>'I Don't Live in a World Where Fairness is an Option'
This sums it up perfectly. So many times I am asked what I think of all this as a black person in tech. I don't think anything of it. It simply is how things are. You can either live with that chip on your shoulder, or learn the skills to navigate life with the cards you were dealt and deal with it. There is no other option, and how you feel about it is irrelevant. Some people are born with physical disabilities or mental handicaps. It's no different. Should we live in a world without racism? Of course. But we should also live in a world without war, poverty, and disease as well. It's a part of the human condition.
The strategies we use to optimize our own possibilities for success encompass one set of options (and what you say is pretty much what I think, too, about the 'woman in tech' issue). Then the strategies that will optimize success for groups are slightly different. For those of us who are not, say, Black entrepreneurs or VCs in tech, we should think about that second set of strategies if we are interested in improving the tech ecosystem. I'd argue that VCs probably have a responsibility/need to think about that second set of strategies because a VC's job is to build a network and ecosystem that ensures success for their investments.
On an individual level (just again from my own experience) operating as if sexism doesn't exist, in general, and looking at each individual I have to deal with as an individual is optimal on a daily basis. But I do have to come up to 30000 feet now and then to strategize about the bigger picture -- sometimes to figure out how I fit in, sometimes to figure out what I might want to do to help others with their goals, sometimes to point out to a friend that what might cost me too much in the workplace would be easy for them to suggest. I'm not a VC, just a worker drone. Must be interesting to be on the investment side!
> The strategies we use to optimize our own possibilities for success encompass one set of options. Then the strategies that will optimize success for groups are slightly different.
These are words to live life by.
What works for the 'person' often does not work for the 'people'.
Systemic inequalities only truly reveal themselves in statistics. Thus, an individual anecdote by a 'person' serves no purpose for a policy that's created for the 'people' what-so-ever.
On the other hand though, those anecdotes are central to the 'person' and 'persons' who associate with them. Now, treating those same anecdotes with indifference can be catastrophic to your 'person'-al relationship.
It's how as a country I encouraging STEM as a policy for the people is a great idea. However, pushing/incentivizing your own child towards STEM when they clearly want to do something else is not so great.
As humans we need to compartmentalize the way we empathize, strategize and process emotions along the same lines of 'people' vs 'persons'.
I'm not black, but I always frame it this way when I think about the problem: if I had children, what message would I want to convey to them to maximize their chances of success in life?
Life is difficult, there are lots of injustices in the world, but there is zero sense obsessing over that which you cannot control. Focus on being the best human possible and the world will take notice.
So you're basically saying black people should just accept racism is a thing and move on?
If people can, good for them. If not, I don't feel in any position to tell people that obsessing over injustices that I'm not experiencing makes zero sense.
To try to make more explicit a point I tried to approach earlier:
A Black person can't just crucify themselves over injustice in the world and thus fail to get all their own mission done and expect it to accomplish what was desired. Going back to mathematics, my own original world, I saw Black mathematicians being overloaded with mentorship responsibilities and education responsibilities and speaking responsibilities and recruitment responsibilities and and and, and oh yeah the research they're actually evaluated on! So this great mathematician spends all her time in the committees and recruitment and teaching classes and organizing outreach... and then fails to get tenure because her publication record isn't strong enough (only three papers! and with collaborators, so she probably didn't do the work, right, she's doing so much else how could she have had the time?), and then has to look for another job. While the white guy who didn't do any education or recruitment or outreach published five crappy papers (with collaborators) and got tenure.
That Black mathematician's responsibility is her own survival and success. Her own survival and success is more valuable to the world than teaching freshman calculus this year, because if she gets tenure, she can teach freshman calc another year. "I don't live in a world where fairness is an option," is a fair statement. If she tries to change it alone, she fails and burns out. What was the benefit of that? What was the gain?
So the rest of us (for any given value of 'us') ought to step up.
I'd step in as black guy coming from what I'd qualify as a priviledged background in Africa. So I don't think I can really understand the issues for black communities in America.
But in my opinion, what is lacking for black communities is usually a global community strategy that free individuals energy by showing some beaten track they can easily use to reach the position people before them reached and build over this to move higher.
Sometimes I have the feeling that black people fight the wrong fight. You can't ask for change without power and in today world it means capital. Black as a "race" is more than 1 billion individuals that's enough to foster anything important for the community as a whole.
I don't know for the US but for France very few black people support black initiatives. They usual answer is that they'll do it when they earn more but we all know that money is never enough... In a world where your real voting power is your dollars this can't work. Asians understood this maybe instinctively. You have to build a working community first (paths for education, culture, jobs, households...) so that any average black person get a "good environment" to nurture its growth so he can become a good, balanced, caring adult.
The strategy so far was to publicly and politically fight (which is good) but after each protest the individuals are back to their own struggles with little to no help or care from other black people (again as a community). If everyone cares only for it's own issues it won't work. Our role is to educate young black people. Tell them how the world is but also show them that they have a functional place in it and that they can start to build it from elementary school!
The problem is that white institutions have systematically torn down attempts by Black folks to build such social and economic capital. Eg: CIA introduction of drugs in middle class black neighborhoods, redlining, over policing black and brown neighborhoods, and just straight up bombing black neighborhoods.
It’s difficult to do this work when the system is trying its best to stop you.
This is true, however teaching to our kids that nation state actors can try to subvert and combat any initiatives that they deem a threat and to get creative when trying to build for the future to mitigate against this threat is important.
It's also hard because a lot of positive opportunity for black kids growing up (at least in my experience Cincinnati, Ohio mid/late 90's early 2000s) has mainly come in through athletic sport initiatives, which was interesting to me as a kid to some degree, I was more interested in things not pertaining to athletic sports. Hell, I can barely relate to college educated black people who/want to work for companies like FB/GOOG/etc…
>"So you're basically saying black people should just accept racism is a thing and move on?"
What is the alternative?
That's the point. I, as a single individual, can't spend my extremely finite time and resources howling at the moon and railing against a monolithic machine that cares nothing for justice or humanity. I can only try to live my life as effectively as possible within the bounds of our current reality. The civil rights movement won us equality under the law. But expecting the same tactics to result in social equality is a pipe dream.
> But expecting the same tactics to result in social equality is a pipe dream.
Someone had to try, and someone has to try. Same tactics, or different tactics, whatever. Try things, do more of what works. We have to split our time between ourselves and our communities.
Growing up as an immigrant Chinese person, "life is unfair, so you have to try harder than the white person" was what I was taught and what I did. It worked for my parents, to an incomplete extent, and it worked for my cohort of immigrants/ABC's, to a somewhat greater extent.
However, that same community today is wrestling with the problem that without unified political action in local/state/national politics, it won't get much better than being a model minority, which is to say it's a more privileged existence than being black is (sorry for the bluntness), but you're still acutely aware of your Asian-ness in other people's eyes and when it works against you, such as being co-opted into the message of "well why don't [minority group] just work harder like [model minority group]?" as a distraction from actually talking about addressing root causes.
> it won't get much better than being a model minority, which is to say it's a more privileged existence than being black is (sorry for the bluntness),
As an Asian, I actually think that Asians are more privileged than White people. As a group we earn more, have better life expectancy, and have to deal with less historical baggage. If you search for it, any group can find areas where they feel they are being mistreated, but on the whole, your parents’ strategy has succeeded spectacularly. I think this is in part, because it was a win-win strategy. We were able to make our lives better without making another race feel bad or making their lives worse. Nobody had to lose for us to win.
> As a group we earn more, have better life expectancy, and have to deal with less historical baggage.
We might earn more on average and might expect to live longer, but there's plenty of historical baggage. It's not a competition, but there's plenty of baggage. The internment camps of WWII are literally still in living memory. Personally, multiple times throughout K-12-college, in the most liberal cities in the US, I've been told to go back to where I came from. I don't let it bother me - I can't let it bother me - but it's still very real.
> If you search for it, any group can find areas where they feel they are being mistreated, but on the whole, your parents’ strategy has succeeded spectacularly.
It did, but there are some very important caveats:
1. My parents' strategy had to be built on top of the hard-earned victories by the black communities in the US in the 60's and 70's.
2. I personally benefited from my race's perception as "civil, unlike the other minorities". You don't get to choose which side of that fence you're born on.
3. My parents and their fellow immigrants were the product of extensive resources poured into their educations in their home countries. They were educated enough to perceive and understand the cultural "game" played by the American middle/upper classes. That's not a repeatable strategy for most people in the US, period, let alone for minorities.
4. In practice my upbringing, and that of my fellow immigrants and ABC's, wasn't just by our parents, it was a whole community's pooled time and energy. Just look at how Chinese American communities handle college admissions.
5. My parents understood, whether tacitly or explicitly, that as Chinese Americans the children would have to assimilate into mainstream American culture, and by doing so they could mostly pass as "white". My parents outright told me that it was necessary for my future career. Imagine telling that to a black person. Good luck doing that when your skin color literally doesn't let you do it.
> I think this is in part, because it was a win-win strategy. We were able to make our lives better without making another race feel bad or making their lives worse. Nobody had to lose for us to win.
That's not true. Chinese American communities, for example, enthusiastically engage in "opportunity hoarding". (https://belonging.berkeley.edu/richard-reeves-opportunity-ho...) The losers in this are usually other minorities. The effect is indirect, but it's real. A great example of this is the fact that Chinese Americans suddenly become politically active the moment there's even a whiff of anything remotely like affirmative action. We might frame it as a matter of meritocracy or fairness, but we also know it's not a win-win situation. We know it's about winning the game for our team to the detriment of other minority groups.
US Immigration policy prefers high socioeconomic migrants (after the 1965 immigration reform bill). Since most Asians have immigrated to the US since 1965, of course Asians as a group will have higher economic status than the average American. The question is whether you have better outcomes controlling for parental socioeconomic status.
What? No, Asians are definitely not more privileged than Whites (in western society). You're conflating socioeconomics with race. And how do Asians have less historical baggage? Many Asian countries have a history of being colonialized and being exploited.
Of course you, as an individual, can spend your finite resources to rail against the machine. That is what the civil rights movement was. Passively just being a better person is demonstrably not enough to effect change.
> can't spend my extremely finite time and resources howling at the moon and railing against a monolithic machine that cares nothing for justice or humanity
This is not an argument in good faith.
You can stand against racism without "howling at the moon", this is almost a dog whistle at this point for people saying that not standing for racism means being loud and brash, as if black people don't know any other way to stand tall. It's legitimately sad to see one of my own people use it.
You don't need to be chanting at a protest on the lawn of the White House to not "accept racism". It's a valid form of standing tall, but realistically, not everyone can, or is willing to do that.
But turning down opportunities with parties don't show any effort at all at diversity (or even worse, show racial bias), being willing to put people on the spot for their actions even if it comes at personal risk or embarrassment, being willing to actively advocate for diversity in cases where you have power to do so.
There are so many ways at a personal level to not just accept the state of things that are not "all consuming", to act otherwise means you're not even interested in having a genuine conversation on the matter, and just comes as an attempt at post-hoc rationalization of giving up.
> So you're basically saying black people should just accept racism is a thing and move on?
Personal opinion: yes, but also no. I think this is a false dichotomy.
As an individual, day to day, what can you do about the systemic issues? Not much. Maybe confront someone every now and then to improve things for a friend or coworker. But, for yourself, the only thing you can do is to accept that you have a shitty hand and do the best you can with it. The hand you have is the hand you have, arguing that it should be better won't make it better.
However, year by year, the reality is that there is a systemic problem, and when a whole population all have a shitty hand to play, statistically you're going to expect worse outcomes.
If you let yourself get crushed by the weight of the systemic issues, you're not going to be in any condition to help others, but if you don't do anything about the systemic problem, then future success stories of people like you will continue to be statistical anomalies. So take care of yourself, and then try your best to help the people that come after you.
> As an individual, day to day, what can you do about the systemic issues? Not much.
This is precisely why activists organize groups of people: so that they may act together and stand a chance of effecting change. Historically, with large enough organization, it has worked pretty well at times.
I completely agree, and I'm grateful there are activists to organize these efforts.
Since this is such a sensitive topic, I think I need to elaborate a bit more on the individual vs. systemic perspective. When I was growing up, I was told that the game is rigged against me, and I was going to have to dig deep. I had to make peace with the idea that, for example, I needed better SAT scores for the same college applications. (I didn't pick the example for its severity, I picked it because it's a measured phenomenon.) That's just the reality of racism/sexism/ageism/whatever. That's the individual perspective: game's rigged against you, deal with it.
But where this line of thinking becomes racist is when, for example, one of the Chinese immigrant parents in my community asks "why don't black people just work harder?" How do you know how hard they work? If it was just about working harder, the problem would be solved by now. In that case saying that black people should work harder comes from a place of ignorance of the real problems, which proves the point that it's important to make noise about systemic problems. That's the systemic perspective.
I don't think either point has to invalidate the other, but I've personally experienced both people saying "work harder" as a form of victim-blaming out of ignorance as well as people blaming personal failings on the system holding them down, and everything in between including real role models who are just venting. So I tend to just keep my mouth shut about it in my personal life.
Nope. I'm saying that if I had children, I'd tell them the above.
I'd argue it's ultimately a much more effective way to combat racism/bigotry/whatever, unless you accept the Critical Race Theory definition of racism, which I do not.
The military is probably the best evidence that this works. They take black, white, hispanic, and Asian Americans and put them through rigorous training together. In the end, nobody gives a crap what the other people look like or where they came from - they're your brothers and sisters and you trust them with your life.
Dehumanizing people, calling them out, invoking the mob, getting people fired... these are all tactics that are doomed to stoke animosity, not reduce it.
I think they're using "accept" to convey "come to terms with the fact that it exists" not accepting it as an inevitable part of society. You can accept that racism exists, but still actively try to mitigate or reduce it.
> black people should just accept racism is a thing and move on
That's exactly what's being said to white people right now, and as a white person, I don't think that any race should accept it. The current dilemma is that apparently not accepting racism towards white people, as a white person, seems to make me racist somehow. Go figure.
Nelson Mandela spent years in prison; MLK was assassinated. It is not every single black person's job to be on the front lines. That's not only completely unsustainable, but it's also ok for black children dream of being a doctor, programmer, VC, whathaveyou, without demanding that they also be martyrs for a cause that's entirely out of their hands.
The point I glean from OC is that he can't do the work. He can't stop people from being racist. That's not only not his job, it's also an impossible task. The people who need to do the work are the people who are making conscious or unconscious biased choices which disproportionately impact black lives. It's not up to black people. It's up to everybody else to do that work.
> It is not every single black person's job to be on the front lines.
Sure, but if everyone has this attitude then the collective group suffers. e.g. bandwagon bias, and thus the individual suffers as a result.
> It's not up to black people. It's up to everybody else to do that work.
Sure, and clearly whats happening right now is that people who are not marginalized (e.g. white people) are learning what is required to do the "work". That doesn't happen without the activists showing up and saying "hey white people, educate yourselves, read XYZ".
> it's also ok for black children dream of being a doctor, programmer, VC, whathaveyou, without demanding that they also be martyrs for a cause that's entirely out of their hands.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that everyone has to be a martyr for a cause, just that (1) their existence is important and (2) if marginalized groups of people just accept status quo then there is little incentive for those martyrs to exist.
> The point I glean from OC is that he can't do the work.
Because he literally can't do it (handicapped?) or because they don't want to because it's risky? The point I lean from the OC is that he enjoys the luxuries of his life but is unwilling to fight for others who are similar.
In the original article the VC basically says "I don't waste my energy on acknowledging racial biases on a day to day basis because I already know these exist". This is not the same as saying "I can't be a martyr".
> That's not only not his job, it's also an impossible task.
People don't get paid to fix civil rights, it's not a job. People have taken it upon themselves to answer that calling. I think it's fine to say "I don't believe it's my role in life to" but to pretend it's not required while still enjoying the benefits of those who do sacrifice themselves is an extremely selfish outlook on life.
> The people who need to do the work are the people who are making conscious or unconscious biased choices which disproportionately impact black lives.
And how do you propose those people fix that? Do they just wake up one day and say "ya know what I'm gonna stop giving into my unconscious bias"?
It's up to us to do that work. Don't worry about OP. Greatly oversimplifying the situation, there are four levels to this: people who receive the brunt of our society's bullshit; people who recognize that they're flawed and want to improve; people who think they're perfectly unbiased and get offended by the notion that they need to work; and people who are unapologetically racist. And I've met individuals that belong to both first & fourth camps -- that's a damned hard conversation that needs to happen laterally (not your job, not my job except with other white trans women).
It sounds like you're in the second camp. You can work on people in the third camp. Be on the lookout for bias, speak out, and correct it. Be prepared for blowback; it's a risky business. But eventually some of them will wake up and say "wow, racism really does impact some people worse than others, maybe I should update my philosophy."
You can provide support to people in the first camp by providing support when they ask for it, learning about the conditions they experience, and not expecting them to fix your shit, and by confronting those in the fourth camp without being told or asked, especially when they act out in front of folks in the first camp. If you're in a position of authority, you can mete consequences to abusive folks in the fourth camp, you can adopt strict policies regarding misbehavior, etc. If you're making high level financial decisions, you can choose not to do business with folks from the fourth camp. One day, they might wake up and say "fuck, it is mighty unprofitable to maintain my conscious biases, maybe I should work on that."
I didn't say OC couldn't do the work because of disability. I said it in part because black people trying to talk to racists about racism is like putting fires out with gasoline. But also because I can't be responsible for a random stranger's actions -- I can react to them, but not prevent them.
> I said it in part because black people trying to talk to racists about racism is like putting fires out with gasoline.
Uhhh why? That makes no sense to me. Understanding racism from a white person requires empathy which means to understand the feelings and emotions from the perspective of the other party. So quite literally you need black people to talk to racists about why it affects them. Whether those people choose to be empathetic is another question altogether.
> It sounds like you're in the second camp.
I'm not in any "camp". Nor was I looking into what I need to do in this situation, but rather commenting on how others are viewing this whole situation, particularly black people who take the "ya I know it exists, it's futile for me to actively do/say anything about it, someone else is taking care of this and yet I still get to benefit" camp. For the record, I don't actually think the people genuinely have that thought process, but rather that's how you described them, which I disagree with.
First off, black people confronting racists about their racism has significant risk of emotional and bodily harm. Even when it's unconscious bias from an otherwise well-meaning person, bringing it up is a risk.
For example, I don't tell my boss to stop staring at my tits. I do my best to grit that one out. He's otherwise an ally, and losing his support would mean losing my job. And winning unlawful termination suit is a mug's game: you might score a few grand, which is taxable income, your employer gets to write it off, and good luck finding a new job with the story "I sued my employer".
As I said before, not every black person wants to be an activist. And why should we expect that of them? If we have that expectation, it's extra work they need to do on top of the work required for their actual job / interests. What you're asking for is tantamount to asking for unpaid overtime. That's a great recipe for enlarging the wage gap, not shrinking it. People who aren't burdened by this crap get to otherwise spend their time and energy on career-boosting side projects, hobbies or other enjoyable activities and their mental health is improved as a result. I'm summarizing what I've read from black activists -- people who have devoted themselves to this. Here's a couple of articles by black authors on the topic. Please read them in an empathetic mindset.
As I said, that was a gross oversimplification of the situation. But you are absolutely a participant in this society, and you fall somewhere in a gradient spanning the range that I described. On reflection, your assertion that you don't belong to any camp puts you squarely in the third camp: people who are well meaning, and don't see that they're part of the problem. That's an okay place to be. You're showing genuine curiousity about this issue, and you might read up on it and wake up one day with the understanding that you're responsible for taking up the work yourself.
> Nor was I looking into what I need to do in this situation, but rather commenting on ... particularly black people ...
Perhaps you should focus on what you can do about this situation, and not what you think black people are supposed to be doing. Like I said, you can only control your own actions.
> For example, I don't tell my boss to stop staring at my tits.
And so women who have been "MeToo'd" should just be silent? I don't get it. You're advocating exactly for why people in power continue to oppress, because complacency of victims fuels their power.
> As I said before, not every black person wants to be an activist.If we have that expectation, it's extra work they need to do on top of the work required for their actual job / interests.
And so they'll just leave that up the MLK's of the world? Got it. Thanks for your martyrdom MLK, I'm too busy WORKING!
> You're showing genuine curiousity about this issue, and you might read up on it and wake up one day with the understanding that you're responsible for taking up the work yourself.
I have told you NOTHING about what work I've done to be a better participant in society so why are you commenting on this?
> Perhaps you should focus on what you can do about this situation, and not what you think black people are supposed to be doing.
Perhaps you should too? But that's not the point of my comment and hence why I'm failing to understand your responses. /shrug
> But we should also live in a world without war, poverty, and disease as well. It's a part of the human condition.
As a, er, planet, we've actually done fairly well at easing those over the last century, tho. Sure, they're not gone, and maybe they'll never be gone, but improvements can be made, and it's probably not helpful to treat them, or racism, as laws of nature.
I do think there's a perception problem, though. Basically no-one would claim that disease or poverty aren't problems anymore, but there are a surprisingly large number of (mostly white, obviously) people who claim racism isn't a problem anymore.
> So many times I am asked what I think of all this as a black person in tech. I don't think anything of it. It simply is how things are.
Have you ever wondered that being born into a system where odds are stacked against you might be a strength for you? Not for everyone in the group, but for you.
? I don’t see why we shouldn’t fight to change all these things. None of these is inherently part of the human condition, especially not in a world that has enough to satisfy the needs of everyone.
> You can either live with that chip on your shoulder, or learn the skills to navigate life with the cards you were dealt and deal with it. There is no other option, and how you feel about it is irrelevant.
Speak for yourself.
I'm sure you'll get a lot of support for this point of view because it's the easy way out. (it's what white people love to hear to because that means "aha! this one gets it!")
Throw your hands up, keep your chin up right?
I don't roll over like this because it's not how I was raised. My parents came from less than poverty, my father all but lost a finger farming for pennies to cover school fees while his father drank away what little money they had in his home country.
My mother didn't have parents to raise her, she came from a home where she was seen as a burden foisted upon her caretakers by familial obligation, and their wish for her was to be a seamstress
Today they both hold doctorates, their siblings are doctors and nurses and engineers, all coming from the same backgrounds.
I wasn't raised to roll over and tell myself "it's not under my control", that mentality wouldn't have gotten them where they are today, and it wouldn't have gotten me where I am today.
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Fairness is always an option, the problem is it's expensive, it's hard work, it's humiliating sometimes, it's risky.
When you're slighted and you feel it's because of the color of your skin, the moment you say something, you're painting a target on your back. Sometimes it means you have to walk away from opportunity.
So some good little kids tell themselves it's not an option, they can't take that risk, they can't risk being the tall nail, or not grasping a opportunity they have just because it might be tainted with "unfairness".
Maybe it's a privilege that my parents have passed onto me, putting my in a position where I could take those risks and stand tall, but I grasp on to it proudly, and it makes me stronger than those who can't to the same.
I honestly don't have a problem with people who can't do the same, but trying to spread that brand of thinking is weak and shouldn't be done. It's a coping mechanism, it's not something to be paraded and shared as sound advice like your comment does.
Against all of what defines them, I'm sure there were times where my parents had to swallow that strength and put up with "unfairness" (in fact, I know of it from them first hand), but by not changing themselves, and by not buying into the narrative that "it is what it is, it's the human condition", they were able to pass on that strength to me, and put me in a much better place than they would have otherwise
I mean look _the whole passage_, the article is about a black man who is not buying "fairness is not an option" and yet you seem to have somehow picked out the counter-argument which is immediately torn down:
> "I don't live in a world where fairness is an option," he said. "I am certain that over the time in my professional career there are things that have made it difficult as an African American. I have put so little time in acknowledging those instances because that's what I expected."
> But that milieu may ultimately hurt venture's bottom line.
> Gompers, who looked at the performance of venture portfolios that had more diverse teams, found they achieved better returns than homogenous teams.
> "The importance of diversity is all about making better decisions," he said. "If you all look the same and have the same experiences, you are gonna make the same mistakes."
People still don't get this, diversity's reward is not different amounts of melanin in the skin of the people sitting at a table.
As long as people continue to make this basic misunderstanding, they will continue to fail to understand why diversity matters, and they will continue to feel as if it's needless feel good charity work.
Diversity is different walks of life and different ways of thought that come with it. People still see taking people of different backgrounds as some sort of charity, they don't understand how much stronger they can be than competitors where every person in the room is a different shade of the same background.
That sort of logic doesn't work in cases like this, and it leads to a lot of misperceptions. The readership (and votership) is a large statistical cloud, with wide variance of views and feelings and assumptions. It's not only natural but inevitable that some take one angle and some take another. The people who upvoted this article are likely to have done so for straightforward reasons, such as that they think it's interesting and want to see it discussed.
The GP comment probably wouldn't have been downvoted if it had been more substantive. It's a bit hard to read where it's coming from, "this is such a defeated mindset" has a touch of name-calling about it (which is against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), "you're welcome to it all you want" has a touch of personal attack about it, and "some of us aren't willing to settle" would make a fine opening for saying more—like what that means, and why, and above all, sharing some of the experience that has led to that position—but it doesn't make a good closing for a one-liner.
My question wasn't sarcastic, I really wonder how many did so. I'm not saying the majority of people did, but even based on the replies to the comment, the answer is more than 0, it'd be interesting/amusing to know how many did (even though that's impossible)
> The GP comment probably wouldn't have been downvoted if it had been more substantive.
My 700 word reply with the same sentiment was at -1 within seconds. It only just got back to 1.
Now, I didn't write that to be popular, it's an intentionally uncomfortable comment if you're someone who agrees with the top level comment and I wanted it to be. The fact is, the audience here has shown time and time again they'd rather bury talk about uncomfortable conflict involving race.
Imagine this comment was downvoted, but multiple comment chains saying black people should just accept racism is a thing and "move on" are being propped up above it...
This isn't the first time I've seen this here, and it won't be the last. At the end of the day, HN's demographic reflects the demographics of the industries it intersects, and diversity is not high at all within them.
That allows people to bury their heads in the sand so to speak, these are uncomfortable conversations and they'd rather not have them
> Some black people assimilate into white culture while others push toward perfectionism in order to overcome negative stereotypes. Others ignore the microaggressions, despite the sting believing the merit of their work is the most important metric of success.
This has been my experience, balancing everything that is happening with "maybe these microaggressions had nothing to do with race, like all the people on hackernews and linkedin would say" or maybe thats naivete as this is the exact experience other people that look like me are saying happens
"Kind of odd how these mormon investors never look at me during this entire meeting of three people"
"Kind of odd how I keep finding out that my business partners wrote themselves large stakes of newly formed companies, and I have to perform an arbitrary set of work over an arbitrary set of time to maybe get diluted in later"
maybe its just me [and a predictable experience echoed by people that look like me]
On another note, which I think this article gets wrong or doesn't factor in well with the acknowledgement of assimilation, it assumes people of color in the space are trying to service "communities of color". It isn't factoring in the idea that they are playing the same world-changing moonshot game as everyone else, a game that doesn't care about nuances of any particular country's demographics. People are the same and want the spoils of this industry, thats the key thing to remember. Some people have their own idea of addressing underserved communities or paying it forward to people that look like them, but most people are aiming to perpetuate the industry itself.
I don't mean to minimize your experiences at all. But since you mentioned eye contact, I thought I might as well mention that as someone who suffers from social awkwardness and mild OCD, one result of all the societal discussion around racism is that being around black people often makes me feel very awkward. Like, I have compulsive thoughts about whether I am thinking any racist thoughts right now, or saying racist things, or doing some other microaggression, and that results in some mild social awkwardness / difficulty with eye contact, and difficulty relaxing socially. Which ironically might very well be interpreted as racism :( Again, I don't mean to say that racism is not a thing or anything like that (or even that I myself am never actually racist haha--that's hard to know, that's the issue). Just wanted to add this to your list of hypotheses to consider when you're trying to explain whatever it is that you see.
Sure, thanks for responding, so I didn't say racist or racism or make any conclusion, and that was on purpose!
I left it as open ended as my actual thoughts are, but acknowledge that it would be beneficial to factor in what so many people that look like me are saying are shared experiences.
Yes, I can tell when people are consciously trying to patch their behavior around black people (or other groups), distinct from being actually insensitive and distinct from treating them like people they are actually comfortable around.
You really don't have to feel like you are stepping on eggshells, even in your explanation here. I would call that awkwardness you described as a microaggression because it is an experience that shouldn't be a part of my daily experience, and it shouldn't be something you have to worry about, but in this case it would come from you towards me. So I wouldn't interpret that as "racism", but a peculiarity that is definitely an unnecessary part of the black experience. These kinds of things affect the group decision on whether a candidate passed the "culture fit", and a whole host of other things that ultimately prevent that qualified person from being around everyone else more, or getting into a position over them, simply because the people approving it are uncomfortable for meta reasons. So I think it is important for you to address that and notice it in others as well.
>You really don't have to feel like you are stepping on eggshells, even in your explanation here.
Thanks, that's reassuring.
>I would call that awkwardness you described as a microaggression because it is an experience that shouldn't be a part of my daily experience, and it shouldn't be something you have to worry about, but in this case it would come from you towards me.
I agree that it isn't fair to you, and that causes me to develop meta-OCD about it, lol. I feel kinda bad even writing these comments, because I don't wanna be in a position where I'm unfairly making it into your problem to an even greater degree.
You can call it a microaggression if you like, but I think that will make the problem worse on my end, because I'll obsess over it even more. I read a self-help book by a psychologist on this OCD stuff, and one of the things it mentioned is that it is helpful for other people to make light of your condition, even cracking jokes about it. If they act really concerned, that ends up validating the compulsive behavior, according to the author.
My secret wish would be to make a deal with the black people I meet that they will agree to privately bring it up with me if they feel I'm actually being racist so we can have a (hopefully two-way) discussion about that, and then knowing that I trust them to do that, that might help me relax and not worry as much. I think a big part of the problem is the fear that I'm being racist without knowing it. Of course, privately confronting people about their racism may not always be the optimal strategy. But it could be an interesting experiment to offer to make that deal, if you sense the other person would want it.
The reason I think it's better for the discussion to be two-way is because like a lot of engineers, I also have something of a compulsive need for the world to make sense and be a logical place. So if you were to tell me that I said X racist thing, but I don't initially see how it was racist, I feel a need to understand the root of our disagreement the same way I try to understand why there's a bug in a program. If I don't feel like I can do that, then that comes back to the original thing of me not feeling like I can be my authentic self. We don't necessarily need to see eye-to-eye on everything, but in an ideal world I'd like to get to the point where whatever disagreements remain are ones where you find my authentic opinion on the subject to be tolerable.
>These kinds of things affect the group decision on whether a candidate passed the "culture fit"
For what it's worth, back when my company was hiring a lot, I was very conscious of this kinda thing. I'm almost certain I ended up giving women and underrepresented minorities higher culture fit ratings overall. Partially because I wanted to account for any biases on my end, but it also gives me warm fuzzy feelings to have an (almost always positive) recruiting interaction with someone when there is so much BS on the internet saying that it should be hard for us to get along due to demographic characteristics. As cheesy as it may sound, at the end of the day we are all human beings, and if we can just see that in each other, I think it goes a long way. And once I've gotten past this kinda stuff with someone, it frequently forms the basis for a great friendship, in my experience.
---
This is more of a side note, but as I was writing the above it occurred to me that in some cases there might be a useful analogy to be made between racism and mental illness. The traditional view of mental illness has been that if you suffered from some kind of mental illness, that represented a moral defect, and it was your responsibility to suck it up and do better. But recently there has been a more progressive view of mental illness that says we should treat mental illness as a disease just like any other disease, making use of evidence-based treatments, and only frame it as a moral defect if this framing has been shown to be an effective evidence-based treatment. (I don't know if moralizing actually ever ends up being an effective treatment--the one thing that comes to mind is Alcoholics Anonymous for addiction, but I don't know how evidence-based it is.) In any case, it might be useful / productive to separate out the question of whether racism is morally acceptable from the question of whether framing it as a moral defect will be a productive treatment for a particular person or situation. This is probably very person / situation-dependent, but as I tried to communicate above, at least for me, I suspect this kinda "moral defect" framing, especially when applied forcefully, can sometimes make the problem worse.
These are good points, I really want to break down everything one by one here, but you identified the root of it which is that people don't want to be treated differently. Black people, like everyone in America, want to exchange time for food and shelter, accumulate wealth and resources, contribute to the growth of the infrastructure.
The only reason you should be concerned that you have to patch your behavior is because your normal banter with friends includes insensitive stuff! If there is a genuine interest in being actively anti-racist, then call out your peers that want to bee-line conversations into frustrations about minorities. Or that are always looking for excuses to use the N word because it sounds cool (or trying to be actually racist). When - logic aside - you know normalizing that grammar would require constant patching around other people.
Another thing that underlies this code switching, for a lot of people, is an irrational fear of being beat up any black person in the vicinity, or even worse "cancelled". For the former, I consider that an entirely racist assumption, people don't want a record or a ruined day over some slip up in grammar or a troll. For the latter, try not to do it on twitter, you'll be fine.
So if you need to, you should consider patching your default conversational behavior so that you don't have to patch it around black people. If you don't need to that, then just assume it's all in your head, just like I assume its all in my head when different mormons are being awkward to me specifically despite knowing what their religion teaches about people of color. Everyone is just trying to go about their day without wondering why anyone is being awkward around them exclusively.
>Black people, like everyone in America, want to exchange time for food and shelter, accumulate wealth and resources, contribute to the growth of the infrastructure.
Right on.
As to the rest... I don't use the n word and I can't remember the last time I heard a friend of mine use it (if they ever have). I'm not afraid of being beat up by black people--certainly not in a professional context! And yes, I'm aware that in-person interactions are much less likely to result in cancellation haha. So I guess I'll take your advice of just assuming that it's in my head. It usually goes away when I spend enough time around someone regardless.
> "I have been at network events where people don't know who I am, they assumed I was a random moron," he said. "They treat you like you are not in the room or you are some wait staff."
This reminds me of an article I read soon after Pichai became CEO of Google. It mentioned him, freshly made CEO, attending a tech conference/fair. Despite the Alphabet reorg and him becoming CEO going through tech news world wide a while prior, most people didn't recognize him.
Can't find the article any more, otherwise I'd link it here.
I have what is now called "invisible disability". I wonder how I'd feel if my kind had some visible mark in their face. Would I feel awkward being the only QWERTY in the room? Would I feel especially succesful?
As it stands now I kind of feel the latter. It's a little secret, I have this disadvantage at the starting point of the race where the referee shoots his little gun at the sky, and yet here I am in the peloton with all the non-disadvantaged guys.
Of course, maybe if everyone knew I'd be hyper-aware of the stereotypes that will inevitably play a part in the mental models of people with the best intentions. But are wealthy Americans really going for stereotypes when they see a fellow wealthy black person?
I know that the world of "invisible disability" activism is a self-defeating whirlpool of victimization.
I appreciate that you're sharing your own experience, but you can do that without nationalistic and racial flamebait,
which your comments in this subthread unfortunately contain. I'm sure that was unintentional, but those are the things that people are going to react to, and when that happens, we won't end up anywhere interesting or good.
I'm willing to edit my comment (or outright delete it on my own initiative). I can remove the "Americans...", but much of the rest of it is a comment on the posted link, which is very much about race.
I like the way this place is run, which is to say, I trust the guidance of the moderator team. I'm just not sure how to proceed right now. Also because there's a downthread discussion that could be left without a referent.
I think it's ok to leave it. The primary thing is to be more careful in the future. When a topic is divisive, it's important to edit out provocations, including unintentional ones, because otherwise people will react to the provocation rather than to the substantive part of the comment, and that's how we end up with flamewars instead of curious conversations. But I'm repeating myself now.
Rather than repeating yourself, I think you need to dial down your threshold for paternalistically stepping in to chide commenters for benign statements. I am American, and I took no offense to the commenter's criticism of American culture. I saw nothing nationalistic in the comment, nor was there anything that looked remotely flamebait.
Unless I missed the initial edit that was full of swastika emojis and telling people to "go back to their countries," or something, I'm pretty sure you just pushed someone who was posting in good faith off this site over nothing. While I didn't see the second or any subsequent comments, I found the initial comment worth upvoting. I'm pretty sure you also just marginalized someone in a vulnerable group (those with invisible disabilities) to which I also belong, and, to which you probably do not.
As I have stated in the past, IMO, this site was far, far better when there was little to no active moderation beyond downvoting and flagging by the community.
You're probably busy taking care of this thread elsewhere, but I'd appreciate if you gave me a couple of minutes later and pointed out provocative content.
This is a pseudonymous account, but not in a tight way; it's not hard to suss me out either from the content of my comments (how many people have worked on symplectic geometry and in business consulting in the city that I've already mentioned I live in) or following a pattern of usernames. So... I need to be wary that something that gets perceived as off flavor might follow me to real life.
JFYI on color, Michael Jackson had vitiligo; patches of his skin were whitening on their own. He would use makeup to even out his skin color though. He also wore long sleeves and the single glove to cover up the patchy skin coloration.
I know there's a big difference. I was kind of rambling about my own experiences.
(I was advised by the moderator team -- I think -- that the rest of this comment had racially inflammatory flavors. I'm not at all in agreement -- I think people are minimizing the experience of mental illness and assuming by transitivity that I minimize the black experience. But I trust in HN's crack team of moderators. There's an... inflamed, that's probably the best word, political climate in the USA right now, and while we get American news, I don't have the lived experience to know when "being right on the internet" gets folks who are living it enraged.
I want to say "either way I don't care" without sounding dismissive and arrogantly aloof. But in a calm, detached, Alan Watts kind of way, I don't. Stay cool, folks.)
> And this is a trap! Getting absorbed in an identity is a trap.
As a white transwoman, I experience different micro/macroagressions from black people, and they suffer indignities that I can only understand second-hand. But lemme tell you, I've seen some shit.
I personally face a lot of harrassment from the general public, on the basis of the "identity" that you accuse me of getting absorbed in. But it's not me who chooses the verbal assaults, the clearly obvious avoidance behavior, the implicit assumption that I don't know anything relevant (hiiii, math doctorate with decades of high performance computing experience, here...), et cetera. It's our society, that gets stuck on our identities. And it's not just "general public" -- it's too many coworkers; it's any time I go to a conference; it's every time I apply for a job.
Unlike a black person, I didn't grow up with this. That gave me a significant advantage early in life, but I didn't develop the emotional skill to be resilient in the face of endless bullshit from people who are absorbed with my identity. I have decades of experience of privilege, and I know exactly what I've lost there.
And you and me have something in common: I experience depression and anxiety. Did before I came out as trans, too. Social isolation due to people deliberately or unconsciously avoiding went way up -- and with it, depression. Verbal assaults and sexual harrassment in public went way up, and with it, anxiety. Combine an invisible disability with a visible minority, and it ratchets up the bullshit.
Yeah, the author of this article has financial privilege I'll never attain... but the problem isn't that he's stuck on his identity, the problem is that everybody he meets is stuck on his identity.
It's not about right or wrong. Having a mental disability, or some invisible issues, can make life hell on multiple levels. It's just not comparable to being discriminated against based on ethnicity or gender. It's a silly comparison and different for each person, encounter, moment, and may be experienced "better or worse".
It should be cool to be yourself, but very hard when stonewalled every moment due to prejudice. Some, or even most wins, need to be for others first.
The problem with keeping your head down and getting things done without "raising a fuss" is that people will see that and assume racism isn't a serious problem. You'll even see people here wondering what all the fuss is about, or wondering how being black in America is any different than being Vietnamese.
Firstly, assume positive intent, I am not undermining the topic of racism and rather like that we are giving the issue the proper attention and hope to see real change.
That said, has anyone seen stats that say what is the right balance of POC based on market realities? I work in finance, not VC, but still as a hiring manager it’s every difficult to force diversity when the overwhelming majority of candidates are white males. It’s a similar issue as women in tech, you have to take a step back and look at the university systems and how a more diverse set can be encouraged to take a finance track. Likely, there is an issue with college in general and we need focus on why white have higher attendance rate (no data, pure assumption). And so on. It’s a systemic issue that needs to be addressed. You can’t always just rebalance the current diversity mix because the inventory of qualifying candidates may not support it.
I read recently that 13% of America is black. I googled that the average BOD is 9.2 members. To me, 1 black person in the room is about right. Granted there are probably high number of boards with 0 blacks. But I’d be interested to know if this is due to the above mentioned market realities. There are certainly racism impacting the micro but maybe the macro is better than we think?
Yes the pipeline is real. Companies interested in leveraging the productivity of the nation should consider having an active role in more universities, instead of just the ones that get them the best connections. The federal government and defense contractors are certainly pulling from these other universities.
Regarding boards, that's a bigger dissertation. "White male" is much too reductive, when there are certain kinds of people that have disproportionate representation on boards. Even the whole finance sector has extremely disproportionate representation from some extremely small ethnic groups.
So, what is the right number? Its more like a complete rebalancing would match "market realities".
The point of companies is to address a market, the point isn't to make people inside of it feel like they won the merit lottery on their own accord. A board should be able to identify and relate to the markets they need to address. If having a voice to more accurately tap into underserved markets is the stage that the company is at now (because it adequately serves the larger markets already), then it needs more than 1 person that has experience in those markets. Otherwise it will just get tone-deaf ads, tone-deaf outreach efforts, and risk getting cancelled from making huge misses.
everything you said happens and should also be a focus which I'll reply to in another comment, the only lack of awareness here is using singular noun for plural form
when plural you want to use color descriptors as adjectives. black people, not "blacks", white people, not "whites".
nobody can say why, but they are not synonyms to be used interchangeably between sentences, and will undermine your positive intent.
I'm perfect by no means and willing to learn how to change my vocabulary if it's an issue. Grammar has always been a weakness of mine.
Why is this preferred and how would I know it's preferred (absent this conversation)? Is it a well known faux pas or something one person on the internet is nagging about (no offense)? In my mind, "people" is inferred. I think this is how people talk where I live, pretty sure I hear it on the local news/media. When I think of terms like "black college" it's inferred to be a college that is predominately attended by black people. The college is not literally the color black like with phrases like "white house".
Reminds me of when I was a kid and my grandpa would use the word "oriental" to describe Chinese, Korean, Japanese. He would use worse words at times but this was his version of the politically correct vocabulary. It was very commonly used as a PC phrase. As I got older, I learned it wasn't really the best word and reasons why. But it never would have been obvious to me that it was a racist term and seen as negative to those it was meant to described.
People don't say "the gays" or "gays" or "a gay" anymore, they use it as an adjective before a noun, and it is the same concept.
I am not sure there is any etymology to follow here, aside from the common theme of being recognized as people.
Regarding consensus, you can try blackpeopletwitter reddit on a throwaway. you can look at comment threads and see the reactions and facepalms when people use the adjective as a plural noun.
People definitely say it, but not people considered aware.
So he gets to take other people's money, invest it and take a cut without actually, like, having to do any actual work, but he's getting ignored at parties?
It's a generic tangent because it changes the subject to VCs in general. It's flamebait because it's snarky, inflammatory, and arguably also a personal attack. Everything I said in the other comment applies to your post as well, which is why I linked to it.
Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. That's in the site guidelines: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Nothing interesting's going to come from changing the topic to VC in general, and certainly not if you do it snarkily and with a shallow dismissal—both of which are also in the site guidelines, so this comment is a sort of trifecta.
This sums it up perfectly. So many times I am asked what I think of all this as a black person in tech. I don't think anything of it. It simply is how things are. You can either live with that chip on your shoulder, or learn the skills to navigate life with the cards you were dealt and deal with it. There is no other option, and how you feel about it is irrelevant. Some people are born with physical disabilities or mental handicaps. It's no different. Should we live in a world without racism? Of course. But we should also live in a world without war, poverty, and disease as well. It's a part of the human condition.