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

Racism absolutely does imply intent. The attempt by progressives to recharacterise racism as something that it is not, is the reason why they are making less progress in their objectives than they would like.

It is not racist to assume that the person in the room most like the other CEOs you have met, is also the CEO. If I was in a foreign country, I would assume the CEO is the person most like the other people in that country. I never made any assumption about competence. Half the time I think the least competent person in the room is the CEO. Sadly that's how business works. There would be nothing racist - intentional, or unintentional - about my assumption.

I don't see anything here that contradicts the idea that people are systematically discriminated against because of their race. That's the problem people are worried about.

> Racism absolutely does imply intent.

I'm sorry, but your opinion here does not match with either practical, common, or academic definitions for racism.

People have internal biases all the time that cause them to be averse to particular racial groups -- particularly disadvantaged racial groups. They may not even realize they are doing it, but that doesn't mean that it's not racist. (For example, resumes with White names are more likely to receive callbacks than those with Black names. There may be no intent by the resume reviewer.)

Another example, asking to touch a Black stranger's hair is othering, which is a type of racist behavior. The person asking usually isn't intending to be racist, and is 'just' trying to satisfy their own curiosity. There's no ill intent, but that doesn't mean it's OK.

I suspect it is the difference between the VC realizing they made a mistake and moving on (for a reason related to race) vs speaking to the white guy because they are racist and they would refuse to deal with a black CEO (ie, 'we don't serve your kind here'). The latter is very much intent, the former is rooted in biases from living in a world where there are few black CEOs. The question is to what degree do the biases in the former hold those people back (in the form of expectations, etc.).

> Racism absolutely does imply intent. The attempt by progressives to recharacterise racism as something that it is not

Sorry, what? "Racism" is not a word with a clear definition over time. It didn't exist at all in popular usage until the past few decades.

I think what you're trying to say is that "racism" is supposed to connote direct discrimination, like support for segregation, slavery, stuff like that. And sure, lots of people use the word that way. Most of those people are the same people who want to argue that "racism is a solved problem", so it's easy to see why this definition is attractive to mostly-male, mostly-white, mostly-conservative people.

But it's not the way a lot of other people use the word, where it connotes broader injustice in society and not just individual opinions.

Basically: you're making a senseless semantic argument. Even if you win the dictionary war about what "racism" means, you're still not responding to the actual concerns being expressed.

Racism originally was based on intent. That modern US "academics" decided to turn every people into racists doesn't change it.

In your study about hair : was it also done between chinese and indians, indians & eskimos and eskimos and swedish people? Because what those US academics brilliantly "discovered" is that people are more at ease with people that look like them. If you want to call it racist, at least have the honesty to attribute it to all human beings.