4 ms·

It shouldn't be the main deciding factor, but it helps. It's a signal like any other, although because it's superficial, it might be something you pick up on ea

It shouldn't be the main deciding factor, but it helps. It's a signal like any other, although because it's superficial, it might be something you pick up on earlier. Most people aren't driven to just one career path in life. They start out with a few different options that narrow as they get older. Given that, if you are investigating two careers, and they both have lots of creative tinkerers, but one of them has many more people that match up with your race and gender, is it unreasonable to factor that in to your decision? White people don't have much historical evidence that they will receive poor treatment in the NBA or the jazz community because they're white. But black people and women do have reasons to pay special attention to signals that they might not be well received in a certain community/industry/workplace. It's not their fault for being aware of that.

wutbrodo 12y ago
I take your general point (and between you and groby_b, I feel like a lot of my concerns were actually addressed), but for the life of me I really don't understand the fact that people keep replacing "someone" in my hypotheticals with "White people". I didn't say anything about a white person staying out of jazz due to black people: the person in my example could've been white or non-white hispanic or east asian or middle eastern or native american or aboriginal or south asian or...
- swampangel 12y ago
  Just to follow up, I picked white people because I'm confident they don't suffer discrimination in those areas. I'm white, so the only "someone" I feel comfortable speaking for is a white person. I'm less certain that native americans, say, who have historically been treated poorly by just about everyone, wouldn't be watching for a different set of warning signs. I don't want to make assumptions about their experience in a given community. I agree these discussions tend to boil down to man/woman and black/white but I think that's just what most of us in North America are most confident discussing. Anyway I'm glad it's been productive.

wutbrodo 12y ago

I take your general point (and between you and groby_b, I feel like a lot of my concerns were actually addressed), but for the life of me I really don't understand the fact that people keep replacing "someone" in my hypotheticals with "White people". I didn't say anything about a white person staying out of jazz due to black people: the person in my example could've been white or non-white hispanic or east asian or middle eastern or native american or aboriginal or south asian or...

swampangel 12y ago
Just to follow up, I picked white people because I'm confident they don't suffer discrimination in those areas. I'm white, so the only "someone" I feel comfortable speaking for is a white person. I'm less certain that native americans, say, who have historically been treated poorly by just about everyone, wouldn't be watching for a different set of warning signs. I don't want to make assumptions about their experience in a given community. I agree these discussions tend to boil down to man/woman and black/white but I think that's just what most of us in North America are most confident discussing. Anyway I'm glad it's been productive.