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

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677 points saeedjabbar | 6 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source | bottom
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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.

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lappet ◴[17 Jun 20 05:11 UTC] No.23548047[source]▶
Man, I feel you, I have worked in the valley for 10 years and am yet to work closely with a black developer. I have felt the loneliness at times - I seem to oscillate between all white teams and teams with many Asians (I am Indian). When you are a minority in a group, I think you tend to overthink things, feel very judged, and may be put in to an uncomfortable position to speak for your community. It can be weird and I try my best to stay aware of myself in such situations.

By the way, I did read your blog post "The Machine Fired me" when it first came out - it was fascinating and extremely disturbing. Hope life is more boring now!

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1. bestnameever ◴[17 Jun 20 09:23 UTC] No.23549458[source]▶
> When you are a minority in a group, I think you tend to overthink things, feel very judged, and may be put in to an uncomfortable position to speak for your community.

why do you feel judged?

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2. rglullis ◴[17 Jun 20 11:28 UTC] No.23550168[source]▶
When you have more people, it gives everyone more data points to separate the individual from the group.

But when you are a single data point that represents a group, any personal characteristic can be easily construed/extrapolated as a characteristic of the group you are supposed to represent.

This leads to the feeling of "Am I being judged for myself or for my group?". This cuts for both the good and the bad stereotyping that your group might have.

3. buran77 ◴[17 Jun 20 12:13 UTC] No.23550433[source]▶
Because people tend to generalize and if you represent 50% of the experience they have with that minority it's very easy to label everything, especially negative aspects, as generally applicable to "all of them". So you bear the burden of representing your whole minority to the best of your ability. Members of the majority rarely need to do this or even be aware of this.
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4. marci ◴[17 Jun 20 12:50 UTC] No.23550740[source]▶
This is just part of it, but may give an idea.

The majority of people of African decent alive today have either lived through, or have parents/grand-parents that lived through the civil-rights movements(US)/decolonisation(Africa).

Some have lived without the right to speak their native language, to go to the school of their choosing, to vote, or had to give up their seat to a white person if the bus was getting full, considered second class citizen in their own land. So they either experienced it, and/or heard stories of how only the color of their skin stripped them of what we would consider basic rights, and the pain it caused people they know and love. Some (until 1990) have been born a crime[0] for being "mixed race".

You may think it's history but for many alive today it's their life story. And what I mentioned is but a small part of it, and I'm only talking about people of African decent. Had she lived 3 more years, Rosa Parks would have been able to see Barack Obama becoming president. And today, some get gentle[1] reminders[2] that they don't belong here[3], or just get threatened[4].

[0] https://youtu.be/WHKOJgUDRDM?t=86

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLXh85Nc1Bk

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQKx315yPtk

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAHBl7OWBY

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d25HYk9Oms

5. bestnameever ◴[18 Jun 20 05:19 UTC] No.23560017[source]▶
So the feeling of being judged may be an internal feeling that does not match reality.

I'm not sure what the answer is to that but I say just be you. You are where you are, hopefully, because of the person you have become and that is something that you should be proud of and be able to act on.

You can also look at it as that you have already been judged in a positive light in order to be in the place that you are.

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6. ijpsud ◴[19 Jun 20 15:33 UTC] No.23575471{3}[source]▶
> I'm not sure what the answer is [...]

Should have left it there, mate.

Many people who are members of a minority group feel pressure to do everything "perfectly" because people will naturally use them as a reference for the whole minority group. That's just how human brains are wired - we use patterns that we observe to predict the future. If we don't have much data, we form crude stereotypes.

It takes active effort and learning from people like you and I to help overcome those biases so that members of minority groups aren't exposed to this pressure and can feel safe in making mistakes (or at least, as safe as members of the majority feel).

In general, if you don't know what you're talking about (at least you were honest about it), it's best to do some more learning rather than to add noise to the thread. I'm not claiming that I know much here, but I know enough to know that a solution like "just be you" is not going to be helpful here.