For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business | Hacker News Reader

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

bloomberg.com

677 pointssaeedjabbar775 comments

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.

Over the past few years I've been on numerous hiring events with my company for dev/ops jobs and I would say that the percentage of candidates that were black roughly matched your team...maybe 2-3% (and most of them were not US citizens). Of the remaining i would say about half were Asians (east/west) on visas, a third were US citizens (mostly white) and the balance were mostly Europeans on visas...super rough numbers obviously.

It's strange because we have a bunch of older black folks in IT roles that have been around for a long time. I've worked with quite a few black folks in my career (boring city not near the coasts) and the overall demographics are actually fair to middling (racially anyway, male/female is still a mess). New hires though? Not not so much. I don't see how we fix this overall situation without understanding what's causing that discrepancy.

It's not a quick fix but personally I feel we have to do more to inspire young kids to dream about this type of career and visualize it as part of their future. Part of that is (probably?) going to be seeing folks that they can identify with in those roles. Another part is (probably?) to make that resources are available for them to test the waters and develop those skills and refine their interests. I'm white, i don't know what it's like to grow up going to school in the setting most young black kids find themselves. I went to a mostly white school in the suburbs in the midwest and it treated 'nerds' like dog shit back in the day. Something tells me the story doesn't get better in metro public schools. Pop culture really seems to hold sway in those settings, maybe some help there wouldn't hurt.

+1 We definitely need to work on this from a "grass-roots" education-system level, but it's also a bit of a "chicken and egg" situation, because we also need to make the tech industry appealing to young black students who are in the process of forming ideas about the sort of career they want.

The examples[0][1] of humiliation from the article, and the many examples from black folks in this thread don't paint a picture of an industry that is particularly appealing to a student thinking about their career options. That's if they've even considered the industry in the first place - the dearth of visible/powerful black faces in tech is very likely causing a "can't be what you can't see" effect in the minds of many young black kids.

The fact that the industry is currently doing some introspection is great, but real-world, noticeable progress on these issues will probably take decades.

[0] > That message hit particularly hard in 2015, when Givens and his co-founder Eric Williams, who is also Black, brought some of their employees to Churchill Downs Racetrack, home of the Kentucky Derby. They were at a VIP suite to celebrate the first big installation of one of their bartending machines. Guest after guest walked past the pair of executives to greet their White employee, offer their congratulations and ask how he got the idea for the product. The mood dimmed once the well-wishers realized their gaffes. “It went really quickly from ‘I have a drink in my hand, and I want to network’ to ‘I just want to get out of here,’” Givens recalls.

[1] > His first two fundraising rounds were challenging, according to Hayes and his apparent doppelgänger, Messick. The recurring confusion about who was CEO, and the embarrassment and apologies that followed, certainly didn’t help. “I usually remember the room and the look on the face,” Hayes says. “The energy would drop dramatically.”

Man, I feel you, I have worked in the valley for 10 years and am yet to work closely with a black developer. I have felt the loneliness at times - I seem to oscillate between all white teams and teams with many Asians (I am Indian). When you are a minority in a group, I think you tend to overthink things, feel very judged, and may be put in to an uncomfortable position to speak for your community. It can be weird and I try my best to stay aware of myself in such situations.

By the way, I did read your blog post "The Machine Fired me" when it first came out - it was fascinating and extremely disturbing. Hope life is more boring now!

> When you are a minority in a group, I think you tend to overthink things, feel very judged, and may be put in to an uncomfortable position to speak for your community. It can be weird and I try my best to stay aware of myself in such situations.

You nailed it. At times, I definitely felt like I had become my own worst critique. Before I make a commit, I feel the weight of an invisible black committee that I represent and speak on behalf of.

> Hope life is more boring now!

Oh, how I wish!

> I feel the weight of an invisible black committee that I represent and speak on behalf of.

I am sorry that we do this, as I now know how it makes you feel. For some perspective, many white people do this because they don't see the world from your vantage point. It would be akin to me being blind and you being able to see and me asking you what does a tree look like. We think it is an innocent question, one that only you will have perspective on and therefor we don't see the harm that it actually does. We (not all of us) see it as akin to asking a guy who can see for his personal perspective, not as asking a guy to speak for all people that can see.

I have a good friend who just so happens to be black (I know that's a white thing to say but I don't know how else to express it) and he is frank with me and helped me to understand why this question is so alienating and degrading.

I regret that I have been guilty of this and appreciate that I have a friend that we have very little racial barriers due to our friendship so he can check me when I do asshole things not realizing it. Apparently passing cop cars with a black friend in the car is also an asshole move, I learned that one as well so I am guilty of a few, but at least I gain perspective.

> When you are a minority in a group, I think you tend to overthink things, feel very judged, and may be put in to an uncomfortable position to speak for your community.

why do you feel judged?

Because people tend to generalize and if you represent 50% of the experience they have with that minority it's very easy to label everything, especially negative aspects, as generally applicable to "all of them". So you bear the burden of representing your whole minority to the best of your ability. Members of the majority rarely need to do this or even be aware of this.

This is just part of it, but may give an idea.

The majority of people of African decent alive today have either lived through, or have parents/grand-parents that lived through the civil-rights movements(US)/decolonisation(Africa).

Some have lived without the right to speak their native language, to go to the school of their choosing, to vote, or had to give up their seat to a white person if the bus was getting full, considered second class citizen in their own land. So they either experienced it, and/or heard stories of how only the color of their skin stripped them of what we would consider basic rights, and the pain it caused people they know and love. Some (until 1990) have been born a crime[0] for being "mixed race".

You may think it's history but for many alive today it's their life story. And what I mentioned is but a small part of it, and I'm only talking about people of African decent. Had she lived 3 more years, Rosa Parks would have been able to see Barack Obama becoming president. And today, some get gentle[1] reminders[2] that they don't belong here[3], or just get threatened[4].

[0] https://youtu.be/WHKOJgUDRDM?t=86

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLXh85Nc1Bk

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQKx315yPtk

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAHBl7OWBY

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d25HYk9Oms

When you have more people, it gives everyone more data points to separate the individual from the group.

But when you are a single data point that represents a group, any personal characteristic can be easily construed/extrapolated as a characteristic of the group you are supposed to represent.

This leads to the feeling of "Am I being judged for myself or for my group?". This cuts for both the good and the bad stereotyping that your group might have.

>You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people.

Almost a decade in the industry and I have never worked with another black developer. One time I was on a team with a black project manager who use to be a developer but that's it. For all the pushback on diversity recruiting I appreciate events like Google sandbox that remind me that we do exist and present opportunities to network.

I knew a black developer once on the job, but he was a contractor and not on my team. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't find it :-) I've gotten so used to it that it simply never occurs to me any more.

Some companies are genuinely concerned. When I left a major corp, the VP of Software Development called me into his office and said (paraphrasing) "since you're leaving I can count on you to be honest with me. Are our diversity programs doing anything useful or are we just kidding ourselves?"

The company I went to after that (another large corporation) hired a consultant to interview a set of women and minorities to try to understand how comfortable they felt in their day-to-day roles. Again, knowing the HR people there, I felt they were genuinely trying to foster a pleasant environment, but that's also the company where I came across that one black developer.

Then again, I do recall travelling across the country to be my company's Expert for a deposition for a lawsuit over a project I was on and having the opposing party think I was the cab driver...

> Almost a decade in the industry and I have never worked with another black developer.

Working in technology in the public sector, where women and racial/ethnic minorities underrepresented in technology as a whole are generally less underepresented than is generally the case, I've worked with...two others, in a similar time frame.

People really should know better. It's not that hard to just be polite and avoid assumption. But I think you're doing the right thing by giving the benefit of the doubt. Whatever the reason for their behavior, a helpful and non-judgmental correction is more likely to get them to reevaluate their prejudices and maybe do better next time. As much right as you may have to be indignant it would only make them defensive.

There is a passage in Catch-22 where Colonel Cathcart accidentally makes a sexual reference when speaking with the chaplain.

At first he is embarrassed. But the more he thinks about it, the more he gets pissed at the chaplain for being present when he embarrassed himself. And when he remembers that the chaplain is only his subordinate, he gets furious. The chaplain suffers the colonel's wrath because...

For me, working in tech feels like being the chaplain.

"well-meaning friends—mainly other Black entrepreneurs who faced similar challenges—suggested that Givens add a White man as a co-founder."

I'm not black, but I'm also not white, and I've been suggested this numerous times as well by well-meaning people after our startup not being able to fundraise for several months but some of our white-male-founded competitors had successfully raised. One friend was even joking about a "white-guy-as-a-service" to help minority startups get funded -- i.e. hire a white guy to show up to your VC pitch (or maybe pitch it for you) and your chances of funding would probably astronomically rise.

This reminds me of a Nairobi-based startup who tweeted a job posting in which they were looking for a white male to join their team to act as a face for the business. I don't know if it was in jest but it was hilarious and sad.

This is basically what DJI did. Sad world but I bet they wouldn't have gained so much traction and investment if their marketing wasn't always full of white people using them (they did this right from the very beginning).

Yeah this is real man, but products win in the end of the day, beat them, it makes the competition harder, so what? I am in the same boat, work twice as hard, racism won't give you time, this can take decades to fix. Best of luck

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

I have this bias that people who get into programming as kids tend to end up as the strongest developers. My own personal effort to try and help tech diversify is support and promotion of https://www.blackgirlscode.com/

When I've worked in London I've been often surprised at how diverse QA teams are, especially compared to dev teams. I wonder if that's related.

> I have this bias that people who get into programming as kids tend to end up as the strongest developers.

I don't think this is true. I think that this bias is pushing away a lot of people who could be those strong developers, but think it is already too late for them.

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

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.

It certainly makes sense to assume (in your head) the black guy is a rapper, and the white guy is a tech CEO.

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?

> Are they unconsciously racist or are they just following experience-based heuristics?

Both! Today's discussion about racism isn't (mainly) about critiquing the motivations in peoples' deepest heart. It's about acknowledging that the outcomes of this kind of assumption can be racist, regardless of whether any harm was intended.

The person who is assumed to be subordinate, or less educated, or more prone to criminality will be given fewer opportunities. Society will systematically fail to recognize and utilize their talents, and can ultimately do them great harm through neglect - even if the individuals involved were "just following experience-based heuristics".

Acknowledging your potential to participate in racism doesn't mean admitting you have a cartoonish hatred. It means recognizing that it requires a proactive effort to keep assumptions from becoming self perpetuating in harmful ways.

This is what is meant by systemic racism.

> If black people in tech become more common this particular problem will solve itself.

I suspect there will not be more black people in tech, until they are not treated differently based on skin color.

The attempt at hidden messaging in the way the "who is it" question is posed, is _exactly_ the problem.

>Are they unconsciously racist against white people

That is not possible in this country.

Yes, it is experience/learning/environment based heuristics. And to me, there's nothing wrong with that. As humans, that's what we are programmed to do. It's completely natural. I would argue that it's pretty much inevitable.

Let's take your example and let's make it realistic and say there are 2 people in suits, one black and one white. Which one is the CEO? Heuristics say it's the white male. What is the difference between experience based heuristics and unconscious racism? It has to be internal to the person who is making the call. Because from any other perspective there is absolutely no difference.

As the parent said, these are honest mistakes. Based on what we learned from our parents, our culture, our peers. Based on our observations. We all have these prejudices. I certainly do. You call it experience based heuristics. I call it racism. Maybe it's not the technical definition of racism, but to me, if the only determining factor is the color of someone's skin, to me that is racism.

So is there a problem? I think we all agree there is. You even mentioned in your comment that this is a problem. Is it your fault? No. So if we agree there is a problem, the question you are asking is... should we do anything about it?

I am an optimist. And I do believe that eventually it will solve itself one way or another. But we can help. We can make it happen faster. This is a spectrum. One end is saying that it will happen anyways so why do anything about it? You could say a similar thing about any effort. Why contribute to cancer research? We will figure it out eventually. The reason is that we want it to happen faster. Because people are actively suffering, people are dying. This is happening to Black Americans right now and for centuries! The other end of the spectrum is equally ridiculous. Should you feel guilty and spend all your time on this cause? No.

I want to make one more point. I used to argue for experience-based heuristics. So. What is the argument in favor of experience-based heuristics? Well, the argument is that it's useful. It's a tool for making quick decisions that help you. It's most useful in situations where your safety is at risk. And yes, it's racist, but I'm not going to deny that it's useful for you to use heuristics to decide to walk quicker when you are walking through certain neighborhoods. I certainly would. But is it useful for you to assume that one person is a CEO? Or even a rapper? I'm pretty sure your safety is not at risk or there is an urgent need for a quick decision. I would argue it's actually starting to become harmful in today's environment to make these assumptions. And that's a great thing. Yes, it does suck for the people who were inadvertently caught between the old paradigm and the new paradigm. And I genuinely empathize with that and feel sorry for those people. And I wish we could all be more empathetic to that and seek to help those people rather than punish them. The new paradigm is better for us. For our society and for the majority of people. We are making progress. And we can accelerate that and make it happen faster.

Dear lord, do people not just simply say: "Hi, I'm <my name>. And you are?"

What is wrong with people? That's just basic courtesy.

When I’m not sure who is who, I’ll ask “Which one of you is so and so” as I scan the multiple of people.

People should use blank slates in more situations than they do.

It’s not all upside as some people take you to be slow for “not making connections,” but on the other hand you don’t make bad assumptions.

Solid advice. I always lookup people on LinkedIn before meeting them for the first time, so I usually don’t even have to ask.

As another black developer I can only relate to this.

Do you wonder if at least a few people are nervous? Some members of my family are straight-out racist. But then a few have said they prefer not buying goods from British Indians in my hometown because they feel somehow uncomfortable, yet bode no ill-will. How the British social awkwardness relates to American culture, I don’t know, however.

> You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people.

One of the strangest realizations I've had in my adult life is that when Silicon Valley people talk about improving workplace diversity, they don't mean black people. There are virtually no black people in Silicon Valley. Two on your team of 150 under-represents the population but not nearly as much as in places with a larger black population.

Has anyone ever pitched you on Atlanta? Tech here has a long way to go to match the local demographics but being a black developer (or manager, executive, founder, VC, whatever) isn't nearly as novel. Tho, our casual and not-so-casual racism outside the workplace is probably worse than Silicon Valley.

They also don't mean more Middle Easterners (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt,..) or Asians or Muslims or Sikhs or Natives, more diversity basically means more white women.

I think it's a noble cause but unfortunately the biases are deeply rooted in SV culture.

I mostly know California, this is where I learned to navigate the system. People often recommend the tech scene here or there, and it is tempting to just move.

But to tell you the truth, I don't want to start over. The devil you know...

First, I wanted to say congratulations on having that Techcrunch experience! That is very cool :)

I am white. I am often talking among my white colleagues who make statements like "I just want to work, I don't understand all the focus on diversity. Racism isn't something I consider when I go to work to make software." I understand this. I don't go to work trying to increase or lessen racism, it's simply not in the viewfinder.

However, I've talked with some of them about how it subtley changes your perspective and erodes your peace of mind to go to work among peers you don't outwardly identify with. We hope people go to office parties and learn finer details of those they work with and bond. This doesn't always happen. What helps immediately is being able to look around the room and see people who look like you.

I've been really happy to see how discussions about diversity have changed in the last 10 years. When we sit down with HR and do a workshop about diversity it is NOT about race at all. The emphasis has been on appreciating and drawing from diverse life experience from people who may appear commonplace. I've watched the language change into something more constructive and it pulls people away from simply thinking "I'm the one Asian dude in this department". I remember at my last job I started learning a fair amount of Tagalog because 3 folks around me came from the Fillipines and wanted to share awesome homecooked meals. I really valued that experience.

I have always lived and worked in California. I've been cautiously optimistic seeing people grow curious about others' upbringings and cultures, especially with oversharing from outlets like Instagram.

Anywho, glad to have you here, sir :)

My personal strategy to avoid this is to just ask the person I think is least likely to be the CEO or whatever. If you are wrong, often the recipient feels flattered.

Yes, but try doing that, when the CEO has a name that clearly matches their ethnicity.

Bummer, man. Did you ever find any way to control the outcome, even if partially?

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.

> 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.

You would be surprised at how pervasive and long-lasting majority privilege can be. I live in Southeast Asia where foreigners are a very distinct minority and they experience all kinds of hardships. Difficulties making (local) friends, difficulties dealing with government bureaucracies, difficulties finding "their" food. Very few of them ever gain any empathy from it.

On one occasion I was at a bar talking with a German guy telling me about how there are some areas in Germany where you get off the train and it "doesn't even feel like Germany". All the immigrants dress differently, talk differently, eat different food. They don't even try to fit in!

Meanwhile, he hasn't learned the local language, has no local friends, lives in an apartment building that is mostly German expats. He actually said "I love my building because there are so many Germans." He doesn't even like the local food; I've never seen him eat it.

You'd think the entire experience would build empathy. "Hey, living in a foreign country as a minority is really tough. No wonder they like to hang out around their own people. I did it too!" But nope. Completely oblivious.

The very fact they find it necessary to use a different word to describe themselves, "expats", than what they call foreigners who live in their countries, "immigrants", shows that they do not at all consider themselves to be in any way similar.

I've lived as part of a minority in other countries for half of my life. I try as much as I can to blend in, not because I think they are superior, but because I want to learn from their culture. But I have no illusion they will ever treat me the same way they treat their own. I can speak the local language perfectly and lots of people will still address me in English (not the local language) just because I look foreign. The locals never invite for anything. It's quite frustrating. I don't even have people from my own culture to socialize with, so I am mostly alone with my wife (who has another culture as well). It's frustrating for sure, but we learn to rely only on our own and enjoy life like that.

Anecdotal but I've lived in different Asian countries for the last 15 years and my experience is that expats who live in compounds geared toward their nationality, never eat local food and never bothered to learn the local language tend to also be very racist. You'll hear them non-stop complaining about the locals or making sarcastic comments about them, about them having no manners, not speaking English properly (ironic considering) etc...

And often enough, they'll say things like, "you know how Chinese/Malaysians/... are" as if that statement actually made sense...

I've even heard one express profound admiration for a British family that had been involved in the Opium war and had been in HK for a long time. He admired them for staying "pure" despite staying so long in HK...

It's really anecdotal but I've rarely seen a more toxic and racist culture than the Western expat communities in countries I've lived in...

Have you ever tried pointing out the obliviousness to your German friend?

I'am an ethnic Chinese living in Japan and essentially blend in. I've also spoken with a lot of other expats, often white who complain a lot about (sometimes positive) discrimination and just once, rather offhandedly, I replied that now you know what it feels like to be a minority. The instant reaction is to become defensive, but after a while, the bulb lights up.

This is - sadly - the norm for many British retirees who move to Southern France, Spain, or Portugal and then complain bitterly that the stupid backward locals can't speak English properly.

As a German, that seems to a somewhat German stereotype. And as stereotypes go, there is little bit of truth to it.

Points in case: Your friend. A couple of my friends back the day during holiday (Asia, Spain, you name it), same thing about food. My grandparents from what is now Tchechia. Born and raised there, never spoke anything else then German, only stayed in there social group.

Generally speaking, that Europeans have a tendency to not take a lesson from that looks like white privilege to me. Your an expat, but still can feel better because of it.

Counterpoint: Another friend of mine, lived in Bangkok for a while during and after his studies, lived in an upscale Appartment block, mostly under Thais. Learned the language as much ad possible, ate at local places. Unless it was a special occasion, then his girlfriend and him went to a European place.

Some folks travel to experience the world and be a part of it. Some travel to be like a visiting royal, to be treated their due of all of the exotic experiences.

It is pretty normal that you hold onto traditions of your original country as an expat, you can observe this everywhere in every culture. Sometimes that loyalty goes far beyond that of people still in their home countries.

That said, someone has to be the majority and I think minorities in general have no problem with it. It isn't necessarily a "privilege" or a problem. If it is too hard on you, perhaps relocation is a better option. Most people just don't give it a thought after a while and no society can adapt to every whim, it is on minorities to adapt to the present culture.

I don't think your German friend sees his current living situation as anything other than temporary.

It’s weird judging him condescendingly by saying he’s oblivious when at the end of the day, he’s happy.

Maybe it’s his happiness in the situation that leads him not to ponder it like you do. He’s not missing anything that makes his life richer.

I’ve been in both the majority and minority many times in my life and I like you have pondered it, but I also have the capacity to observe myself from the third person in a cold clinical way so I’m neither oblivious nor unhappy.

Given four choices: aware and content, unaware and content, aware and uncontent and unaware and uncontent, I would never choose the last two, awareness isn’t worth it for contentment.

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".

I am also Jewish, but people don't know unless I tell them 99% of the time. The only time I feel "different" is when from time to time people say incredibly anti Semitic things to me not realizing what my background is. It's usually near strangers and really jarring. This also happens with my sexuality (gay), so I've just sort of accepted it. I do code switch, I don't use any "jewish" words in random situations and I shift my natural speaking pitch down to sound "straight". It's been my reality for so long that it just automatically happens now. I think we are all different, but certain differences have a lot more stigma attached to them and it shapes the way you view and interact with the world. I also do not feel like I'm with my "people" in interest groups.

I think it's very subtle stuff, an example may be having kosher food being the default.

When living in Singapore, I used to make the faux pas of mixing together Muslim food (no pork), Indian food (no beef) and Chinese food (lots of pork/beef) together.

I live in NC. Judaism is more than just a religion. For many jews, it's part of their identity. That makes it different than going to clubs and bars or game dev events. It's a sense of exclusion that I feel at times, especially being in the bible belt.

I've never had any particularly anti-semitic things happen to me, just a few minor incidents. But anti-semitism still happens to jews, and that affects me. For example, after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting a couple years ago, my temple had to hire an off-duty police officer during our high holiday services so that temple members would feel safe. I have family members who attended the Pittsburgh temple.

My mother experienced anti-semitism growing up in NJ that is part of her psyche to this day such that she's not comfortable wearing any jewish symbols.

This is nothing like the black experience, and I don't mean to say that it is. But it gives me some empathy for what it must feel like to be marginalized, to be different.

That is all I was trying to say.

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?

Christmas feels weird to me -- It feels vaguely exclusive.

I'm a white British guy living in the Netherlands. I'll never forget shortly after moving here, I was sat in the garden with our Dutch neighbours and my Dutch girlfriend, and the man started complaining about "immigrants" and all the problems they brought to the Netherlands. My girlfriend said "you know Dave is an immigrant?" and he just waved it away, "Not you, you're not like them". Obviously he wasn't talking about well behaved white guys like me with his sweeping generalization, he meant the brown skinned guys.

White privilege is very much a thing in the Netherlands. Even if someone knows you're not Dutch, as long as you look northern European it's fine. If you look like Zwarte Piet though, well, many Dutchies would much rather you went back to where you came from. Except when it's time to bring presents to the white Dutch kids. Then we love those adorable blackfaces!

Actually things are changing in the Netherlands, some of it for the better, but there's still a significant, stubbornly racist population here. Much more than you'd think when hearing about "tolerant Netherlands" from outside.

It does look like it's improving at a rate of knots though. Hell, even Rutte got on the bandwagon recently which is not something I thought I'd see.

A friend of mine was talking about it recently (her family are from Egypt, but she's born and raised Dutch) and she said she probably notices more issues from being a woman than looking "Arabic." This is Amsterdam though, and it's hard to generalise from here to the rest of the country.

If you're from Britain you should know it is about stereotypes, not race. The Asians make your food, the Polish fix your pipes and the Romanians build your houses.

I’m a white Catholic. The first time I experienced being a minority was in Korea. It was definitely unsettling how many people seemed openly or somewhat unhappy we were there. I can’t imagine living my entire life with that sense! If you just normalized it and moved on, I imagine you’d have deep psychological effects and chronic career challenges, etc. So, yeah, pretty much what we see minorities face around the world. I don’t know the solution, though.

It seems to me pretty much impossible that a white person would ever fully feel like part of the group in Korea, even if 100% of the hostility was replaced by genuine love. You’d be different.

spent half the last decade in seoul, my impression is that it's both far easier and far harder to fully feel like part of the group in korea as a non-korean. the first hurdle, which most foreigners (including me) never fully make it past, is the language. after that, it is down to the specific people that make up the group around the foreigner, and i think this is true of any humans anywhere. my impression was that the most cruel forms of exclusion/discrimination in korean society were reserved for other east asians/asians who speak korean as a fluent L2. this will probably come to a head, hopefully with positive results, in the next 15-20 years given that there is a large (non-trivial) subgroup of children in korea now, mostly outside seoul, with a parent (usually the mother) from a south east asian country.

on the topic that kicked off this subthread (i think--about stubbornly non-adaptive western foreigners in very different cultures than their own), when i was doing ~25 hours a week of korean language classes and study in addition to a full time job, i used to tell that particular subtype of Complaining Expat that if they wanted to level up their complaining about the host culture, they should learn intermediate korean, if only for the sole purpose of unlocking a whole new ocean of complaining material. this was obviously bait/a joke, but there are no jokes: it's one thing to have someone make basic hand gestures like "eating" etc to you when they know you absolutely don't really know what you are saying; it's another thing to have someone do it when you have been conversing with them in their language for the last five to ten minutes.

i could do like fifty posts about race and foreignness in korea but i always think of the model who has appeared in a lot of korean shoe and clothing ads recently. his parents are nigerian and korean and he grew up in korea with korean as his first language, and in an interview he once expressed goodhumoured frustration about ethnic-korean people speaking English to him by default when his english is, by his own admission, not that great at all.

> 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.

Being in a minority is not enough. I'm a 'minority' where I live, but nowhere near oppressed. Just the opposite as far as I can tell.

You're right. It's way too late to edit my comment, but it's the sense of being excluded or being seen as less-than because of my Judaism. It's the knowing that Jews were and sometimes still are hated just because they are different. It's not just being a minority.

> I also never realized what it must feel like to be a Christian in America until I visited Israel for the first time

I'm pretty sure white atheists in America feel equally among "my people" as Christians do (unless they're in a church or other highly religious surroundings).

It's also an odd comparison as religion is a choice, where race or ethnicity is not.

> ...as religion is a choice...

It's not clear to me what aspects of religion would be obvious candidates for being described as a 'choice'. Personally, the fundamental aspects seem to operate as primal psychological forces, and overt action in contravention to them rapidly erodes things like confidence and self-esteem, while increasing things like anxiety. Every once in a while, people will definitely work against those pressures, but I would expect that behaviour to be unsustainable in the long term for the vast majority.

I'll agree that Christians do not feel among "my people" unless they are in their particular church culture. Even going to a drastically different type of church can feel out of place. Put a Pentecostal in a traditional Greek Orthodox service and ask if it felt like home.

I'll also ask that atheists stop referring to religion as a choice. Atheists have as much of a say in whether God exists as anybody else. It would be patronizing to tell firm atheists that they chose atheism when clearly in the atheists mind, they are just reacting to reality. Likewise a theist doesn't have a say in whether an almighty creator exists and has opinions or not.

Technically, religion is a choice; but in practice it is usually as much a choice as one's native language. People who are lucky to grow up with access to scientific education and varied cultural awareness are more easily able to choose the religion they want (if any); but many people (I would dare say the majority, on the global scale) are only exposed to a single, often very narrow mindset heavily defined by "religion" (to which one can include formally non-religious mindsets, like anti-vaxxers for example). For them, it takes a lot of effort to change their initial programming, assuming they ever get a chance at it.

As for ethnicity, while again technically it is not a "choice", I'm not really sure it can be clearly defined. A friend was mine was born in Italy to British parents, his wife was Bosnian and two of their children were born in the US -- what is their ethnicity?

For most Jews, Judaism is more than a religion. It's core to our identity for many of us. All of the Jews who died in the holocaust didn't have a choice to just stop being Jewish.

To be clear: I'm not trying to compare being Jewish to being Black. I'm saying that I can draw empathy from the Jewish part of my identity toward other people who have been mistreated because of part of their identity.

Also, even if it were a choice, I would no more give it up than anyone else should have to give up their race or ethnicity or any other part of their identity just to fit in.

Most people do not know about the different Jewish peoples enough to recognize them. If you ask me to distinguish between Sephardim and Spaniards, or between an Ashkenazim and broadly European people, I will probably fail at that task.

Most people will be unsuspecting that you are Jewish, and even if they realize that you are Jewish, they will not think much about it. Perhaps they will ask you if you have any dietary restrictions and that's it.

Then, most Christians today see Judaism as another Abrahamic religion that is close to Christianity, not as a fundamentally different thing (even if in practice, it can be substantially different). Also, most people in the West are becoming increasingly secular and non-religious.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Sure, I don't know if I ever worked with jewish people in my life. Reason being, that religion never came up ever.

But as soon as jews don't blend in, either by traditional hair cuts or clothing, or by virtue of being at a synagoge, things are different. We still have enough anti-semitic incidents in Germany to actually be worried. I once worked with a guy who insulted a co-worker behind his back for being a jew (based on the family name, no idea if it's true or not). So yeah, you do get discriminated against if you are a jew. Not the same level as blacks in America, or muslims in India (add other example of extreme racism), but you do.

Only valid for Germany for lack of reevant insight and experience in other countries.

I guess you're mixing up the religion vs ethnic origin? I mean, if we put the religion aside, can we say the same about e.g. Irish or Italian Americans?

The Jewish experience is multi-faceted. And yes, as far as Irish or Italian Americans were treated as non-white in the early 1900s, and that they remember that experience, and that it gives them empathy to what it must be like for other minorities, then yes, we can say the same thing.

I'm only trying to draw empathy from my Jewish experience, that is all.

> You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people.

Why do you find this lonely? Do you not like the company of people unless they are black?

Being the same race as someone else is one more thing you may have in common with someone when getting to know them. It's not that every white person or every black person has had the same life experience but when trying to connect with a new group of peers, you may be subconsciously drawn to approach someone that looks more like you before you approach someone that doesn't. Humans are still very tribal animals so we should be trying to make more diverse connections to others, to be more inclusive. Diversity in this sense doesn't just mean race but can also mean different genders, age groups, faiths, socio-economic classes, personalities, and physical abilities. Making more inclusive connections (other than based on appearance) can be hard because it requires actually getting to know someone first.

I'm sure the parent comment doesn't mean that they only like the company of other black people. It's more likely they feel like an outsider on their team simply due to looking different and having a different cultural upbringing than their other teammates. A more inclusive team would have likely made the parent comment not feel this way.

If you were on a team of 148 people of another race and there was only one other person that was the same as you, would you feel a little out of place?

Why doesn't this ever happen to indian ceos. Sundar, Satya, ibm's ceo, or bazillion other companies

It happened to Sundar. There was an incident at a tech conference where he was walking through the booths and some people started asking for selfies with him. The "booth guy" who had condescending look grabbed Sundar's nametag slightly tugging on his neck without requesting his permission to see who he was. People were shocked at how rude the physical contact was. More ought to have been made of that. That booth guy should have been at least reprimanded for doing that to anyone, let alone Google's CEO.

I haven't heard about this incident BUT it still doesn't shows why there are so many indian CEOs.

I really doubt that it's the norm.

Look at the numbers not the anecdotes.

There are disproportionate number of Indian CEOs. It would have been impossible with racism and what not.

For everyone arguing "honest mistake" or "just chance", think about the person at the receiving end. For the person making that mistake, it could be their first, but for the person at the receiving end it could be the hundredth, and that too, not without consequences. The first 3-4 times I got "randomly selected" for additional screening at the airport, I was like whatever. But years later after my probably 100th "random selection", I am mostly just upset. Watching traveler after traveler go around you, staring at you, while you're being subjected to additional search, your baggage laid out open in front of everyone, while being asked questions like "have you recently been in contact with any chemicals?" and so on. It is humiliating. And this is just one aspect of their life. Imagine having to face "honest mistakes" everyday in all kinds of different aspects of your life.

>It is humiliating

This is a common theme in a number of stories in this thread that I don't understand.

How and why does being a victim of racism translate into shame? When I am subject to injustice, my emotional reaction has always been fury and frustration.

I imagine the feeling of humiliation is a normal human reaction, no matter if the cause is racism, domestic abuse, rape or what have you. The first few times it happens you might get angry, but when it's the 100th time you'll instead feel tired, sad and humiliated.

I understand sad and tired, but still not humiliation/shame. Is it because the recipient is warn down starting to internalize the narrative of the aggressor?

Fury and frustration are part of the experience, but that doesn't exclude humiliation. From a quick Wikipedia search: "It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decreased."

Because fury and frustration requires energy.

Then why feel shame opposed to nothing?

Did you ever think it might be the way you dress or your demeanor? Obviously, it could be racial also, but how could you know that?

His clothes or demeanor can’t possible be the same for n > 100, but his race sure is.

Let’s face it, the TSA blatantly discriminates against race and it’s not a secret.

Oh, but it can. I used to have dreadlocks and wear saggy clothes and I was randomly selected each and every time.

Assuming it is race, do you really think the whole TSA does? Wouldn't it have to be codified in order for them to do so?

I think it would probably be more likely a few racist employees he unfortunately has to deal with.

Ahh yes, the good ol' "how you dress", "how you carry yourself", "your personal hygiene", "how you talk" or one of the other hundred responses I get from people immediately when I talk about the unfair treatment I've seen in my life. All I can say is no it has nothing to do with how I dress, because half of those "random checks" were during my business trips when I worked for a major consulting firm. So I doubt my suit and tie had anything to do with it.

You might be suffering from confirmation bias. You have a forgone conclusion (it's all due to racism), so you see racism everywhere.

It's just really farfetched that all black people are being frisked at airports as much as you are, simply because they're black.

Maybe it could be your face matches some known terrorist or something. Or maybe you're flying out of the same airport a lot and the staff has it out for you for some reason. Who knows?

You are being downvoted because this is a soft form of victim blaming [1]. As tone and context are difficult to transmit in such a short reply, it might be a good idea to phrase things in a more empathetic way in the future.

And for the record, no, no this isn't because of how they dress.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

I disagree with the premise of “victim blaming”. If we can't look at all sides of an issue for fear of being publicly shamed for going against a narrative, we'll end up with wrong conclusions a lot of the time.

I did acknowledge racism could also play a part, but I don't see how we are supposed to be able to accept that one can read the minds of those that affront him.

I also don't give a damn about the “monkey no like, hit 'you are bad' button” people seem to care about.

Why would that matter?

Isn't the implied assumption that he is being treated that way simply because he's black?

Have you tried applying for Global Entry? That may end your torment. Just a thought.

So he should pay to be treated with dignity at the airport?

If I could pay some money to not be subjected to that, I would do it instead of waiting for systemic racism to end.

Some of the most successful blacks in tech had to 'hide' their blackness to achieve success. Robert Smith, the wealthiest black man in America, specifically didn't put up a photo on his investment firm's site to avoid any possibility of bias (now that he's a multi-billionaire who's "made it", this is no longer a concern).

Calendly, who's CEO is black, and is one of the top performing black led tech startups curiously doesn't have an about us page (and though I don't know the exact reason, I can only suspect why).

A very good friend of mine, a black woman in finance, had to have drinks with and entertain obnoxiously racist jokes from a potential white client to close the deal.

Black folks don't get the presumption of competence. You're assumed to be mediocre (or worse) until you can prove yourself exceptional.

I've tried a strategy like that in various contexts. e.g. not uploading a photo of myself on a Slack workspace. How differently might people read what I'm saying if they assume that I'm white versus knowing that I'm black?

I thought it wise to try this strategy when looking for employment, but I think it actually works against me in that case. If the employer knows I'm black then they can filter me out from the get-go and save both of us time rather than be dragged through a pointless interview process. It's hard to really quantify the exact degree to which my race is a detriment to how I'm perceived, but I sense it often enough to know that it's there in some capacity.

> You're assumed to be mediocre (or worse) until you can prove yourself exceptional.

And to make this personal, feeling like you have to be the best in every group in order to be respected enough that you can't be ignored leads to overwork and burnout.

Very true. There is less tolerance for middling black people in general, I jokingly refer to it as the Obama effect. Mediocrity in black people is often viewed as a function of their race rather than as the quality of an individual with flaws. If you aren't living up to the Obama standard you're sometimes thought to be a net negative compared to what might have been if there was a white person in your place. Mediocre white people are just assumed to be the best available option for the organization at the time. I've heard coworkers literally refer to other black people as "the price of diversity" (and just to be clear, their point was that the price was "worth it" in the name of diveristy). It sucks.

Growing up, my grandmother would often tell me I needed to be "twice as good as the next best white person" to be taken seriously. I resented the premise behind that statement but she was not wrong.

It's a feeling that doesn't go away & often compounds on imposter syndrome.

From Peggy McIntosh's list: "If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones."

I used to work for a regional ILEC and everyone in the company was required to do regular ridealongs with the installers to get a better understanding of the customer base and their needs.

Me (a white guy) would frequently do ridealongs with some of our black installers and I would see this kind of treatment from customers regularly. I wasn't dressed like I was doing install work (business casual) and was clearly younger and would tell the customer in advance that I worked in X department and was just learning from the installer.

People would talk to me like the installer wasn't there. It really didn't matter what demographic either, it was pretty universal. Except for one older lady. She didn't even want me in her house if I wasn't there to physically work on her service. I liked her.

Did you learn anything from the customers? Isn't it obvious what phone customers want when they ask for phone service? It's not a complicated custom product for the user.

It's not about learning from the customers.

It's about learning the disconnect between what the customers report and what the actual problem is. It's about learning what the field technicians have to deal with and how the service actually works.

Cable, DSL & Fiber internet are much more complicated services than anyone gives them credit for.

There was a presentation from the Black Diversity group in my company where they described an incident where they gathered for an ERG meeting. They were a collection of engineers, managers, legal, etc from across the company. The front desk security, who also was black, assumed they were cafeteria staff and directed them to the cafeteria without even asking. It was eye opening how deeply unconscious bias occurs.

My Asian friends say that especially Asian women have problems being taken as authority figures as well. My friend was a senior manager at an accounting firm and went to visit a client with a fresh grad who was a tall white male. The client instantly greeted the fresh grad first and assumed he was the manager and she was the subordinate.

Asian women being taken as an authority figure? Heck, anecdotally they can’t even be seen as developers. I have an Asian friend/former coworker. Anytime that we would all go to a local conference they would assume she was QA.

I have a friend who runs a team and hires according to these lines:

  - Management: Europeans
  - Coding: Russians
  - QA: Indians

He will not consider that he might be wrong here.

There is a somewhat popular, entirely legal version of that created by western companies hiring outsourcing companies for different functions.

How successful is his team? He might be suffering from confirmation bias if he is good at interviews/choosing people.

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.

There was a very interesting article by Kelefa Sanneh in the New Yorker last year untitled "The fight to redefine racism" which contrasts the work done by DiAngelo with the positions taken by Ibram X. Kendi. [1] Sanneh is not convinced either.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...

Yeah. Pick up a book by James Baldwin, or read an essay by Frederick Douglas. Read anything by black authors on the experience of their lives.

I believe strongly these are more valuable than non-black corporate anti-racist consultants...

There's also the works of Thomas Sowell.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thomas+sowell

It's really telling how during this entire BLM revival, white people have been recommending this particular book - written by a white author. Even in the midst of a racial awareness campaign, black voices are muffled.

This also made an impact on me: "Traveling While Black" on the Oculus Quest https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2121787737926354

You should be skeptical. Here’s an excellent piece from John McWhorter delving into why:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-reli...

> Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational.

It's also problematic because the workplace inherently has an underlying adversarial quality that can provide a never-ending supply of "microaggressions" and various forms of otherings that effectively sow more division than actually get non-whites anywhere.

The author is particularly clever for writing a book for the target of anti-racism, because the market for "look who's racist" media is thoroughly saturated.

Since race is becoming a greater and greater issue, I imagine it will continue to become a get-rich-quick scheme for some adept to the English language, or the language of CorporateSpeak.

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

did you generate this reply from hncynic?

There's a lot of money to be made in "anti-racism" and "gender-science", especially in tax-heavy countries. No one ever dares to question it, and it's "good" causes that could use some of the workers income.

I'll be contrarian and recommend Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" instead.

> 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.

I admit I only just started reading her book, so can't comment on that, but I would say that's not the takeaway I got from any of the online videos or interviews I've seen of her, most definitely not from the youtube one I linked.

I think the trouble here is the double meaning of the word racist. When some people hear the word, they think of cross-burning fanatics and mass murderers. On the other hand, the current big conversation is about how everyone is racist and that society is rife with systemic racism.

That creates a catch-22 for anyone who commits a faux-pas (like mistaking the black CEO for a subordinate). Either admit to racism and cast oneself in with the cross-burners, or bail out of the situation ASAP.

We have the same kind of problem with the label of "sex offender." It's a category that runs the gamut from "guy who got arrested for public urination while walking home drunk from the bar one night" all the way to Jeffrey Dahmer.

Scott over at Slate Star Codex has a fantastic piece that covers this phenomenon [1]. The core idea has to do with the tension between central and non-central examples of a category:

Remember, people think in terms of categories with central and noncentral members – a sparrow is a central bird, an ostrich a noncentral one. But if you live on the Ostrich World, which is inhabited only by ostriches, emus, and cassowaries, then probably an ostrich seems like a pretty central example of ‘bird’ and the first sparrow you see will be fantastically strange.

I'm glad we're having this conversation in society. I honestly don't know what to do about it though.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

Yes - perhaps if the current big conversation was rephrased as "everyone is biased and that society is rife with systemic bias" - people would be more willing to agree that its a problem and agree that they are part of the problem and would be more willing to be involved in solving it.

To be honest - everyone, no matter who they are, makes judgements and has biases.

the deep problem, to me, is that nuance and complexity are self-censoring.

any position that doesn't losslessly compress into a chant or a rally cry or 240 characters is effectively censored by its own unfitness for the infrastructure of mass propagation.

this ultimately favors certain corners of the anti-censorship crowd, for you can be vocally against censorship while knowing full well that it is the most overbroad, reductionist and populist strains of messaging that prevail under such conditions.

Somehow you proposed a "double meaning" of racism and missed the actual meaning that's being addressed by our society. Racism isn't about personal prejudice, although it's certainly a participation trophy for them. Racism is not about who is burning crosses, or about who is born into privilege. Racism is a system, a set of rules, rites, privileges and laws that puts 100% of POC at a disadvantage, and 100% of white people at an advantage, regardless of the rest of their social status. The advantage can range from "more likely to be taken seriously in a board meeting" to "more likely to end up dead for no reason at all", with a ridiculous amount of "more likely to end up prison labor" in the middle. Not everyone experiences the system exactly the same way, but even the most privileged POC are likely to point it out, and even the most unprivileged white people are likely to dismiss it as nonexistent.

It doesn't take a single prejudiced person to enact it. It's built into the laws and the systems and considered "neutral".

" I honestly don't know what to do about it though."

That's a major criticism I have of the crusaders against "systemic racism." While I think the term is intended to capture the accumulated, "death by a thousand cuts" set of disadvantages that are faced by marginalized groups, it characterizes the problem in such a way that it makes it seem intractable. This is a perfect framing for politicians and activists, whose focus (IMHO) is on getting people mobilized by describing/raising awareness about problems, rather than actually solving them.

To me, when somebody describes specific examples of "systemic racism", I am immediately able to suddenly identify specific actions that can be taken to address each tractable problem. Replace "America is inherently racist" with "End Qualified Immunity" and "ensure public schools share funding across regions", etc. I think framing things like this makes the problems more solvable and far less politically useful for the demagogues.

The problem you describe, of the double meaning of the term “racism”, is very real, but only among white people. When communicating with a Black CEO, you can safely assume that they understand the true meaning of the term, from experiencing it every day. And as a result will appreciate the admission and apology. The second mistake to avoid is to not expect a medal, so to speak, for doing the bare minimum. In my experience that is a common pattern: demonstrating a basic understanding of systemic racism, then expecting to be treated as a hero for it - then being disappointed when we’re (understandably) not. Sometimes this can be quite exhausting to someone targeted by racism, because it adds to their mental burden instead of lightening it.

If it is a faux-pas, an immediate excuss is the solution. At least for mature people. There is no explicit racism involved in the CEO example, as long as you treated both persons decently and politely and only misjudged the ranks.

The sex offender thing looks a lot like a straw man argument, so. When I think about racists, yes KK Nazis and so on come to mind. But more often I think about the daily, systematic racism white folks show towars people of colour, migrants, other religions. More often than not accompanied by discriminating women and the LGBTQ community.

The whole thing makes white people subconsciously want to avoid minorities because of the risk of mob punishment if they fail to follow new rules being created for conduct.

Same thing happened after me too where many men were afraid to risk power for a real life hookup with the risks involved and have opted out for paided (where legal) risk free transactions. Which in turn has reduced the amount of relationships in general and made everyone lonely.

Try approaching someone in denial about their alcoholism and talk about alcoholism they will act very similarly. These people need rehab.

Robin Diangelo’s work doesn’t seem to me very good or well informed on what anti-racism actually constitutes. It seems mostly like a schtick to sell to HR managers. The way that she essentializes race seems like a bizarre, inverted reification of whiteness (and by extension white supremacy), than any deconstruction or attack on it.

Anti-racism is about taking on the powers and material structures that reproduce racism in our society to put an end to that reproduction. It’s what the multiracial coalition is doing right now, in the streets, forcing changes to laws and policing.

All of this has little to do with your boss paying someone to lecture you about why you’re bad/biased/ignorant. In fact, it’s contrary to anti-racism, because it positions your boss, who controls your life and buys her classes, as the arbiter of what is and isn’t racism.

People would be better off studying the life and work of Fred Hampton.

Agreed. I found her work to be devoid of any attempt at connecting her theoretical claims to any form of data and/or measurements.

As if two human beings who both happen to be white are the same, when one was born in a trailer park and the other a high-rise in Central Park West. I was pretty irritated to see her book getting promoted by my HR department, who is filled with people who proudly brag about "math not being my thing."

What exactly are the powers and material structures that contribute to the perceived racism in our society?

From my limited understanding of this position, it sounds like the goal is a dismantling of police and courts which form the backbone of a civil rule of law society.

> 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.

That doesn't sound outlandish to me at all. For what it's worth, it doesn't have to phrased in a stilted manner like that. A quiet "That was racist and I have no excuse. I am sorry, and will do better in the future." is fine.

I suspect that most people who want to "get the hell out" rather than apologize for racism have little to no experience with making sincere apologies and trying to genuinely mend fences in general. This probably has a significant overlap with people who claim that you should immediately leave your employer rather than speak out about any of their policies that you disagree with.

> I suspect that most people who want to "get the hell out" rather than apologize for racism have little to no experience with making sincere apologies and trying to genuinely mend fences in general.

I would honestly suggest watching the video I linked by Robin Diangelo. I think that level of embarrassment/defensiveness would be common to the vast, vast majority of white people of a particular social class in the US, regardless of their broader experience making sincere apologies. Putting the frame of reference of "Look, only people so inexperienced with socialization that they can't make sincere apologies" in my opinion takes away from the more likely reality that the belief that "only bad people can be racist" is what is limiting forward progress in these areas.

"I think that level of embarrassment/defensiveness would be common to the vast, vast majority of white people of a particular social class in the US"

Interesting. My response to your recommendation of Dr. DiAngelo's work elsewhere in this thread was critical of her treating "white" as a monolith.

Which particular social class of whites do you think this applies to?

This also brings up another criticism I have about what I view is an absolute lack of scientific rigor: "White Fragility" is a phrase that can't be generalized to humans as a whole who are members of the dominant ethnic group of their respective societies. One would expect an urban, ethnic Han Chinese person to react in a similar pattern when confronted with their privilege in their own society. Think Japan as well.

Again, no measurements, or attempts to quantify. Which is convenient, when you realize that her workshops on anti-racism training feature an approach that has never been scientifically validated for efficacy in solving the problem.

I really hate to harp on this so much, but I am deeply interested in ACTUALLY SOLVING THE PROBLEM, and that makes me extra wary of people who sell snake oil cures to absolve HR departments of liability.

I think this follows a general rule I have found in my professional life.... people react WAY more forgiving when you admit a fuckup than you think they will before you admit it. It is amazing how quickly people want to forgive you and help when you admit failure openly and without excuse.

Exactly this. I have a coworker who I used to like personally, even though I had a lot of problems with his actual work. But, he would never own up to making any mistakes, and now no one likes him personally or professionally.

I've read "White Fragility".

While I completely agree that the stories in this article are hugely problematic and represent issues that need to be solved, I think books like "White Fragility" are not helpful in solving them. This is due to a focus on group identity, and describing "White" as if it's a monolithic group of people, all with the same culture, emotions, and reactions.

Another interesting aspect I identified while reading the book was it's description of the emotions that one can expect to see when confronting white people about race issues: the description could have been used to describe any human being you will ever meet when you accuse/blame them for something that they did not personally do. It really does read like a horoscope in that sense.

I find it ironic that people on HN, who are typically super data driven, get on board with works like "White Fragility". Diangelo is one of many academics from the humanities departments who are incredibly pseudo-scientific. Data is incredibly scarce, measurements and studies even less so. Statistical knowledge isn't present in the vast majority of these folks. Typically, the "scientific method" is reading and writing essays/novels. When you don't attempt to quantify a problem, you can't propose solutions and then measure their results. You instead just keep yourself busy finding ever more ways to describe the water to the drowning person.

I think the trend you're describing comes down to post-modernists' general rejection of objective truth, which the scientific method relies on. This excerpt from the Chomsky-Foucault debate sums it up well[0]. I like the idea as a progression of philosophy but it's been applied in some pretty terrible ways[1].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQvL7YH0L_o

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

That's a weird box to put it in. I think the reason the fragility concept has caught on with (US) black people is because we each have far more experience dealing with white people than they have dealing with us (on average.)

It's difficult to design a study around. Calling it post-modern is just a slur. It's easier to say that you don't believe it.

If you wait to do anything about systemic racism until it's fully quantified, it will be a long time until we can make any progress.

Meanwhile, a central point of the book is one that should be self evident. Talking about racism makes white people[1] uncomfortable. I know this to be true from experience. And we can't make progress as a society until we own that discomfort and are willing to have frank conversations about racism.

I don't see how you need "statistical power" to recognize this or adopt this strategy.

Also, this:

> ccuse/blame them for something that they did not personally do

That's not what the discomfort is about. Of course none of us are _personally_ responsible for the systemic racism in the US. But if we can't even talk about it without getting uncomfortable, how are we going to fix it?

1: If this doesn't apply to you, great, I wasn't talking about you [2]

2: Except if this topic makes you annoyed enough to disagree then yes, I probably am talking about you.

> Talking about racism makes white people uncomfortable.

When the basic premise of the argument is that white Americans are born irredeemably flawed[1], you're unlikely to win many white supporters other than the most guilt-ridden.

I suppose the tactic is to impart as much guilt as possible. But that doesn't make the argument a good one.

[1] https://twitter.com/DisrnNews/status/1266857347567190016

Making white people uncomfortable, by itself, does nothing to improve anything for black people.

Hiring more black people, funding more black people, buying from black owned businesses, providing education opportunities to black people, making police accountable for how they treat black people, are all ways we can help black people.

The only thing that "making white people uncomfortable" accomplishes is making more money for white women like Robin DiAngelo selling their books and consulting services.

3: I think proponents are full of themselves and at some point I would tell them.

I am white for most people aside from some racists. The real ones that think skin color to be indicative of quality.

If that comment makes you feel anything, it was probably directed at you.

> we can't make progress as a society until we own that discomfort and are willing to have frank conversations about racism.

I am all for having frank conversations, but I think the topic needs to be broader than "racism". It needs to be "systematic inequality of treatment". Or even better, "systematic violations of basic human rights". Then we can focus on why our society, which is supposed to be based on everybody having the same basic human rights, is not achieving that in practice, and how to fix it. Focusing on one particular group of people whose rights are being violated only distracts from that overall objective.

Talking about racism makes white people uncomfortable because whether it's talking about a specific individual or not, there's an implicit undertone that they're also white and part of the problem.

This is particularly grating when considering that white people are a very diverse group and the experience of a white male in Iran is completely different to the one of a white upper-class female in the US or a lower-income white male in the US.

The US media and social-media have infected Europe with this us-vs-them attitude and are ironically fueling racism against white people.

> Statistical knowledge isn't present in the vast majority of these folks.

This seems like a key moment to... cite data? Since you are broadly making pseudo-mathy sounding claims while complaining that others aren't as mathematically/statistically/factually rigorous as 'people on HN'.

Do you have any quantitative evidence that "people on HN, who are typically super data driven"?

> Another interesting aspect I identified while reading the book was it's description of the emotions that one can expect to see when confronting white people about race issues: the description could have been used to describe any human being you will ever meet when you accuse/blame them for something that they did not personally do.

I've heard this before and don't understand it.

Why should talking about racial issues make people feel like they're being accused of something? I am a man. I have not be catcalled or threatened for rejecting someone's advances. I can't recall any prominent examples of witnessing a woman being threatened for rejecting a man's advances. But when a woman tells me that it happens to her, I don't feel guilty. So I don't understand how someone telling you about their experience leads to feeling like being accused or blamed for something you did not do.

I think instantly feeling uncomfortable about a term like "White Fragility" and writing an entire comment about being uncomfortable about the term instead of a comment about the racism Black people face in all walks of life is a perfect example of white fragility.

That's stereotyping, not racism. People make inferences. Like, if there's two folks, one dressed in a suit, the other in baggy clothes with thick glasses, most people (including VCs) would default to the former as the MBA CEO, and the latter as geek CTO Even though it might be the exact opposite! If you make a wrong inference, just accept the correction and move on, no hurt feelings. Similar for old vs. young.

Some inferences are perfectly fine. If someone shows up in your office wearing the outfit of a cleaning company, you're fine in assuming they're a cleaning person.

In some circumstances, it's not harmful to assume the person wearing a suit is the CEO, though you might not always be right. The person in the suit might also be head of sales, while baggy clothes is CEO. Generally, it's better not to assume at all unless you're forced to. Just ask.

But inferring that someone isn't the CEO because they're black? I'm sorry, but that's racism pure and simple. Stereotyping is one form of racism (not the only one). You have no reason to make the inference, and it's highly insulting if you make a mistake. And to assume that feelings wouldn't be hurt is... tremendously naive and blind to the reality of racism.

> If you make a wrong inference, just accept the correction and move on, no hurt feelings.

If you're a VC coming to a first meeting with a startup CEO and their team, none of whom you have met in person before, making an inference at all is simply unprofessional. You should be asking. The fact that the VC's inference was that the white person must be the CEO just adds the further insult of racist stereotyping to the insult of unprofessional behavior in this context.

My main takeaway from the article was not "lots of people in the startup world are racist" but "lots of people in the startup world are unprofessional assholes". I think the latter problem is what needs to be fixed.

Stereotyping and racism are not mutually exclusive. In this case, people are making inferences that the BIPOC is not the CEO.

Racism doesn't imply intent either. It absolutely can be the case that someone unknowingly makes a racist inference even with the best of intentions.

This is what my concern with the focus on race is. You may commit an act that appears racist, when in fact it wasn't at all.

An example:

- I run into a white friend and call him Dave (another white guy I know), when his name is Mark. It happens, I apologize as I'm terrible with names.

- I run into a black friend and call him Dave (another black guy I know), when his name is Mark. It happens, I apologize as I'm terrible with names.

In the 2nd instance, you can guarantee someone will accuse me of bring racist.

Basically, people make mistakes and say rude things all the time. But throw race in there and suddenly everything is viewed in the worst possible light.

> That's stereotyping, not racism.

It can be both.

"Women drive badly" is a sexist stereotype, but not racism.

"Black people drive badly" would be both a stereotype and racism.

Acting on racial stereotypes (e.g. by treating someone as the superior or subordinate because of racially based assumptions) is indeed racist.

It means your behaviour is informed by racial profiling of an individual.

It means that you're not treating someone as an individual, but rather based on membership of a racial group he happens to be born in, which has statistical characteristics (e.g. lower chance of being a CEO) that do not necessarily have any bearing on the individual at all.

We define treating people distinctly like that because of their racial membership, as racist. That's really just the definition. You can have a discussion about whether you think racism is justified or not, and make your own value judgement. You could say that even if membership of a group does not necessarily say something, odds are that it can be a good way to infer things. And that's true, group-membership (e.g. your ethnicity) has many useful correlations from which to infer things. But to say it's not racist simply isn't factual, it is racist according to how we define it. What's left open for discussion is whether racism is okay or not.

Of course as a society we have indeed had that discussion and fortunately decided that racism isn't justified, not okay, and should be prevented as much as possible. I'm happy about that. Because even if group membership (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, religion etc) has correlations with all kinds of outcomes we may wish to approximate, as a society we agree that it is only fair to judge people on their individual merits, and not on the group that they belong to.

It makes me think about how we as a people decide to communicate discrimination.

If a certain type of discrimination of perception arises due to stereotypes, but by and large affects certain racial groups, then is it racism ? It also affects women as it does those who do not abide by personality traits of the valley's cargo cult or the Ivy MBA.

> just accept the correction and move on

Yeah. I think in such cases a sincere apology is at the minimum warranted.

Stereotyping is a distinction without much of a difference. I don't think anyone who has ever been slighted ever felt relieved to realize the person wasn't actually racist, or sexist, or ageist, but just "stereotyping." A few years ago, I had arrived for the final round of interviews and was mistaken for a security guard by one of the interviewers. I received an offer for that position but I declined. The company subsequently contacted me about another position, but I declined that as well. Prior to that incident, I was very excited about working there. It could've been an honest mistake, without any racist intent, but I couldn't shake my doubts about that company. Work already has the potential to create enough stressful situations without any added complications, so why gamble when you don't have to?

It's moronic to make any inferences about who is who when walking into a room where you don't know anyone. When I walk into a conference room to interview a job candidate whose name I know in advance (from their resume), I always open with "John?" instead of "Hi John". Even though they're the only person in the room.

In the situations described in the article (VC pitch, sales pitch), just make introductions like a normal human being. "Hi, I'm triceratops nice to meet you <hold out hand, other person states their name in turn>"

If there are multiple people in the room, follow a fixed, consistent order. Options include nearest-to-farthest or left-to-right or starting from the head of the table.

It's obviously racist stereotyping.

If you internally take a guess which is the CEO based on race, it may or may not be racist but it generally isn't harmful. If you make it clear that you guessed that? (as opposed to keeping your guess to yourself) That's harmful as well as just stupid.

Isn't this part of a different problem of not being allowed to be wrong? It has major impacts on racism (and sexism and other forms of discrimination) making it worse, but also is a factor when someone is wrong in other areas of life and can have negative impacts because owning up to a mistake is something our experiences have taught us to avoid. Why is it that we have a shared experience that you should flee a mistake instead of owning up to it? Is fleeing, or sometimes just outright ignoring, a mistake seen as a more socially rewarded action than owning up to the mistake?

One area to look is politicians apologizing for being wrong and the extent that is treated a weakness by their political opponents.

I think a society where the better choice of action is to own up to a mistake makes for a better society.

Everyone is flawed. That comes with being human. It would be nice to live in a society that allows for people to make mistakes without burning them at the stake. This is not the world we live in, sadly. We have to change that by being forgiving and not piling on.

Apologies, in 2020 USA, just put a giant target on your head and don’t seem to be making much of a positive impact. Change that, you change the game.

People like their scalps too much right now.

No. A VC is expected to be wrong most of the time. They can be right only once and be an excellent VC. A VC should not have a difficult time owning up to a mistake under normal circumstances. In this case, they should be able to apologize, move on, and be extra attentive during the presentation to try to make up for the wrong.

"Everyone in the US was raised in an environment that inculcated certain racial ideas, subconsciously or not."

This is bolder than I think you think it is. It's maybe evasive, too -- which ideas, exactly?

"I'm sorry, please excuse me for the instance of racism I just perpetrated against you, I promise it won't happen again."

There's no doubt the person in question should apologize, but what "racism" has been "perpetrated"? (A) there are and have been few black CEOs in America. (B) the guy/girl in your example does not expect a black CEO as a result. (C) Guy/girl commits extremely awkward faux pas.

Where is the racism? Where is the "inculcated idea" about race, besides an expectation based on ... there being literally very few black CEOs? I'll even grant you that (A) might be the case in part because of historical racist behavior in the US. Surely it is! It still doesn't make the guy necessarily racist. He doesn't tell us that he believes that human characteristics are determined by skin color, for example, nor does he tell the room e.g. that by golly he didn't know blacks could handle being a CEO, or that they were even allowed to do so, or some such actually racist BS.

I think the definitions of a lot of things have expanded since the childhoods of people of a certain age, and they're grappling with those changes. I certainly am. Racism doesn't seem to mean what I've long understood it to mean. Racism exists, and it ought to be fought, but I'm not sure how productive the current mood is going to be for that. I kinda hope I'm wrong, but I'd also be worried to be wrong, if people like Do Angelio are a sign of what's to come.

Racism is treating people differently based on the colour of their skin in a way that will impact them negatively.

> awkward faux pas

Just stop downplaying it. You are judging the "good intentions" here and ignoring the real and serious repercussions for someone who will have to go through this every day. A good intention would be to catch yourself and others perpetrating a "faux pas" and let them know that it is a serious mistake to dismiss someone because of their race.

what is so hard about treating people decently.

I haven't read DiAngelo's work yet. I'm reading some of Ibram Kendi's books, though, as a friend recommended them. Here's an article from 2017 about some of his work and thought: https://theundefeated.com/features/ibram-kendi-leading-schol...

I am particularly attracted to Kendi's point of view because I am coming from an academic background in which there are people who love to theorize and self-flagellate about sexism and racism and then dump all the service commitments and big first-year classes on women and faculty of color. "Oh, we need you to be a role model to these 450 freshmen; I'll sacrifice myself and teach this graduate class to my six graduate students instead." Academics are wonderful at knowing the right words to say, and just as shitty as anyone else when it comes to actual equity. Kendi has it right: from the article, “We have been taught that ignorance and hate lead to racist ideas, lead to racist policies,” Kendi said. “If the fundamental problem is ignorance and hate, then your solutions are going to be focused on education, and love and persuasion. But of course [Stamped from the Beginning] shows that the actual foundation of racism is not ignorance and hate, but self-interest, particularly economic and political and cultural.” This quite closely mirrors the actual phenomena I see in academia and industry.

I was with you until

> Everyone in the US was raised in an environment that inculcated certain racial ideas, subconsciously or not

I’ve always noticed the opposite. Americans are a lot more forgiving of race than any other country. Even places like Sweden has serious problems with racism whereas US has lead so many positive changes and civil wars about racism.

Growing up in US white suburbs, we were taught by parents to be cognizant of racism and even small things like “African Americans, not black people”. Always had many immigrants and people of color in school. Race is at the center of America as it is the biggest melting pot of cultures in the world for over 2 centuries.

The Civil War was not about racism, it was about the South demanding that new states be slave states, which threatened the balance of power between the North and South. Lincoln literally only freed the slaves because he believed if would help preserve the Union. In his own words:

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union...

Lincoln freed the slaves because it was expedient to do so. But it was a great act and certainly the right thing to do.

You were taught to be cognizant of racism because our country was a racial caste system for hundreds of years. Moreover, Jim Crow was less than a lifetime ago, racial redlining was legal as recently as the 1970's, and the crack-cocaine sentencing disparity existed as recently as 2010. Race is at the center of America because America put it at its center, time and time again.

I've made the simple statement that the US is farther along fighting racism than most of Europe and was downvoted for it.

There are places in Europe (mostly southern) where racism isn't even discouraged, still.

America draws the headlines because of it's violence, but it's progress on integration put Europe to shame. Not to say that both places have a lot of work to do, they do.

I’ve not gone over the background content you have. Why is a simple but sincere apology not enough? Why do I have to make myself feel like a horrible person for this subconscious faux pas?

Yes it’s an embarrassing. But to me, it’s like when meeting someone and you reach to shake their hand using your right hand out of habit but you don’t realize their right hand is full thus creating a awkward handshake interaction (especially if they don’t quickly offer a twisted left and laugh it off).

I’d prefer to focus on the problem (underrepresented black CEOs) instead of a symptom (subconscious “racism”).

Nobosy wants to be branded a racist despite how minor the faux pas may be. The correct attitude is to just apologize and move onto networking. Instead, these VCs are assuming that their mistake is going to anger the black man and that they need to get out of there before it turns ugly. A better understanding of how these mistakes are made would allow someone to realize that it's just better to acknowledge the mistake and work towards not doing it again. I think in this case, the problem and symptom are reversed. The subconscious racism of the VCs caused the black CEO to miss out on vital networking opportunities. It seems like that guy turned out ok but what if that was a critical time for him when that meeting could been the last shot at getting some investors before his company went bankrupt? Simply ignoring the issue and trying to get out of it was more harmful than just acknowledging it and moving past it.

It is stereotyping but not neccesarily racism. I've made the same mistake at a car shop, I thought the small lady on my side of the counter was a customer, i ignored her and talked to the guy behind the counter, but turns out she was the boss+worker and the guy was helping out. I did feel embarrassed, but I know it's not because I think less of women, you just don't see women in those roles a lot. Maybe associative generalization is a better term?

Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated? I suspect,at least in part the body language offense and humiliation contributes to the awkwardness. Now, if they insist on treating the guy with less melanin as the boss even after being corrected...yeah, who wouldn't be pissed.

> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

Why wouldn't they? Being unfavorably stereotyped is almost universally frustrating and humiliating, regardless of any systemic concerns about racism and the like.

Wrt. the case mentioned by parent, it seems clear to me that the person involved should definitely apologize for their social faux pas and mistaken assumptions-- and that seeing them refuse to address the issue for fear of being regarded as racist or whatever would only result in even more frustration.

I don't see why that is stereotyping. I would assume that anyone on the customer side of the counter is a customer and anyone on the other side of the counter works there no matter what they look like.

If you had done that while she was on the other side of the counter or if she was wearing some kind of obvious uniform you'd have a point. However, if she was on your side of the counter and had no obvious signs of working there, there would be no reason to think she was anything but a customer.

The alternative would be to address all the customers as if they worked there, and that's just not practical.

Your example would be a case of sexism (sexual stereotyping), not racism (racial stereotyping). It may have been unintentional, but it was still sexism.

In this type of situation, the empathetic resolution would be to apologize for causing the victim's embarrassment, which most likely exceeds your own.

Assuming the lady wasn't wearing a uniform or name badge, and you didn't witness her interacting with the other staff and giving them instructions, you had no reason to think she was the boss of the shop. Would you have acted any differently if she was a man?

It's great that in your mind you also realized you had an implicit bias ("you just don't see women in those roles a lot"), but it doesn't seem like your implicit bias colored your interaction.

Racism needs not be voluntary to be racism. You just learn to expect some things to be more probable than others, but are those heuristics really based on actual facts or just biases?

If you expect some kind of people to be in charge rather than others, it is a symptom of widespread racism/sexism in your environment. You doing the "mistake" does not mean you necessarily, actively, try to cause harm. But you still do, and this wouldn't happen if not for racism.

> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

For the person doing the mistake, it was one particular case of embarassment, for the victim it was Tuesday. The constant rate of mistakes make it humiliating.

It is racism (or sexism, but we'll stick with racism for the sake of rhetoric and the article) though. Calling it "not racism" is pandering to white fragility because people think of themselves as "not racist". Calling it "not racism" gives people an out to not confront their own internalized racism.

It's humiliating for the "victim" because this probably happens on a daily basis. Tell me that wouldn't kneecap your confidence to constantly have to correct people and massage their egos and reassure them you're not offended just so they give you money. It's forcing the victim to perform the emotional labor of remediating the offense. It's wrong and we let people off the hook far too easily for it.

Those "associative generalizations" are racism, sexism and homophobia in a nutshell. You (not you in particular, but yeah, kind of) have certain associations bound to race. Acknowledge it, confront those feelings, and deal with them. It's your problem, not theirs; yet we constantly give people a pass on their own internalized racism because the people who are systemically oppressed by said racism aren't really in a position to call them out.

I'm not saying you should be fired from your job or anything; just that you should acknowledge that your generalizations do harm to people. Educate yourself on the things they go through to build empathy. Don't make them do the work you should be doing yourself. And don't assume that because they're exhausted from dealing with this daily and so don't act offended that they're not harmed by it.

The anti-racism movement is about white people not giving other white people a pass for casual racism. We have forced marginalized people of color to do the work on this front for too long, when it's a problem within the white community. Expect to be called out aggressively on this stuff from here on out until you educate yourself on why it's harmful.

Risk is a substantial factor in addressing these situations IRL directly/outwardly.

Having faults and making mistakes is part of being a person that happen in life.

However, today, it’s extremely easily to only put faults under a microscope, reach an immediate determination, and then amplify that conclusion to the world.

Beyond a little embarrassment, it’s setting up living in fear of making any mistake and incentivizing avoidance. Suddenly one mistake, even a small one, could be someone’s last. Rather than breaking barriers that’s more like living with the KGB.

Perhaps the model some Koreans adhere to. Had some business contacts with them and noticed something peculiar and funny. They still have pretty tight hierarchies and a case when you can notice this is when you move between rooms or to a restaurant.

For them it seems to be pretty important to enter a room in hierarchic order. That means the boss goes first followed by rank of employees. It was hilarious to see them fall over their feet to adhere to these rules.

If you had a meeting they always came into the room in the same order. I invited them in after the first employees arrived but they insisted on waiting for their colleagues. After the gang had assembled, they entered in the predicted order.

If you visited another place, you should give them some room to reorder themselves. Otherwise it seems chaos ensues.

I know this is probably not a podcast that is frequently brought up here, but Chapo Trap House recently discussing their issues with the book White Fragility and brought up many of the same issues here (it's marketing material for a anti-racism instructor, the author is white, racism is presented as an issue that must be constantly atoned for in perpetuity [because DiAngelo would like to be hired in the future], it's geared towards the workplace which is inherently not a place people associate with emotional openness, it's geared towards what not to do as opposed to what to do, etc etc). I'm a longtime fan but I enjoyed it because i didn't know anything about White Fragility besides it's constant recommendations within the last few weeks.

What is currently causing huge divides and limiting progress is the incredibly flagrant accusations of racism where none exists.

There is nothing racist about confusing two people for each other based on them having the same skin tone. A two year old child might do it. This should be enough proof for anyone that the cause is not racism but the brain's pattern recognition system failing.

Accusing someone of racism used to be a serious charge. Now its used by many against anyone who makes any misstep where race is involved. This is diluting the charge the point of meaninglessness which provides cover for actual racism. It also repels people who see through it.

If someone mistakes two blonde people for each other, no reasonable person accuses that person of being bigoted against blondes on that basis. Their brain simply lumped those two people together using an inaccurate heuristic.

A black person without much exposure to asians might have trouble telling asians apart. A white person without much exposure to black people might make the same mistake.

In neither case is there even a hint of racism. Ignorance is not racism. It's perfectly okay not to have exposure to people of any race. Not living in a "melting pot" does not make someone a bad person.

It's also perfectly okay to have a brain that isn't great at distinguishing between people. This is just how human brains are and is nothing to be ashamed of. It is not grounds for guilt. And it's not grounds to accuse anyone of something as serious as racism.

what's also outlandish is the anglo-saxon view on being the ceo of a company. we're all a slave to the machine it seems.

I have found that the fragility in white fragility exists more commonly than merely racism. Racism, though, I imagine is clearly more identifiable and insulting, but the offending behaviors apply more widely than that. It comes down to assumptions and insecurities.

I really do get tired of dealing with this as a self taught white software developer. People have an expectation of how things should work and when that expectation is shattered or when it puts their reputation in question everything there after becomes defensive or a straw man. This is so prevalent and frustrating that I prefer to write software only as a hobby, discuss software in exceedingly delicate terms, and often desire to hide from it all by returning to the military (military is a part-time secondary employer for me). After a certain point this defensiveness and insecurity defines everything about the work.

As an example try to mention you are writing some fantastic new application that executes in the browser. The very first question, always, is what framework does it use. If the answer is none people have already stopped listening or begin attacking either your credibility or the capabilities of the application. So I have had to learn to tip toe around these sorts of conversations but it completely ignores the problem/solution aspect of the software which should be the center of conversation.

I will say that being an older techie has also had its share of humiliation.

It's just assumed that I have no idea what "all the kids are into," these days. I guess they think that I'm being "Lenny Wosniak."

I grew up in Africa. I was quite used to black people running things, from a very early age.

This entire story reminded me a lot of the story of the inventor of the gas mask[1] who had to hire a white actor to play as the inventor during presentations

Scary things don’t change and little progress has been made.

[1] https://www.biography.com/.amp/inventor/garrett-morgan

It seems like people from other ethnicities/countries have done well in Silicon Valley, e.g. India, China, Iran. Notably, CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Uber and others are brown-skinned.

Would they have done even better without the racism? Or what accounts for the difference?

The difference is hundreds of years of slavery and institutional discrimination specifically target toward blacks and all the accompanying cultural baggage. Part of that baggage is a deeply ingrained suggestion that black people are intellectually inferior but innately athletic.

That isn't to say that other ethnic groups don't deal with racism too. But it's different. An African American executive in a suit may be mistaken for being a waiter, but he's unlikely to be asked where he's "really from" like an Asian American.

> The difference is hundreds of years of slavery and institutional discrimination specifically target toward blacks and all the accompanying cultural baggage. Part of that baggage is a deeply ingrained suggestion that black people are intellectually inferior but innately athletic.

How can you say this with complete certainty? How could you ever be sure?

My argument is that history matters. You're welcome to argue otherwise.

Bias studies tend to prove that this, as does a quick perusal of the specific statements in openly-racist literature.

The groups which you mention, most of those Indians, Chinese and others who come to US go through a filtering process in terms of student or work visa. So you get educated, successful and highly motivated people who also have higher incomes compared to the average income in their native countries.

The US is is literally getting "good" immigrants from those countries. You are not getting the poor unmotivated individuals.

These motivated individuals will pass on those characteristics and their wealth to their kids.

The current African American's ancestors had no such filtering process, combine that with systematic racism and poverty its not too hard to imagine why they fall behind.

Asian immigrants largely pass through a selection filter of wealth and education before they can immigrate (in tech at least, thanks to H1-B), so the ones you see have largely been preselected and show up in a large peer group.

The Chinese or Indian person next to you at work who came to US on an H1B or education visa was much more elite in their home country than you are in yours, on average.

Anecdotal but this is what I have seen across multiple companies and startups.

This is an interesting and in-depth article that was inappropriately flagged. I've turned off the flags.

I understand the impulse to flag follow-up stories [1], especially on the hottest controversies of the moment, which always produce a flood of articles, most of which aren't very good. Curiosity and repetition don't go together [2]. But it's important to recognize the articles that are higher than median quality and not simply flag an entire category mechanically. Curiosity isn't mechanical either.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

For me, the discussion of your action here confirms, even more strongly, that not only is the bias real, but also it is sometimes completely opaque to people who hold that bias.

Thanks for unflagging it, otherwise I would have missed it I'm sure.

dang, I just wanted to thank you for unflagging it. There have been a number of stories in the news over the past few weeks that have opened my eyes to realities I wasn't aware of, and this is one more valuable one. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

When you de-flag an article, does it affect only past flags or all future flags for the same article?

I flagged it because it is an article written to promote further bias, while under the guise of 'exposing racism'. If you think promoting race politics is the goal of HN, I will find a different forum. My time in SV could not have been more different than what this boased article proports. Fuck identity politics and fuck bloomberg, and fuck you for promoting this drivel.

> This is an interesting and in-depth article that was inappropriately flagged. I've switched off the flags.

Consider that people are not flagging it because "it's a follow up article", but because a) it's Bloomberg, ergo hard to believe b) it's the seven billionth "minorities in tech" story in the past month c) it's not going to create an interesting comment section d) they don't find it as interesting as you do.

It's your site of course, but if "moderators build the front page" is the new modus operandi, I'll be disappointed.

I joined a growing team in South Africa as the only black in ~40; and a foreigner to boot. When I left 3 years later we were only 2 out of 120. In the years that I was there, I probably participated in about 100+ interviews. In that whole time, I never got a single black South African interviewee. Not even for an internship! To be clear, I had phone screens with folks from Egypt, Pakistan, UK, Nigeria etc. I think the black community in South Africa is in a wedge.

My 2 cents: Systemic issues probably cause them to rarely progress to white collar jobs. The kids in the education system don't see any benefit in progressing to higher education because, they don't know anyone in their family/neighborhood who made it. Compound it with schools that have gangs in them [1] and an easy choice appears. 1. Slog through education with probably no chance of a good job (from a young person's view point) or 2. Join this gang, make money, drive fast cars and belong.

1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6eb6fNVfmo

My boss did this to a client once. He was not amused and soon thereafter became a former client.

If the ONLY thing readers take away from this article is to stop assuming who's who when walking into meetings, then that alone is a valuable lesson.

This is what shocks me the most about this whole thing. You should ask your clients to introduce themselves and their roles so that you can better communicate and work with them, no matter if they're all the same ethnicity, or completely diverse or anywhere in between.

It's always fascinating to me how the most liberal and progressive areas of our society are the ones who exhibit the most functional racism.

This is the manifestation of the bigotry of low expectations that is so engrained in Silicon Valley. When you live your life grouping people of a certain skin color into a protected class that you the hero white person need to save, you automatically assume that every person you see of that class is of diminished status.

You're sorely mistaken.

As a non-American non-SV resident, every time I visit there I feel like I've stepped into the '60s. All the developers and managers are white or asian, and all the janitors, cooks, security guards, bus drivers, etc. are black or hispanic. Silly Valley talks the talk, very loudly, but they don't walk the walk.

https://archive.vn/nFx3E

Is it possible that when put in unfamiliar situations, people will by default direct themselves toward others who are most like themselves?

A hypothetical: Reverse all the races in the VC/CEO situation. Who would the black VC assume was the CEO?

Repeat the experiment with whichever combination of race/sex you like.

Perhaps the answer is obvious, but what's the point of such a thought experiment? The issue is how to deal with the world we actually live in. "It would be just as bad in an opposite world" does not sound like a useful finding.

Definitely possible, but unlikely. You’ll find that people of all minority groups make similar assumptions. There were even a few examples in this thread and the article.

That’s a part of why there is such a big push for better minority representation on all fields. VC partnerships, boards, upper management, etc. More diversity means more models of what a successful VC, CEO, Entrepreneur, etc looks like.

People base their beliefs on prior probabilities, before any new evidence is provided.

If all you've ever seen are white CEOs, then it's probably very reasonable to assume that the white guy in a meeting also is the CEO.

It's not racist, but just how your brain works on the priors.

I know that people should strive to not be assuming, but in the end, the brain is an exceptional pattern recognizer, and very much works in subconscious ways.

edit: And before anyone starts claiming racism; I'm just saying that this is how humans work. You collect data all the time, and (hopefully) update your beliefs on said new evidence.

I believe, and often comment, that there's a different culture between Silicon Valley and SF, though they are often conflated in the press.

Regrettably, this is an area where both regions are equally terrible.

Where I live, it's not that uncommon to found a tech company and step down as the "nominal" CEO a few months later to put in place a white guy—the right shade of white—who fits the expectations of customers and partners. The original founder may still be the one making executive decisions, but he/she is not the public face anymore.

I was once working at a startup in the south bay area, where "white developer" was not one of the people who was able to do what we wanted, as an engineer, for a startup which had a tech foundation. This was a big problem for most companies.

The thing is, this group had really terrible problems in the first place.

Most startups are very different from the valley because of the nature of technical talent. But the people who come from the valley are pretty good at what they do.

The problem is the lack of culture.

In most companies there are only a few minorities:

* There are enough great tech people that want to start their own companies.

* Some have to get a job as a software developer, because there's a strong market saturation of smart people right in the first place.

* There are few places a tech founder can get to start a startup.

Couple of years ago me and few other guys (highly qualified and paid SAP engineers all) have been sitting in beer garden in Dusseldorf. The waiter had been friendly and asks:

- Where are you guys from? - From Poland - Oh, you have came here to purchase some old cars, right?

Whoa! I didn’t realize Leland Stanford was racist. And blatantly so. Makes you wonder if the university should be renamed.

It's named after his only son, who passed away from Typhoid at 15: https://facts.stanford.edu/about/

There are plenty of statues and a mausoleum for Leland Sr. on campus.

The zealots won't care.

Did you realize that Abraham Lincoln was a racist? Did you realize that almost everyone who hasn't undergone a lifetime of "anti-racist" propaganda is a racist?

Anyway, as to the subject of the article, I think it was covered in an episode of "The Jeffersons".

> Did you realize that Abraham Lincoln was a racist?

I think signing the Emancipation Proclamation, prosecuting the Civil War, and ultimately paying for it all with his life, give him a pass for his personal views that would be considered "racist" by today's standards. In Lincoln's case, actions really spoke far louder than words.

Here's a recent Twitter thread by Timothy Jones https://twitter.com/timbeejones/ which seems relevant: https://twitter.com/timbeejones/status/1268665921364770816 . I can't vouch for it as I have zero experience of SV or being black, let alone the specifics here, but the author seems to be someone worth hearing on the subject.

Someone always complains about reading Twitter threads, so here's a thread unroll https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1268665921364770816.html while I have also cut and pasted it here (again, this is Timothy Jones not me):

> I’m glad there’s now a vibrant discussion about black tech entrepreneurs and VC. Now might be a good time to discuss an elephant in the room: the systematic pushing aside of Black founders to make way for a White CEO who is “bankable”. Happens more often than not. I’ve seen this happen in two tech bull mkts; I hope those who have newfound interest in Black founders don’t repeat this same mistake

Here's the way it goes: Black Founder has an idea they're passionate about; could be demographically anchored, or just a great idea and they're Black. By some Miracle they raise a seed. They go off, build product, get some revenue even...

Now it's Series A time. Again, by some Miracle they raise a VC Series A. They're now part of the rate 1% of VC backed founders who are black. They add to their board 1-2 VC's from the usual suspects. They start to build a team...

Here's where the move is made. Somewhere between A and going for a B, the VC's on the board call the founder for a "chat". They "strongly suggest" that the founder get some "help" in order to get the company to the next stage. And they know just the guy...

'Cause it's always a guy. I call him "Business Biff". He looks like he's stepped out of central casting for "White Dude CEO". The Board VC's explain that Biff can "help" raise the next round, and "you two should really work together".

Black Founder says: "Ok, cool. Will reach out to Biff on a few things if I need him". VC's give the puzzled, RCA Dog-watching-TV-Look. "You know, we think Biff should really come on board the company to help you out ". "As What?" asks the Black Founder. "I already have a head of Sales/Finance/Marketing/etc"..."Well, we were thinking Biff should become CEO, and you become Chairman" "Sayyyyy whaaaa?" says Black Founder. "Am I being fired?". "Oh, No!" say the VC's. "We want you to stay and guide the strategy, Biff will be responsible for the day to day, and putting together the fundraise"

Not going to go into the details but here's essentially what happens:.

1. VC's realize that having a Black CEO creates financing RISK for the next round.

2. Best way to reduce the risk is to bring in a CEO who "pattern matches"

3. The problem is they still need the Founder. They still need the Founder for (a) mkt knowledge (b) passion so he/she doesn't get fired. But the bump to Chairman is designed to "keep them working, but not in control". It's straight out of the unopened letter in "Invisible Man".

There's a lot more here, but I'm raising the point now so that people realize that downstream of funding, there are still a ton of practices which need reforming. The kicker: The VC's decided to bring Biff in when they did the A. In fact, the seed investors may have suggested it, and backchanneled it to the A rounders. The bottom line is that even the investors realized blackness as a "risk" that needs to be managed down/out.

Bringing in Biff is what VCs always do. Or at least always used to do. I've encountered it personally. The term they used was "seasoned executive". Biff is a better name.

I'm not doubting Timothy's experience, but if he's right, the point would have to be that VCs bring-in-Biff more often with black founders than they do white ones. Which seems entirely plausible, but that's not the argument I think I'm reading here.

Even if they weren't bringing in Biff more often with black founders than white founders, if the pool from which they select Biff is overwhelmingly white men, the effect is still that black founders get pushed aside in favor of white men.

Even if their selection process for Biff was completely gender / race blind, as long as the primary qualification for Biff is "has previously been CEO" then the next generation of companies will continue to inherit the previous generation of companies' demographics.

There are plenty of stories on the internet of this happening to white CEOs as well. The skills to go from start-up to series A are very different from series B to IPO.

Now that's not to say race wasn't an issue in this particular case. I don't know.

The great thing about modern racism is that no one can ever prove race was an issue in any particular case unless you confess it. As long as you don't express racist sentiments out loud, you'll always have some form of plausible deniability.

Serious question: is it legal for someone not to correct an incorrect assumption? Let's say a black CEO invites his white friend to a pitch meeting as a wingman, VC says "oh great to meet you Will" assuming the white man is the CEO. And no one ever corrects him. In this way, perhaps the company would be able to access funds not normally provided to black folks. The white man would probably need to be an executive of some sort (CFO maybe) and both would need to sign whatever paperwork, and only then would it become apparent to the VC who's who.

It's ridiculous that I even need to ask this question, and doing this literally just steps aside the racism problem rather than addressing it, so it might cause more harm than good, but until racism is solved (possibly a multi generational shift) something like this might help some people out.

I feel like this should be the plot of a short film; where the black man is revealed to be the CEO and the viewer is challenged to rethink their assumptions. If I had an ounce of creativity I'd totally make it if it doesn't already exist.

The thing is, it’s things like this that would actively hinder racism from going away - actively concealing black CEOs to VC firms would continue to have destructive consequences.

Stylistic question. I noticed Black and White capitalized in this article. Is that an emerging convention?

Five days ago, the National Association of Black Journalists revised their style guide:

'For the last year, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) has been integrating the capitalization of the word "Black" into its communications.

However, it is equally important that the word is capitalized in news coverage and reporting about Black people, Black communities, Black culture, Black institutions, etc.

NABJ's Board of Directors has adopted this approach, as well as many of our members, and recommends that it be used across the industry.

We are updating the organization's style guidance to reflect this determination. The organization believes it is important to capitalize "Black" when referring to (and out of respect for) the Black diaspora.

NABJ also recommends that whenever a color is used to appropriately describe race then it should be capitalized, including White and Brown.'

https://www.nabj.org/news/512370/NABJ-Statement-on-Capitaliz...

This appears to have been part of what prompted a large number of newspapers to change their style guides this past week, including USA Today, NBC News, MSNBC, the LA Times, the Seattle Times, the Boston Globe, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Washington Post.

It's something which is developing and being debated. The Root had a rundown earlier today:

https://www.theroot.com/capitalizing-the-b-in-black-is-nice-...

> At The Root, we’ve had a long-standing debate over capitalizing the “B” in black. Some of us are adamantly for it, while others (myself included) are grammar freaks who think that if we capitalize “black” we would also have to capitalize “white,” and I, personally, have no interest in that as it would continue to center whiteness.

That quote really sums up the ridiculousness of this imo.

It's a really interesting story, actually! The question of whether and when to capitalize has been an active one since at least the early 20th century. Here's a (very) recent Columbia Journalism Review article that discusses it from a stylistic perspective:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php

And I also thought that this article, about the Brookings Institution's decision to capitalize Black in their reports, had some interesting historical context:

https://www.brookings.edu/research/brookingscapitalizesblack...

Capitalizing White seems extremely weird, though, and somehow emblematic of how we're sliding backwards into a racialized consciousness even while trying (and hopefully succeeding) to step forwards toward equality.

FWIW, there is "capital D" Deaf and "little d" deaf. This article provides some interesting discussion [0].

I'm not claiming to be an expert in either area, and I don't mean to draw parallels between them. I think it just speaks to how complicated identity is for humans, not to even begin to mention empathy.

[0]: https://www.deafax.org/single-post/2016/06/08/What-are-big-D...

Chicago Manual of Style says either is ok. It's pretty typical to capitalize, e.g. Hispanic, Arab, Asian, but Black and White have a slightly different use and capitalization history.

The AP, I believe, prefers lowercasing both. Some publications will capitalize just Black. Discussions of casing these words go back at least a decade, but I don't believe there's a strong consensus yet?

Asian, Arab and Hispanic all come from place names (Asia, Arabia, Hispania). This is why they are capitalised.

It is. I forget which news outlet has recently made it a standard to capitalize Black which is in contradiction to the AP Style Guide.

compare with Hofstadter, "A Person Paper on Purity in Language" (1985)

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...

This is somewhat tangential to the article, but I've written about this previously. I think a big first step would be to stop talking about race for different skin colours.

I'm always surprised that "race" is so commonly adopted in conversations even by campaigners against racism, as a European I always cringe. The term implies a genetic difference where there isn't any and thus contributes to systematic racism/discrimination IMO, words do matter.

Well, there’s at least gotta be the genetic difference that makes black people’s skin black, or Asian people’s eyes narrower. For a biologist, it probably makes sense. In common situations though I agree race is kind of a “strong word” to describe this. How do you avoid it?

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

  - Buckminster Fuller.

Are you arguing for segregation/secession?

I am not convinced about the argument the authors try to make about Silicon Valley, and VCs'. I also see cherry-picking of data to make the point ("...0.4% of people who received venture capital were Black..."), okay so how many Black people applied? How many other races? How many white? Etc. We cannot form the full picture since other critical variables have been ommitted without providing cross-references to the study. That reduces credibility of the article.

As for where should a VC invest, I think it is his/her decision alone, and nobody else has any say that. Including the article's author.

http://archive.is/nFx3E

Non-paywall link: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/16/for-black-ceos-in-sil...

(Published by Bloomberg news so no copyright issues)

> the simple phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ is seen as a political dog whistle, rather than a desperate cry to bring attention to a dire situation that many people choose not to see.”

A little off-topic, but I notice a lot of the "All Lives Matter" people are mistaking the term "Black Lives Matter" as valuing black lives over others. I wonder if "Black Lives Matter Too" would convey its message better.

This has been discussed to death since the group started. The name was intentionally chosen and too was purposefully left off. If the phrase invokes a negative reaction but phrases like "Save the rainforest" or events like breast cancer awareness month don't invoke a similar reaction then it's meant to be introspective. I saw it translated with too in parenthesis in foreign newspapers in the beginning but not recently.

Several years in people constantly arguing all lives matter and disingenuously arguing the point after correction are also a good filter for trolls.

I have found that people replying with "All Lives Matter" are willfully trying to not understand where BLM is coming from. I've seen it so consistently, in so many contexts, from so many different people that I can't consider it a misunderstanding. It's more at the level of "I know you are but what am I."

50% of the US has below 100 IQ. There is literally nothing you can do if some people can’t understand the meaning that “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t mean “Only Black Lives Matter”. I think it’s a small but loud percentage of the people believe this.

this article title is so racist. stop normalizing it and represent the success stories.

the whole, "X is so marginalized and victimized," narrative represents negative stereotypes and reinforce a victimhood identity that only disempowers X, and reinforces to the dominant ethnic groups' superiority narrative

few would believe that such psyop propaganda is part of systemic racism, lured instead by the virtue signaling and fake "solidarity" parroting such victimization narratives would seem to yield. but it is.

you'll resist the idea I propose by saying, highlighting how bad everything is, is doing something about it, while pretending there's no problem is part of the problem.

viewing another way you'll see that editorializing to consistently represent a problem is a problem.

but such psyop propaganda is so embedded in the politically corrected social discourse programming that few will be able to escape

you'll most likely dismiss this idea by pretending this idea is just apologizing for racism.

it will be very hard for you to see beyond that but you should try, it's worth it.

I would have never even guessed Hayes is black. He looks Middle Eastern to me. He doesn't look like a CEO in these pictures: a constantly worried facial expression sends the wrong message IMO. Givens does project calm confidence, and therefore looks like a boss. I think his experience is more illustrative of the problem here.

That's funny, I'm black too and I used to have white people misread my facial expression a lot. I ended up training myself to use a different, more "neutral-looking" resting face in public.

I'm white and people think I'm angry and unapproachable. It is uncommon in my country of origin to smile for no reason, and if one doesn't do it here in the US, people mistake what I consider my "neutral" face as hostility. I'm still working on it. Worse yet, it's also not common in the Russian culture to maintain constant eye contact with strangers, not doing which in the US means that one is trying to mislead and they're not trustworthy.

In this thread hacker news proves the article right. Head desk.

HN reflects the society at large, so of course it proves the article right in that sense. Otherwise the article wouldn't be about the world. Any divisive topic is going to show up as divisive in any large-enough population sample. But there are at least as many comments pointing the opposite way—more, in fact, but we tend to notice the ones we dislike, and to weight them more heavily: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

You're probably experiencing the problem I wrote about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098. The fact that HN is a non-siloed site causes people to run into things here that they don't run into elsewhere, and it creates a shock reaction.

I bet you're particularly running into the international aspect, which is so much more influential on these perceptions than anybody realizes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23438403. The way people approach this topic in other countries is not at all the way Americans approach it. In particular, arguments that would make Americans wince (or "head desk", as you put it) are obliviously unobjectionable to users in other places, and those users have zero idea about the conventions they're breaking in an American context, or how inflammatory they are. It pains me to see these misunderstandings, but what can we do. "Excuse me, but the person you're disagreeing with is actually posting from $country, to judge by their IP"? Out of the question.

Would HN ever consider possibly adding location as an optional profile field? That may actually be useful in a lot of discussions and avoiding misunderstanding. I realize you can easily add this in your bio, but the explicit field will encourage more people to add it who may not yet understand the reasoning.

I'd say a tooltip could be added for context, but that seems even farther from the HN profile philosophy that exists currently.

Some message boards solve this issue by letting posters specify their location as a field in their profile (and displaying a flag under the username, etc.). Not advocating this for HN, just pointing out how that gets solved by other communities (weak profile differentiation is part of the appeal of HN, but also a magnifier for these issues).

I think these titles just discourage black/female/diverse founders.

Reads like: don't even try, it's not your game

I didn’t understand the first bit, why did they think people confused the black man with his white colleague, and how could that possibly be “racist”?

presumably because they looked from one to the other, and decided the colleague with the lest melanin was the CEO.

This is the sort of issues that some kind of "unconscious bias" training should help you overcome. It is really frustrating for the victim but those who are perpetuating are not racists or evil. It is a social mental conditioning that they will overcome if they realize how much damage they are doing.

My wife joined an ecomm company recently. Since entire joining was remote, it was little hard for her to get onboarded with the team and her manager would assign her documentation and testing issues. Few weeks later when she told her manager that she would like to write some real code he was surprised. Because of her gender he had thought she was a tester.

How is it racist to assume that in a country of mostly white people, the CEO would be white? That isn't racist. Unless you consciously thought the black person in the room was less competent just because they were black, it isn't racism.

If I was in India, and walked into a company meeting with a diverse set of people, I would assume the Indian looking person is the CEO. If I was in Japan, I would assume the Japanese looking person was the CEO.

This isn't racism. This is the human brain using pattern recognition to evaluate a situation and infer information as best it can under the circumstances.

You're effectively claiming the following: if two people who both "look like CEOs" (setting aside exactly what that means for now) walk into a meeting with you, you know one of them is indeed the CEO, and one is white and one is black, you are going to assume that it's not a sign of even subconscious racism to assume that the white person is the CEO because the population of the country is mostly white.

So. One immediate problem, from statistics alone, is that the people you are meeting with are not drawn from a random sampling of the population. There is clearly a 50% chance that one of those two unknown people is the CEO. (If it were 3 people, a 33.33% chance, 4 people a 25% chance, and so on.) So I don't think your reasoning is sound.

Also, the end result of your argument is "the black person in this group isn't likely to be the CEO because they are black," and, well. I get that you're trying to arrive there through what you think is pure mathematics, but it is nonetheless the kind of conclusion that I believe the kids call "problematic."

This is the human brain using pattern recognition to evaluate a situation and infer information as best it can under the circumstances.

That isn't a different thing than "racism". When you don't know, don't assume.

It is racism. There is no need to pre-judge the situation at all. Merely being in the moment and letting the people in front of you tell you all you want to know is sufficient. Pre-judging the people instead of waiting for them to tell you is using prejudice as an unneeded shortcut. It seems obvious because the person so doing is racist. To change, that person would have to acknowledge that it seemed obvious to them because they have a subconcious "rule" CEO cannot = black. Once they see it, it'll be gone.

So I get there are not a lot of black CEOs. Unsure what this means or the cause. As a board member I want the smartest and most talented person to run my business with low risk. Quantify that. Also, I'm confused when I hear that only 7% of tech jobs are black people, but 70% of basketball and football teams are black. Yet regardless 10% of population is black. Scientifically speaking... Given facts on IQ, we are probably most racist against Asian CEOs in US as they have the highest IQs on avg (106), followed by Jewish people, then Caucasian (97). This group is supposedly enlightened and factual - so...

Even assuming mean IQ is significantly variable among different populations, it would still be normally distributed. We would thus expect to find many millions of geniuses from all corners of the globe, with powers of reasoning possibly far exceeding your own.

Quoted the IQs Incorrectly. Reference:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

By my back-of-the-napkin math, white America owes black America about 10 trillion dollars in stolen wealth.

The are roughly 50 million black Americans out of a population of 330M. Americans own roughly $100T in wealth. So black Americans should own about 50 / 330 * 100T or $15T. But they currently only own about $5.5T.

We could start by allocating some our our Federal tax dollars to making black Americans whole.

Sources:

- https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/25/six-facts...

- https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining...

- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/raci...

- https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/04/06/the-black...

Edit: downvotes but no replies.

I believe in reparations but not your methodology (I did not downvote you).

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