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

Yes, it is experience/learning/environment based heuristics. And to me, there's nothing wrong with that. As humans, that's what we are programmed to do. It's completely natural. I would argue that it's pretty much inevitable.

Let's take your example and let's make it realistic and say there are 2 people in suits, one black and one white. Which one is the CEO? Heuristics say it's the white male. What is the difference between experience based heuristics and unconscious racism? It has to be internal to the person who is making the call. Because from any other perspective there is absolutely no difference.

As the parent said, these are honest mistakes. Based on what we learned from our parents, our culture, our peers. Based on our observations. We all have these prejudices. I certainly do. You call it experience based heuristics. I call it racism. Maybe it's not the technical definition of racism, but to me, if the only determining factor is the color of someone's skin, to me that is racism.

So is there a problem? I think we all agree there is. You even mentioned in your comment that this is a problem. Is it your fault? No. So if we agree there is a problem, the question you are asking is... should we do anything about it?

I am an optimist. And I do believe that eventually it will solve itself one way or another. But we can help. We can make it happen faster. This is a spectrum. One end is saying that it will happen anyways so why do anything about it? You could say a similar thing about any effort. Why contribute to cancer research? We will figure it out eventually. The reason is that we want it to happen faster. Because people are actively suffering, people are dying. This is happening to Black Americans right now and for centuries! The other end of the spectrum is equally ridiculous. Should you feel guilty and spend all your time on this cause? No.

I want to make one more point. I used to argue for experience-based heuristics. So. What is the argument in favor of experience-based heuristics? Well, the argument is that it's useful. It's a tool for making quick decisions that help you. It's most useful in situations where your safety is at risk. And yes, it's racist, but I'm not going to deny that it's useful for you to use heuristics to decide to walk quicker when you are walking through certain neighborhoods. I certainly would. But is it useful for you to assume that one person is a CEO? Or even a rapper? I'm pretty sure your safety is not at risk or there is an urgent need for a quick decision. I would argue it's actually starting to become harmful in today's environment to make these assumptions. And that's a great thing. Yes, it does suck for the people who were inadvertently caught between the old paradigm and the new paradigm. And I genuinely empathize with that and feel sorry for those people. And I wish we could all be more empathetic to that and seek to help those people rather than punish them. The new paradigm is better for us. For our society and for the majority of people. We are making progress. And we can accelerate that and make it happen faster.

The Motte-and-Bailey is the ploy of either an intentional deceiver, or a parroting crony. Neither shows sign of arguing in good faith or reason.

> I feel the weight of an invisible black committee that I represent and speak on behalf of.

I am sorry that we do this, as I now know how it makes you feel. For some perspective, many white people do this because they don't see the world from your vantage point. It would be akin to me being blind and you being able to see and me asking you what does a tree look like. We think it is an innocent question, one that only you will have perspective on and therefor we don't see the harm that it actually does. We (not all of us) see it as akin to asking a guy who can see for his personal perspective, not as asking a guy to speak for all people that can see.

I have a good friend who just so happens to be black (I know that's a white thing to say but I don't know how else to express it) and he is frank with me and helped me to understand why this question is so alienating and degrading.

I regret that I have been guilty of this and appreciate that I have a friend that we have very little racial barriers due to our friendship so he can check me when I do asshole things not realizing it. Apparently passing cop cars with a black friend in the car is also an asshole move, I learned that one as well so I am guilty of a few, but at least I gain perspective.

The Crusades were also a response to Arab invasions into Europe, during a time when Vienna, practically the center of Europe, was besieged twice by the Ottomans, and the entire Iberian peninsula was conquered and held for more than half a millennium by Muslims (and Constantinople/Istanbul still is). Many border countries had children regularly kidnapped into slavery by Ottoman raids (or had to turn them over as part of the blood tax), then turned into child soldiers and made to participate in those same raids, so try to understand when not everyone shares your black and white view of crusaders.

Look at it this way - complaining about the Crusades makes as much sense as complaining about Purim, which celebrates 75 thousand Persians being pre-emptively killed for being "enemies of the Jews".

Please don't post flamewar comments to HN.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549654.