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 haven't read DiAngelo's work yet. I'm reading some of Ibram Kendi's books, though, as a friend recommended them. Here's an article from 2017 about some of his work and thought: https://theundefeated.com/features/ibram-kendi-leading-schol...

I am particularly attracted to Kendi's point of view because I am coming from an academic background in which there are people who love to theorize and self-flagellate about sexism and racism and then dump all the service commitments and big first-year classes on women and faculty of color. "Oh, we need you to be a role model to these 450 freshmen; I'll sacrifice myself and teach this graduate class to my six graduate students instead." Academics are wonderful at knowing the right words to say, and just as shitty as anyone else when it comes to actual equity. Kendi has it right: from the article, “We have been taught that ignorance and hate lead to racist ideas, lead to racist policies,” Kendi said. “If the fundamental problem is ignorance and hate, then your solutions are going to be focused on education, and love and persuasion. But of course [Stamped from the Beginning] shows that the actual foundation of racism is not ignorance and hate, but self-interest, particularly economic and political and cultural.” This quite closely mirrors the actual phenomena I see in academia and industry.