As a personal example, I have immigrated into US from the country with almost no black population, so I'd say that "several centuries of deeply ingrained racism" do not apply to me.
Within the first year of arriving into US, I've had been verbally attacked while I was riding the bus and reading the book. A bunch of teenagers started to say things like "he looks too smart" and "let's take his book away". For a high-schooler who had no exposure to violence before this was pretty scary. Since then, I tried hard to avoid riding the busses through that area. Can you guess which race were those teenagers?
(Note that I have arrived with some pretty weird believes, like the one that everyone with shaved head is a gang member and had to be avoided. That one did not last very long, because there was one person with shaved head in my math class and he was pretty great. Unfortunately, there were no similar experience to persuade me that I should not avoid groups of black people.)
Thanks you for having a conversation with me. I grew up in ex-USSR country which had very little race variance, and the first time I interacted with black/indian/asian person was when I enrolled in the American high school. I got all the standard explanation about the race, and I had some questions and counter-arguments, but it was pretty clear that one is not supposed to talk about it in public.
> Three, he was not "visually distinct"; the skin albedo of African-Americans is of a similar range to South Asians. He was racially distinct.
Are you saying that people who are racially distinct are not also visually distinct? I do not think this is the case. Skin albedo is not the only important thing, people also look a the face, so face features matter too.
Or are you saying that someone who is visually distinct, but not racially unusual, would not get special treatment? For example, imagine that you worked in the company for a long time, and never saw a man in wheelchair. Suddenly, there is a man in wheelchair asking to be let in. Would you let him in? Or would you ask him some questions to make sure he really works there?
> Four, if you don't have any idea why there are fewer black people in high status jobs in America, ...
I am much more interested why there were no black people in my high school calculus class (and similarly, disproportionately few black people in my college computer science classes) -- because it is pretty clear to me that if you did not take calculus in high school, the chances of you becoming a programmer are very slim.
I just googled and found this article: http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html . That article, says the reasons are racist teachers, black parents, other black students, black neighborhoods, racist guidance counselors. As someone who is not teaching children in any capacity, I am not sure how can I help there. Sure, I can read the books so I feel more guilty -- but I am not sure how will it help to get more black students into the calculus classes.
Imagine that instead of black person, there would be some other visually distinct person. Say, white person in football uniform. Or asian woman in kimono. Or disabled person in the electric scooter.
They would likely get the same "third degree" treatment. Why? Is it because global capitalism does not like football uniforms?
The more likely reason is that while one may not know every person in the company, they have a general idea of what the company composition is. One likely knows that this particular company does not have a lot of disabled people, or people who wear football uniforms, or black people. So anyone who does not fit the common profile will get more scrutiny.
This of course leaves the question of why isn't a black person common in the software company. I don't know an answer to that. Anecdotally, this starts at high school, if not earlier -- there were no black people in my high school calculus class for example, despite the school having ~25% of black students.
As a personal example, I have immigrated into US from the country with almost no black population, so I'd say that "several centuries of deeply ingrained racism" do not apply to me.
Within the first year of arriving into US, I've had been verbally attacked while I was riding the bus and reading the book. A bunch of teenagers started to say things like "he looks too smart" and "let's take his book away". For a high-schooler who had no exposure to violence before this was pretty scary. Since then, I tried hard to avoid riding the busses through that area. Can you guess which race were those teenagers?
(Note that I have arrived with some pretty weird believes, like the one that everyone with shaved head is a gang member and had to be avoided. That one did not last very long, because there was one person with shaved head in my math class and he was pretty great. Unfortunately, there were no similar experience to persuade me that I should not avoid groups of black people.)