A new $100M fund for women founders of color
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Targeted support of a minority population to correct for an unjust imbalance is a good thing.
I am glad I got a chance to let you know that not everyone agrees with bigotry.
Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
>> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically
That said, I disagree with your base claim that
> It normalizes racism and sexism
Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality.
Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
Racism is inherently wrong. By being racist you are empirically making the world a worse place.
By being racist you are increasing the divide.
How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v...
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
So if we look at imbalances in outcomes, there is a lot of it for gender and race. Prison rates, life expectancy, health, work profession, suicide rates, homelessness, wealth, children, social support network and more. There is no inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, so what can we do to fix this artificial imbalance overall in society?
Throwing money at it don't work. If one correlate how much money a state is spending on the problem and the result, you get a paradox. The more spending the more imbalanced society tend to get. Recently it also seem to increase polarization which had its own long list of issues. Ignoring the problem is also unlikely to do anything, so it lead me to only a single conclusion and that is look for a solution that has shown positive result. Happily there exist such thing but it has sadly also been mostly abandoned by the political platforms that seeks equality.
That is to say; to eliminate categorization based on gender and race and find commonalities rather than focus on differences. A popular tactic around the 70s, but now mostly abandoned. Its not the same as ignoring since you have to active focus on what is common, and its not the same as current methods with throwing money at specific issues since those focus on what is different based on category of groups. By working to eliminate categorization in people minds you tip the scale without doing anything racist, while still being active in addressing the issue.
"It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
If these characteristics are not important to your argument why raise them.
Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).
In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space.
Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.
Ideological battle is not welcome here. All your comments in this thread were ideological battle. And that's just the start of the problems.
It isn't necessary for people to agree on divisive topics. That's by definition impossible. But it is necessary for people to remain thoughtful and respectful. That's why the site guidelines say that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
You used name-calling in the sense the guidelines ask you not to do, for example weaponizing "racist" and "sexist" and "bigotry" in a way that you must know perfectly well is divisive and provocative. By "weaponizing" I mean using words not to communicate information, but to bash something or someone verbally. That's flamewar.
You reacted everywhere in this reductionist way, breaking the guideline that asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That rule applies to articles and people in articles as well as to to people here. Why? Because discussion gets dumb without it.
You crossed into personal attack and incvility in ways that can only inflame people and shut down meaningful conversation ("By being racist you are..."). You did that even when people responded to you gently and thoughtfully—which, amazingly, several did. You threw in things like the KKK for gratituous flamebait. And you extremely overposted to this thread, which spread the flames everywhere.
There are still plenty of civil, substantive things people can say to each other when they have strongly different identifications about the issues touched on by a post like this. But that becomes impossible when even one person's reactions are so strong that they can't contain themselves, vandalize the thread, and degrade this community into a ruin that nobody would want to spend time in. On this occasion, you were that person. Please don't be that person again. Instead, please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on.
Funds who judge people on the color of their skin or their sex, gender, or national origin is the opposite of color-blind, thus goes against the mentality that many of us grew up with. It is fundamentally a culture-clash that likely won't ever be reconciled between those with differing opinions. I personally don't think that two wrongs make a right, and I don't think that fighting racism and discrimination with racism and discrimination will make the country be better or come together in the end.
One side sees a productive way to move forward by not repeating the mistakes of the past. The other side sees a way to make the future better by correcting the mistakes of the past. It's one of the most difficult we face as both as a society and as individuals: often in literature a character will be driven to avenge a past injustice and at the height of narrative arc, will be forced to consider his motivations and the consequences of his goal. The YA novel A Long Way Down and the movie Blue Ruin both explore this concept poignantly, without ever giving us easy or generalizable answers.
Because racial politics can be so mentally poisoning, a far more neutral thought experiment is to consider a fund reserved exclusively for funding military veterans. That's a kind of situation where almost everyone can see both sides to the issue: how can you deny their contribution and sacrifices? And yet how can you fail to see the unintended but inevitable consequences that creates?
Why doesn't someone create a VC fund for people with disabilities instead? Or maybe a fund for ugly people? Or a fund for socially awkward people? Or a fund for people who have a lisp? Or a fund for people who have bad posture? Or simply a fund for the underprivileged? Those would be a lot more fair.
Life isn't fair to everyone. Some people just have to work much harder than others to get the same results. There is nothing that can be done about this.
Trying to do something about this equates to discrimination based on arbitrary superficial features.
Lol, your point is so good that it hurts.
From what I understand, how inclusive that term is depends on who you ask and what their goal is in the discourse, but usually it includes all non-white people, where 'white' is used to imply someone of pure 'white' descent (whatever that means). So someone with a 'person of color' in his ancestry (not sure if there is a limit in the number of generations one should include) is a 'person of color' themself.
So Asian women tend to be considered 'women of color', unless that doesn't suit the narrative of the person employing the term.
> racism: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
It’s very clear that this fund is not created in the spirit of claiming women founders of color are superior to white men.
You can call it “discrimination” or “unfair”; you can argue that it’s not good long term for either parts; you can claim that such an incentive doesn’t create the best products/companies. But please, make an argument, don’t just shout out “racism!!!!”
sexism : Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Of course, referencing other (arguably more authoritative) dictionaries, one of the definitions for racism is also simply "discrimination based on race."
Oops...
I applaud asking for actual arguments, I just really hate all the arguments that are about what the words racism, racist, sexism, sexist, etc. mean.
If someone set up a white male VC fund I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
I’ve dealt with plenty of racism, on the job and just living my life, but I understand that being a minority means dealing with (often unconscious) biases.
Is this ok? No, people should be better.
But I would never take a handout as contentious as this. The message here, regardless of intention, is that black women cannot compete on merit.
You might infer that if you assume that everyone assesses merits without bias.
I would argue that this is not the case and that black women’s merits are not assesses without bias.
That's your choice.
> is that black women cannot compete on merit.
If woman of colour could compete on merit alone, I'm sure we'd see greater numbers in tech, but we don't. Unless you believe that people of colour are inherently incapable of these jobs, which I'm sure you don't :)
How many women of _all_ races (including white) are even looking for funding?
What if there are 10 white women, 1 black woman and 30 asian women and no other race at all? (Just as a fake dataset to make a point...)
This kind of targeted funding could abjectly affect perfectly qualified candidates just on the basis of race alone.
Isn't that the very definition of racism? Even if it's supposed to fix a past injustice, when does two wrongs make a right?
The standard in silicon valley (and by its own admission, also the standard of YC) was that people who looked like Mark Zuckerberg would get funding. Meaning white, male Harvard/Stanford/MIT undergrads. As a result perfectly qualified candidates get rejected because they don't fit this picture.
There is no reason to presume that people from certain races/ethnicities/genders make for better or worse startup founders. However, when certain demographics get basically never funded, then capable, motivated, qualified founders don't even bother to apply. Even when there is no actual discrimination the negative cycle continues. Breaking this cycle is a social good.
It's like Hollywood. For a long time women of color never got offered leading roles. Movie Executives just didn't want to take the gamble. But as more and more movies hit the screen with women of color in leading roles the financial risk is lessened. Which results in more opportunities for WoC. This was never about how talented or motivated the actresses were. Hopefully we'll quickly get to the point where a WoC in a leading role is no longer noteworthy. Same for startups.
i don't have high hopes for VC funds like this.. seems more like a charitable grant than venture funding..1
If minorities have a hard time to get such a job, you probably don't nees that much.
What you just described is the definition of discrimination, not racism or sexism. These words have meanings and you can look them up. Saying it's racist and sexist is just a disingenuous way to shore up drama when a more accurate (but less provocative) term is available.
> sexism > noun sex·ism \ ˈsek-ˌsi-zəm \ > 1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
> racism > noun rac·ism \ ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi- \ > 3 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Sexism is defined as discrimination based on gender or biological sex.
Both are well defined terms in English both in dictionaries and general usage. Stop trying to play games with words and start explaining why you think racism and sexism are ok.
The truth is this: To have equality of outcome across race and gender in entrepreneurship is impossible. It's unclear why anyone at all is interested in taking extremely high risk positions as founders of start ups relying on fast growth and with a small amount of burn; to segment that group by racial and gender identity is to shame and belittle the ones deemed "to hold the power". And when they cry out that they are being discriminated against on the basis of race, you are one step ahead of them: Your convenient re-definition of racism to be an act only committed by those of power denies the shamed their rightful defense.
Clearly.
> Is it a good goal etc
It’s not a goal, it’s a tool to combat systemic racism.
> Do you find virtue
Here’s what I think:
I think there’s no inherent genetic gender or race component that should impact outcomes in people’s relative success. If you believe there is, you are literally a racist or a sexist, by the very definitions of those terms. Given that, if you can predict a group of people’s outcomes based on their race or gender, there is an inequality of opportunity. I believe that the inequality of opportunity should be tackled.
I believe that tackling this is an urgent issue. I believe that affirmative action — like setting up these funds — is a working solution.
I'd be interested in alternative solutions - what would you suggest? Keep in mind that not doing anything doesn't seem to fix these things.
I'll give it a go. I first want to say something about the worldview required to do this sort of racial discrimination.
There is no way of quantifying the relative advantages and disadvantages between identity groups. How much is one group oppressed over another? Suppose that a simple tax would suffice to even things out, exactly how much should that tax be? There is no way of knowing precisely what that tax should be. Our attempts to define oppression are never going to be rigorous. They'll always be vague, which I believe is dangerous, since it will be enforced by some large bureaucracy. We need definition, but there will never be definition accurate enough. Feel free to argue me on this, but I don't see how you can do it.
Second, in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality. Every time I speak, I speak as a member of my group, for my group. My actions are actions of and for my group, as well. With the world view taken here, I cannot speak or act without the presupposition that I'm doing it as a move in a power game between my identity group and other identity groups. Should we accept that a person's ethnicity and gender must always qualify their speech and actions?
I agree that in conversation, one can observe the race and gender of the other person - but the merit of their words is still paramount. You may know that a book author is from Spain or Russia, but that does not affect how you read the book. However, in the worldview in which a racially discriminatory VC fund is socially acceptable, people are defined as members of groups among other groups, constantly vying for power and oppressing one another.
Notice I'm not really going after the racially-discriminatory VC fund itself. I'm explaining the worldview in which the fund was conceived, and in which it is socially acceptable. It boils North America down from a melting pot of ambitious individuals trying to do great things with each other, into identity groups that are constantly holding power over, and suffering under the tyranny of, other identity groups. Obviously, the dominant narrative here is that white males are oppressing women of color founders. But you have no idea about the individual biases of the white males you're decrying. And you also have no idea whether or not they achieved funded status based on their competence. Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence.
> Keep in mind that not doing anything doesn't seem to fix these things.
Why must we do something? Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system? I say that the system is operating in a very healthy manner.
Efforts to move power to the disadvantaged that disregard individuality has had tragic, deadly results in history (China, Vietnam, USSR).
I agree with this idea when you talk about giving a very specific quantity, but I'd argue that gathering some data can tell you that there is some significant disadvantage for some group relative to another. But yes, we will never get to a point where every group is 100% exactly equal. I'm not asking for Communism.
> in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality
Yes, and that definitely sucks. I don't like my individuality being denied either. It's definitely a significant drawback, and again, I'd welcome an alternative solution.
> Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence
I don't seek to rob white men (like myself) of individuality or to ignore their/my biases or competence or achievements or anything. I've been programming since I was eight but when looking for scholarships, it was harder for me to find any than it was for friends of mine who were in minority groups but didn't have any experience. I still can notice an issue, see people taking steps to solve it, and then decide that while these steps seem quite morally wrong and put me personally at a disadvantage, doing nothing seems like being complicit in something that was created out of the same kind of moral wrongdoings, and isn't getting any better. I'm not a fan of fighting fire with fire, but I don't see a better alternative.
Speaking of alternatives, I don't see you providing any...
> Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system?
http://fortune.com/2018/01/31/female-founders-venture-capita...
https://www.fastcompany.com/40473294/one-reason-black-entrep...
https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2018/02/...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v...
You're right that quantifying these things gets messy, but when I look at these things, I see that the system is skewed in favor of white men. Just look at the number "76%" (the amount of white male Venture Capitalists) and the fact that racism and sexism are definitely present today, and then try to say that the system as it is is fair.
If you want to argue that we'll never know what's the optimal amount of fair or that we'll never reach 100% exactly fair, then ok - I agree. If you want to argue that this worldview is bad, then ok - I agree. I also agree that it's bad to take away individuality, and to put people in boxes. But I don't see an alternative, and I do see a problem, and I don't see the solution to be much worse than the origins of the problem.
And before you reply, I suggest you look up the definitions in an English dictionary; personally I referenced Merriam-Webster, but most accepted English dictionaries will tell you more or less the same thing.
> sexism | 1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
> racism | 3 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Descrimination in and of it’s self isn’t racist / sexist. Unjust descrimination is certainly racist / sexist.