Have a look for yourself:
Rachel Sklar's correct and courageous in bringing up the pressing problem; Sara and TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington were wrong and cowardly in not allowing a good, meaningful conversation to develop.
Moreover the discussion of why the ratio of women and minorities is low in Tech was not helped by a woman who's CEO of a company formed with her better known Tech husband, making crazy statements. While Cyan Banister may be well known in Silcon Valley, her statement that people like "Italians" have been discriminated against was nuts.
Cyan said that she was against Affirmative Action and believed people rose on merit. But she never considered that her own rise may not have happened had she not hooked up with a White tech guy in Angel Investor Scott Banister. Sara never asked Cyan about that; I would have. Not discounting hard work, but having a partnership helps.
White women rising in American business by hooking up with White business men in the same field is common place (read PowerPlay, the story of Mary Cunningham, as one example). And no, it does not advance the role of Women in Tech.
Cyan's comment about people rising by merit, considering how that's just another person using a measuring stick that reflects their own prejudices, was silly at best, and sad at worst. She must consider that it's impossible for people to effectively ferret out their own "issues" - as Sara admitted she had going into the discussion - and so wind up using the idea of "merit" to cloud their biases.
Indeed, the various issues of the panelists so dominated the conversation, we were robbed of what could have been an effective talk. The moderator set the tone for the discussion by allowing her own "stuff" to overshadow the need for a respectful exchange. Sara went on the attack and that wasn't necessary at all.
Give her an A, for Awful.
If you were a journalist, I would accuse you of being lazy. Since you're a blogger, you somehow have an excuse for not actually paying attention to the subject of your report.
ReplyDeleteThis entire blog entry comes off like "Trophy wife Cyan Bannister rants against affirmative action". Pretty impressive when you consider she's speaks for a total of 30 seconds.
If you actually watched the video from beginning to end, you'd see that Cyan said maybe six sentences over the course of the entire event. One was actually "We should be better parents." Only Lauren Leto managed to say less.
To write something that criticizes Cyan so heavily looks like you were on deadline, fast forwarded to the first objectionable statement you could find, and pounced on it.
Let's look at your criticisms and put them in the correct context. Cyan was talking about groups that have been discriminated against in the past. I think mentioning Italians and Jews fits that context perfectly. If she had mentioned the Irish, I wouldn't have taken offense either.
After the panel you tweeted Cyan, "why mention Italians and not African Americans when discrimination is the issue." As if the only people ever discriminated against are African Americans? You're criticizing her one or two sentence answer to a question, for not choosing a group that had been discriminated against more?
One last thought. As any entrepreneur in the Valley can tell you, money is far from the only issue when it comes to starting and running a company. It's true that Scott Bannister is an investor in Cyan's company, Zivity.
You dismiss the drive, talent, networking, marketing, hiring, planning and effort it took Cyan to create and run Zivity. It's grossly unfair to imply that she only succeeds because she "hooked up with a White tech guy". She succeeds because she's a world class entrepreneur.
If all you got from this panel was two sentences that you found objectionable, then you really weren't paying attention. You owe both Cyan and your readers an apology. Cyan for making her the focus of this piece, and your readers not actually doing your job.
Next time, pay attention to what you're reporting about, before you report it.
Disagree. The point, which you assist in making, is that Cyan is not a trophy wife, but had the right male connection. Moreover, the only reason I chimed in was that I was shocked that she did not talk about her own background. Then she presented the other issues about Italians and Affirmative Action, and that was it for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso Mr. Reeves. You claim I contacted Cyan on Twitter. You're wrong. Cyan found and tweeted me first and in the process told me to f-off.
ReplyDeleteAll I did was reveal her advantage. I did not say she didn't work hard, but she has an advantage that she did not reveal: her husband.
In order to "change the ratio" we have to stop fooling ourselves.
What I heard was what, in some circles, is called "dog-whistle racism." Thus, in order to remove the image that she was successful by herself, as the panel implied, I revealed the truth.
Few African Americans talk openly; I do. I'm not one to engage in double-speak. I don't have one set of conversations for black friends and one for white friends.
Sorry. It does no one any good at all.
I simply acknowledge that Scott Bannister is an investor in Zivity, not your premise that Cyan owes her success to marrying a "White tech guy ". Ask any of her investors or employees and they'd surprised by your statement.
ReplyDeleteYour premise is insulting on so many levels, from giving her no credit for her skills and accomplishments, to implying that she couldn't succeed without her husband.
I suspect you would feel aggrieved if someone implied that you had done no hard work to get to where you are, and it was all given to you because of your race. But you feel comfortable implying that Cyan got to where she is by being a woman and getting married. That is a huge double standard.
The points you continue to neglect are: Why did she become the target of your vitriol and focus, when she played such a minor role in the panel, and why didn't you address any of the other statements or issues that were brought up?
Perhaps she could have come up with a group that has been discriminated against more recently than Italians. But one doesn't have to go back too far to see that Italians have been discriminated against in the past. Turn on any rerun of "All in the Family" and see how many times Archie Bunker refers that prejudice. How about any recent episode of "Jersey Shore"? In any case, she wasn't wrong, and certainly it wasn't worth calling out.
You conveniently ignore the rest of the sentence about people of Jewish decent. Or don't you think there are any anti-semites left in the world?
Her point was that the audience consisted of many people who had been discriminated against. I don't see you disproving her point.
But regardless, even if your attack was remotely justified, why didn't you address the other 29 minutes of this panel discussion?
Panels like this are important, and discussing things like ratios and women in technology is important. Discussing that coding isn't the only contribution women make to technology is important. Discussing that some investors have biases for and against women is important. All these things were discussed in the 29 minutes you neglected to discuss when you decided to focus on minutia and irrelevancy.
Whether you are Cyan started the conversation is irrelevant to the quote. You seemed to take genuine offense that her example didn't include African-Americans. I don't think that one has to be African-American to be discriminated against.
ReplyDeleteMr. Reeves I blogged about the panel four times: twice before it, and twice after it. I was at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York. Believed it was a massive success, and had high hopes for the event in SF. Attend, I was unable to do.
ReplyDeleteI learned that my friend Rachel Sklar was invited to be on the panel. I'd followed her issue with the makeup of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC as I had invited her to join me in covering it. Yes, there are "issues" but you have to be at the event to see the other side.
I expressed that view in my first two posts.
You do not know me; I first met Michael just after I started Sports Business Simulations. He was dismissive at the time. As my blog visibility grew, my life was dramatically altered and an obsession with building a blog network took equal place with sports business games.
That led to attending tech conferences as press. So, I've seen the tech World in the Bay Area from the view of an entrepreneur and of a press person. I've seen a lot.
As stated, many blacks don't have the conversations I have wanted to have around this issue. Tech conferences turned a blind eye to diversity issues. The "Blacks In Tech" at SXSW was a first. I believed the Women In Tech panel had equal potential to point a way toward a better future.
I was massively surprised and personally hurt to see Sara, who I have so much respect for, attack a person who's a friend to me and has invited me to contribute as a featured blogger on her site, Mediaite.
I saw all of my assumptions about where things were headed dashed. I was really upset that Michael set this panel up to fail.
But Cyan's comments were like "dog-whistle" racism to me: she presented herself as an individualist, but benefited from a collective that black and women are generally not part of.
She remind me of Mary Cunningham, who worked at as a successful exec at Bendix, and eventually dumped her husband for the CEO of the firm. That resulted in the book PowerPlay, which I was presented with when I was 20 years old by a friend of my mothers for a long, complex, racially-based set of reasons I disagreed with then and largely still do today.
Cyan hit a nerve.
I think,as one who's been the "only black male" in a lot of situations, that after a time, one gets tired of the games, rhetoric, and untruths. I know a lot from my experiences I've not revealed and given their nature, I never will.
I just wish she'd have explained the role of her husband in her business life and where that places her in the conversation. Moreover, pointing to discrimination of Italians has been questioned by more people than me.
Again, why not say blacks and discrimination? What's the fear? I point to that obvious issue as a symptom of a larger problem that results in the poor ratio of women and minorities in Tech.
Mr. Reeves, you did not answer my question: why not say blacks and discrimination? You're playing the same games I rail against.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't a reason to exclude blacks from a list of people who've been discriminated against. However, if someone didn't, I would not read anything into it.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of reading things that aren't there... I'm not playing any games. Any belief along those lines is incorrect. Sometimes, your WiFi at Peet's just runs out, and you have to wait until you get home to respond.
But I can read in that the coffee was good, at least!
ReplyDelete