Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 828 posts

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

#731

Post by dang »

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.

That's a non sequitur and flamebait. Please don't post like that to HN. It's only going to lead to worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#732

Post by dang »

Aperocky wrote: post #378
dang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pairs nicely with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23431559 .

Hahaha let the radicals battle it out themselves, bravo.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004

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

#733

Post by nitwit005 »

charlesu wrote: post #728
nitwit005 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of a non-response isn't it? The way things are is always determined by the events that came before. It doesn't mean you've correctly identified the right events. I think it's easy to point at something like slavery as the underlying cause, but Europeans had no issue looking down on blacks before they had the idea to import them to the new world as slaves, and Europe adopted similar attitudes toward blacks…

> That's kind of a non-response isn't it? The way things are is always determined by the events that came before. It doesn't mean you've correctly identified the right events. Then name the events. I happen to think that slavery shaped American culture and American history. I find it improbable that a country would have race-based chattel slavery for several centuries but no significant cultural baggage. If that were…

> Then name the events.

I didn't claim to know the answer, just that your claims lacked support.

Of course slavery shaped American history, and thus its culture, but step back and imagine it never happened. Let's say the first blacks arrived in the US in 1990.

I'd still expect a similar level of racism toward blacks, because that's true globally. Even people in somewhere like rural China who have never met a black person are likely to look down on them.

Some of the Southern goofiness would be gone like you point out, but overall I'd unfortunately expect a remarkable similar situation.

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

#734

Post by taurath »

Press2forEN wrote: post #703
taurath wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think just about all white people would do well to look around the neighborhood that they grew up in and think about the politics of how it got to be that way. I went to a high school of 1400, and in 4 years there were all of 3 black kids. Turns out this is because no black family was allowed by any bank to get a loan for a mortgage in the area until 1974 . White blindness to their privilege is a huge impediment to…

You identified a legitimate issue that was corrected in your area in 1974. That's good. However that does not impose decades or centuries of penance on an entire race of people, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with it. To do so is scapegoating and white Americans have every right to resist it.

Imagine playing monopoly for 400 years with someone, and they got to go around the board for the first 300 years without you making a move, buying up all the property. Then for the next 50 they allowed you to start to make moves, but every time you started to gain just about any money they would push you over and rob you (see: sundown towns, lynching, the tulsa massacre, segregation, jim crow, redlining, police brutality, poor neighborhoods and absolutely awful schools).

There's been no penance. There's been no justice. And people aren't even asking for that, they're asking for a seat at the table and a chance to play the game, which is STILL constantly being denied. Its not scapegoating, its fighting against systematic oppression that you yourself continue to support.

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

#736

Post by taurath »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #639
taurath wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much of an impact do you think systemic racism had on the response to the opioid epidemic and how much can just be attributed to the fact that we have gotten smarter about drug addiction in general? Most of society now empathizes with drug addiction because its hit white society a lot and the race of users can't be used as a political scapegoat. As long as you're white, the richer you are, the less likely you a…

>As long as you're white, the richer you are, the less likely you are to go to jail for it. Rehab is for rich people. // Any sources to support this, that equally wealthy people go to jail in higher proportions - for the same [drug] crime - if they're non-white?

I couldn't find one for drugs specifically, but this link is a decent one:

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/the-race-g...

The probability of being jailed for more than a year is over 20% for the poorest 20% of Blacks, and just over 10% for the poorest 20% of whites.

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

#737

Post by zasz »

twybriny wrote: post #220
zasz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

One of the things that confuses me quite a bit is the focus on laws that expired or have been abrogated 50-60-70-150 years ago and make it as if everything wrong with contemporary American society is caused directly by such laws and nothing else. * GI Bill: adopted in 1944, expired in 1956. * Social Security: adopted in 1935, unclear what the impacts were at the time. Unclear what the impacts are today. * Redlining:…

> * the obesity crisis, and the related food deserts > * specifically for the black community, the lack of academic achievement

Those are both related to a history of redlining. A huge factor in the wealth gap is due a lack of home ownership. Even now, real estate agents steer black customers away from the neighborhoods with good schools: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-...

If someone's grandparents were forced to live in shitty housing and were never able to own their own home, that puts the next couple generations at a disadvantage. Most people who are able to afford a down payment on a home get financial assistance from their families. If one generation cannot help with that down payment, the next one sure as hell won't.

That point about the black academic gap is quite silly, because you're either ignoring or unaware of the fact that black students are punished more than white students for similar infractions in school: https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/at-school-it...

I could go on all day finding more examples of other discrepancies that are current.

> As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history.

Yes, my family did that too. However, we are not black, and as a result, we didn't have to put up with banks refusing to give us a mortgage when we wanted to move to a wealthy suburb that had excellent public schools.

You came in on a student visa? That means you had a certain amount of social capital to rely on in your home country. How many people in your original country were too poor to apply for even an F1 visa and shoot for a richer life in America? Your experience is not remotely analogous to the continuing problems of racial discrimination faced by black Americans. You have absolutely not faced the same problems with building up intergenerational social capital that they have. My family made it out of China, but millions of Chinese peasants in the rural countryside, even if they are equally talented and hardworking as my family, will never have the chance. They're too far behind. That's why I chose to focus on the historical legislation. You may think that it doesn't matter, black people should've pulled themselves up by their bootstraps by now, but it doesn't matter if they lack the same headstart.

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

#738

Post by mewpmewp2 »

watwut wrote: post #581
peteretep wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe these painful interactions would be much less common if tech culture were more diverse in the first place. I have this bias that people who get into programming as kids tend to end up as the strongest developers. My own personal effort to try and help tech diversify is support and promotion of https://www.blackgirlscode.com/ When I've worked in London I've been often surprised at how diverse QA teams are,…

> I have this bias that people who get into programming as kids tend to end up as the strongest developers. I don't think this is true. I think that this bias is pushing away a lot of people who could be those strong developers, but think it is already too late for them.

This should definitely correlate. If you want to be strongest in sports you have to start early. Same with programming. You will not only have more experience timewise, but also brain is more malleable in the young age to make the person naturally have the correct mindset.

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

#739

Post by dorgo »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #591
eloisant wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly makes sense to assume (in your head) the black guy is a rapper, and the white guy is a tech CEO. But when you know how it makes people feel when you make your assumption visible, you understand the need to act like anyone could be the CEO, the developer, etc. Same goes for women devs who at tech conferences who are too often "assumed" to be girlfriends, recruiters or other non-tech participants. Yes, the…

I’m not arguing that you should make your assumptions visible (I agree it’s better to just ask), I’m just saying racism isn’t the root cause here and any attempts to fix this issue assuming that it is are going to be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. We should work on fixing the actual issue.

>I’m just saying racism isn’t the root cause here

There is the idea that all people are unconsciously racist based on cultural inheritance of the last centuries (imperialism). It is just assumed by everybody that white people are superior in some way. Evidence based reasoning ( few black CEO => it's unlikely to meet a black CEO => this black guy there is not a CEO )is welcome (defensive) argument. Yes, it would help to increase the number of black CEO's, developers, ... But it's only a part of the problem.

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

#740

Post by stormdennis »

Pfhreak wrote: post #700
stormdennis wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't answer my question, I notice. Perhaps he's a person who has been or felt he has been, hard done by? Is he not allowed to voice "his truth"?

> You didn't answer my question, I notice. Correct. It was a bad faith strawman question (I called it diversive above). > Is he not allowed to voice "his truth" I then immediately said he's free to voice his experiences. Maybe you are trying to engage in good faith, if so, you should know it reads as concern trolling.

I'm not going to say what you write, reads as. Suffice it to say that I imagine you don't receive the adulation you feel you deserve.
Post reply on HN