Almost everyone has about a million things holding them back. The problem is that for any specific individual, focussing on the things holding them back is usually counter productive.
For society as a whole, spotting some of those things and trying to remove them can be very beneficial.
Telling yourself that you're a victim of other peoples bigotry even if true tends to lead to paranoid, non-growth mindset attitudes when to actually succeed you'd be better served by an open, growth attitude.
The problem is that for any specific individual, focussing on the things holding them back is usually counter productive.
So what is the alternative? To sit back and hope the problem solves itself?
Yes, obviously using minority status as a mental excuse for under-performing is a bad strategy.
But I'd claim it's no better to simply ignore the issue.
In reality, for a person in a minority group, success is a function of personal achievement and minority status. That's just life. To deny that is, to me, simply unrealistic. To use a somewhat incendiary example, this idea is encapsulated in the concept of "white privilege".
I realise that by starting by saying that everyone is held back by something I probably sound dismissive to the people who have to contend with dramatically more than others who are held back by less. I apologise for that. Almost everyone can find factors outside themselves that make their lives harder but some are much more serious and pervasive than others.
As to the alternative? I think that attempting to achieve in your area and simultaneously trying to fix society are big asks. I've noticed some minority high achievers seem to have deluded themselves into not believing that they have been much discriminated against when they clearly have. I think that that is a strategy that can help some people (although they will sometimes then say unhelpful things in the context of a wider discussion). This self delusion is, I believe, part of their maintaining the non paranoid outlook and the growth mindset that has helped them achieve what they have.
> success is a function of personal achievement and minority status. That's just life. To deny that is, to me, simply unrealistic.
I'm explicitly not denying this, I'm acknowledging it and I want society as a whole and companies and other groups of people to spot this and try to fix it. What I am saying, based on personal observation is that being on the look out for these kinds of discrimination is a strategy that may not be in the interests of specific individuals in terms of maximising their personal achievement.
For society as a whole, spotting some of those things and trying to remove them can be very beneficial.
Telling yourself that you're a victim of other peoples bigotry even if true tends to lead to paranoid, non-growth mindset attitudes when to actually succeed you'd be better served by an open, growth attitude.