> But how is him being white relevant? You seem to imply that a white persons accomplishments are less meaningful, solely because they are white.

You have the relationship backwards: being white meant no barriers. He never showed up for a meeting to be pointed at the back door or asked whether he was there to apply for the job as janitor or security guard. Nobody assumed he was there to take notes. He didn’t face constant questions about whether he could actually do something or was just “the diversity hire”.

That’s huge, especially when you look at the stats for things like loan or VC approval rates. Starting a company as a white man isn’t easy but it’s still easier than what most other people have to do.

> He didn’t face constant questions about whether he could actually do something

Actually he is being questioned right now in OP's subtle statement that it was his 'rich whiteness' that was responsible for his success.

Seems like a false equivalence. What were the negative consequences of him being rich? OP laid out what he would have experienced as a minority. If the only negative consequence of being rich is every once in a while you are called on it, how is that at all equivalent to the experience described by OP?

The thread you are in began with a question about him being 'white' and not just rich.

I never stated pure equivalence but I do believe both are examples of racism.

You have it backwards, the "no barriers" mainly came from being wealthy. I'll give a small anecdote: One of my friends is from a very wealthy family. He is a person of color. He was still able to gain admission to an elite boarding school, now works for a prestigious company, is respected by his peers, etc.

Privilege mainly comes from wealth. Of course it is a serious problem in society when certain groups have disproportionate poverty or less wealth, because that indicates some structural cause.

However in the modern day that cause is simply the fact that most people, regardless of skin color, do not move out of their parents' income decile. And when one group is already more economically disenfranchised than other groups, then that economic disenfranchisement will perpetuate itself.

A recent study found that black men from rich families had notably different outcomes than white men from rich families:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...

Replace "black men from rich families" with "second-generation Italian-Americans from rich families" and you get the same result.

This is not about race, this is about belonging to a small network of Brahmin aristocracy in the US. For example, some people in New England will never invest in your startup (no matter how good it is), if your name does not look like "Landon Jefferson Bayard, III", or some such.

Even if you are white.

>Replace "black men from rich families" with "second-generation Italian-Americans from rich families" and you get the same result.

I highly doubt it.

There has been racism against lots of minority groups in the US, but few rise to the hundreds of years long legacy that exists to this day that is racism against African Americans.

Additionally, there’s the question of passing: it’s much easier to blend in with a higher status group with similar melanin levels - pick up some clothes, learn some cultural signifiers, etc. That’s just not possible for someone with the disfavored skin color. Even a black kid raised by adoptive parents can’t avoid things like worrying every time they see a police officer.

Offtopic - But this NYT article has a very great interactive design to show the data.

Thank you for your anecdotal evidence and the obvious truism that wealth opens doors.

Black people make 57.50 to every 100 dollars a White person makes. The majority of wealthy people in America are white. 90% of all people lose their wealth by the 3rd generation. Therefore the slim ratio of wealthy black families are going to lose their wealth and it’s going to affect them much more.

The majority Black people have only just started to be able build wealth after Jim Crow, where white people have had hundreds of years.

People enjoy helping people that look like or remind them of themselves phenotypically, therefor even people that became new money, science would suggest will receive more help from the more numerous amount of wealthy white people.

Considering black people were still living under Jim Crow just 11 years prior to 1976, it would have been impossible for a black person to enjoy the sorts of privileges that come from having rich and successful parents.

No one is devaluing his accomplishments, they are calling the article out for pretending he’s some kind of special snowflake, when in reality he had been dealt an ideal hand in life.

Articles like this remove all historical context to convince lower middle class people of all races that it just takes dropping out college and faking it to you make it to get what you want. This is not to say that there isn’t some truth to that, but let’s be real about the massive head start Gates got, so we aren’t just ultimately implying that poor people are lazy and deserve their lot in life, because if rich white boy Bill Gates can do it, anyone no matter how poor, unlucky, underfunded their public education or broken their family is can do it too.

I’m not saying people should just whine and accept their bad luck and victimize themselves either, you have to play the hand your dealt to the best of your ability, but articles like this just perpetuate a contextless ashistorical lie to sell to other mediocre neolibs.

> they are calling the article out for pretending he’s some kind of special snowflake, when in reality he had been dealt an ideal hand in life.

How are those things mutually exclusive? Gates can be both a special snowflake, which he blatantly is, and have been dealt a great hand. That's the exact sort of combination you might expect to begin with if one were going to have a shot at yielding ~$140 billion in lifetime wealth generation.

Warren Buffett is also a special snowflake that was born into a similarly beneficial scenario.

I don't think I've ever read about a dullard, born into beneficial circumstances, getting to such extraordinary outcomes from something they built.

Donald Trump

We don't live in a world where your race doesn't matter, unfortunately.

For most people it really doesn't matter, including most people in powerful positions. But we keep telling ourselves it does, unfortunately.

Ha. That seems like a good joke.

Try doing online dating as a White Guy and then doing it as an Asian guy: I can 100% assure you the response rate and experience is going to be wildly different.

Would you get more responses from Asian girls on these sites though?

No: https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...

I'm not talking about dating prospects though.

It absolutely matters. Maybe it doesn’t matter to YOU, and that’s great, but it absolutely matters.

Racism is alive and well in this world, and saying it doesn’t exist does nothing to defeat it.

The data keeps telling us too, maybe we should listen to it, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

If race “doesn’t matter” to rich people, but is rather used as a tool by the rich to cause in fighting amongst the powerless (which is true and seems to be what you’re implying), then in fact race does matter as it affects how the powerless relates to each other. So racism matters, so you’ve contradicted yourself.

You are not aware of this certain concept called 'Social Capital', if you have disproportionately high successful people in your community, you are likely to succeed due to sheer community inertia.

You also get to enjoy a lot of otherwise impossible social biases in your favor. People tend to perceive your success to come naturally and hence set you up for it.

Other benefits include access to a network of successful people all over the economic ecosystem. That in itself is a huge boost to anything you would do.

In fact, reality is the exact opposite as what you describe. The more you know right? Let me educate you, in africa, whites are preferred in sales meetings because empirical evidence shows that simply having a white person present increases the chances of a sale.

So in REALITY elon musk had an even bigger advantage being white in africa than whites do in america.

You are now smarter and hopefully less racially bias

He called MITS' president from his dorm room and got taken seriously. To achieve that requires a certain amount of salesmanship, but also a particular set of manners and polish.

Think a black kid - even a wealthy black kid - with a thick alabama accent would have had the same chance?

It is about class, and old-boy network, not skin color.

Don’t worry, we’re used to it. (I’m a straight white male)