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For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

(www.bloomberg.com)
677 points saeedjabbar | 2 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.531s | source
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hn_throwaway_99 ◴[16 Jun 20 21:01 UTC] No.23544053[source]▶
I thought this was a great article. One of the most interesting things to me was how the embarrassment/defensiveness of the white people involved was one of the biggest blocks to the black CEOs in their advancement, e.g. the VCs who "just wanted to get the hell out of there" after mistaking a white subordinate for the CEO.

I've recently been reading/watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic racism - here's a great starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7mzj0cVL0Q. She also wrote the book "White Fragility".

Thinking about that, I'm just wondering how different it would be if one of those people who mistook the employee for the CEO instead turned to the CEO and said "I'm sorry, please excuse me for the instance of racism I just perpetrated against you, I promise it won't happen again." I realize how outlandish that may sound writing that out, but I'd propose that the fact that it does sound outlandish is the main problem. Everyone in the US was raised in an environment that inculcated certain racial ideas, subconsciously or not. We can't address them if we're so embarrassed by their existence as to pretend they don't exist.

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tomp ◴[16 Jun 20 21:12 UTC] No.23544188[source]▶
That's stereotyping, not racism. People make inferences. Like, if there's two folks, one dressed in a suit, the other in baggy clothes with thick glasses, most people (including VCs) would default to the former as the MBA CEO, and the latter as geek CTO Even though it might be the exact opposite! If you make a wrong inference, just accept the correction and move on, no hurt feelings. Similar for old vs. young.
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ceejayoz ◴[16 Jun 20 21:25 UTC] No.23544385[source]▶
> That's stereotyping, not racism.

It can be both.

"Women drive badly" is a sexist stereotype, but not racism.

"Black people drive badly" would be both a stereotype and racism.

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tomp ◴[16 Jun 20 21:31 UTC] No.23544467[source]▶
Well, it's still sexist. Same thing. Also, wrong.

A better example would be, "women aren't passionate about driving". That's a stereotype, likely a correct one (i.e. substantiated by statistics... I mean, I'm not certain, but that would be my prior, but I'm very open to changing it), and most importantly: not harmful. It's just a stereotype.

I'm not denying that things could be harmful (racism, sexist, ...). But not all stereotypes are. Like guessing that "Alex" is probably a guy.

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1. remote_phone ◴[16 Jun 20 21:39 UTC] No.23544557[source]▶
Saying it’s not harmful is your privilege showing. Imagine you’re a 6 year old girl and you love cars but you never are encouraged because “women aren’t passionate about driving”.

How about just not making any assumptions at all and ask and support people, be it white, black, male, female, trans, etc?

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2. tomp ◴[16 Jun 20 21:50 UTC] No.23544682[source]▶
> Saying it’s not harmful is your privilege showing.

No, it's my experience showing. I grew up being basically ostracized (and also bullied) for being a geek. Little did I know it would turn out to be an extremely lucrative career. Simply, while other boys were out playing sports, or indoors playing computer games, I was programming. Because I was interested.

Having said that, I think it's also the case that some people are discouraged from doing what they want, because parents/society. I don't think I'm doing that though. If anything, I'd be more curious about someone doing something unusual (not even in an anti-stereotypical way, but like, generally - such as archery, or spear fishing, or (until recently) bread-making).

> How about just not making any assumptions at all and ask and support people

I definitely support people doing pretty much whatever. But experience shows that it's often better to e.g. lead conversations into interesting topics, rather than play a questions & answers game to find a common interest. The more you're able to do that, based on quick inferences, the better conversationalist you are (on average).