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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

#571

Post by jcims »

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…

Over the past few years I've been on numerous hiring events with my company for dev/ops jobs and I would say that the percentage of candidates that were black roughly matched your team...maybe 2-3% (and most of them were not US citizens). Of the remaining i would say about half were Asians (east/west) on visas, a third were US citizens (mostly white) and the balance were mostly Europeans on visas...super rough numbers obviously.

It's strange because we have a bunch of older black folks in IT roles that have been around for a long time. I've worked with quite a few black folks in my career (boring city not near the coasts) and the overall demographics are actually fair to middling (racially anyway, male/female is still a mess). New hires though? Not not so much. I don't see how we fix this overall situation without understanding what's causing that discrepancy.

It's not a quick fix but personally I feel we have to do more to inspire young kids to dream about this type of career and visualize it as part of their future. Part of that is (probably?) going to be seeing folks that they can identify with in those roles. Another part is (probably?) to make that resources are available for them to test the waters and develop those skills and refine their interests. I'm white, i don't know what it's like to grow up going to school in the setting most young black kids find themselves. I went to a mostly white school in the suburbs in the midwest and it treated 'nerds' like dog shit back in the day. Something tells me the story doesn't get better in metro public schools. Pop culture really seems to hold sway in those settings, maybe some help there wouldn't hurt.

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

#572

Post by raxxorrax »

lukev wrote: post #121
JPKab wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read "White Fragility". While I completely agree that the stories in this article are hugely problematic and represent issues that need to be solved, I think books like "White Fragility" are not helpful in solving them. This is due to a focus on group identity, and describing "White" as if it's a monolithic group of people, all with the same culture, emotions, and reactions. Another interesting aspect I identifi…

If you wait to do anything about systemic racism until it's fully quantified, it will be a long time until we can make any progress. Meanwhile, a central point of the book is one that should be self evident. Talking about racism makes white people[1] uncomfortable. I know this to be true from experience. And we can't make progress as a society until we own that discomfort and are willing to have frank conversations a…

3: I think proponents are full of themselves and at some point I would tell them.

I am white for most people aside from some racists. The real ones that think skin color to be indicative of quality.

If that comment makes you feel anything, it was probably directed at you.

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

#573

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

Perhaps the model some Koreans adhere to. Had some business contacts with them and noticed something peculiar and funny. They still have pretty tight hierarchies and a case when you can notice this is when you move between rooms or to a restaurant.

For them it seems to be pretty important to enter a room in hierarchic order. That means the boss goes first followed by rank of employees. It was hilarious to see them fall over their feet to adhere to these rules.

If you had a meeting they always came into the room in the same order. I invited them in after the first employees arrived but they insisted on waiting for their colleagues. After the gang had assembled, they entered in the predicted order.

If you visited another place, you should give them some room to reorder themselves. Otherwise it seems chaos ensues.

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

#574

Post by golemiprague »

triceratops wrote: post #268
golemiprague wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It is just classification by obvious statistics of how many CEOs are black. People do it naturally all the time regarding any subject, just because in this case it is race doesn't make it less reasonable to infer. Racism is not giving this CEO a fair go because he is black, not assuming logical assumptions which can be corrected.

> Why? Because of the reason given in the article. It starts the meeting off on a bad note by making the VC aware of their bias and embarrassing them. Often they just want to get the hell out ASAP to save face, which means the black CEO doesn't get a "fair go".

Why would they run away? They should just treat him as the CEO now that they know who he is and move on. It is not that complicated. You are all so sensitive in the US for everything you can't function as normal human being anymore.

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

#575

Post by raxxorrax »

Press2forEN wrote: post #199
lukev wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wait to do anything about systemic racism until it's fully quantified, it will be a long time until we can make any progress. Meanwhile, a central point of the book is one that should be self evident. Talking about racism makes white people[1] uncomfortable. I know this to be true from experience. And we can't make progress as a society until we own that discomfort and are willing to have frank conversations a…

> Talking about racism makes white people uncomfortable. When the basic premise of the argument is that white Americans are born irredeemably flawed[1], you're unlikely to win many white supporters other than the most guilt-ridden. I suppose the tactic is to impart as much guilt as possible. But that doesn't make the argument a good one. [1] https://twitter.com/DisrnNews/status/1266857347567190016

What do you mean win over? I see proponents as an educational mistake.

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

#576

Post by azernik »

sfj wrote: post #344
charlesu wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is hundreds of years of slavery and institutional discrimination specifically target toward blacks and all the accompanying cultural baggage. Part of that baggage is a deeply ingrained suggestion that black people are intellectually inferior but innately athletic. That isn't to say that other ethnic groups don't deal with racism too. But it's different. An African American executive in a suit may be mi…

> The difference is hundreds of years of slavery and institutional discrimination specifically target toward blacks and all the accompanying cultural baggage. Part of that baggage is a deeply ingrained suggestion that black people are intellectually inferior but innately athletic. How can you say this with complete certainty? How could you ever be sure?

Bias studies tend to prove that this, as does a quick perusal of the specific statements in openly-racist literature.

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

#578

Post by churchillracist »

forgot_user1234 wrote: post #552
churchillracist wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happened to Sundar. There was an incident at a tech conference where he was walking through the booths and some people started asking for selfies with him. The "booth guy" who had condescending look grabbed Sundar's nametag slightly tugging on his neck without requesting his permission to see who he was. People were shocked at how rude the physical contact was. More ought to have been made of that. That booth guy…

I haven't heard about this incident BUT it still doesn't shows why there are so many indian CEOs. I really doubt that it's the norm. Look at the numbers not the anecdotes. There are disproportionate number of Indian CEOs. It would have been impossible with racism and what not.

Multiple of these incidents have happened to Sundar.

""What are you, press?," asked the Samsung representative. After being let in - Pichai was inquisitive about Samsung's new smart fridge. The profile reveals similar incidents happened multiple times over at CES."

"Even after looking at the name on his badge, the rep had no clue that this curious, friendly inquisitor was one of the most powerful people in technology. "

https://magazine.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/spring-summer-2020...

> It would have been impossible with racism and what not. It would have been impossible with racism and what not.

Please explain the reasoning of why it would have been "impossible".

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

#579

Post by raxxorrax »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #396
pessimizer wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we have to talk about everything bad before we talk about one thing that's bad, especially when it comes to black people? Why, when the aftereffects of American slavery are being discussed, is there always somebody who says that we have to talk about Middle Eastern and African slavery first? Are the only important problems universal ones?

>...Why do we have to talk about everything bad before we talk about one thing that's bad, especially when it comes to black people? Sanitizing discussions of race is something people have always done when it comes to Afrian-Americans. Notice the progression goes from African-Americans -> Systematic Inequality of Treatment -> Systematic Violations of Basic Human Rights -> Everybody. The intersection between race and…

Because it is the correct approach. There is no white fragility.

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

#580

Post by azernik »

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".

In the American context, they are proper names of ethnic groups.
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