zlacker

>>femfos+(OP)
A female founder acquaintance of mine (who's quite smart and capable) went on a Twitter screed a couple weeks ago. As it turns out, someone else had copied her idea, and her startup now had a competitor. The competitor was also able to raise a solid amount of money despite her being first to market and her having more relevant knowledge of the problem space (by her own estimation).

So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her. The VCs who funded the competitor? Obviously racists and sexists, and she called them out explicitly as that on Twitter.

I considered reaching out to her to offer some perspective, but ultimately demurred. Why? I didn't want to be caught in the wurlitzer. Better to let her make more problems for herself than offer a sense of perspective that could get me cancelled.

>>scarmi+6O
I remember some comedian pointing out, racism (sexism in this case) drives people crazy. Because it's subtle. Very rarely are people nowadays blatantly racist/sexist, because they get called out for it. But imagine that every time you have an 'off' experience with someone, you end up wondering whether your race or sex had something to do with it. It only takes a couple instances of finding out that that 'off' feeling did in fact mean racism or sexism for you to suspect that you just experienced discrimination every time it's possible. This understandably drives people f*** crazy.

>>0_____+LR
> But imagine that every time you have an 'off' experience with someone, you end up wondering whether your race or sex had something to do with it.

I can't pretend to have any idea what that's like. However, I do know what it's like from the other side, wondering whether the things I say will be misconstrued as prejudice and whether any bad experience I have with someone of a difference race/sex/etc will be used to label me as a bigot.

I don't think I ever thought differently of anyone for their sex or skin color as a kid. Now I'm so worried about offending people that I force myself to be hyper-aware of anyone with those kinds of traits that differ from my own. Maybe it's easy for me to say from my position, but I'm not sure how we'll ever come together so long as we keep highlighting those sorts of differences.

>>CivBas+o41
Sounds like a lot of your anxiety comes from not having insight into the experiences of people that end up experiencing racism and sexism. You have the option of doing a bit of research and a bit of work to understand the 'other side' in these interactions. This pays off in a couple ways. First, you'll be more at ease in your interactions with women/POC. Second, people in those groups do notice when people put in a bit of self-work to build that empathy and create a good environment for that and over time will see you as an ally. Is that a process that you're willing to engage?