For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business
I thought this was a great article. One of the most interesting things to me was how the embarrassment&#x2F;defensiveness of the white people involved was one of the biggest blocks to the black CEOs in their advancement, e.g. the VCs who &quot;just wanted to get the hell out of there&quot; after mistaking a white subordinate for the CEO.<p>I&#x27;ve recently been reading&#x2F;watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic racism - here&#x27;s a great starting point: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=h7mzj0cVL0Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=h7mzj0cVL0Q</a>. She also wrote the book &quot;White Fragility&quot;.<p>Thinking about that, I&#x27;m just wondering how different it would be if one of those people who mistook the employee for the CEO instead turned to the CEO and said &quot;I&#x27;m sorry, please excuse me for the instance of racism I just perpetrated against you, I promise it won&#x27;t happen again.&quot; I realize how outlandish that may sound writing that out, but I&#x27;d propose that the fact that it <i>does</i> sound outlandish is the main problem. Everyone in the US was raised in an environment that inculcated certain racial ideas, subconsciously or not. We can&#x27;t address them if we&#x27;re so embarrassed by their existence as to pretend they don&#x27;t exist.