zlacker

>>ericza+(OP)
>'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.

>>aphext+h5
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!

>>kaitai+mg
> 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'.