←back to thread

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

(www.bloomberg.com)
677 points saeedjabbar | 4 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
ibudiallo ◴[16 Jun 20 22:05 UTC] No.23544856[source]▶
I usually choose to believe in "the honest mistake". It happens, two people walk in, one of them is the CEO, you assume it is the one on the right. And then when you realize it is a mistake, you apologize. We are only human.

But when it happens over and over and over, you can't help but feel frustrated. You realize that people natural instinct is to think you are the subordinate. One second your are on stage at Techcrunch (I was in 2017), where you have clearly introduced yourself. You get off-stage, they greet your colleague and ask him the questions as if he was on stage.

I was often in the interview room waiting for my interviewer, only to have him show up, and tell me I must be in the wrong room. A simple "Hey are you XYZ?" could have avoided this frustration.

I've written an article about my experience working as a black developer, I'll post it here in the near future. You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people.

replies(15): >>23545199 #>>23545309 #>>23546055 #>>23546168 #>>23546426 #>>23548047 #>>23548134 #>>23548422 #>>23549653 #>>23549654 #>>23549765 #>>23550199 #>>23550203 #>>23550498 #>>23550535 #
js2 ◴[16 Jun 20 22:52 UTC] No.23545309[source]▶
I am Jewish. This gives me no insight into what it is to be black in America. But it does give me some insight into what it is to be a minority in America. I have an inkling of your loneliness and you have my profound sympathy. I wish everyone could experience what it is to be a minority in some, any, aspect of their identity to the extent that it might provide them some empathy for others.

(I also never realized what it must feel like to be a Christian in America until I visited Israel for the first time and had a sense of being among "my people", which didn't really make any sense because I'm not Israeli, but at the same time it felt comforting being among so many Jews in a greater way than when I'm at temple.)

Of course, unless I announce I am Jewish, I know I'm not being judged by it. I can only imagine how difficult it is that whenever you are slighted, you don't know for certain whether it is due to being black. It must be very hard not to start assuming that it's always the reason.

I'll watch for your future post. I look forward to reading it.

replies(8): >>23546636 #>>23547109 #>>23548364 #>>23548452 #>>23548627 #>>23548834 #>>23548976 #>>23549933 #
1. davedx ◴[17 Jun 20 08:01 UTC] No.23548976[source]▶
I'm a white British guy living in the Netherlands. I'll never forget shortly after moving here, I was sat in the garden with our Dutch neighbours and my Dutch girlfriend, and the man started complaining about "immigrants" and all the problems they brought to the Netherlands. My girlfriend said "you know Dave is an immigrant?" and he just waved it away, "Not you, you're not like them". Obviously he wasn't talking about well behaved white guys like me with his sweeping generalization, he meant the brown skinned guys.

White privilege is very much a thing in the Netherlands. Even if someone knows you're not Dutch, as long as you look northern European it's fine. If you look like Zwarte Piet though, well, many Dutchies would much rather you went back to where you came from. Except when it's time to bring presents to the white Dutch kids. Then we love those adorable blackfaces!

Actually things are changing in the Netherlands, some of it for the better, but there's still a significant, stubbornly racist population here. Much more than you'd think when hearing about "tolerant Netherlands" from outside.

replies(2): >>23550074 #>>23550109 #
2. eythian ◴[17 Jun 20 11:12 UTC] No.23550074[source]▶
It does look like it's improving at a rate of knots though. Hell, even Rutte got on the bandwagon recently which is not something I thought I'd see.

A friend of mine was talking about it recently (her family are from Egypt, but she's born and raised Dutch) and she said she probably notices more issues from being a woman than looking "Arabic." This is Amsterdam though, and it's hard to generalise from here to the rest of the country.

3. spoopyskelly ◴[17 Jun 20 11:18 UTC] No.23550109[source]▶
If you're from Britain you should know it is about stereotypes, not race. The Asians make your food, the Polish fix your pipes and the Romanians build your houses.
replies(1): >>23557879 #
4. dragonsky67 ◴[17 Jun 20 23:04 UTC] No.23557879[source]▶
And everybody knows the English just complain about everything ;-)