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.

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.

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.