look beneath the surface to find out what the issues are that need to be addressed.” Ford realized that many people were
Clyde W. Ford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 1971, then worked as a systems engineer for IBM. In 1977, he returned to school, enrolling at Western States University in Portland, Oregon, where he completed his Doctorate in Chiropractic. Later, he undertook post-doctoral training in psychotherapy at the Synthesis Education Foundation of Massachusetts, under the direction of Steven Schatz, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of New York. Ford was in private practice as a chiropractor and psychotherapist, first in Richmond, Virginia, and later in Bellingham, Washington.
At sixteen, Ford traveled to West Africa in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, attempting to come to terms with the tragedy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, “The young man traveled alone that summer to the Elmina slave portal, on the continent’s west coast, and heard voices in a mystical experience that permanently marked him.” Looking back on the event more than 20 years later, Ford told the Plain Dealer, “The meaning of my own life is based in the meaning of those who have gone before. The ancestors are there, still informing, still influencing us.”
BODY-MIND HEALING
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Clyde wrote about body-mind healing; in the mid-1990s he concentrated on the healing of racial wounds; and in 2000, he wrote about mythology, and how myths could heal psychic wounds. Besides exploring healing issues in books and on the lecture circuit, he has conducted seminars and written numerous articles for Massage Magazine, Massage Therapy Journal, and Chiropractic Economics. In 1991 East West Magazine recognized Ford’s work in somatic therapy as one of the 20 trends reshaping society. Linda Elliot and Mark Mayell in East West Magazine described Ford as “an ‘engineer’ who’s building a bridge across the chasm that separates practitioners who focus only on body structures and those who concentrate specifically on the psyche.” From 1992 to 1996 Ford regularly taught somatic psychology at the Institut fur Angewandte Kinesiologie in Freiburg, Germany.
In 1989 Ford wrote his first book, Where Healing Waters Meet, about his many years of experience working with the healing of emotional wounds through touch and movement therapy, rather than talk therapy. That was followed in 1993 by Compassionate Touch, a book which amplified these themes and documented Ford’s work with adult survivors of sexual abuse, mainly women.
RACIAL HEALING
The riots and racial divisiveness in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict in 1992 left Ford feeling frustrated. After speaking to a number of friends who shared his frustration, he decided to write a book about social justice and racial healing. “When we’re dealing with an issue like racism,” Ford told Karen Abbott in the Rocky Mountain News, “So many people feel it’s a daunting issue and that they can’t do anything. A certain paralysis sets in. But anybody and everybody can make a difference.” While Ford remained optimistic, he also admitted that the roots of racial discord run deep. “It’s really not just African American’s place to deal with that,” he told Linda Richards in January Magazine. “We have in our history our own reckoning with that process. But the entire society needs to reckon with that.”
In 1994 Ford completed We Can All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take to Help End Racism. “Racism is a social issue,” Ford told Cynthia M. Hodnett in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It is important to look beneath the surface to find out what the issues are that need to be addressed.” Ford realized that many people were
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
August 28, 2019
I found this book to be a very interesting look at the experience of a father and son who were hired during different time periods at IBM. Ford gives us a lot of information regarding his father and how he felt about his job, however I wish that we had gotten more insight into what both men did from day to day at IBM. We got little snippets of their work and certain examples of how their race played into the way in which their coworkers treated them but I never felt like I got a full account of the work culture there. However, this book shines when the author discusses the lessons that his father passed onto him and the ways in which he pushed his son, knowing that he could achieve success and push through the racial barriers that stood in his way. The stories about his father bringing home his work and teaching his children these mathematical and technology-based lessons were a highlight in the book as well.
The second half of the book focuses on IBM's controversial practices throughout the 20th century. It was an interesting look at a company that has impacted world events in a way that I did not know about. All in all, the book is well-rounded and gives us an interesting perspective on the relationship between an African American family and one of the biggest technology companies in history.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The second half of the book focuses on IBM's controversial practices throughout the 20th century. It was an interesting look at a company that has impacted world events in a way that I did not know about. All in all, the book is well-rounded and gives us an interesting perspective on the relationship between an African American family and one of the biggest technology companies in history.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
June 17, 2019
Thanks to HarperCollins for the ARC at BEA 2019!
I really liked this memoir from Clyde Ford, telling the story of his upbringing in NYC while his dad became the first black systems engineer at IBM, and their constant clashes with their different perspectives about work, politics, and social issues. Ford came of age amidst the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement, radicalized by the injustice that surrounded him and willing to lean into his Blackness, while his dad took a more conservative approach that focused on keeping his head down and working hard and education as a pathway to success. Ford takes time to discuss the deep injustices IBM has been responsible for, from its complicity in the Holocaust, its role in eugenics movement, and its support for the apartheid government of South Africa. It's a moving and powerful story about family, race, and survival. Highly recommend.
I really liked this memoir from Clyde Ford, telling the story of his upbringing in NYC while his dad became the first black systems engineer at IBM, and their constant clashes with their different perspectives about work, politics, and social issues. Ford came of age amidst the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement, radicalized by the injustice that surrounded him and willing to lean into his Blackness, while his dad took a more conservative approach that focused on keeping his head down and working hard and education as a pathway to success. Ford takes time to discuss the deep injustices IBM has been responsible for, from its complicity in the Holocaust, its role in eugenics movement, and its support for the apartheid government of South Africa. It's a moving and powerful story about family, race, and survival. Highly recommend.
November 27, 2020
Think Black by Clyde W. Ford was a compelling story about Ford, his father, and his family background.
Some of the histories I took away from this book, including IBM’s federation with the Nazis and its involvement with other injustices, were affecting.
I liked the contrast between Ford and his father when it came to their approach to dealing with the prejudices surrounding them both. It is admirable how Ford’s father made it his objective to teach his children about two main components that would change the world.
I did want to hear more of the narrator's father's story as it related to his day-to-day life as the first black engineer at IBM. Nevertheless, it didn’t take away from the son's well-written account of his “ladies man” of a dad or his purpose of writing the book.
If you’re interested in black history or the history of IBM, this book would be an excellent read for you.
ARC e-book copy
Some of the histories I took away from this book, including IBM’s federation with the Nazis and its involvement with other injustices, were affecting.
I liked the contrast between Ford and his father when it came to their approach to dealing with the prejudices surrounding them both. It is admirable how Ford’s father made it his objective to teach his children about two main components that would change the world.
I did want to hear more of the narrator's father's story as it related to his day-to-day life as the first black engineer at IBM. Nevertheless, it didn’t take away from the son's well-written account of his “ladies man” of a dad or his purpose of writing the book.
If you’re interested in black history or the history of IBM, this book would be an excellent read for you.
ARC e-book copy
April 3, 2022
Poignant memoir of a father and son who both worked at IBM. Ford's father was the first Black software engineer and Clyde joined IBM twenty years later. The book provides historical context as well as current context on race relations which move at a glacial pace. Ford also provides a front seat view to fast paced technology innovations.
December 13, 2020
One of the reasons I enjoy reading memoirs is because you learn so much about a person and their journey, their trials and tribulations, what made them who they are and the like. I’ve read just about every type of memoir from all walks of life and I was so excited when this little jewel entered my inbox from BookBub. This is a story I knew nothing about and I was quite intrigued to find out more.
Before I delve into the jaw-dropping information I gleamed from Clyde Ford’s book, let me just say that I was absolutely in love with the IBM Selectric typewriters back in the day. I burned out quite a few in my time. Those electric typewriters were all the rave and it was so fun reading about the history of how those little machines came to be. But what was more interesting was finding out about the first black software engineer to ever work for the iconic IBM, John Stanley Ford. And you already know that Mr. Ford being the first also met with some rather challenging times while working for the pioneering giant.
As much as I’d love for racism to up and disappear, unfortunately for John Stanley Ford, it was literally just beginning with all the shenanigans his colleagues pulled on him while employed at IBM. Because of his skin color, he had to work harder and better than his white counterparts and Mr. Ford was here for it. From giving him the smallest work space, to try and hook him up with white women in seedy hotels and pretend like he was supposed to be going to meet up with other IBM execs, were just a couple things that he had to endure. But the one thing IBM’s tricks could not do was take away his intelligence. John Stanley Ford was a genius when it came to programming computers and you can also give him thanks for the very cell phones and computer devices you use today, for it not for his wisdom of programming, we wouldn’t have the technology we take for granted today. Remember, IBM was before Apple and Microsoft. IBM was the leader in technology.
Imagine watching your father as a young child writing computer programming and then teaching it to you so that you, too, could one day become a software engineer and work for the very company that threw all types of shade at you at every turn. Yes, Clyde Ford, the author of this book, became an engineer for IBM as his father once had. Trust and believe learning code and how to program it isn’t an easy feat. For young Clyde, how he managed to understand binary mathematics and different type of code writing, was mind boggling in and of itself. I was struggling to understand it as he demonstrated the different types of programming his father and he worked with. Those damn punch cards were enough to give me headaches from a reader’s standpoint, so I can’t begin to imagine how Clyde ever learned it. I tried using some of his examples to see if I could decipher the code and every time I thought I was right, it turns out there was one variable that ended up being different, but at least I tried to understand the concept behind the technology.
What really blew me away was learning of IBMs involvement in the Holocaust. Yes, you read that right! The Holocaust. I gobbled up those chapters quickly because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. To know that IBM sent their computers to Germany and helped train Hitler’s staff to learn how to use them so that they could “track” the Jewish people was earth-shattering to me. I mean, I’ve loved IBM products for most of my life and to learn about this made me feel some type of way. In fact, just typing this out in my review makes my skin crawl. I’ve read many books and watched movies on the Holocaust and I always wondered how Hitler came up with those horrible ‘numbers’ that he’d brand on Jewish people. Well, wonder no more because he used IBM’s software and computers to help him do it. OMG, I literally fell off my chair as I read Clyde’s words. I so do not want to believe this is true, but I believe every word Clyde stated. And of course, he gives plenty of receipts. There are several references throughout the Kindle version wherein all you had to do was hit the highlighted number and it would take you to websites and documents that Clyde offers the reader for you to do your own research in which I most certainly availed myself. All I can say is, WOW!!!!
For me, what I found most interesting is how many times Clyde went to IBM to ask for his employee records and his father’s records for his book and IBM refused to answer him. After learning of their involvement in not only the Holocaust, but in other sinister activities regarding race relations, I soon understood why they declined to speak with him. I can only imagine the backlash he’s received for having written a book this detailed. When I tell you it felt as though Clyde left nothing out, you better believe it! I was just mind-blown by this entire book. He goes into detail about his parents’ marriage and infidelities. He talks about his personal struggles with his father having to live up to shoes he couldn’t possibly fill. This memoir was very educational to say the least.
Some other poignant sections I found intellectually stimulating was his detail on how technology impacted the elections and the seriousness of technology and being a programmer and what that means for humans. Artificial Intelligence is very real and extremely dangerous when put into the wrong hands and when he talked about Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and how that impacted the country, a whole multitude of things truly opened up in my mind’s eye. Needless to say, I fell in love with this book. This, by far, was the best memoir I’ve read for 2020. I appreciated Clyde’s words and his hard work in researching material to bring forth truth and dignity to the reader.
To read original post, please stop by https://www.thesexynerdrevue.com/2020...
Before I delve into the jaw-dropping information I gleamed from Clyde Ford’s book, let me just say that I was absolutely in love with the IBM Selectric typewriters back in the day. I burned out quite a few in my time. Those electric typewriters were all the rave and it was so fun reading about the history of how those little machines came to be. But what was more interesting was finding out about the first black software engineer to ever work for the iconic IBM, John Stanley Ford. And you already know that Mr. Ford being the first also met with some rather challenging times while working for the pioneering giant.
As much as I’d love for racism to up and disappear, unfortunately for John Stanley Ford, it was literally just beginning with all the shenanigans his colleagues pulled on him while employed at IBM. Because of his skin color, he had to work harder and better than his white counterparts and Mr. Ford was here for it. From giving him the smallest work space, to try and hook him up with white women in seedy hotels and pretend like he was supposed to be going to meet up with other IBM execs, were just a couple things that he had to endure. But the one thing IBM’s tricks could not do was take away his intelligence. John Stanley Ford was a genius when it came to programming computers and you can also give him thanks for the very cell phones and computer devices you use today, for it not for his wisdom of programming, we wouldn’t have the technology we take for granted today. Remember, IBM was before Apple and Microsoft. IBM was the leader in technology.
Imagine watching your father as a young child writing computer programming and then teaching it to you so that you, too, could one day become a software engineer and work for the very company that threw all types of shade at you at every turn. Yes, Clyde Ford, the author of this book, became an engineer for IBM as his father once had. Trust and believe learning code and how to program it isn’t an easy feat. For young Clyde, how he managed to understand binary mathematics and different type of code writing, was mind boggling in and of itself. I was struggling to understand it as he demonstrated the different types of programming his father and he worked with. Those damn punch cards were enough to give me headaches from a reader’s standpoint, so I can’t begin to imagine how Clyde ever learned it. I tried using some of his examples to see if I could decipher the code and every time I thought I was right, it turns out there was one variable that ended up being different, but at least I tried to understand the concept behind the technology.
What really blew me away was learning of IBMs involvement in the Holocaust. Yes, you read that right! The Holocaust. I gobbled up those chapters quickly because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. To know that IBM sent their computers to Germany and helped train Hitler’s staff to learn how to use them so that they could “track” the Jewish people was earth-shattering to me. I mean, I’ve loved IBM products for most of my life and to learn about this made me feel some type of way. In fact, just typing this out in my review makes my skin crawl. I’ve read many books and watched movies on the Holocaust and I always wondered how Hitler came up with those horrible ‘numbers’ that he’d brand on Jewish people. Well, wonder no more because he used IBM’s software and computers to help him do it. OMG, I literally fell off my chair as I read Clyde’s words. I so do not want to believe this is true, but I believe every word Clyde stated. And of course, he gives plenty of receipts. There are several references throughout the Kindle version wherein all you had to do was hit the highlighted number and it would take you to websites and documents that Clyde offers the reader for you to do your own research in which I most certainly availed myself. All I can say is, WOW!!!!
For me, what I found most interesting is how many times Clyde went to IBM to ask for his employee records and his father’s records for his book and IBM refused to answer him. After learning of their involvement in not only the Holocaust, but in other sinister activities regarding race relations, I soon understood why they declined to speak with him. I can only imagine the backlash he’s received for having written a book this detailed. When I tell you it felt as though Clyde left nothing out, you better believe it! I was just mind-blown by this entire book. He goes into detail about his parents’ marriage and infidelities. He talks about his personal struggles with his father having to live up to shoes he couldn’t possibly fill. This memoir was very educational to say the least.
Some other poignant sections I found intellectually stimulating was his detail on how technology impacted the elections and the seriousness of technology and being a programmer and what that means for humans. Artificial Intelligence is very real and extremely dangerous when put into the wrong hands and when he talked about Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and how that impacted the country, a whole multitude of things truly opened up in my mind’s eye. Needless to say, I fell in love with this book. This, by far, was the best memoir I’ve read for 2020. I appreciated Clyde’s words and his hard work in researching material to bring forth truth and dignity to the reader.
To read original post, please stop by https://www.thesexynerdrevue.com/2020...
September 4, 2019
I felt a personal connection to this book as I am also an engineer and my first job was at IBM. This is the story of the first black engineer, John Stanley Ford, who was hired by Watson Sr. himself. This memoir was written by and through the eyes of his son who also ended up working for IBM. This book touched on A LOT of things: misconception of diversity in the workplace, professional racism, eugenics, the "first" blacks, IBM and the Holocaust, IBM and Apartheid, and a history of technology that was supposedly for the better. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I recommend this book to anyone who is working in the tech industry or retired from it. A lot of us go through IBM at one point of another. Or we work at corporations who have the same objectives and goals. Reading this affirmed my feelings of suspicion, naivety, and frustration while being black and employed.
December 12, 2020
Well, I'm going to be THAT person who thinks this would have been better as an article or a podcast interview than an entire book. The general idea of how IBM treated the author and his father similarly but how each of them handled it differently was interesting but I often felt the book was struggling to stretch out to full book length without enough material (some of this certainly is because IBM refused to release employment records to the author) to really fill that space.
When we finally got to the chapters about IBM's business with the Third Reich and Apartheid South Africa that was compelling and made me want to read more, but perhaps I'll just read the books the author used as sources here.
YMMV but I was hoping I could recommend this to my work book club to talk about shallow diversity initiatives and inequality in tech, but it didn't seem to have enough to talk about for that.
When we finally got to the chapters about IBM's business with the Third Reich and Apartheid South Africa that was compelling and made me want to read more, but perhaps I'll just read the books the author used as sources here.
YMMV but I was hoping I could recommend this to my work book club to talk about shallow diversity initiatives and inequality in tech, but it didn't seem to have enough to talk about for that.
February 15, 2022
Very engaging! A deep mix of memoir, biography, corporate history and Black history. A tapestry that wanders into interesting nooks and stays on course the whole time. Well-written and deeply interesting.
January 24, 2020
Each chapter starts with a memory of the author's father, the first black engineer at IBM, but what follows is so much more. Ford goes into his genealogy, brief history of computing, and social movements that led to his father working at IBM and eventually himself. I really loved so many things about this memoir, coming from someone that doesn't usually read them. While only a short section this story is also a reminder to be authentically yourself in the face of being "the first" regardless of that that is. Informative, entertaining, and motivational so glad to have started the year reading this.
January 10, 2021
Very interesting read.
September 18, 2019
lyde Ford writes a memoir for his father, John Stanley Ford, the first Black software engineer at IBM, interweaving their experiences at IBM while also unveiling the role of technology itself as a tool to facilitate racial oppression worldwide.
Clyde really just scratches the surface on the day to day life at IBM but from what is revealed, I can tell that it not much has changed. Large engineering corporations are still overwhelmingly white, male dominated. Blatant racism may have disappeared somewhat but the covert racism still exists, and on so many levels. I really appreciated how Clyde used the racist history of technology as a guide through his and his fathers experiences at IBM in the second half of the book. It is so important to understand the underlying roles technology plays in advancing racist policies and beliefs that often goes unnoticed
Clyde really just scratches the surface on the day to day life at IBM but from what is revealed, I can tell that it not much has changed. Large engineering corporations are still overwhelmingly white, male dominated. Blatant racism may have disappeared somewhat but the covert racism still exists, and on so many levels. I really appreciated how Clyde used the racist history of technology as a guide through his and his fathers experiences at IBM in the second half of the book. It is so important to understand the underlying roles technology plays in advancing racist policies and beliefs that often goes unnoticed
May 14, 2022
Clyde Ford’s autobiography Think Black is as much a biography of his father, the first Black systems engineer at International Business Machines, as it is his own memoir. Clyde himself worked at IBM for a few years, but found its machinery too stiff to budge further on inclusivity in its ranks. Yet, the extended and personal histories of IBM take up the brunt of the book. The curious will wonder, if he were seeking to get away from the convoluted constriction of his father’s influence, why Clyde ever sought to work for the same company at all.
The answer may be that the Black experience of traversing the minefield of White America leaves few options. His dad groomed Clyde for the job by dint of such narrow paths – describing the only point where his father furiously defends him, Clyde writes how his dad closed the door to his guidance counselor’s office and set the record that his son wouldn’t be a manual ‘aircraft laborer’, but work for IBM. The author flew as close to this ground as his wings allowed, that is until he set foot on the continent of Black origins in Ghana, where slaves were garrisoned in a coastal castle awaiting shipment to complement the slave trade. It was in those dungeons that Clyde heard the voices of his forebears and feared for his safety while being shadowed by government agents. He caught a plane out by the help of others, his wits, and luck.
During his stint with IBM, the company tried to entrap him at every decision-point, the legacy of which IBM’s founder Thomas Watson is famous for. Ford’s research into the dark past of IBM bubbles forth the hellish story of its complicity in Nazi data-gathering for the purpose of executing the Final Solution. Decades on, IBM was still profiting lucratively on the imposition of Apartheid in South Africa by supplying equipment and software to keep tabs on the Black populace. The company resisted his efforts to get snippets of information about his own father’s work. It took Clyde a lifetime to get even obtuse answers to the obvious questions of his parent’s extramarital affairs and covert undertakings for the simple sake of survival.
Set aside the outré-mer, family indelicacies, and cat and mouse, and Think Black is Ford’s succinct and spiked depiction of the maneuvering all Blacks encounter and feel compelled to subsume into their interior culture, the talks Black parents must have with their kids about getting stopped by cops, what not to wear, how not to respond to aggression. It calls for a deep breath and courage to report. Unlike other books on race, Ford’s personal story strikes a tuning fork we want to both not believe and believe at the same time. We don’t want to believe the incredible contortions Blacks still have to twist backwards to perform and conform to society’s ‘norms. We believe the sordid story of his parent’s double-life, because it coincides with and corroborates prominent stories in history, because facts don’t lie, and the facts are plain to anyone who has followed broadcast news or flapped open a paper.
Think Black can make you depressed on the state of the world. However, it’s a memoir. Ford had to get this stuff off his chest. The state it relates of the condition of race today can be sad, but it is a status that, like a barely-moving progress bar on a computer, is a sign that perhaps humanity needs a hardware or software upgrade every generation. Just as the big iron of mainframes went obsolete, society is being confronted with the reality that in order to move the social needle forward, we must ditch ancient storage and programming for newer logic, faster wiring, inclusive algorithms. Think Black is a fast read, and a book that should not gather must or dust on a shelf, but be passed around the C-suite, technology departments, and history class. It is a lesson on the past for a future we’re creating, whether you’re a techy or anyone fed up with navigating the deeply-cut American racial maze.
The answer may be that the Black experience of traversing the minefield of White America leaves few options. His dad groomed Clyde for the job by dint of such narrow paths – describing the only point where his father furiously defends him, Clyde writes how his dad closed the door to his guidance counselor’s office and set the record that his son wouldn’t be a manual ‘aircraft laborer’, but work for IBM. The author flew as close to this ground as his wings allowed, that is until he set foot on the continent of Black origins in Ghana, where slaves were garrisoned in a coastal castle awaiting shipment to complement the slave trade. It was in those dungeons that Clyde heard the voices of his forebears and feared for his safety while being shadowed by government agents. He caught a plane out by the help of others, his wits, and luck.
During his stint with IBM, the company tried to entrap him at every decision-point, the legacy of which IBM’s founder Thomas Watson is famous for. Ford’s research into the dark past of IBM bubbles forth the hellish story of its complicity in Nazi data-gathering for the purpose of executing the Final Solution. Decades on, IBM was still profiting lucratively on the imposition of Apartheid in South Africa by supplying equipment and software to keep tabs on the Black populace. The company resisted his efforts to get snippets of information about his own father’s work. It took Clyde a lifetime to get even obtuse answers to the obvious questions of his parent’s extramarital affairs and covert undertakings for the simple sake of survival.
Set aside the outré-mer, family indelicacies, and cat and mouse, and Think Black is Ford’s succinct and spiked depiction of the maneuvering all Blacks encounter and feel compelled to subsume into their interior culture, the talks Black parents must have with their kids about getting stopped by cops, what not to wear, how not to respond to aggression. It calls for a deep breath and courage to report. Unlike other books on race, Ford’s personal story strikes a tuning fork we want to both not believe and believe at the same time. We don’t want to believe the incredible contortions Blacks still have to twist backwards to perform and conform to society’s ‘norms. We believe the sordid story of his parent’s double-life, because it coincides with and corroborates prominent stories in history, because facts don’t lie, and the facts are plain to anyone who has followed broadcast news or flapped open a paper.
Think Black can make you depressed on the state of the world. However, it’s a memoir. Ford had to get this stuff off his chest. The state it relates of the condition of race today can be sad, but it is a status that, like a barely-moving progress bar on a computer, is a sign that perhaps humanity needs a hardware or software upgrade every generation. Just as the big iron of mainframes went obsolete, society is being confronted with the reality that in order to move the social needle forward, we must ditch ancient storage and programming for newer logic, faster wiring, inclusive algorithms. Think Black is a fast read, and a book that should not gather must or dust on a shelf, but be passed around the C-suite, technology departments, and history class. It is a lesson on the past for a future we’re creating, whether you’re a techy or anyone fed up with navigating the deeply-cut American racial maze.
April 7, 2022
Great insights into the reality of working while black in corporate America - specifically IBM in this case - told from the interesting perspective of the son of IBM's first black software engineer, and the son also went to work for IBM. Ford gives enough background on the history of IBM to put his father's and his experiences into proper context. Interesting adventure tales from Ford's youth as a developing radical thinker, and dodging perils on a trip to Africa. All this serves to keep the momentum of the story going. The conflict and lack of understanding between father and son give this memoir pathos. The generational differences are very recognizable and told with some compassion for the father in spite of the spiky relationship between them. I enjoyed nearly all of this book with the exception of one section, that seemed very long to me, that delved in too much technical detail for me into the different computer languages that developed and that his father had to learn, and made sure he learned. It's important in the younger Ford's development, important to the father's story as well, but told in what was to me mind-numbing detail. It's possible to skim through that section quickly to get back to the more enjoyable, readable parts of the book. I would thank Clyde Ford for memorializing his father's life and work in this fashion, and including so much of his own as well.
August 2, 2020
3.5 stars. An enjoyable and informative book with an interesting perspective on a whole range of issues relating to the author and his father's experiences as Black men working for a giant technology corporation in the mid 20th century. I thought the author did a great job at contextualising his family experiences and linking to the wider civil rights movement and global events. It would have been great to go deeper into some of that context - I felt like that there was scope to explore even more.
The author explains up-front that many of the conversations and details in the book were based on suppositions and general recollections of family members, so chose to describe a lot of stuff in hypothetical terms. While it was good to be candid about that, the choice meant that sometimes the language got a bit clunky about who would have said what, and I think it would have been fine to take a more concrete approach, having already explained that everything isn't verbatim.
Overall, this was a really unique read and I would recommend to anyone with a specific interest in the history of technology and its social impact, and how two-faced corporations are when it comes to claiming to promote equality and diversity while their business practices clearly show the opposite.
The author explains up-front that many of the conversations and details in the book were based on suppositions and general recollections of family members, so chose to describe a lot of stuff in hypothetical terms. While it was good to be candid about that, the choice meant that sometimes the language got a bit clunky about who would have said what, and I think it would have been fine to take a more concrete approach, having already explained that everything isn't verbatim.
Overall, this was a really unique read and I would recommend to anyone with a specific interest in the history of technology and its social impact, and how two-faced corporations are when it comes to claiming to promote equality and diversity while their business practices clearly show the opposite.
January 27, 2020
I picked this up on a whim from the new biographies shelf at the library. I was fascinated by the computer history details (some components of which I am intimately familiar with from my almost 50 years of computer experience). The IBM mystique was a huge part of my experience and details about the company were also interesting (for example I never knew about the holocaust and apartheid connections). And the details of the lives of two black men were eye opening for me. I do not argue my white privilege and at the ripe old age of 65 I am starting to finally feel the need to learn more. I thank the author for that. I was going to take away a star for the rather disjointed organization of the book. Drove me a bit nuts at the beginning but eventually I felt it worked. Oh and I read the authors full bio which is a story in itself.
June 28, 2020
A wonderfully written book by a black man who explores his relationship with his father, their careers at IBM, systematic and institutional racism within IBM and in USA and more. Ford shared incredibly insightful information about the workplace, how it differed for him and his father who were in different generations of how USA viewed people of color. The sheer amount of examples of racism, whether in 1:1 or on a larger global scale was astounding. Scary, really.
Highly recommend this for anybody wanting to learn more about what it was like being a black man working in a field dominated by white men, more about IBM that contributed to horrendous crimes against humanity all over the world (this is NOT an exaggeration) and exploration of a father/son relationship.
Highly recommend this for anybody wanting to learn more about what it was like being a black man working in a field dominated by white men, more about IBM that contributed to horrendous crimes against humanity all over the world (this is NOT an exaggeration) and exploration of a father/son relationship.
June 9, 2021
Technology and racism
The book was reasonably interesting when the author wrote two parallels of the evolution of technology and how racism stuck to it but more insidious. I did learn some information that I was unaware until now. Thanks to him and I know about it now. The history is a trove of treasure, but it might not what you want it to be...aside from that, I was bothered by a small portion by the author when he added personal lives and I wasn’t sure if it was making sense...maybe just me.
The book was reasonably interesting when the author wrote two parallels of the evolution of technology and how racism stuck to it but more insidious. I did learn some information that I was unaware until now. Thanks to him and I know about it now. The history is a trove of treasure, but it might not what you want it to be...aside from that, I was bothered by a small portion by the author when he added personal lives and I wasn’t sure if it was making sense...maybe just me.
January 12, 2022
A most unusual biography. It reads like a mix of Computing history, history, race relations, corporate greed, and a coming of age story.
The story meanders through the life of the authors’ father as a sys engineer at IBM. While also taking some alleyways through the history of IBM and their murky involvement as war profiteers.
Some interesting facts about the history of the Black struggle for freedom and equality are covered.
Mr. Ford and the editors did an excellent job of keeping everything together while leading the reader doing a twisting road throughout the book.
The story meanders through the life of the authors’ father as a sys engineer at IBM. While also taking some alleyways through the history of IBM and their murky involvement as war profiteers.
Some interesting facts about the history of the Black struggle for freedom and equality are covered.
Mr. Ford and the editors did an excellent job of keeping everything together while leading the reader doing a twisting road throughout the book.
May 8, 2021
Excelent read! I picked it because I was interested in a memoir about one's father and I got so much more! This is a glimpse in the life of three generations of African-American struggle to join the middle class and achieve the American Dream with sacrifices, pitfalls, success and disilusionment. In addition this is a very well researched view of the racist past of the IBM corporation. I reccomend it highly!
September 13, 2021
Really a 4.5 but I rounded up...
The WSBA winner for creative nonfiction, Think Black is about a father, the first Black systems engineer at IBM and a son who also went to work for IBM. And, it is a revealing book about how this American company used its new technology to help Nazi Germany round up Jewish people and later, used its technology to assist the South African government categorize its citizens by race, in order to enforce apartheid.
The WSBA winner for creative nonfiction, Think Black is about a father, the first Black systems engineer at IBM and a son who also went to work for IBM. And, it is a revealing book about how this American company used its new technology to help Nazi Germany round up Jewish people and later, used its technology to assist the South African government categorize its citizens by race, in order to enforce apartheid.
March 10, 2022
Reads like a sysdump and meanders around with loose connections. That said, every single tale in this sysdump is interesting, enlightening, and inspirational, along with me making plenty of "that $h!t is eff'ed up" utterances. I learned a ton about IBM's history from this book, especially its profit before people and humanity side. Lots of good lessons to be found in this book and was time well spent reading it.
August 20, 2022
Truly one of the best memoirs I have read in recent years. Poetic prose and historical connections are made that give me more topics to explore. On another level it made me think back to my own relationship with my father and wonder why my hero moved the way he moved and did the things he did to keep us safe in a world that still targets us. I am definitely going to read more of Clyde W. Ford's works.
March 14, 2021
Interesting to me because of the black experience, both Clyde Ford & his father's; computing history; learning about IBMs collaboration with the Nazis and later Apartheid South Africa and a thought counter argument that technology is value free and makes everyone's life better -- no so much given how search algorithms work in practices.
January 21, 2022
This was an interesting read. I think it is appropriately titled as the author seems to show his life was more of embracing his blackness than his father more than a black man's work or accomplishment at IBM. The book also speaks of some very dark history of IBM.
While I do not necessarily agree with his choices, assumptions or even path (politics) I did enjoy reading this book.
While I do not necessarily agree with his choices, assumptions or even path (politics) I did enjoy reading this book.
September 6, 2022
A memoir, plus.
Common themes of a son growing up and figuring out his relationship with his father—plus a glimpse at IBM: the life of IBM’s first Black systems engineer, the son’s own(brief) career at IBM, IBM’s services to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, and race discrimination cases against the company.
Common themes of a son growing up and figuring out his relationship with his father—plus a glimpse at IBM: the life of IBM’s first Black systems engineer, the son’s own(brief) career at IBM, IBM’s services to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, and race discrimination cases against the company.
October 22, 2019
I learned about IBM’s very checkered past and when the book focused on this I was fascinated. Unfortunately I found much of the book choppy and personally was not that interested in the geek facts about IBM.
October 29, 2019
Super interesting about the dark history of IBM and the lack of diversity in tech. The author wrote an op-ed in the LA Times talking about IBM's role in the Holocaust and the Apartheid, and what he and his father did at IBM to try to right the path.
February 12, 2021
Well written enough, but something was missing for me to like it better. I skimmed a lot of the techie parts. Interesting that his father felt it necessary to help black candidates for hiring at IBM by bribing co workers for the interview questions in advance.
Read
March 16, 2021Ford's father was the first black systems analyst hired by IBM just after WWII. He faced hostility and sabotage from some of his coworkers. Ford went to work there 20 years later and faced some of the same problems. This book is part memoir, part IBM expose.
April 21, 2022
This was a pretty eye-opening view into a world a lot of people probably never knew about. If you are interested in learning more about the lived experiences of someone who went up against racism in the corporate world of the United States this book is a good way to do so!
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