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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

#741

Post by cutemonster »

Throwsfnabf04 wrote: post #699
forgot_user1234 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

STOP. This is so racist, you generalized all Indians into once category. Kashmiri's who faced genocide? What about the Punjabis for faced a genocide? You don't realize it, but all indians in one category is a white thing, created by WHITE people. So stop with "so many Indians", it's not equivalent.

(Now sounds to me as if you're yourself generalizing about others based on their skin color and grouping them all together)

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

#742

Post by dragonsky67 »

spoopyskelly wrote: post #602
davedx wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a white British guy living in the Netherlands. I'll never forget shortly after moving here, I was sat in the garden with our Dutch neighbours and my Dutch girlfriend, and the man started complaining about "immigrants" and all the problems they brought to the Netherlands. My girlfriend said "you know Dave is an immigrant?" and he just waved it away, "Not you, you're not like them". Obviously he wasn't talking abou…

If you're from Britain you should know it is about stereotypes, not race. The Asians make your food, the Polish fix your pipes and the Romanians build your houses.

And everybody knows the English just complain about everything ;-)

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

#743

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

southphillyman wrote: post #634
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…

>You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people. Almost a decade in the industry and I have never worked with another black developer. One time I was on a team with a black project manager who use to be a developer but that's it. For all the pushback on diversity recruiting I appreciate events like Google sandbox that remind me that we do exist and present opportunities to n…

I knew a black developer once on the job, but he was a contractor and not on my team. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't find it :-) I've gotten so used to it that it simply never occurs to me any more.

Some companies are genuinely concerned. When I left a major corp, the VP of Software Development called me into his office and said (paraphrasing) "since you're leaving I can count on you to be honest with me. Are our diversity programs doing anything useful or are we just kidding ourselves?"

The company I went to after that (another large corporation) hired a consultant to interview a set of women and minorities to try to understand how comfortable they felt in their day-to-day roles. Again, knowing the HR people there, I felt they were genuinely trying to foster a pleasant environment, but that's also the company where I came across that one black developer.

Then again, I do recall travelling across the country to be my company's Expert for a deposition for a lawsuit over a project I was on and having the opposing party think I was the cab driver...

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

#744

Post by cutemonster »

gowld wrote: post #346
shrubble wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How successful is his team? He might be suffering from confirmation bias if he is good at interviews/choosing people.

It's not that hard to hire. Most roles don't need amazing candidates.

Also, therere 100s of millions of ppl at these places so not that hard to find good ppl for those work tasks even if you restrict yourself: eg qa only India, like they did

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

#745

Post by titzer »

sfj wrote: post #489
titzer wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being downvoted because this is a soft form of victim blaming [1]. As tone and context are difficult to transmit in such a short reply, it might be a good idea to phrase things in a more empathetic way in the future. And for the record, no, no this isn't because of how they dress. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

I disagree with the premise of “victim blaming”. If we can't look at all sides of an issue for fear of being publicly shamed for going against a narrative, we'll end up with wrong conclusions a lot of the time. I did acknowledge racism could also play a part, but I don't see how we are supposed to be able to accept that one can read the minds of those that affront him. I also don't give a damn about the “monkey no li…

Well to honest your post was the textbook definition of victim blaming. It was hardly a "premise." With absolutely zero evidence you flat out accused them of wrong behavior (dressing wrong, acting wrong) instead of considering their situation on the facts they presented. That is victim blaming.

But now you try turn the tables around. Your feelings are so important. Painting yourself as the victim is the all-too-predictable next step in that logical chain. Congratulations on making this all about you.

Instead of being pissed off and trying to fire another salvo to get other people pissed off and concerned about you, you should try to listen to people instead. You came out of the gate with the over the top with "your lived experience is invalid, here is my completely context-free flat denial that anything is wrong, I don't want to hear what you are saying". This whole chain originated out of your lack of empathy, and here now we completely forgot about the people who are actually victimized.

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

#746

Post by sfj »

thosakwe wrote: post #650
sfj wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the premise of “victim blaming”. If we can't look at all sides of an issue for fear of being publicly shamed for going against a narrative, we'll end up with wrong conclusions a lot of the time. I did acknowledge racism could also play a part, but I don't see how we are supposed to be able to accept that one can read the minds of those that affront him. I also don't give a damn about the “monkey no li…

I wish you would put as much effort into listening and understanding other people's experiences as you do trying to find excuses for racism.

I wasn't “finding excuses for racism”. Just trying to determine if actually occured, or not.

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

#747

Post by DagAgren »

Reedx wrote: post #720
DagAgren wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also chose the word "kafkatrap", a word coined by a notorious racist.

It describes a fallacy and have no idea who coined it. First learned of it on HN, actually. You don't know who coined "coined", but they may well have been a racist. Are you going to stop using it if so? Does that mean it's no longer useful for communication? Are you going to investigate every word on the chance it might've been and strike those from the lexicon?

It is, in fact, not useful for communication, because it does not honestly communicate anything. It exists only to undermine people who try to call you out on making bigoted remarks. It was coined by ESR, and is popular mainly with people with a strong affinity for bigotry, like him, and also libertarians.

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

#748

Post by sfj »

titzer wrote: post #745
sfj wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the premise of “victim blaming”. If we can't look at all sides of an issue for fear of being publicly shamed for going against a narrative, we'll end up with wrong conclusions a lot of the time. I did acknowledge racism could also play a part, but I don't see how we are supposed to be able to accept that one can read the minds of those that affront him. I also don't give a damn about the “monkey no li…

Well to honest your post was the textbook definition of victim blaming. It was hardly a "premise." With absolutely zero evidence you flat out accused them of wrong behavior (dressing wrong, acting wrong) instead of considering their situation on the facts they presented. That is victim blaming. But now you try turn the tables around. Your feelings are so important. Painting yourself as the victim is the all-too-predi…

> Well to honest your post was the textbook definition of victim blaming. It was hardly a "premise." With absolutely zero evidence you flat out accused them of wrong behavior (dressing wrong, acting wrong) instead of considering their situation on the facts they presented. That is victim blaming.

I didn't accuse, I simply asked a question. How are you so sure that it must be racism? Why are you trying to shame me for suggesting there might be another explanation?

> But now you try turn the tables around. Your feelings are so important. Painting yourself as the victim is the all-too-predictable next step in that logical chain. Congratulations on making this all about you.

When did I ever say anything about my feelings whatsoever? Can you at least quote me when you attribute motives?

> Instead of being pissed off and trying to fire another salvo to get other people pissed off and concerned about you, you should try to listen to people instead. You came out of the gate with the over the top with "your lived experience is invalid, here is my completely context-free flat denial that anything is wrong, I don't want to hear what you are saying". This whole chain originated out of your lack of empathy, and here now we completely forgot about the people who are actually victimized.

Empathy is not the same as agreeing with him as to what caused his situation. You are adding a lot of emotional context in what I say, which isn't present.

I'm just trying to get people to stop jumping to conclusions everytime that everyone is racist. Undoubtedly some people are, but you're immediately jumping to the conclusion that everyone is without evidence.

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

#749

Post by spats1990 »

christophilus wrote: post #594
js2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Jewish. This gives me no insight into what it is to be black in America. But it does give me some insight into what it is to be a minority in America. I have an inkling of your loneliness and you have my profound sympathy. I wish everyone could experience what it is to be a minority in some, any, aspect of their identity to the extent that it might provide them some empathy for others. (I also never realized wha…

I’m a white Catholic. The first time I experienced being a minority was in Korea. It was definitely unsettling how many people seemed openly or somewhat unhappy we were there. I can’t imagine living my entire life with that sense! If you just normalized it and moved on, I imagine you’d have deep psychological effects and chronic career challenges, etc. So, yeah, pretty much what we see minorities face around the worl…

spent half the last decade in seoul, my impression is that it's both far easier and far harder to fully feel like part of the group in korea as a non-korean. the first hurdle, which most foreigners (including me) never fully make it past, is the language. after that, it is down to the specific people that make up the group around the foreigner, and i think this is true of any humans anywhere. my impression was that the most cruel forms of exclusion/discrimination in korean society were reserved for other east asians/asians who speak korean as a fluent L2. this will probably come to a head, hopefully with positive results, in the next 15-20 years given that there is a large (non-trivial) subgroup of children in korea now, mostly outside seoul, with a parent (usually the mother) from a south east asian country.

on the topic that kicked off this subthread (i think--about stubbornly non-adaptive western foreigners in very different cultures than their own), when i was doing ~25 hours a week of korean language classes and study in addition to a full time job, i used to tell that particular subtype of Complaining Expat that if they wanted to level up their complaining about the host culture, they should learn intermediate korean, if only for the sole purpose of unlocking a whole new ocean of complaining material. this was obviously bait/a joke, but there are no jokes: it's one thing to have someone make basic hand gestures like "eating" etc to you when they know you absolutely don't really know what you are saying; it's another thing to have someone do it when you have been conversing with them in their language for the last five to ten minutes.

i could do like fifty posts about race and foreignness in korea but i always think of the model who has appeared in a lot of korean shoe and clothing ads recently. his parents are nigerian and korean and he grew up in korea with korean as his first language, and in an interview he once expressed goodhumoured frustration about ethnic-korean people speaking English to him by default when his english is, by his own admission, not that great at all.

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

#750

Post by skissane »

buran77 wrote: post #688
eythian wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was addressing the original point which was "Notice how only white people ever choose to consider themselves to be "expats"", which in my experience is not true. > people will most likely first find out where you're from (by asking, or accent, etc.) and that will determine their first and longest lasting opinion. Perhaps. Where I live there are a lot of Turkish immigrants, for example (mostly they/their parents mov…

> there are a lot of Turkish immigrants This exemplifies my point perfectly. Even though you go on to write that some were born in the country, they are still "Turkish immigrants" not "expats" or [that country's] citizens. Some may be considered expats by you now but walking down the street I can assure you people see "immigrants". Say "British immigrants", or "US immigrants", or "German immigrants" and see how that…

> English has this distinct connotation for the word "immigrant" and it's associated with individuals overwhelmingly based on their country of origin (the poorer the country, the more "immigranty" the person).

I was born in Australia, my mother was born in Scotland. In my mind, that makes me a second generation immigrant. I never thought of my mother, or her parents, as "expatriates".

A lot of Australians who immigrated from the UK and Ireland identified themselves as "immigrants" not "expatriates".

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