19 ms·

We are the outsiders. If you don't bet on us, you're fucked

core-questions 6y ago
There's nothing I love more than someone dictating to me what I need to do or else be "fucked". How pleasant. > hat’s my somewhat indignant way of saying: only 10% of all startup investment goes to women, and an estimated 1% goes to founders who are black, while 37% of queer founders have not felt comfortable disclosing their identities to their investors and the ones who have, have raised over 10% less funding, and the statistics around transgender people in the startup ecosystem very simply do not exist. This is an experiment without a control. There's absolutely nothing that guarantees that the ideas these people came up with were equal on average to the ideas that got funded. What if they were just bad ideas? What if the pitch sucked? What if the idea was good but there was no confidence the team could actually implement, based on reasonable inquiry and analysis? The moment you come into the situation expecting some perfect, 1:1 mapping between every single identity group in society and the people who make up some subgroup, you're going to be disappointed. Sorry. Did you check to make sure that there were enough people from Lichtenstein, Andorra, and the Vatican represented among the founders? If the group of people isn't big enough to include one of every group, which groups do you drop first? If you implement a quota, would you artificially make sure you hire 60% white people to remain representative of the larger society even if you have more qualified BIPOC candidates? At some point, even when a person is doing their utmost to not be prejudiced, they're going to end up in a situation where they turn down the proposal or idea of a person in an Intersectional Identity Politics Group like your own. If that is immediately met with "they're prejudiced" instead of some introspection, then what you're doing is joining the big club of outsiders who use their identity as a cudgel to beat others. Something tells me that's not going to be a winning strategy. > Pride is recognizing the unique worth and value that you have. Pride is in pitching that value, not apologizing for it, making excuses for it or trying to offset it with respectability overtures. Pride is owning that being different gives you power and that power gives you what it takes to build your own path, your own future, your own way. Pride is what sets us apart from the mainstream as much as who we are sets us apart, because we have earned pride in the identities and lives and livelihoods that we have fought for. If I posted that same exact statement as my own words publicly under my real name, I'd lose my job and be blackballed from ever working again. Intersectionality sure is fascinating.

There's nothing I love more than someone dictating to me what I need to do or else be "fucked". How pleasant. > hat’s my somewhat indignant way of saying: only 10% of all startup investment goes to women, and an estimated 1% goes to founders who are black, while 37% of queer founders have not felt comfortable disclosing their identities to their investors and the ones who have, have raised over 10% less funding, and the statistics around transgender people in the startup ecosystem very simply do not exist. This is an experiment without a control. There's absolutely nothing that guarantees that the ideas these people came up with were equal on average to the ideas that got funded. What if they were just bad ideas? What if the pitch sucked? What if the idea was good but there was no confidence the team could actually implement, based on reasonable inquiry and analysis? The moment you come into the situation expecting some perfect, 1:1 mapping between every single identity group in society and the people who make up some subgroup, you're going to be disappointed. Sorry. Did you check to make sure that there were enough people from Lichtenstein, Andorra, and the Vatican represented among the founders? If the group of people isn't big enough to include one of every group, which groups do you drop first? If you implement a quota, would you artificially make sure you hire 60% white people to remain representative of the larger society even if you have more qualified BIPOC candidates? At some point, even when a person is doing their utmost to not be prejudiced, they're going to end up in a situation where they turn down the proposal or idea of a person in an Intersectional Identity Politics Group like your own. If that is immediately met with "they're prejudiced" instead of some introspection, then what you're doing is joining the big club of outsiders who use their identity as a cudgel to beat others. Something tells me that's not going to be a winning strategy. > Pride is recognizing the unique worth and value that you have. Pride is in pitching that value, not apologizing for it, making excuses for it or trying to offset it with respectability overtures. Pride is owning that being different gives you power and that power gives you what it takes to build your own path, your own future, your own way. Pride is what sets us apart from the mainstream as much as who we are sets us apart, because we have earned pride in the identities and lives and livelihoods that we have fought for. If I posted that same exact statement as my own words publicly under my real name, I'd lose my job and be blackballed from ever working again. Intersectionality sure is fascinating.