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

It is stereotyping but not neccesarily racism. I've made the same mistake at a car shop, I thought the small lady on my side of the counter was a customer, i ignored her and talked to the guy behind the counter, but turns out she was the boss+worker and the guy was helping out. I did feel embarrassed, but I know it's not because I think less of women, you just don't see women in those roles a lot. Maybe associative generalization is a better term?

Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated? I suspect,at least in part the body language offense and humiliation contributes to the awkwardness. Now, if they insist on treating the guy with less melanin as the boss even after being corrected...yeah, who wouldn't be pissed.

Your example would be a case of sexism (sexual stereotyping), not racism (racial stereotyping). It may have been unintentional, but it was still sexism.

In this type of situation, the empathetic resolution would be to apologize for causing the victim's embarrassment, which most likely exceeds your own.

> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

Why wouldn't they? Being unfavorably stereotyped is almost universally frustrating and humiliating, regardless of any systemic concerns about racism and the like.

Wrt. the case mentioned by parent, it seems clear to me that the person involved should definitely apologize for their social faux pas and mistaken assumptions-- and that seeing them refuse to address the issue for fear of being regarded as racist or whatever would only result in even more frustration.

It is racism (or sexism, but we'll stick with racism for the sake of rhetoric and the article) though. Calling it "not racism" is pandering to white fragility because people think of themselves as "not racist". Calling it "not racism" gives people an out to not confront their own internalized racism.

It's humiliating for the "victim" because this probably happens on a daily basis. Tell me that wouldn't kneecap your confidence to constantly have to correct people and massage their egos and reassure them you're not offended just so they give you money. It's forcing the victim to perform the emotional labor of remediating the offense. It's wrong and we let people off the hook far too easily for it.

Those "associative generalizations" are racism, sexism and homophobia in a nutshell. You (not you in particular, but yeah, kind of) have certain associations bound to race. Acknowledge it, confront those feelings, and deal with them. It's your problem, not theirs; yet we constantly give people a pass on their own internalized racism because the people who are systemically oppressed by said racism aren't really in a position to call them out.

I'm not saying you should be fired from your job or anything; just that you should acknowledge that your generalizations do harm to people. Educate yourself on the things they go through to build empathy. Don't make them do the work you should be doing yourself. And don't assume that because they're exhausted from dealing with this daily and so don't act offended that they're not harmed by it.

The anti-racism movement is about white people not giving other white people a pass for casual racism. We have forced marginalized people of color to do the work on this front for too long, when it's a problem within the white community. Expect to be called out aggressively on this stuff from here on out until you educate yourself on why it's harmful.

Racism needs not be voluntary to be racism. You just learn to expect some things to be more probable than others, but are those heuristics really based on actual facts or just biases?

If you expect some kind of people to be in charge rather than others, it is a symptom of widespread racism/sexism in your environment. You doing the "mistake" does not mean you necessarily, actively, try to cause harm. But you still do, and this wouldn't happen if not for racism.

> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

For the person doing the mistake, it was one particular case of embarassment, for the victim it was Tuesday. The constant rate of mistakes make it humiliating.

So, my point is, there is a big difference between intent and subconscious thought process. The latter can be fixed with apologies and education as you alluded. but the former can't and unless you believe someone intended the offense, you should not be offended. And the obvious answer to why I didn't apologize and why in the article they didn't apologize is because it makes them uncomfortable but more importantly,unless you intentionally practiced it, it is difficult to apologize without accepting weakness. Rule #1 of negotiation is never negotiate from a position if weakness. As the original comment suggests, this is indeed fragility, you feep weak for being wrong and you would feel a lot weaker if you said it out loud. The remedy in my opinion is to promote and have a culture where since childhood everyone is encouraged to see accepting social mishaps like this and apologizing as a strength.

It's not easy to say "sorry i was racist to you" and then briefly go on to talk about how you think their offer is bad and proposr something less (is it your racism again? ). It's a two way street is what I am saying, most people would see an apology as a weakness they can exploit.

If someone spills a drink on you by mistake at a restaurant, you would be angry not embarrased. The humility belongs to the person that stepped on the figurative poo.

Spilling a drink is not the same as ascribing a harmful and unfavorable stereotype. And being angry/embarassed is not mutually exclusive, you might feel a bit of both.

>> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

> Why wouldn't they? Being unfavorably stereotyped is almost universally frustrating and humiliating,

I'd say because feeling humiliated is a completely wrong feeling but maybe something is lost in translation?

Here is my attempt, note that I'm not a native English speaker and I also haven't been in the US for long enough to understand all American customs but I read a lot of English and write a lot English:

- if someone does a mistake in front of others the perpetrator will normally feel embarrassed

- if this happens often enough the victim will feel annoyed and frustrated

- humiliated on the other hand is when someone tells others about something dumb you did.

is this correct?

Some people take the view that racism can't be defined as only coming from an individuals with intent. This is because the outcome of the actions are what hurts people, regardless of intent. So someone being hurt as a result of something subconscious, or a stereotype, are still experiencing racism. From this view racism has a systematic or societal definition. Where the society plays a part in transmitting and perpetuating stereotypes, and building the subconscious.

> Your example would be a case of sexism

The fact that she was standing on the customer side of the counter would probably be a bigger factor than her gender.

I don't see why that is stereotyping. I would assume that anyone on the customer side of the counter is a customer and anyone on the other side of the counter works there no matter what they look like.

If you had done that while she was on the other side of the counter or if she was wearing some kind of obvious uniform you'd have a point. However, if she was on your side of the counter and had no obvious signs of working there, there would be no reason to think she was anything but a customer.

The alternative would be to address all the customers as if they worked there, and that's just not practical.

If you would prefer to withhold a deserved apology to avoid being perceived as "weak", that's your prerogative. However, making a sexual stereotype and then refusing to acknowledge it is a means of perpetuating sexism. It's true that systemic change is needed to eliminate sexism and racism, but society does not change all at once: every action (including every apology) contributes to the solution.

> - humiliated on the other hand is when someone tells others about something dumb you did.

The whole point of OP's article is to say nope, this is quite wrong. There's still a lot of unwarranted shame and, yes, humiliation attached to even something as ordinary as being CEO of a business-- if you happen to be Black. It's not an easy problem to solve, and most naïve, even well-intentioned suggestions don't necessarily help.

If you consistently get drinks spilled on you in restaurants, but none of your friends have drinks spilled on them, you might start feeling humiliated for constantly being singled out for that sort of thing... And how your mere presence in a group creates uncomfortable situations for both you, and everyone else involved.

I think you meant to say "doesn't need to be voluntary". "Needs not to be" has exactly the opposite meaning, though it's an uncommon way to put it in English.

badrabbit specifically used the word "weak":

> Rule #1 of negotiation is never negotiate from a position if weakness. As the original comment suggests, this is indeed fragility, you feep weak for being wrong and you would feel a lot weaker if you said it out loud.

In my comment, I said that an apology would have been the proper resolution:

> In this type of situation, the empathetic resolution would be to apologize for causing the victim's embarrassment, which most likely exceeds your own.

And frankly, since you have called me a "radical" and a "commie" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23544865) because I had made two comments stating that an apology would be the correct approach in the situation, your perception of the Overton window needs some serious adjustment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Assuming the lady wasn't wearing a uniform or name badge, and you didn't witness her interacting with the other staff and giving them instructions, you had no reason to think she was the boss of the shop. Would you have acted any differently if she was a man?

It's great that in your mind you also realized you had an implicit bias ("you just don't see women in those roles a lot"), but it doesn't seem like your implicit bias colored your interaction.

I am not a native English speaker and I appreciate being corrected about grammar and usage. I thought it was the same meaning as "doesn't need to", and looking around forums etc. I cannot find confirmation of what you describe. Do you have an example where the expression has the opposite meaning? Thanks.

You're actually correct in how you used it, as a native English speaker, although I think "need not be" is the preferred/correct form. I think this expression is a little less common in the US compared to the UK.

"Needs not to be" and "need not be" have sharply different meanings. "Racism need not be voluntary to be racism" would have been a perfectly clear and eloquent way to make the GP's point. But that extra "s" in "needs" changes the meaning entirely, at least in American English. Are you sure that this is not also the case in the UK? I'd be very surprised.

I agree that those are different, but I subconsciously read it as "need not be" and later assumed it was a mistype of that, not "needs not to be," as it's closer to the former than the latter.