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

(www.bloomberg.com)
677 points saeedjabbar | 3 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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m0zg ◴[16 Jun 20 22:01 UTC] No.23544808[source]▶
I would have never even guessed Hayes is black. He looks Middle Eastern to me. He doesn't look like a CEO in these pictures: a constantly worried facial expression sends the wrong message IMO. Givens does project calm confidence, and therefore looks like a boss. I think his experience is more illustrative of the problem here.
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1. tashi ◴[16 Jun 20 22:42 UTC] No.23545197[source]▶
That's funny, I'm black too and I used to have white people misread my facial expression a lot. I ended up training myself to use a different, more "neutral-looking" resting face in public.
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2. m0zg ◴[16 Jun 20 22:56 UTC] No.23545340[source]▶
I'm white and people think I'm angry and unapproachable. It is uncommon in my country of origin to smile for no reason, and if one doesn't do it here in the US, people mistake what I consider my "neutral" face as hostility. I'm still working on it. Worse yet, it's also not common in the Russian culture to maintain constant eye contact with strangers, not doing which in the US means that one is trying to mislead and they're not trustworthy.
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3. ipnon ◴[17 Jun 20 01:05 UTC] No.23546467[source]▶
As an American, I often find myself in trouble for smiling pointlessly.