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

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

#181

Post by tashi »

m0zg wrote: post #132

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.

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

#182

Post by bsder »

ibudiallo wrote: post #140

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 Techc…

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

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

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

#183

Post by Thorentis »

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.

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

#184

Post by pessimizer »

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".

But they're also not physical qualities, they're ethnic classifications. I don't know any others that aren't capitalized.

People aren't actually colored black or white, and you can have the same coloring as a person who is black or white ane be neither black or white.

I'm not a big fan of the capitalization, but it's reasonable. Are "Aboriginal" or "Indigenous" place names or honorifics?

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

#185

Post by RunAwayFast »

I wonder if the whole protests thing is going to make things better or worse as I have friends who are now terrified of having a future black co-worker because they might get in trouble so they are now basically saying they would veto. I’ll admit that I’m not sure which direction I will go in hiring recommendations for my team on that.

If I were a VC I am not sure I would want black CEOs pitching me because the social costs of error are far higher.

This entire few weeks has been an exercise in either copying other people’s LinkedIn posts or just hiding until it all blows over.

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

#186

Post by lesstenseflow »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #118
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 definit…

The video you linked espouses the same ideas. To be anti-racist isn't to simply understand the things one can and cannot say. To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power. It's akin to just memorizing a list of microagressions like curse words and never saying them for fear of being fired. Anti-racism provides the tools t…

> To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power.

I thought “fundamentally understanding the lived experiences of the black community” was impossible for non-black people. What white person has achieved this goal? If none, is it impossible for a white person to be “anti-racist?”

I acknowledge racism is a real issue but think it’s reasonable to disagree what the best solution is. This stuff (white fragility etc) just smells way too much like “original sin” and “we are all sinners but must strive towards holiness, however unachievable” to me.

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

#187

Post by darth_avocado »

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.

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

#188

Post by zasz »

nsporillo wrote: post #174
claudeganon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 racis…

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.

Systematic exclusion of black people from social programs, like the GI Bill and Social Security, and redlining, which prevented black Americans from building up wealth through homeownership the way white Americans were. "The Color of Law" is a good book on redlining.

To expand on the bit about Social Security, farmworkers were excluded, since farmworkers tend to be not white. It was a nice sneaky way to be racist without coming out and doing so explicitly.

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

#189

Post by Thorentis »

Pfhreak wrote: post #40
tomp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Racism absolutely does imply intent. The attempt by progressives to recharacterise racism as something that it is not, is the reason why they are making less progress in their objectives than they would like.

It is not racist to assume that the person in the room most like the other CEOs you have met, is also the CEO. If I was in a foreign country, I would assume the CEO is the person most like the other people in that country. I never made any assumption about competence. Half the time I think the least competent person in the room is the CEO. Sadly that's how business works. There would be nothing racist - intentional, or unintentional - about my assumption.

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

#190

Post by jessaustin »

Thorentis wrote: post #183

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…

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.

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