Monday, July 18, 2011

Little Flickers Of Racism


Those little flickers of racism matter. To say they don't matter to a group dynamics guy like me is to suggest software bugs are just fine, and bad design is okay. No, it's not.

Race, Gender, Tech

I plot to go into the red circle in this diagram from the tech angle. And for someone of such ambitions the flickers of racism matter even more. They are bread and butter. That is extra true of flickers of sexism, the obvious kind and the internalized kind, both, especially the internalized kind. Women with advanced degrees of internalized sexism also tend to be the more racist kind.

My Web Diagram

When I meet early stage entrepreneurs in town, one way I gauge how far they might go is by trying to figure out how much of a post-ISMs individual they are.

Rudiments Of A Corporate Culture
Third World Guy
Web 5.0: Face Time

The world of physics felt pretty much complete and all set and done when Einstein showed up. But then he noticed light rays bent near the Sun, and based on that one flicker he turned the world of physics upside down. Innovation happens at the edges. The abandoned petri dish is where the magic is at. Little flickers of racism are fascinating like that.

This is not an argument against refusing to observe the realities of crude, abject sexism: sex slavery, genital mutilation, domestic violence. The world has to keep moving, the wheels have to churn even as the world ponders if to take action. This is not an argument against the pragmatics of dealing with the world as is.

This is more to say the next big things will be heralded by those who do notice the little flickers of racism, true if you are white or blac.

Racism Caused Recession

Those who stay in denial, those who internalize, those who try to explain it away, those who try to rationalize, you have to watch out for those. They are not after the next big thing.

Black On Barack Racism
Race, Gender
Tackling Race As An Issue The Average Person Way
The Thing About Racist Comments
Race, A Few Different Angles
Talking About Race, Finally
The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power
Cloud, Pyramid, Glass
September 2007: Hillary's Racist Twang: Between Hope And Hard Work
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