| Listen to black debaters in the 1950's and 1960's sometime, david hoffman on youtube has a few really great videos up. Some of the Black panthers stuff is pretty interesting IMO. Black people are more than capible of holding their own in corporate america, but they've been disenfranchised and disabused by crappy social policies and generational complex trauma stemming back to the 1600's in America, compounded by familial and community abandonment. The net result of this is you have a bunch of basically abandoned children that, when they get into an adult environment, especially a tech environment, they can't function. Then, the devil incarnate comes along and says an environment of high emotional regulation (professional standards and boundaries) where people strive to develop cognitive function (think through their problems) and work as teams (because we all have to specailize) is "whiteness" because people are explaining the basics to them, or they can't negotiate because they get very nervous, or a myiad of other issues that really boil down to development. It is a terrible lie, many things that aren't really racist become racist because all of a sudden we are discovering this group of disabused people don't have the development they need to have to function in that environment, are getting left behind, and have no clear path to attainment. Then the media vultures come in and "monetize" them. And in some cases, they make people feel threatened and not physically but intellectually, and some narcisstic people feel like they've been dressed down a few notches which is BS. You're American, some goat farmer is going to come over and invent the next big thing, put you out of work, then you're going to go work fixing robots and make 4x what you were making. Deal with it, leave your cultural identity on the boat. So first of all, be the best you can be. You have nothing to feel guilty over by doing that and working towards that. Second, recognize this group has been through an incredibly difficult time and more importantly, that survival instinct and moral perspective are important to really listen to and to play chess with. Keep "whiteness" and "blackness" out of the discussion and just stick to this as a navigation exercise. Third, keep in mind a lot of them are impatient and angry. That isn't your doing, the best you can do is offer them an ear, mentorship if they ask for it, and a straightforward and fair explination. |