I like how you try to tie this into startups (hackernewserizing the thread as it were) Kudos!
The interesting thing is the personal dissonance between ideal principles and concrete experience. Pretty sure most here fancy themselves as not being racists. Going out at night and seeing a group of black young men start crossing the street and heading towards you, would you be scared? Would you be less scared if they were white and wearing argyle sweaters instead of black hoodies and baggy pants? Thinking about it, yeah I would be afraid. Rationally I know I am not a racist but in that case, I can see myself running as fast as I could.
Back to a black person walking into the start-up. Well that is kind of interesting, because of the way it is presented. Walking in? Almost sounds like he "breaks" in? How often do you hire people that just "walk in" to your startup off the street. The hypothetical example is already biased and infused with stereotypes the way I see it. Did we already do a phone Skype interview and passed? Hey he might have a good chance. I also don't see "felonies" as being a clear cut yes or no differentiate. I can see looking more into what those felonies were and balancing it against other aspects.
(Or if you bump into him outside your office building, monitoring the logs of his app on his iPhone via http://www.loggly.com/?)
(I don't work for Loggly. I'm just adding to the droll.)
I feel that enough won't quite cut it, must be also wearing tight jeans, an emo hearcut and a leather messenger bag. ;-)
How would you feel if it was a bunch of white guys in hoodies and baggy pants, who suddenly cross the street and start heading your way?
It's like non-trolls don't make it to the future... Like, there's no place for anyone who fails to follow up with something like:
(rejects the question on its face): But what about an intermixed group of guys and one girl wearing argyle garments of various types?
I mean, as a very real, practical problem: either the question absolutely fails or absolutely succeeds at its purpose, and its purpose is determing whether or not the asked absolutely fails or absolutely succeeds at something — but what? The question clearly has lost its value at its first iteration, and really only serves to entertain programmer-types.
For instance, if I were to ask anyone two generations back, they would clearly lose all patience. And the further I take this line of questioning back in history, the fewer the number of folk becomes for whom it is relevant (all the way back to, say, Aristotle, who probably has exactly the classically wrong answer). But as we ask it, we clearly see it as a template question. It isn't informative in any practical sense, and it does not directly modulate our practical ethics.
It's like we've already begun the post-future nostalgia: "Oh, remember way back when racism was a thing?" — But, paradoxically enough... It is still a thing!
Like, tomorrow I'm going to have to politely grimace in response to at least one racist joke — of which 10 years ago it did not exist as a class of joke, but 40 years ago probably would've incited a minor riot (just given its phonetic appearance).
Look, I know this is kinda more of the same wankery you were just (rightly) dismissing, but you don't have to.
My post addressed the fact that the parent's question was flawed from the start. I do think it is worthwhile to try to understand how our racial attitudes affect ourselves and others. However, while the parent's post appeared to do just that, it was actually set up to trigger false positives and more superficial discussion of the type society has been holding for too long.
So, I am not altogether certain whether you and I agree or disagree.
Here is apparently even a project that investigates it,
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/
Give it a try, about 10 minutes or so for the test. It is a very raw test and doesn't test for secondary signals (clothing styles and so on), just race based on photographs cropped to show only the face. Anyway the point being, as original poster said, "cultural fit" is sometimes used to reflect these biases.
Funny you should say that, because in the UK an argyle sweater was at one time the uniform of football casuals. In certain places at certain times it would create far more fear than hoodies and baggy trousers. The signifiers do change all the time and this is a good example of how weakly tied to behaviour they actually are and how troubling our assumptions based on them are.
But your point on the dissonance between ideals and actions is quite valid - we make all sorts of judgements about people based on appearance alone (their culture, their education, their background, their likely behaviour etc), before they've even had a chance to introduce themselves or show us who they are. Casuals in the UK exploited this for some time to avoid scrutiny by the police.
If that's the case, I'm pretty sure most here are delusional. Most people (of all colors) are racist to some degree. I hesitate to say "everyone is racist", but certainly racist attitudes pervade our culture, even unconsciously.
Going out at night and seeing a group of black young men start crossing the street and heading towards you, would you be scared?
Well, yes. A few months ago I was roughed up and mugged by three people matching that description exactly (including your later-mentioned hoodies and baggy pants). The question that I struggle with now: is my new-found suspicion a racist attitude, or am I just pattern matching? And even if I'm just pattern matching, is that still racist? Does my single experience make it more likely that random black men dressed a certain way will turn out to be violent toward me?
Would you be less scared if they were white and wearing argyle sweaters instead of black hoodies and baggy pants?
Probably. But I think if any group of people, regardless of race or manner of dress, started walking directly at me from across the street, I'd at least be somewhat worried. Their appearance would likely only change the level of that worry.
Let's connect the dots.
(The obvious follow-up is: Are these men African American?)
((Obligatory response: Point still stands. Change all the variables. Make them androids with upgraded and legally "blessed" virtual mental cores for all I care.))