[AndyMcConachie]

One thing I've noticed with regards to discrimination at a couple I have worked is the treatment of mediocrity. At one American software shop I worked at early in my career I would see mediocre African American employees catch shit for being mediocre, but mediocre white people would not. So basically if you were not white you needed to be a stellar performer.

No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and most of us are somewhere on the scale between great and crap. My partner and I joke about this concept of the mediocre white man, and how their workplace is dominated by these mediocre white men. Whereas if you're a woman, or if you're not white, you're not allowed to be mediocre. You gotta be great.

There are essentially two separate sets of measurements; one for white men and one for everyone else. And I notice this as a white man.

[lmilcin]

As a white man, that is also my perception.

Discrimination has outsize effect on mediocre people. Exceptionally good people will always be able to get far and exceptionally incompetent are likely to be poor.

The discrimination usually shows in lots of small decisions that each separately is very difficult to call discrimation but together amount to making your life more difficult.

Mediocre people don't get many chances to get ahead and they can slip up sometimes. Discrimination makes those few occasions to get ahead much less likely and pay much less and the occasions when they slip up much more unforgiving.

[mprovost]

The writer Sarah Hagi is often quoted: "Lord, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man".