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

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677 points saeedjabbar | 7 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
1. Thorentis ◴[16 Jun 20 22:42 UTC] No.23545203[source]▶
How is it racist to assume that in a country of mostly white people, the CEO would be white? That isn't racist. Unless you consciously thought the black person in the room was less competent just because they were black, it isn't racism.

If I was in India, and walked into a company meeting with a diverse set of people, I would assume the Indian looking person is the CEO. If I was in Japan, I would assume the Japanese looking person was the CEO.

This isn't racism. This is the human brain using pattern recognition to evaluate a situation and infer information as best it can under the circumstances.

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2. jessaustin ◴[16 Jun 20 22:47 UTC] No.23545257[source]▶
This is the human brain using pattern recognition to evaluate a situation and infer information as best it can under the circumstances.

That isn't a different thing than "racism". When you don't know, don't assume.

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3. CapitalistCartr ◴[16 Jun 20 22:50 UTC] No.23545279[source]▶
It is racism. There is no need to pre-judge the situation at all. Merely being in the moment and letting the people in front of you tell you all you want to know is sufficient. Pre-judging the people instead of waiting for them to tell you is using prejudice as an unneeded shortcut. It seems obvious because the person so doing is racist. To change, that person would have to acknowledge that it seemed obvious to them because they have a subconcious "rule" CEO cannot = black. Once they see it, it'll be gone.
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4. Thorentis ◴[16 Jun 20 22:50 UTC] No.23545288[source]▶
Easy to say that, but the human brain does this - to its advantage - multiple times daily. It's how humans learn and adapt. It is a central part of what makes humans better than other species as adapting to environments and performing well in unfamiliar situations. There is nothing racist about making an unintentional mistake. This whole premise assumes that being a CEO equals competence and a higher level of ability - a claim which I thoroughly reject anyway.
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5. Thorentis ◴[16 Jun 20 22:54 UTC] No.23545322[source]▶
There was no conscious prejudgement to remove from your behaviour. Humans like to fit in, and like to be informed. The human brain is fantastic at adapting to new situations because of its ability to infer information from past experiences. Put me in a high pressure meeting where the stakes are high and multiple people I don't know, and my brain will be working overtime to help me out. And that may involve my brain using my past experiences to feed me information that it thinks will help me. Such as identifying the roles people play. If I have only ever met white CEOs, or perhaps even if most people in my social circle are white, it is not unreasonable for my brain to infer that the CEO is white. Nothing racist about it. It would be racist for me to then consciously assume that the black person is less qualified to be the CEO purely based on their skin color, but that's not what would've happened initially.
6. chipotle_coyote ◴[16 Jun 20 23:07 UTC] No.23545440[source]▶
You're effectively claiming the following: if two people who both "look like CEOs" (setting aside exactly what that means for now) walk into a meeting with you, you know one of them is indeed the CEO, and one is white and one is black, you are going to assume that it's not a sign of even subconscious racism to assume that the white person is the CEO because the population of the country is mostly white.

So. One immediate problem, from statistics alone, is that the people you are meeting with are not drawn from a random sampling of the population. There is clearly a 50% chance that one of those two unknown people is the CEO. (If it were 3 people, a 33.33% chance, 4 people a 25% chance, and so on.) So I don't think your reasoning is sound.

Also, the end result of your argument is "the black person in this group isn't likely to be the CEO because they are black," and, well. I get that you're trying to arrive there through what you think is pure mathematics, but it is nonetheless the kind of conclusion that I believe the kids call "problematic."

7. jessaustin ◴[16 Jun 20 23:12 UTC] No.23545486{3}[source]▶
If it makes it easier for you to understand, think of it as small-r "racism" rather than capital-R "Racism". It's not equivalent to lynching somebody, but it's still an assumption based on race that harms someone. One doesn't have to harbor ill intent in order to exhibit racist behavior.

One shouldn't think of oneself as the center of this situation. Your dubious appeals to evopysch relate to what's going on (or not) in one's brain, while one's behavior that is observable to others just says "black people are subordinate".