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

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.

This is a huge part of the problem isn't it?

I believe these painful interactions would be much less common if tech culture were more diverse in the first place.

Women share a similar fate. Whenever I hear some of these stories I cringe. Some of them are surprising/shocking even.

But this seems important. Hearing those stories including the ones you mentioned. Not necessarily to point fingers (although sometimes we should) but rather to fight this common, widespread ignorance.

I think this is the problem.

Say a black guy with gold teeth, tons of tattoos and colorful dreadlocks and a middle aged white guy walk in. One of them is a rapper. Who is it?

Based on experience, most people will certainly assume the black guy is. What if it turns out it’s the white guy?

Are they unconsciously racist against white people or are they just following experience-based heuristics? Would they have decided differently if rappers were commonly middle aged white guys?

I say for sure. If black people in tech become more common this particular problem will solve itself.

But when you know how it makes people feel when you make your assumption visible, you understand the need to act like anyone could be the CEO, the developer, etc. Same goes for women devs who at tech conferences who are too often "assumed" to be girlfriends, recruiters or other non-tech participants.

Yes, the problem will solve itself if black people in tech become more common - but:

1. it's not going to get solved if we make them feel out of place in tech by always assuming they're "the wrong guy".

2. let's try not to make the life harder to the very few black people (and other minorities) who are already in tech?