As a white male -- presumably the victim of the fund mentioned in the OP -- could you explain to me what is bad about the way this fund is set up? I don't mean ideologically, but empirically what you think are negative consequences of it.
In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space.
Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.
Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
>> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically
That said, I disagree with your base claim that
> It normalizes racism and sexism
Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality.
Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
Racism is inherently wrong. By being racist you are empirically making the world a worse place.
By being racist you are increasing the divide.
How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v...
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
So if we look at imbalances in outcomes, there is a lot of it for gender and race. Prison rates, life expectancy, health, work profession, suicide rates, homelessness, wealth, children, social support network and more. There is no inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, so what can we do to fix this artificial imbalance overall in society?
Throwing money at it don't work. If one correlate how much money a state is spending on the problem and the result, you get a paradox. The more spending the more imbalanced society tend to get. Recently it also seem to increase polarization which had its own long list of issues. Ignoring the problem is also unlikely to do anything, so it lead me to only a single conclusion and that is look for a solution that has shown positive result. Happily there exist such thing but it has sadly also been mostly abandoned by the political platforms that seeks equality.
That is to say; to eliminate categorization based on gender and race and find commonalities rather than focus on differences. A popular tactic around the 70s, but now mostly abandoned. Its not the same as ignoring since you have to active focus on what is common, and its not the same as current methods with throwing money at specific issues since those focus on what is different based on category of groups. By working to eliminate categorization in people minds you tip the scale without doing anything racist, while still being active in addressing the issue.
"It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
If these characteristics are not important to your argument why raise them.
Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).