In the list of things he's gotten used to that make him uncomfortable:
> Being asked things like, “So, what’s it like being a black guy in Silicon Valley?”
In all fairness, the whole premise of the piece is that the answer is worth hearing.
> Being asked things like, “So, what’s it like being a black guy in Silicon Valley?”
In all fairness, the whole premise of the piece is that the answer is worth hearing.
No one ever asks me (a white guy) what it's like to be a white programmer.
One of my friends is a pretty famous guitarist, who happens to be a woman. For the longest time, the first interview question was "What's it like to be a famous female musician?", to which her response eventually became, "It's a lot like being a male musician, except you get this question every interview". Thankfully, the better interviewers have now caught onto this and don't ask such.
So yea, it's good for people to learn about the difficulties/differences in being X in Y, but it's also tiring to explain those frequently, especially if people aren't asking you other things that you might find fun.
I don't get mad at people for behaving predictably, I expect it.
Notable that in this instance where we're talking about opting-out of a popular practice, akin to sobriety or un-dyed hair, but followers of mainstream culture still treat it as a deliberate act.
It's not a "diversity" issue, it's an issue with prejudice - one which can manifest as an unconscious bias (i.e. dismissing with false equivocations between skin color and facial hair).
I have worn a fairly long beard at times. People did ask me about it. What people didn't do, as far as I could ever tell, was act in a prejudiced way towards me because of it.
Are you suggesting that having the option to make that choice is somehow a way out? It's merely symptomatic and utter blasphemy.
This hypothetical doesn't really go anywhere because you can make the beard choice with worldly experience vs. choosing race at birth and growing up as that race. It doesn't even compare.
Even if we were to change this around and ask "What if people could change their race only once in adulthood after some life experience?" the racism chart just gets two additional hate columns for the race-changers.
You made me realize that its actually certain things that we as a society decide as sacrosanct and not grounds for prejudice. So it can be with race, which involves no choice, but also religion, which does involve choice. Or political affiliation, which also does involve choice.
As for any sentiment about whether someone "should have" to conform or not: if many people don't have the option to conform, then that angle is a part of a different conversation. It also confuses the issue - in that it places innate characteristics (which have absolutely no functional implications other than the ability to stay in the sun longer in the case of dark skin) that are focused on within a particular culture on the same level as any expression anybody wants to take i.e. once we accept everything, we'll accept black people, therefore we should be working on general acceptance of all things rather than racism specifically.
It's a cop out. We have a race problem. We have a lot of problems, but race is a very serious problem. Not everything should be accepted; people need to conform in a huge number of ways, or else we don't have a civilization. Things should be taken on a case by case basis based on the degree of human suffering and the societal costs of accepting or ignoring variations from the norm. Race, in America, is maybe the most important thing we need to deal with (second only to sexism in my estimation.) Race, especially anti-black racism, pervades and corrupts everything in the US.
Gender identity is fluid, and not nearly as clear cut as something like race. I'm sure there is some genetic influence that affects ones biological tendencies (For example, I am biologically attracted to men, and I can't really change that no matter how hard I wish to "will" it away) but ultimately how one expresses gender, and whom one decides to be interested in, is influenced by so many learned behaviors, social pressures, and factors that go beyond the biological component. Relationships are much more complicated than "Gee, I would like to have sex with that person." One's preferences in this regard are far more than a simple boolean variable, and the choice of expression is ultimately up to the individual.
Every person will have a unique story and their own outlook on this, so I don't think it's fair to place people into boxes and say, "This is the way things work, so this is the label I will assign you." That's not fair on any basis. Not race, not gender, not sexual orientation or any attributes that are out of the control of the individual. You must instead judge the individual based on their unique characteristics, their behaviors, and their own merits, separate from the group to which they supposedly belong.
Racial and ethnic identity is a product of social context and probably somewhat fluid fundamentally, but the social context most people are exposed to probably results in it not tending to express all that fluidly in most cases, especially given that there is less social acceptance of divergence between socially-ascribed race and racial identity than is even the case with gender identity (even in the case of people of mixed ancestry, there is often strong social judgement if they don't identify primarily with the race that is perceived by others to be dominant in external expression.)
However, racism does exist, but it's a social construct premised on an imaginary distinction between humans based on the amount of melanin in their skin.
In this data mining age of ours, anyone know how to gather statistics on beard length? Like if you wanted to make a histogram of beard lengths with bins like 0-1cm, 1-2cm, 3-4cm, etc.. Or maybe an easier question would be with hair length. Does anyone have a database with those sorts of metrics? For "random" samples, if not an entire population?
[1]: http://gss.norc.org/
[2]: http://gss.norc.org/Pages/Faq.aspx
[3]: http://gss.norc.org/Documents/other/Paid%20Supplements%20201...
I've actually liked talking to strangers who were vets and want to talk about what Vietnam (the country, not so much the war) was like. I can't speak for the OP but I'd like to believe he would happily accept the annoying conversation starters you deal with, as a trade for all the conversations he believes he is shut out of because of his race.
This is in danger of getting too specific, but perhaps it is relatable to the topic.
I don't understand the common perception that any amount of commitment would be involved. However, daily routines, product consumption and professional requirements all sound like commitments to me.
I might be misunderstanding you, but I'm sure that you understand that it takes more commitment to grow and maintain a beard than to simply exist.
So yeah, fielding this kind of innocuous question on a daily basis either tires you or (if you take the bait) puts you on a pedestal where others wonder who made you king.
Mental exercise: replace "black/asian" with "female" and you'll see why it sounds wrong.
The best answer I've heard to that question is, "Because X isn't the most interesting thing about me."
True, but also you won't see any blogs "what it's really like to be a white programmer" either. It's just not a topic that is popular or being discussed as such, so people do not ask about it. People are discussing why there are so few Black programmers in SV all the time in the media, and make declarations and actions and establish programs, etc. So when they meet somebody that they feel belongs to the group they heard so much about, they feel curious. It can be annoying to a specific person to be treated as a representative of a group, but I think that's natural. If the topic of riding bikes was discussed constantly, then at least some bike riders would get asked such questions, because people's curiosity is primed by the discussions. It's just that "white programmers in SV" is not a particularly interesting group one would seek some special insights about. But if you visit some place where being programmer from SV is unusual, you could very well be asked what it's like to be a programmer in SV.
> her response eventually became, "It's a lot like being a male musician,
I think the point of the article is kind of that it's not "like the male musician", at least not entirely like - or, in this case, white programmer. And the point is these differences are specifically linked to being black. There's a community founded by the same person who founded the blog, http://www.devcolor.org/. Obviously, there's something common on which this community is based, or at least it exists for some people that participate in this community.
Sorry to be that (black) guy but
/rolls eyes
shameless plug, loosely related: https://medium.com/the-phenomenon-of-black/a-few-words-on-th...
We, as a culture, are focused on giving people with social disadvantages opportunities to be successful, and so it makes sense to applaud that success, ask questions, and highlight how successful you've been despite said-disadvantages.
On the other hand, I understand that it gets old quickly, and that eventually the label ends up feeling like it's taking over your real identity -- putting you in a lesser league compared to your peers. It feels like, as you said, that you're reducing someone's expressions down to their minority status.
The only way to appease both sides would be to give people opportunities based on their social disadvantages as a minority and then when they make it big pretend like it never happened. Sure, it's more comfortable for everyone involved, but it seems to me to be intellectually dishonest. What do you think?
Some people deal with these norms differently, for sure. For me, I get used go it and think little of it.
I'm not comparing the bias, racism, I'm specifically asking about bringing up tropes and being the rep for a whole country or culture.
The only difference is that most people would understand that to be a rude question.
Relatedly, a friend of mine worked in Switzerland for eight years, making very good money as a programmer. I asked why he came back and he said "because I always felt like an outsider."
Do tell me which country I can visit where people wouldn't ask that sort of question, it would be a refreshing change.
It would even happen to a Georgian in NYC or vice versa. This is quite common.
Things like curtness, impatient, bad driver, accent, Mafiosi, rude, etc. Or uneducated, rednecks, eat odd critters, are racists, intermarry, uncouth, unintelligent, etc. Transplants experience these things in country by their same ethnicities.
Notice your second sentence. Even your hypothetical assumes that the place where white people are considered alien is a disadvantaged place, and that the white person is arriving to educate the locals.
The second sentence isn't hypothetical. I've been in the middle of those convos.
I've also worked with lots of working class people from all the major racial groups while in HS and uni. From my personal experience, there are two which are unafraid to speak their mind and express unreserved stereotypes of the others --even of their own. So, I can tell you from my experience working with working class people, upper middle class people are not especially problematic. Every ethnicity and class has this tendency, some expressed more then others. Some more freely than others.
There's probably a much less loaded way to phrase this question, it's escaping me right now-I'm afraid.
edit: This wasn't an attack on your argument specifically, it just conjured an idle thought to mind.
However, we live in a varied society which was pushed to live together in many ways forcibly. (This kind of conflict can be seen in Northern Ireland, historical Middle East, Rwanda, Sudan, India, etc. where disparate/different peoples are made to live together because by history they did not emerge homogenous-ish like Japan, Korea, Sweden (Suomi not withstanding), Estonia, etc. In these places people comingle but they retain their own identities and vie for dominance, justice, etc. Should we have conflict like this? Ideally no. Does it happen? It does. Can we avoid it? With lots and lots of effort --maybe and it could fall apart in one fell swoop.
So, yes, it should not be like that. A countrywoman should not be treated like an ignorant oaf who is out of her league in the big city --but there will be cityfolk who try to take advantage of the "bumpkin" -even in China. People may do this out of fear, bonding ritual, insecurity, ignorance, maybe outright malice, etc.
Including the role of "educator specializing in the subject of the experiences of non-white people". There are plenty of people who -- on a professional or amateur basis -- have chosen that role for themselves, many of whom advertise their willingness to take on that role (or provide canned accounts to the public for free.) But its an imposition to assume that any non-white person you meet is, simply because they are non-white, eager to step into that role.
How are whites possibly going to understand white privilege if they are never taught what it is to not have all those default advantages? (never having to waste extra time at airport, never having to waste time in courts, never having to not be helped purchasing expensive items, never having to be asked to explain the actions of whites, never having to feel guilty for the actions of people who only look like you, etc etc.)
This is more or less the same thing that happens to rich or wealthy people who cannot understand that not everybody has an iPhone or can blow $10k to go to Hawaii.
Maybe this story is a good way to start: "It's not easy being either one of us right now" https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-easy-being-either-us-00000038...
There are plenty of people volunteering to teach you about those things. Heck, there are entire public awareness organizations, university departments, and other institutions devoted to providing education on that issue.
Its not the job of every person of color you meet on the street to be your racial-experience teacher. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for LGBTQ, female, socially awkward, or obese people.
They promote specific, biased views given most of them are liberal & pushing similar claims. I meet many Blacks in the South, from other cities, and from other countries whose views contradict points I learned from such organizations. There's a whole spectrum of opinion. Certain things most will agree with for sure but the differences can be pretty big.
Funny thing is people involved in the organizations you mentioned often argue with those views until I say they came from Black people. Then they still argue with them. So, do they represent Black people or a subset of them's views? I'm leaning latter. Means I listen to them, read blogs of many types of people (Black or otherwise), talk to individuals about the issues if they bring up the topic, and listen to white opposition, too. Learned plenty by listening to people from all walks of life instead of just the most vocal groups.
From there, the question remains about how best to do that without causing people discomfort. Seems 90% art 10% science if that. I get mixed results...
That said, there are two topics of this question: the general and the specific.
The general question is both easier to ask and much harder to answer. How /are/ things for black people in silicon valley? That's a big question for anyone - much less a single person who spends most of their time living life and not doing ethnographic surveys of black people in silicon valley. This is the question that people don't like being asked because they are constantly being asked to stand in for huge, diverse sections of the population. How has it felt when people ask you how the "tech industry" feels about its reputation in San Francisco?
The specific version of the question is, "How are things for you in silicon valley?" It doesn't mention being black, because obviously the person you're asking is black and they'll be answering it as such. That is a question we can all answer and are generally happy to answer - because we can just answer for ourselves and not for everyone is is "like" us in some way. It is also an answer that is almost entirely about the person answering the questions, though obviously it will reflect their experience with race in some way.
So to answer your question about how to learn - seek out people who have chosen to give their answer to the general question in public and use that information to inform your understanding of the specific answers you get from people you meet. Keep in mind that the general answers are always wide and generalize, while specific answers focus on the circumstances of the person and aren't reflective of their thoughts about things "in general."