I've recently been reading/watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic racism - here's a great starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7mzj0cVL0Q. She also wrote the book "White Fragility".
Thinking about that, I'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 "I'm sorry, please excuse me for the instance of racism I just perpetrated against you, I promise it won't happen again." I realize how outlandish that may sound writing that out, but I'd propose that the fact that it does 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't address them if we're so embarrassed by their existence as to pretend they don't exist.
It can be both.
"Women drive badly" is a sexist stereotype, but not racism.
"Black people drive badly" would be both a stereotype and racism.
A better example would be, "women aren't passionate about driving". That's a stereotype, likely a correct one (i.e. substantiated by statistics... I mean, I'm not certain, but that would be my prior, but I'm very open to changing it), and most importantly: not harmful. It's just a stereotype.
I'm not denying that things could be harmful (racism, sexist, ...). But not all stereotypes are. Like guessing that "Alex" is probably a guy.
I’m over forty and and upper middle class. It’s a true stereotype that we don’t tend to be passionate skateboarders, but someone that met me in a skatepark would not draw the conclusion that I’m not interested based on my age and socioeconomics.
Of course, and that's the danger of stereotypes. Now it's up to her to prove she's interested.
> It’s a true stereotype that we don’t tend to be passionate skateboarders, but someone that met me in a skatepark would not draw the conclusion that I’m not interested based on my age and socioeconomics.
This is a great example. If they saw you standing there watching, they would draw the conclusion you're there with your kid/working maintenance/etc. Pull a random gamer kid with no skating passion and stand him next to you, then ask people who the skater is -- I'd bet 99 times out of 100 they pick the kid. Only once you prove yourself a skater does anyone correctly evaluate you, and to anyone who wasn't there when you proved it, you have to prove it again next time (or someone from the in group vouches for you). Go to a different skate park and you have to prove yourself again. Every time you meet someone new, you have to do a little dog and pony show to prove you're a Real Skater™ [0].
Now replace skating with programming and it should be obvious why stereotypes can be harmful.
[0] Even Tony Hawk runs into this not infrequently (stories on his twitter) where people even after learning his name can't/don't accept he's the pro skater.