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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

#781

Post by the_omegist »

hef19898 wrote: post #643
tomp wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply is conflating a few things. 1. We make judgements on “group membership” all the time, and to the extent they’re correlated to the outcome (i.e. true ) that’s not wrong or -ist . Example would be, do you avoid stepping in front of a car because you infer that the car might run you over, or do you just take your chances and hope that this individual car will stop. Ok, contrived example. How about this: peopl…

If group membership is basde on race, it's racism. If it is based on religion, e.g. judaism, it is anti-semitism. If it is based on sex, it is sexism. If it is based on ones favorite sports team, it is just stupid.

So you proved nearly everyone is racist, as parent said...

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

#782

Post by the_omegist »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #298
wolco wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is tough teenage boys who want to babysit for extra cash. They always seem lose the job to a younger girl.

They can both be harmful and valid

Yet you don't see organizations and mobs fighting for that.

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

#783

Post by darth_avocado »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #482
darth_avocado wrote: post #187

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 "ra…

>It is humiliating This is a common theme in a number of stories in this thread that I don't understand. How and why does being a victim of racism translate into shame? When I am subject to injustice, my emotional reaction has always been fury and frustration.

Fury and frustration are part of the experience, but that doesn't exclude humiliation. From a quick Wikipedia search: "It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decreased."

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

#784

Post by hckr_news »

dheera wrote: post #583
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…

"well-meaning friends—mainly other Black entrepreneurs who faced similar challenges—suggested that Givens add a White man as a co-founder." I'm not black, but I'm also not white, and I've been suggested this numerous times as well by well-meaning people after our startup not being able to fundraise for several months but some of our white-male-founded competitors had successfully raised. One friend was even joking ab…

This reminds me of a Nairobi-based startup who tweeted a job posting in which they were looking for a white male to join their team to act as a face for the business. I don't know if it was in jest but it was hilarious and sad.

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

#785

Post by darth_avocado »

sfj wrote: post #336
darth_avocado wrote: post #187

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 "ra…

Did you ever think it might be the way you dress or your demeanor? Obviously, it could be racial also, but how could you know that?

Ahh yes, the good ol' "how you dress", "how you carry yourself", "your personal hygiene", "how you talk" or one of the other hundred responses I get from people immediately when I talk about the unfair treatment I've seen in my life. All I can say is no it has nothing to do with how I dress, because half of those "random checks" were during my business trips when I worked for a major consulting firm. So I doubt my suit and tie had anything to do with it.

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

#786

Post by read_if_gay_ »

buran77 wrote: post #769
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general people who never suffered from this kind of profiling have a hard time understanding what's the problem I'm assuming you're directing this towards me since you mentioned my example. I am myself a minority. Do you realize that you just racially profiled me based on my opinion?

> you just racially profiled me based on my opinion This argument makes no sense. I based my words on your statement not your person and it wasn't even addressed to you. I picked up your argument and from personal experience explained why those people that you described see it like that. Making a very wobbly assumption based on criteria that puts one in a protected group is profiling and it gets old when you keep hea…

You were imlplying people who "don't understand the problem" (as in, they share my opinion) are generally lacking certain experiences, which is fundamentally nothing different than profiling them based on superficial attributes, which is exactly what's being criticised.

I'm not taking issue with you doing that, I was just aiming to illustrate the fact that everyone does this constantly. It's easier than thinking - it saves energy, we evolved to do it. It'll be hard to get rid of this and therefore maybe shouldn't be in the focus as much as it is.

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

#787

Post by sidlls »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #757
sidlls wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your brother's anecdote doesn't erase my lived experience, okay? You have an extremely poor white brother; I grew up an extremely poor white guy in a mixed-race neighborhood. I know, better than most, what privilege being white buys me in this society. It exists. But existence is far from universal, or uniform. You're off the mark. Way off.

My brother and I grew up in a world that sounds similar to yours. I’m not negating your experience. The fact that you and I have privilege doesn’t negate our own hardships.

You’re playing a bit loose, here. When you write that 100% of whites are advantaged, you are engaged in exaggeration that erases the practical reality. It is true that our system is structured to advantage whites. It does not necessarily follow that all whites are equally advantaged (other things being equal) or that all whites live a life in which they experience these advantages.

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

#788

Post by sidlls »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #754
sidlls wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you write is generally true. You're taking it to an unjustified extreme, though, and glossing over the fact that the advantages diminish rapidly as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, to the point where the "white advantage" for impoverished folks looks more like regular fluctuations in the noise than it does a clear above-the-noise signal. That is to say: the poorest whites might on average have some advanta…

By the way “blacks” is a dead giveaway you’re either very ignorant or not sincere. Just by the way.

How so? I’ve engaged in numerous conversations about race and its suffusing everything in this country with non-white close friends and casual acquaintances alike who’ve never made the suggestion you make. This isn’t an issue of them being hesitant to challenge me (lawd knows they don’t show any hesitation to challenge in other areas of race-related conversation we engage in: I’d be surprised if this were the one issue that weren’t true for).

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

#789

Post by Grustaf »

notahacker wrote: post #670
Grustaf wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If stereotypes were a major factor wouldn’t progressive countries like Sweden have more female physicists and programmers than a traditionalist gender role stronghold like Russia? In reality it’s the opposite.

Unless one believes that stereotypes are entirely absent from or irrelevant in progressive countries, not necessarily. It's well established that females in Russia view STEM more positively [not just other possibly more-chauvinist-in-Russia professions more negatively] than in many other countries. Since it's palpably absurd to attribute this to differences between Russian and other European female biology, I think y…

In Russia and poorer countries the lifestyle of a woman working as a nurse or teacher is radically different from one working as an engineer. In Scandinavia the difference is very small, you'll send your kids to the same schools, the same universities, you have the same medical care anyway, so you can afford to work with something you enjoy.

I don't really understand your logic. The biology is the same in both places, but we can all agree that Sweden is 100 times more progressive. Even if you claim there are still stereotyping here, their effect would be much much smaller. How can that be reconciled with the much larger disparities we see in Sweden?

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

#790

Post by neonate »

vinay427 wrote: post #542
junke wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a native English speaker and I appreciate being corrected about grammar and usage. I thought it was the same meaning as "doesn't need to", and looking around forums etc. I cannot find confirmation of what you describe. Do you have an example where the expression has the opposite meaning? Thanks.

You're actually correct in how you used it, as a native English speaker, although I think "need not be" is the preferred/correct form. I think this expression is a little less common in the US compared to the UK.

"Needs not to be" and "need not be" have sharply different meanings. "Racism need not be voluntary to be racism" would have been a perfectly clear and eloquent way to make the GP's point. But that extra "s" in "needs" changes the meaning entirely, at least in American English. Are you sure that this is not also the case in the UK? I'd be very surprised.
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