←back to thread

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

(www.bloomberg.com)
677 points saeedjabbar | 1 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
Show context
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.

replies(3): >>23545257 #>>23545279 #>>23545440 #
1. 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."