If you know zero Black people and work with zero Black people it’s very easy to come to the conclusion that there is no racism against Black people. If there was you’d see it!
And it's not "my one black friend was a victim of racism this one time." It's just generally harder to get a job. It's just generally harder to get promoted. It's just generally harder to be taken seriously relative to your white peers.
And that's why these responses from Coinbase are unsatisfying. Every company and every hiring process has elements of racism in it. We haven't escaped the biases that permeate our culture. There are companies that are aware of these biases and work hard to minimize their impact, and there are companies that stick their heads in the sand and say 'nope, no racism here! Find me actual proof!'.
There's probably a whole lot of shit like this that we just don't know, as a group, about.
I have had little exposure to black people in my life. The few that I have encountered in school or professionally have not demonstrated any aggressive nature. I have no first-hand experience of aggression by any black man. My parents did not teach me that black men are aggressive. I did not learn this in school or from my friends. The only way I can think of that I might have gotten this impression is from movies, television, music, and media. These are the same people who are now professing and demonstrating how woke and concerned they are, rather than apologizing for their roles as the primary perpetuators of a stereotype.
Therefore when I see media or entertainment figures (I include politicians here) on the anti-racist soapbox, it all falls rather flat for me. They are the ones fanning the flames on one side, and demanding attonement from everybody else on the other side.
Obviously, my neighbor should not be called on to answer whatever sins you think the culture has incurred.
As a personal example, I have immigrated into US from the country with almost no black population, so I'd say that "several centuries of deeply ingrained racism" do not apply to me.
Within the first year of arriving into US, I've had been verbally attacked while I was riding the bus and reading the book. A bunch of teenagers started to say things like "he looks too smart" and "let's take his book away". For a high-schooler who had no exposure to violence before this was pretty scary. Since then, I tried hard to avoid riding the busses through that area. Can you guess which race were those teenagers?
(Note that I have arrived with some pretty weird believes, like the one that everyone with shaved head is a gang member and had to be avoided. That one did not last very long, because there was one person with shaved head in my math class and he was pretty great. Unfortunately, there were no similar experience to persuade me that I should not avoid groups of black people.)
Do you come on Hackernews every 2 years to write racist things? Your last comment is from 2018 and has the same white supremacist talking point.
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/r...
for more information.
Then why would a white man ever feel threatened by an angry black man expressing his opinion?
And anyways, what white person in 2020 complains to HR about an angry black man? And if they do, who listens? Get real.
A white man might be threatened by a black man expressing their opinion for two reasons. First, the audacity of someone "inferior" daring to express their opinion assertively. That could be seen as threatening. Secondly (and probably more likely) the social conditioning that black people, but especially men, acting with anger are naturally dangerous. That is, someone may feel vastly more physically intimidated by a black man expressing the same opinion, with the same words, at the same volume level than a white woman.
Would a person complain to HR about that? Absolutely. Would HR respond? Depends on the company and the people.
I've attended my share of diversity trainings but none of them taught me this. Maybe you just had shitty trainers?
If it’s hard to believe because you haven’t lived it, then is listening to the multitudes of people also not enough?