15 ms·

2. Hits home for me as I’ve begun to realize the same thing. Not seeing any person of color in an activity makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first.

yieldcrv 4y ago
Similarly this gives me pause about Ivy League MBA programs. Although a small sample size, despite their ambitions the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it. Whether from access to executive roles, getting taken seriously by venture capital firms, or in their attempts to join venture capital firms. There is a level of discretion in these team forming situations that is not extended to them whether it has anything to do with their race or not, its pretty clear the upwards mobility is not coming from this credential. For people with their own capital and leverage, it amplifies their ambition if they want. BIPOC don't really have this. The “average salary” of MBA alumnis is not what is interesting about getting one, for me or them. Some, or more, examples to the contrary would make it seem less like a total waste of time.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I am not an ivy league MBA person but my understanding of these sorts of things is that it's not the credential itself that's useful, but the connections you make in the process.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    yes, all participants were aware of this, and yet the connections resulted in no improved professional access or ability to exchange time for food and shelter.
- threadweaver34 4y ago
  > the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it Probably because there's almost always an Asian who's more qualified or a white with better connections. The problem is the key insight you get from a BIPOC is BIPOC tend to not have much money (set aside equity and vicious cycles for another day), so unless they're your market, you're not interested in marketing to people who can't afford your products.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    but this isn't about marketing or needing a BIPOC to point out BIPOC markets? thats a really odd take, how did you start with connections and end up with consumer marketing? is this a personal experience or is this non-sequitur is a common sentiment because we need to address that as ignorance
    - threadweaver34 4y ago
      I'm looking how diverse candidates from Ivies meaningfully differentiate themselves. Ivies admit to discriminating against Asians, so on average, a BIPOC from an Ivy will be less qualified than an Asian. Why would you hire them, then? The pitch for diversity is always that diverse teams make better decisions, but it's not racial diversity that does it, it's different lived experiences. Companies exist to make money, so how can they turn someone's insight from an underprivileged background into sales when poor people buy less? This was also in the context of an MBA program where the whole purpose is making money. It'd be different for a PM of an app where 100% reach is the goal.
      - yieldcrv 4y ago
        thanks for explaining that, I think there are some assumptions that are flawed in this decision tree. 1) the admissions into the Ivy would be biased, the education should be the same as before, as admissions into Ivy were always biased in some way. So whatever their alumni (and dropouts) were known for in that brand would still be the same. 2) aggregate better decisions due to different lived experiences doesn't mean just selling consumer products to underprivileged people. you're really going to have to work on what people mean by that, "sales to poor people" isn't the whole universe of different lived experiences, there can be other market inefficiencies with a good TAM. very similar to non-revenue based reach.
- crackercrews 4y ago
  So even with all the BLM advocacy, there is no pipeline for Black people with MBAs from Ivy League schools? That doesn't fit with what I've seen in other industries. Companies fell all over themselves to hire Black people. Is this not happening in MBA-land?
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    read it again, its not about getting hired, its about getting capital and decision making roles that skip the corporate ladder. these have an overrepresentation of Ivy League MBAs in them with a pedigree that has nothing to do with promotions. People see the Ivy League MBA as key to this and aren’t interested in the other things an MBA can do. The jobs these disillusioned alumni have were attainable without the MBA.
    - crackercrews 4y ago
      Your original claim was much broader: > despite their ambitions the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it
      - yieldcrv 4y ago
        because they didn't need the MBA for the roles they did land its all part of one contiguous complete thought
        crackercrews 4y ago
        You also say: > the connections resulted in no improved professional access or ability to exchange time for food and shelter. When you make such broad statements, then walk them back in comments downstream, it makes conversation unfruitful.
        yieldcrv 4y ago
        you’re unwilling to view it as a coherent and related thought “improved” is the operative word that you seem to ignore or view as contradictory the MBA did not improve their work prospects, they already had work prospects. you asked for a clarification, you call the clarification backtracking do you have an actual opinion on the topic now that its more clear for you
ShredKazoo 4y ago
As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about the psychology of this. I remember when I was growing up in the 90s and 00s in California, people talked about race way less than they do today. When ethnic representation became a common topic of conversation, I had a hard time believing it at first, because it seemed so self-evidently obvious to me that race wasn't a particularly important characteristic of a person. I actually had the experience of thinking back to my time in jr high/high school and thinking "wow, that friend of mine had dark skin, and they weren't from India... I guess they were Black, huh". I'm not trying to claim that I didn't have subconscious biases related to race as a kid. I'm sure I did. But I do suspect they have become a lot more severe as a result of people talking about race so much -- it has become a much more salient characteristic. (I'm also more aware of trying to mitigate my biases and avoid microaggressions and so on, of course.) So yeah, I'm curious to compare notes with other 90s kids in this regard. I'm white, but if I was Black, I imagine that I'd be way more self-conscious about it now than I was when I was growing up. (Like, if I'm the only white person in a group, I feel self-conscious about it now in a way that I didn't feel when I was a kid.)
- human_person 4y ago
  I’m not sure > As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Is as helpful as you may have intended. The comment was about not wanting to be the first, even if the group is welcoming, the commentator will still be the first/only person of color in the group and there is a discomfort inherent to that even if everyone is trying to be welcoming. Also re “colorblind” policies of the 90a versus the explicitness of today, I think it’s similar to the current reckoning in journalism. We all have biases and pretending we don’t/acting like we are capable of pure objectivity simply hides them and makes them more difficult to combat. On the other hand explicitly acknowledging them allows you to consider how they might be influencing your decisions.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Growing up this was a big realization for me the other way. I was raised by evangelicals in Kansas, including going to a mennonite school for most of my education. As a teenager I realized how at my school, at my church, at basically everything in my family's shared life, there was not a single person with brown skin. Not even one. And worse, no one had real awareness of this, and would not understand how it could be any sort of problem if you brought it up. To them it was just the natural order of the universe that their world was purely white people. There's plenty of evangelicals of every race, but overall the communities are very segregated. It was clear no matter their professed faith, in practice the community I grew up in was hostile to PoC.
- quacked 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Obviously I understand my childhood community in far more detail and depth than your rather transparent question. My conclusions of their racism are based on far more than I mention, but yes, it has since then proven to be a very clear smoke signal. Other places I've seen the same thing but not as severely are snow sports and auto racing. I have no desire to retread the 101 of how "white" cannot be treated as logically equivalent to other racial labels. Go do some reading on the subject. A good place to start is trying to enumerate exactly what heritages count as white, and how that has changed over time.
    - quacked 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        I answered you clearly. Ethnic homogeneity is a smoke signal. Ethnic whiteness is exceptional. You're past my line with ascribing what I think and who from in a way that's literally just you ranting your imagination at me. You have no idea my mind on any of these things based on our conversation thus far. Talk about the self report...
akira2501 4y ago
> makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first. This makes me curious. Would you mind answering, from your point of view, why do you think that is? Is it a specific scenario or type of scenario you wish to avoid or is there a generalized concern that comes with it? Is that due to uncertainty or past experience?
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  Frankly; if the group is large enough, homogeny likely means that you the minority weren’t the first… the first(s) got pushed out.
- nivethan 4y ago
  There's probably many reasons but one that comes to mind is, if I'm first am I an ambassador for my race now? Probably. The people here might be self selecting in other aspects of their life so they may not actually be around PoC anywhere else. Another aspect is that I don't have that shared connection or ease of relating to people in the group. The activity has obviously selected for a specific group and there are probably other aspects of their lives that are also different from my own. Past experience mostly. Trying to make friends where the majority is white was difficult though I was in university and far more awkward then. One on one or in smaller settings, its easier and at work it's relatively straightforward to become friendly with anyone.
__turbobrew__ 4y ago
Are you willing to give some examples? I’m curious in what contexts people feel this way.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nivethan 4y ago
  A specific example is if you look at popular sailing channels on youtube. I got into sailing last year and I didn't notice it at first but every popular channel is white. They have events where they meet fans and it's crazy the lack of colour in the group shots. I really wish I hadn't noticed it because it's a bit off putting. It's also surprising that I've only begun to care now that I'm much older.
drevil-v2 4y ago
Sounds like a good enough reason to mandate quotas for everything everywhere. Anything else on your wish list?

yieldcrv 4y ago

Similarly this gives me pause about Ivy League MBA programs. Although a small sample size, despite their ambitions the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it. Whether from access to executive roles, getting taken seriously by venture capital firms, or in their attempts to join venture capital firms. There is a level of discretion in these team forming situations that is not extended to them whether it has anything to do with their race or not, its pretty clear the upwards mobility is not coming from this credential. For people with their own capital and leverage, it amplifies their ambition if they want. BIPOC don't really have this. The “average salary” of MBA alumnis is not what is interesting about getting one, for me or them. Some, or more, examples to the contrary would make it seem less like a total waste of time.

idiotsecant 4y ago
I am not an ivy league MBA person but my understanding of these sorts of things is that it's not the credential itself that's useful, but the connections you make in the process.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  yes, all participants were aware of this, and yet the connections resulted in no improved professional access or ability to exchange time for food and shelter.
threadweaver34 4y ago
> the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it Probably because there's almost always an Asian who's more qualified or a white with better connections. The problem is the key insight you get from a BIPOC is BIPOC tend to not have much money (set aside equity and vicious cycles for another day), so unless they're your market, you're not interested in marketing to people who can't afford your products.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  but this isn't about marketing or needing a BIPOC to point out BIPOC markets? thats a really odd take, how did you start with connections and end up with consumer marketing? is this a personal experience or is this non-sequitur is a common sentiment because we need to address that as ignorance
  - threadweaver34 4y ago
    I'm looking how diverse candidates from Ivies meaningfully differentiate themselves. Ivies admit to discriminating against Asians, so on average, a BIPOC from an Ivy will be less qualified than an Asian. Why would you hire them, then? The pitch for diversity is always that diverse teams make better decisions, but it's not racial diversity that does it, it's different lived experiences. Companies exist to make money, so how can they turn someone's insight from an underprivileged background into sales when poor people buy less? This was also in the context of an MBA program where the whole purpose is making money. It'd be different for a PM of an app where 100% reach is the goal.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      thanks for explaining that, I think there are some assumptions that are flawed in this decision tree. 1) the admissions into the Ivy would be biased, the education should be the same as before, as admissions into Ivy were always biased in some way. So whatever their alumni (and dropouts) were known for in that brand would still be the same. 2) aggregate better decisions due to different lived experiences doesn't mean just selling consumer products to underprivileged people. you're really going to have to work on what people mean by that, "sales to poor people" isn't the whole universe of different lived experiences, there can be other market inefficiencies with a good TAM. very similar to non-revenue based reach.
crackercrews 4y ago
So even with all the BLM advocacy, there is no pipeline for Black people with MBAs from Ivy League schools? That doesn't fit with what I've seen in other industries. Companies fell all over themselves to hire Black people. Is this not happening in MBA-land?
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  read it again, its not about getting hired, its about getting capital and decision making roles that skip the corporate ladder. these have an overrepresentation of Ivy League MBAs in them with a pedigree that has nothing to do with promotions. People see the Ivy League MBA as key to this and aren’t interested in the other things an MBA can do. The jobs these disillusioned alumni have were attainable without the MBA.
  - crackercrews 4y ago
    Your original claim was much broader: > despite their ambitions the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      because they didn't need the MBA for the roles they did land its all part of one contiguous complete thought
      - crackercrews 4y ago
        You also say: > the connections resulted in no improved professional access or ability to exchange time for food and shelter. When you make such broad statements, then walk them back in comments downstream, it makes conversation unfruitful.
        yieldcrv 4y ago
        you’re unwilling to view it as a coherent and related thought “improved” is the operative word that you seem to ignore or view as contradictory the MBA did not improve their work prospects, they already had work prospects. you asked for a clarification, you call the clarification backtracking do you have an actual opinion on the topic now that its more clear for you

ShredKazoo 4y ago

As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about the psychology of this. I remember when I was growing up in the 90s and 00s in California, people talked about race way less than they do today. When ethnic representation became a common topic of conversation, I had a hard time believing it at first, because it seemed so self-evidently obvious to me that race wasn't a particularly important characteristic of a person. I actually had the experience of thinking back to my time in jr high/high school and thinking "wow, that friend of mine had dark skin, and they weren't from India... I guess they were Black, huh". I'm not trying to claim that I didn't have subconscious biases related to race as a kid. I'm sure I did. But I do suspect they have become a lot more severe as a result of people talking about race so much -- it has become a much more salient characteristic. (I'm also more aware of trying to mitigate my biases and avoid microaggressions and so on, of course.) So yeah, I'm curious to compare notes with other 90s kids in this regard. I'm white, but if I was Black, I imagine that I'd be way more self-conscious about it now than I was when I was growing up. (Like, if I'm the only white person in a group, I feel self-conscious about it now in a way that I didn't feel when I was a kid.)

human_person 4y ago
I’m not sure > As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Is as helpful as you may have intended. The comment was about not wanting to be the first, even if the group is welcoming, the commentator will still be the first/only person of color in the group and there is a discomfort inherent to that even if everyone is trying to be welcoming. Also re “colorblind” policies of the 90a versus the explicitness of today, I think it’s similar to the current reckoning in journalism. We all have biases and pretending we don’t/acting like we are capable of pure objectivity simply hides them and makes them more difficult to combat. On the other hand explicitly acknowledging them allows you to consider how they might be influencing your decisions.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

Growing up this was a big realization for me the other way. I was raised by evangelicals in Kansas, including going to a mennonite school for most of my education. As a teenager I realized how at my school, at my church, at basically everything in my family's shared life, there was not a single person with brown skin. Not even one. And worse, no one had real awareness of this, and would not understand how it could be any sort of problem if you brought it up. To them it was just the natural order of the universe that their world was purely white people. There's plenty of evangelicals of every race, but overall the communities are very segregated. It was clear no matter their professed faith, in practice the community I grew up in was hostile to PoC.

quacked 4y ago
[flagged]
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Obviously I understand my childhood community in far more detail and depth than your rather transparent question. My conclusions of their racism are based on far more than I mention, but yes, it has since then proven to be a very clear smoke signal. Other places I've seen the same thing but not as severely are snow sports and auto racing. I have no desire to retread the 101 of how "white" cannot be treated as logically equivalent to other racial labels. Go do some reading on the subject. A good place to start is trying to enumerate exactly what heritages count as white, and how that has changed over time.
  - quacked 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
      I answered you clearly. Ethnic homogeneity is a smoke signal. Ethnic whiteness is exceptional. You're past my line with ascribing what I think and who from in a way that's literally just you ranting your imagination at me. You have no idea my mind on any of these things based on our conversation thus far. Talk about the self report...

akira2501 4y ago

> makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first. This makes me curious. Would you mind answering, from your point of view, why do you think that is? Is it a specific scenario or type of scenario you wish to avoid or is there a generalized concern that comes with it? Is that due to uncertainty or past experience?

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
Frankly; if the group is large enough, homogeny likely means that you the minority weren’t the first… the first(s) got pushed out.
nivethan 4y ago
There's probably many reasons but one that comes to mind is, if I'm first am I an ambassador for my race now? Probably. The people here might be self selecting in other aspects of their life so they may not actually be around PoC anywhere else. Another aspect is that I don't have that shared connection or ease of relating to people in the group. The activity has obviously selected for a specific group and there are probably other aspects of their lives that are also different from my own. Past experience mostly. Trying to make friends where the majority is white was difficult though I was in university and far more awkward then. One on one or in smaller settings, its easier and at work it's relatively straightforward to become friendly with anyone.

__turbobrew__ 4y ago

Are you willing to give some examples? I’m curious in what contexts people feel this way.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nivethan 4y ago
A specific example is if you look at popular sailing channels on youtube. I got into sailing last year and I didn't notice it at first but every popular channel is white. They have events where they meet fans and it's crazy the lack of colour in the group shots. I really wish I hadn't noticed it because it's a bit off putting. It's also surprising that I've only begun to care now that I'm much older.

drevil-v2 4y ago

Sounds like a good enough reason to mandate quotas for everything everywhere. Anything else on your wish list?