A study done by an engineering journal in the 90s pointed to the fact that blacks were generally not selecting engineering in school.
As to engineering being white, without Asian immigrant engineers technology would have not have grown. In t 90s there was a drop in American engineering enrollments.
The 60s Moynihan study on poverty was controversial It concluded that in both blacks and whites primary education performance correlated to family stability and economics, not race. It also concluded that welfare was destroying the back family.
That's actually not true. Moynihan blamed the falling-apart of the black family on the destructive influence of slavery and Jim Crow (and states that the fact that black people even survived as a testament to their strength), and to the fact that discrimination forced them into a matriarchal family unit, in a patriarchal society. He pointed to the increased use of welfare as a consequence of this, rather than a cause.
...well, people who wish to can read the Report here.
When I started as an engineer in 1980 it was racist and misogynist. Racial and female jokes and slurs were common.
Today it is a different environment. People who play the race card today only serve to hold back blacks. The belief the deck is stacked against them.
Engineers from Russia, Eastern Europe, India, and Asia are common as are women.
You would need to look at the college choices by race ad the overall math preparstion.
I watched a show on a NYC charter school. Uniforms required, discipline and respect for teachers reinforced, and parental involvement required. Black kids perform well.
lt is like the RCC schools I went to. With my dysfunctional family situation without the RCC school discipline that kept e from gong too far astray I might not have graduated high school. Single parent father family who left me and my sisters alone for days. One sister did not graduate high school , she went to a public school.
I'll grant you this - in defense, at least, the major companies are loudly in favor of finding more black engineers, specifically. They often create specific mentoring programs, both for younger hires, and for employees to work with black high school students. The internal culture is not perfect, certainly - I have stories about that! - but it's also not a brutally hostile work environment for black people, either.
(Of course, HR these days will track you by every attribute they can find, but that's another matter)