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Comment by gtk40 | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that it describes Silicon Valley as being too white, when it seems like there are quite a few Asians. Even working elsewhere, a high percentage of our programmers are Asian, higher than the metro's demographics would suggest.

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Yea. I don't like the way they use it. Asians and Indians get considered white if they don't fit in the specific narrative, an author wants to tell.

I also don't like the idea, that liking pokemon or star wars makes you "white". There is something wrong with this,I can't seem to put into words.

Wasn't the hero of the last Star Wars movies black?

The hero is a white woman - Finn is a bumbling sidekick.

I'd say that Finn is the heart of the movie. He ends up doing the right things because he cares, not because of a destiny (Rei) or sense of obligation (Han).

What about finn's character is bumbling?

Rather than list attributes consistent with "bumbling" it would be better if you compared Finn to other prominent black characters in Star Wars:

Mace Windu? Master of the Jedi high council.

Lando Calrissian? Permed out badass who is in charge of Cloud City

Vader? The original voice actor was black but does anything else need to be said?

Can Finn really compare to any of these? Is he a hero I can personally identify with? No way.

I can identify with a stormtrooper who breaks loose from his oppression and join the other side. The girl has a royal destiny, but Finn is actually working his way up in the world and he's bumbling because he is stretching his limits.

(I get tired of so many stores where the lead characters have some "special" family origin that is so clear to their situations and this erases any discussion of what is it you have to do to become "special" as a member of the mass.)

I so much identify with that guy, see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDM6v1XhWEg

That's a very interesting perspective. Personally I thought Finn was the most "normal" character in that film (meaning the one most like us). He's just a child soldier that not only found a way out of it but he worked his way to the rebellion, with no "destiny" or the Force.

IMO he doesn't have to be rich like Lando or powerful like Windu. He just has to be cool and portrayed positively, and I think he is. If he was like Jar Jar then yes, I'd complain.

Either way, we went from tech diversity to Star Wars, so maybe we should stop here :-)

> Is he a hero I can personally identify with?

> Mace Windu

> Vader

Mace Windu was a completely bogus effort to put Samuel L Jackson in front of Black ticket-buyers. It wasn't even a good role for the incredible (but range-limited) performer Jackson is.

Who also works in "sanitation"

I am still incensed by this. The marketing of the movie totally misrepresented what Finn's role would be. I thought he would be the lead jedi. I doubt I will watch any of the forthcoming Star Wars movies.

That was, like, the point, though. I thought it was great when Finn turned out to be mostly useless at Jedi-ing and Rey was actually the main character, because I didn't see it coming after all of the trailers and ads. A bigger twist than, you know, the other one.

I was going to disagree but you are right. I only watched some trailers and I thought Finn would be the main character. He even wields a lightsaber in the official poster, despite the fact that he received no training nor he had the Force and only used it because he had nothing else to use and his life depended on it. I doubt he'll use it in the rest of the series—seems like he'll join Poe Dameron.

"worked", past tense, on Starkiller Base, before he became a storm trooper.

No He's the young inexperienced hero starting out just like Luke was.

I agree. Finn is like the new Jar Jar

Finn is nothing like Jar Jar.

Finn made me smile and root for him every time I saw him on screen. He was awkward at times (hey, not much social interaction since he was a ST from early childhood), but his heart was always in the right place. I smile when I think of his character, and look forward to seeing him in the next part of the story, EVEN if he's not a Jedi.

Jar-Jar makes me cringe when I hear him or look at him move. (That's saying a lot considering how bad the writing was for Anakin, IMO.) Jar Jar's purpose seemed to be the Comic Relief, whereas Finn has a much bigger and better-integrated role.

I disagree.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-character-Finn-Star-Wars-Th...

Also, like, have you noticed the president of the United States?

Americas views on race are very weird. Race is a social construct. It was essentially a binary view on race. There were blacks and then everyone else. Thats why you could marry Mexicans or Indians but not blacks in many states, historically, if you were white.

This changed when Americas immigration opened up to people from Asia and get central.

But as those groups assimililate we are going to revert to the old style view of race. Black and then everyone else.

So when people say white culture they really just mean mainstream American culture.

I think it also depends if the Asians or Indians have an accent or not. If they were born here, they fit in better and are classified as "white".

"it struck her as a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.” When companies began to visit Howard, they’d boast about having on-site playground equipment and volleyball courts—not the kind of thing Jones or her friends got excited about. “Slides are not really appealing,” she says. “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming."

I found the above passage strange. Within the same paragraph they talk with one student who says it is all white and asian and then in the next sentence the same student says there aren't many "people of color" in the valley. What are asians if not people of color.

It often seems like the people writing this articles don't realize that preferring your own race is racism, no matter what race that is. If she feels that she doesn't fit in because there aren't enough people like her (black), that's just as racist as white people not wanting to hang out with blacks because they're not white.

Haven't you heard that racism = power + prejudice, so black people by definition can't be racist because they don't have power?

(This is not an opinion that I agree with, but a lot of people actually think that way).

Thank god Obama isn't really black.

Sarcasm aside, a lot of people believe whatever serves them better. When they realised that "racism = discrimination" wan't enough to let them achieve their goals, they changed the definition to "racism = discrimination + power". Or, us geeks only became "patriarchal opressors of minorities" when non-geeks realized that the smart kids that got bullied at school were becoming really rich.

I'm not sure they deep down believe it. It's a rhetorical technique of frame shifting that has been quite successful, and allows some people to avoid facing their own racism. Since it works, why not continue using it?

I have found a near perfect antidote: I point out that the USA is the world's most powerful nation (I'm from a small weak nation that has historically been trashed a lot). So, I continue: are you saying that only Americans can be racist, for they are so powerful?

Nobody that I threw that at has been able to recover, they stutter, stumble, flail their arms, start to sweat and change the subject.

> I have found a near perfect antidote: I point out that the USA is the world's most powerful nation (I'm from a small weak nation that has historically trashed a lot). So, I continue: are you saying that only Americans can be racist, for they are so powerful?

That's a really good point.

There's this idea in the world of "white guilt" - that white people have been exceptionally cruel, by enslaving, killing, colonizing other races/nations.

The reality is that most people/races were viciously cruel; people fought wars, killed/raped their opponents, enslaved their prisoners, ... for generations. The difference is simply that whites (Europeans) have been so much more efficient at it (as with so many other things), because they were the first to develop advanced technology.

>"I'm not sure they deep down believe it. It's a rhetorical technique of frame shifting that has been quite successful, and allows some people to avoid facing their own racism. Since it works, why not continue using it?"

Well, it's a "rhetorical technique" then that appears to have gripped mainstream discussion on the matter. It's why blatant double-standards are accepted when it comes to the topics of race, sexism and equality. Either that, or it's the whole "outrage culture" that's causing me to see way more of the blatant outrage rather than the reasoned discussion.

It has to do with the concept of "structural" racism, as opposed to plain bigotry, which can be done by anyone. Structural racist aspects are related to society/institutions, which is shaped by the majority.

While I understand the critique, I disagree with the academic terminology, and think insisting on it leads to misinformed intepretations of others' arguments, like saying "black people by definition can't be racist".

If that's what they meant though, then affirmative action (universities are clearly an institution) would be racist. So would minority business initiatives organized by the government.

I don't think they consider those things racist though, so that can't be their definition.

The topic of race in america is a complex one. But our understanding of it evolves over time, just like in every other field of study. As a technical matter, the definition of racism is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior". That last part is important. Things can be racially motivated and negative without being racist. So for example, Indian person denied an apartment by a white landlord because "they make smelly food". Racist. Indian person refuses to rent to whites because he prefers someone who speaks his language. Racist? Depends. On the one hand, as a landlord he has the power to effect discrimination in a way that can cause a problem to applicants. But on the other hand, the language thing is about trying to solve a specific problem that he has, not because he thinks those people are inferior somehow. Similar situations, but the second is less racist than the first. Especially when you take into account the effect, which is that the Indian family being denied might have to work very hard to overcome this stereotype whereas the white family might well just move on to the next listing and be accepted quickly.

What you describe isn't racism at all - assuming, of course, that hte landlord would rent to whites if they spoke his language.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Twitter would explode if a black candidate was denied for "speaking black" (personally, I find it hard to understand non-mainstream dialects of English). Although tecnically, that still wouldn't be racism, but rather just generic discrimination.

And strange smells coming out of the apartment are not specific problems. You are not entitled to having your culture or culinary tradition accepted or valued. Change the spices and it won't smell.

In my example the Indian family was denied the apartment when they showed up to apply. Your advice would not apply in this situation.

Isn't this a clear cut example of linguistic prescriptivism? The vast majority of people do not use the word to mean that.

> like Star Wars and stuff like Pokemon

What an amazingly stupid generalization. Some of my favorite Pokemon and video game youtubers are black. Tons of black Star Wars fans exists too. It's pretty offensive to associate an entire group of people with certain preferences.

And by the same token, not all white guys are into Star Wars and Pokemon and roller blading. The Bloomberg blogger is guilty of a lot of stereotyping.

Incorrect stereotyping based on race, isn't there a name for that...

I'm not black but I don't understand why a black person wouldn't enjoy going down the slide or playing volleyball. And in terms of being into Star Wars and Pokemon -- I am actually very into rap music, and not into Star Wars or Pokemon at all -- but asking a black colleague if she likes rap music is a one way ticket to unemployment.

For the purpose of this article, they count as white.

According to a quoted student (around 1/3 of the text), Silicon Valley is "a startlingly homogeneous culture, made up of white and Asian people who “like Star Wars and stuff like Pokémon.”"

Oh yes, that homogeneous Asian culture, comprising 4 billion people who all speak the same language and eat the same food and watch the same TV shows. They're all the same!

To be fair, that homogenous white European culture, with about 50 countries, 23 official languages in EU, 225 indigenous languages in whole of Europe, and every valley with its own, sometimes quite distinct, dialect and traditions. Here are some European dialect maps:

http://i.imgur.com/9btMHIT.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Continen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovene_dialects

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Polska-d...

etc/und so weiter/and so on/et ainsi de suite/...

I get your point but I do think that "European culture" (that sounds strange to my American ears as I typically think of the individual nations, not Europe as a whole) is more homogeneous than Asian culture. Not that it is homogeneous, just closer on the spectrum.

Isn't it strange though that we agglomerate all of Asia into one, when it has two constituent parts that are larger than all of Europe combined, and with another billion or two spread out among a bunch of other smaller countries (the 8th most populous of which being larger than the most populous country in Europe)?

Hell, if Germany was a province of China, it'd barely crack the top five in population. Spain wouldn't even crack the top 10. West Bengal in India would be the largest country in Europe, and it's only the fourth largest state. UP is twice its size.

> Hell, if Germany was a province of China, it'd barely crack the top five in population

Wow. This completely blew my mind. It's incredibly ignorant how we (Americans) lump the provinces, languages, cultures, and 55 ethnicities[0] of China into Chinese people, and then lump Chinese people into Asians.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China

Homogeneous if you divide society into "black people" vs. "everybody else" (or possibly "black people" vs. "white oppressors and their friends/wannabes/bootlickers/slaves of assorted ethnicity, including black traitors"). Actual Asian culture and other real diversities are completely out of the picture.

> quite a few Asians

Yes, especially programmers from India - typically not quite as dark-skinned as African-Americans, but pretty close, and many of them have a thick accent, too.

White is a class, not a race.

For example Irish people weren't considered white until they gained significant economic power. [1]

Interestingly enough it was somewhat at the expense of Black Americans at the time.

Today, Blacks have significant economic and political power, yet only a handful have achieved "white" status and they are almost all politicians (Pres. Obama) and military leaders (Colin Powell).

[1]https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/white13.htm

The 2015 demographic supports your claim. %36 White (non-hispanic), %31 Asian (non-hispanic)

[https://www.jointventure.org/images/stories/pdf/index2015.pd...]

I found that pretty disturbing - right near the start was the claim that Silicon Valley was "too white".

I thought the article was supposed to be about efforts made to empower blacks, but when the writer drops a phrase like that, it's hard to avoid concluding that the efforts are aimed at removing whites.

He could simply have said "not black enough" or "missing black workers" or something similar. Why attack white people?

Yes, and when you break down the "white" demographic, you'll find yourself surprised at the rather high representation of Ashkenazis.

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