It sounds like this guy spends way too much time on Twitter/Tumblr (Twitter is essentially Tumblr circa 2013 since everyone left their porn blogs behind). America is definitely racist still. I experience suspect shit from white people all the time, but I don't let it bother me because I don't have the power to change anyone. It sounds like this guy doesn't realize that you can't live a healthy life (mentally) and non-ironically be radical about certain social issues IRL.
> Where are you headed, [REDACTED]?” another teammate asked with an innocuous timbre as the restof our pod curiously awaited my response.
He even acknowledges the fact that they weren't purposely being mean or anything, they just don't understand how the ex-Googler is feeling. I'm not taking up for his co-workers, but I bet if he spoke up in a chill way, they would've corrected themselves and explained what they really meant. But instead, the ex-Googler drops his head, leaves the office, and writes a slander essay like a passive aggressive little [redacted].
To wrap this up: Yes, there are some fucked up cops out there who are shooting unarmed black men, but the majority of cops aren't terrible people, and expecting privileged white people to understand us is counter-productive. White people will NEVER understand how it feels to be a black man in this country, and it's not worth trying to explain it. All we can do is be the best we can be, and hope the kindness, smiles, and compassion are reciprocated. If not, fuck em.
I have to say something deeply unpopular here - yes, I know in America maybe it's different, but there's only racist people I've ever met have been people engaging in this kind of casual racism against whites. I never saw the opposite. Most accusations of it turn out to be bad statistical assumptions, like "percentage by race of people experiencing a bad outcome differ from the general population, so it must be racism" - ignoring all other factors.
Personally, I'd prefer to change things so that "how it feels to be black in this country" is no longer a thing that needs to be understood. Yeah, I know this isn't going to happen in my lifetime, but even a white boy can dream.
That probably depends on what kind of “counselor” is involved; the same term can be used to refer to a variety of to licensed mental health professionals or to people who are basically peer counselors with minimal specialized education. The latter is relying very heavily on their own lives experience, so it clearly matters.
Even for the professionals, psychological safety of client with the counselor is going to be a significant factor, and someone who is coming from a place of perceived pervasive hostility and neglect from outside of their own racial group that leaves them metaphorically curled up in a ball of fear and silence around people outside their race is going to be hard for someone who triggers that reaction in them to help.
If I, a person of color, am having emotional difficulty processing the anxiety I feel about police persecution after being exposed to information that my race is being disproportionately persecuted, I really need a healthcare professional that (at the very least) has knowledge on when to engage in trying to direct me from my anxieties vs acknowledging that I am experiencing a normal amount of anxiety for the situation. Part of this may in fact be wanting a healthcare professional who is of my race because I have been harmed in the past by professionals who did not share my race practicing inappropriate treatments on me.
Similarly, there are plenty of female patients that ask for a female doctor, even in non-therapy medicine, because plenty of medication, illnesses, etc. show differently for women.
This is not to say that you shouldn't judge a counselor by their behavior after you've started working with them. But I think it's possible for a person with black skin to be just as insensitive to the concerns of black people as someone with white skin, e.g. Clarence Thomas.
There's a rather small but critical lack of nuance in your sentiment.
The idea isn't that you judge the person because of their skin color. Nobody is saying being white or black makes you a worse or better counselor or person. The idea is that you merely judge the likelihood that the person will be able to relate to you about something in your own personal life. There's nothing "problematic" about making that kind of judgment. It doesn't need to be justified or rational to anybody else. It's your personal life that you're looking for someone to open up to. Nobody else has any right to anything in your personal life, and you have every right and responsibility to make it better by your own criteria. If there's any problem here, it's the sentiment that other people have a right to dictate whom you should and shouldn't involve in your personal life.
But doesn't that mean race can potentially become extremely important when the treatment is via a form of structural socialization?
An emotional barrier that is part of the problem for which a person is seeking treatment:
(1) is not a judgement, and
(2) indisputably is part of the problem.
But, in any case, whether either or both of those are true or not doesn't change the fact that it is a real issue impacting the likely treatment outcomes that is sensitive to whether the counselor is in the group triggering the negative response or not.
Are women who have been abused by men odious for seeking female therapists?
Yes, but you need to trust them as a professional, not as a personal confidante who shares your life experience.
As part of the session the therapist asks you to rate a few different categories of your mental life (e.g. "How content are you with your life/relationships/family/future on a scale of 1 to 5?) The ratings then can be used for data to develop better questions and techniques and marketing claims (people with 1 or more Virtual Therapy seasons a week experience an X% improvement in indicators of mental health).
Subscription model: 10 bucks a month gets two one hour virtual therapy sessions a week.
Respectfully, are you sure you didn’t mean “Black?” “African American” doesn’t accurately capture e.g., Caribbean and Latin American identities.
I guess this explains why many Google products seem to be pretty brilliant in many ways, but then have utterly glaring missing basic features or problems which never get fixed no matter how much users complain about them.
I think you kinda nailed there - he was placed in awkward situations where the other employees suddenly didn't have an opinion one way or another, whereas they had lots of opinions about ebola, etc... I'm wondering if therapy is even the correct word. It's more of a societal shield we all put up in various circumstances.
Sometimes I try to imagine a world where women or men, other races, would swap places with someone from an actual conversation I had to help me reveal my own biases by trying to examine how things would go differently. We should be at a place where the conversation doesn't really change.
For example let's say you're talking to your uncle about crime in the midwest. Suddenly swap them out for a black person from Minnesota. Is that conversation different now? Why? How do you internalize that so that when you speak you can speak to anyone.
Another example - tradeshows. Sometimes I hear people talking about the customer like they are a wallet - now pretend that those people are suddenly talking TO the customer.
Not only do we have the ability to see how messed up our own actions and language is, but you can now see it in other people.
I'm not saying doing that kind of thing is going to fix all problems, but it is a very good thought exercise.
Well… yeah, but only because I’m going to be careful what I say to avoid stepping on somebody else’s feelings. To dance around the point just a bit - there are people who I can safely be completely honest with, and people who I cannot safely be completely honest with. I’m not sure I’m the one who needs to be doing the adjusting to change that.
A tame example: I don't talk about the latest in non-volitile memory advances with my friends that I play videogames with.
I try to internalize a lot of this when I find myself ignorant on a given position one way or another. It helps one to get out of ones' own box. It's also a skill that I feel too few people genuinely exercise and resort to talking louder and trying to shut people down instead of debating a position rationally. Once you lose your temper, you really lost the argument as far as most observers are concerned and look a bit like a nut.
I think too many people spend too little time in uncomfortable or awkward situations to a point where they're literally unable to deal with them. We've had a level of societal protection for our youth to a point where we're no longer raising functional adults but really big toddlers emotionally speaking.
Rational people should be able to have rational conversations with any rational person regardless of differences of specific opinion. We're at a point where that's approaching an exception and not the rule that most people are rational.
Sounds like some Harrison Bergeron bullshit. I'd rather people have different experiences and opinions but be able to calmly disagree about it.
The author describes a specific scenario where a co-worker brought up these issues as work. So, yes, it sounds like for this person it was work-related.
However, I disagree with the author's recommendation to provide additional mental health support for people of color.
I think employee affinity groups for employees of different cultures can be a good idea, but specifically targeting POC for "mental health" services? That's not a good precedent.
Frankly, this memo is not well-written, my initial inclination was to dismiss aspects of it because I had a hard time following the reasoning, but once I read it a couple of times, I came around to agreeing about the diagnosis of the problem, but not all of the recommendations offered.
In countries with universal health care private companies have nothing to do with health related problems.
Just mention to point out that companies can put an effort into this even if thwy don't have to.
As such, it's the employers' exclusive responsibility to accommodate our health needs. We do not have adequate access, otherwise.
I once had a boss that always talked guns. Every day he would go on about some politician's secret gun control agenda. The daily news wasn't part of the job until he made it so.
Literally the opening quote:
”Over the last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit.’”
> my mental health has been heavily influenced by what I read in the news. ...Google needs to provide mental health support... mak[e] a[n] ... effort to create opportunities ... to seek counseling and support.
If he stated instead that his mental health was influenced by his coworkers hateful remarks, or rejecting candidates due to "fit", then yes, I would absolutely agree this is a great direction for Google to head towards.
But that's not what the employee is asking for.
The former employee then makes several suggestions, including rethinking hiring practices, providing more robust diversity training, and additional counseling/support for underrepresented employees.
You can debate the validity/truthfulness you perceive in the employee’s account, you can debate whether you think the suggestions are good or not, but saying this isn’t an employer based issue seems like just putting your head in the sand.
> Provide additional mental health support for Googlers of color — especially following critical moments impacting their communities
> Throughout my time at Google, my mental health has been heavily influenced by what I read in the news. And in America, that means frequently reading about innocent black men and women who’ve been killed by police officers. Whether the issue is police brutality, or mass shootings targeting the LGBTQ community, or racist comments from the President debasing immigrants, Google needs to provide mental health support equitably, which means making a more concerted effort to create opportunities for underrepresented groups to seek counseling and support.
With respect, I don't think this is an employer-based issue. Because this was caused by a non-work related source [the news], I think it should be the responsibility of the individual to seek therapy and other resources on their own time and on their own dime.
Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide support.
In fact, Google does provide free counseling for the staff who have to filter through illicit images on Google's search engine. Since those employees are regularly exposed to horrendous issues as part of their work, they get company-sponsored help with it.