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

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.

I think the trouble here is the double meaning of the word racist. When some people hear the word, they think of cross-burning fanatics and mass murderers. On the other hand, the current big conversation is about how everyone is racist and that society is rife with systemic racism.

That creates a catch-22 for anyone who commits a faux-pas (like mistaking the black CEO for a subordinate). Either admit to racism and cast oneself in with the cross-burners, or bail out of the situation ASAP.

We have the same kind of problem with the label of "sex offender." It's a category that runs the gamut from "guy who got arrested for public urination while walking home drunk from the bar one night" all the way to Jeffrey Dahmer.

Scott over at Slate Star Codex has a fantastic piece that covers this phenomenon [1]. The core idea has to do with the tension between central and non-central examples of a category:

Remember, people think in terms of categories with central and noncentral members – a sparrow is a central bird, an ostrich a noncentral one. But if you live on the Ostrich World, which is inhabited only by ostriches, emus, and cassowaries, then probably an ostrich seems like a pretty central example of ‘bird’ and the first sparrow you see will be fantastically strange.

I'm glad we're having this conversation in society. I honestly don't know what to do about it though.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

" I honestly don't know what to do about it though."

That's a major criticism I have of the crusaders against "systemic racism." While I think the term is intended to capture the accumulated, "death by a thousand cuts" set of disadvantages that are faced by marginalized groups, it characterizes the problem in such a way that it makes it seem intractable. This is a perfect framing for politicians and activists, whose focus (IMHO) is on getting people mobilized by describing/raising awareness about problems, rather than actually solving them.

To me, when somebody describes specific examples of "systemic racism", I am immediately able to suddenly identify specific actions that can be taken to address each tractable problem. Replace "America is inherently racist" with "End Qualified Immunity" and "ensure public schools share funding across regions", etc. I think framing things like this makes the problems more solvable and far less politically useful for the demagogues.