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

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677 points saeedjabbar | 4 comments | 16 Jun 20 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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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.

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gfxgirl ◴[17 Jun 20 01:27 UTC] No.23546636[source]▶
Where do you live? I have no idea what it's like to be Jewish but I have Jewish friends and have had Jewish bosses. I couldn't tell them apart from any other white people in the area. If they hadn't told me they were Jewish I'd never have known nor cared. I certainly didn't treat them different.

At what point are we all just different? I can't meet people that are into my particular hobby. I also go to clubs and bars from time to time and never feel like "these are my people". Even going to game dev events (since I do game dev) a rarely feel like "these are my people".

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1. bkandel ◴[17 Jun 20 12:31 UTC] No.23550581[source]▶
So in America in the 21st century, white Jews are treated pretty much like any other white person. I would say that there are some subtle cultural things that make me feel a bit "other", though. For example, sports teams called the "Crusaders": In the Jewish collective memory, the Crusades were an awful time. Crusaders rampaged through many Jewish communities, murdering many thousand of Jewish people and destroying the Jewish communities in several cities (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland_massacres, among others). There are historical records of Jews committing suicide in anticipation of the Crusaders reaching their cities. Hearing about basketball teams called "The Crusaders" really surprised me -- did these people not know what the Crusaders did?
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2. What_wonder ◴[17 Jun 20 17:49 UTC] No.23554399[source]▶
The Crusades were also a response to Arab invasions into Europe, during a time when Vienna, practically the center of Europe, was besieged twice by the Ottomans, and the entire Iberian peninsula was conquered and held for more than half a millennium by Muslims (and Constantinople/Istanbul still is). Many border countries had children regularly kidnapped into slavery by Ottoman raids (or had to turn them over as part of the blood tax), then turned into child soldiers and made to participate in those same raids, so try to understand when not everyone shares your black and white view of crusaders.

Look at it this way - complaining about the Crusades makes as much sense as complaining about Purim, which celebrates 75 thousand Persians being pre-emptively killed for being "enemies of the Jews".

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3. ttepasse ◴[20 Jun 20 17:31 UTC] No.23585178[source]▶
The Ottomans existed centuries _after_ the crusades, timing the raids and the Vienna sieges after the crusaded. Does time work different where you life?
4. js2 ◴[21 Jun 20 01:11 UTC] No.23588846[source]▶
> So in America in the 21st century, white Jews are treated pretty much like any other white person.

No, that's just not true. Yes, we have the privilege of being white. But hate crimes still happen to Jews. America still caters to Christians.