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'm skeptical about Robin Diangelo, I read her book a few months ago, and it only seems to be an advertisement for her services as an anti-racist instructor. Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's more a guide on "how not to get fired for being racist" than anything. There are much better books for foundational education about race.

Even within her book she claims that no amount of training will solve the issue, it seems that "White Fragility" is just another way for White people to tamp down the anxiety of race relations in the United States, rather than take any meaningful action towards changing it.

If your goal is to truly understand the Black american experience, it's best to start with actual Black authors. The House That Race Built by Wahneema Lubiano is a great set of essays about race and class structures.

Your skepticism is well warranted. Unfalsifiable theory, dogma you can't question, purity tests, good vs evil, original sin, heresy, excommunication, self-flagellation and so on... It's a religion and Kafkatrap, but not yet widely recognized as such.

Further explanation:

https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-d...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-...

https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-w...

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Newdiscourses seems to be a website dedicated /entirely/ to taking down the author and the book. A sampling of their articles over the past 2 weeks:

"In Defense of the Status Quo"

"White Silence is NOT Violence"

"A Principled Statement of Opposition to Critical Race Theory"

"Eight Big Reasons Critical Race Theory is Terrible for Dealing with Racism"

Further investigation shows the site owner, James Lindsay makes his entire living being an activist against gender studies and critical race theory. There's an extraordinary amount of resources dedicated to pushing back against the Robin Diangelo. Having heard her speak and having read at least a bit of her book, most of it is showing white people that all the things that we've tried over the past 10, 20 years are clearly not working. There's little improvement in inclusiveness in traditional white/male dominated cultures, such as the engineering teams at FAANGs for instance. Its insisting that you do something actually about it rather than patting yourself on the back for doing what you think is the right things. It takes a great amount of twisting about to ignore the main points, and all of the writers you linked have done so.

What you call the "dogma" of dealing with a racist culture I call people lived experience. Its heartbreaking to me how very conservative-minded and flat out defensive on issues of inclusion and race the HN community has been when the subject of race is allowed to be a thread.