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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

#321

Post by jacobush »

ravenstine wrote: post #167
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foun…

> 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 autho…

I find it CorporateSpeak to say that race is becoming a greater and greater issue. It's long been a great issue. Wars have been fought over race, and the concept of race.

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

#322

Post by ipnon »

brentis wrote: post #239

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 prob…

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.

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

#324

Post by TaylorAlexander »

natalyarostova wrote: post #293
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foun…

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...

Certainly black voices are best to understand the black experience. What I found useful from Robin DiAngelo was her description of white fragility.

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

#325

Post by robbrown451 »

tomp wrote: post #35
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…

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.

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.

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

#326

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#327

Post by throwaway711477 »

thex10 wrote: post #310
throwaway711477 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Yet, is that always true? Person A is an upper-middle class Indian. They study software engineering at university in India. They immigrate to the United States and get a job working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. Person B is a working class African-American. Nobody in their family has ever been to university.…

> Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to. And sure, it's probably very Western-cent…

> Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to.

How much shared experience does a professional class recent immigrant from Asia actually have with a working class African-American? For very many of the former, the "assumed criminality" is largely a non-issue. (Even the example mentioned in quadrifoliate's comment was presented as an exception rather than the norm.)

And, might not recent immigrants from Asian countries have shared experiences in common with immigrants from Europe? quadrifoliate mentioned experiencing stupid jokes about his perceived culture, but dumb ethnic jokes and stereotypes are something that European-descended ethnic minorities have to put up with too. At school, my half-Italian friend had to put up with jokes about his dad being in the mafia; there is a long tradition of jokes presenting Irish people as stupid; etc. Yet the Italians/Irish/Greeks/etc who have to put up with these dumb jokes and stereotypes are not classified as "people of color", while the same experience had by an Asian person is put forward as justification for classifying them as such.

> Do you have a similar issue with the LGBT framing?

Yes. To give just one example, a number of lesbian feminists have criticised that framing as over-emphasising the commonality of interests between gay men and lesbian women and under-emphasising the extent to which their interests conflict with each other. see e.g. https://we.riseup.net/assets/168538/Sheila%20Jeffreys%20The%...

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

#328

Post by austincheney »

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 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.

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

#329

Post by [deleted] »

0zymandias wrote: post #213

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?

[deleted]

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

#330

Post by jacobush »

wolco wrote: post #246
nouveaux wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a publicly traded company is not doing well, the CEO gets canned and no one bats an eye. If one department is not doing well, it's very common to just fire a bunch of people or get rid of the department completely. The idea of "dismantling of police" does not mean we do not offer protection. It just means that the current organization "police" is not providing the services it's customers want. Years of "tweaking"…

Defunding would move those roles from public jobs to private jobs. In the end the only the rich would have protection. Probably not the best path. For an example see the private police in London. They answer to no one.

I don't understand how you make the conclusion that the money must go to private jobs? Can't the municipality reallocate the funds and spend it elsewhere in the public sector?
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