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.

I have found that the fragility in white fragility exists more commonly than merely racism. Racism, though, I imagine is clearly more identifiable and insulting, but the offending behaviors apply more widely than that. It comes down to assumptions and insecurities.

I really do get tired of dealing with this as a self taught white software developer. People have an expectation of how things should work and when that expectation is shattered or when it puts their reputation in question everything there after becomes defensive or a straw man. This is so prevalent and frustrating that I prefer to write software only as a hobby, discuss software in exceedingly delicate terms, and often desire to hide from it all by returning to the military (military is a part-time secondary employer for me). After a certain point this defensiveness and insecurity defines everything about the work.

As an example try to mention you are writing some fantastic new application that executes in the browser. The very first question, always, is what framework does it use. If the answer is none people have already stopped listening or begin attacking either your credibility or the capabilities of the application. So I have had to learn to tip toe around these sorts of conversations but it completely ignores the problem/solution aspect of the software which should be the center of conversation.