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

bloomberg.com

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

#91

Post by panopticon »

tomp wrote: post #75
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, it's still sexist. Same thing. Also, wrong. A better example would be, "women aren't passionate about driving". That's a stereotype, likely a correct one (i.e. substantiated by statistics... I mean, I'm not certain, but that would be my prior, but I'm very open to changing it), and most importantly: not harmful . It's just a stereotype. I'm not denying that things could be harmful (racism, sexist, ...). But not…

> That's a stereotype, likely a correct one [snip], and most importantly: not harmful. It's just a stereotype.

Citation on those not being harmful? Stereotypes like that seem to be a driving factor in why STEM fields are very male dominated.

"Girls don't like cars; go find some dolls to play with."

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

#92

Post by JPKab »

chongli wrote: post #73
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

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 raci…

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 ca…

" 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.

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

#93

Post by jpxw »

Pfhreak wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

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

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.

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

#94

Post by aebtebeten »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

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

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

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

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

#95

Post by Domenic_S »

tomp wrote: post #75
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, it's still sexist. Same thing. Also, wrong. A better example would be, "women aren't passionate about driving". That's a stereotype, likely a correct one (i.e. substantiated by statistics... I mean, I'm not certain, but that would be my prior, but I'm very open to changing it), and most importantly: not harmful . It's just a stereotype. I'm not denying that things could be harmful (racism, sexist, ...). But not…

Not going to get into whether "just a stereotype" is harmful generally, but your example really depends on the context. What if you're a woman applying to be a performance driver somewhere, and the response to your application is "women aren't passionate about driving"? That would be harmful.

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

#96

Post by jt0 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #33
olivermarks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked it up - according to the NYT 'black, indigenous people of color'. Based on this shouldn't the correct wording for 'black lives matter' be 'BIPOC lives matter'? Surely people of color and indigenous people are taking offense at this?

It also somehow places black and indigenous people as not "people of color"(I assume they aren't counting white indigenous people like the Sami).

This is an incorrect reading of the term. BIPOC is US-specific. You'd have to look at teachings from Sami activists to see the most useful framing for indigenous erasure in Scandinavia. Also, it does not place black and indigenous people as not POC, the aim is "undoing Native invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantling white supremacy and advancing racial justice."[0]. It instead centers the two groups who have been the most marginalized in the US.

[0] https://www.thebipocproject.org/

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

#97

Post by neonate »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #88
neonate wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This. The words "white" and "black" are not proper names of places, and they aren't honorifics. To say I'm "White" would be like saying I'm "Fat" or "Tired".

I'm not sure that argument works grammatically because we capitalize things that aren't names of places, but I agree with you in the sense that it's the feeling I got while reading the article, and it was strangely creepy.

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

#98

Post by mynameishere »

throwaway713 wrote: post #65

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

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".

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

#100

Post by esperent »

tomp wrote: post #75
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, it's still sexist. Same thing. Also, wrong. A better example would be, "women aren't passionate about driving". That's a stereotype, likely a correct one (i.e. substantiated by statistics... I mean, I'm not certain, but that would be my prior, but I'm very open to changing it), and most importantly: not harmful . It's just a stereotype. I'm not denying that things could be harmful (racism, sexist, ...). But not…

It's pretty harmful if you're a woman who likes driving and you keep getting excluded from driving related groups and discussions because the men in these groups assume your interest is not genuine.
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