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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Just don't ask.

Curious about how race impacts someone's life? Spend time with them. It will become very obvious without you having to ask anything and you'll get the benefit of being able to empathize from seeing it first hand.

Or, if you want to really try hard - work against your biological instinct to segment people into buckets based on physical attributes. Get to know who they see themselves as rather than how you see them by finding out what is important to them.

Here is an easy start: Instead of asking "where are you from" a simple and innocuous question which reveals basically nothing about someone - ask "what kind of hobbies are you into?"

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If you don't ask, then you don't learn. If you don't learn, then you don't have the data and knowledge necessary to make decisions that affect this. And you're making those decisions every time you walk to the ballot box, at the very least.

There are more ways to learn than asking. Like I said elsewhere, spend time with the person, get to know them. Make a new friend and experience their life. Chances are, those experiences dwarf anything else that they might care about.

you don't have the data and knowledge necessary to make decisions that affect this

What decisions are you making that are based on questions like "why do black people sit together at lunch?"

Look, I get it. Everyone wants to dive deep within someone else experiences ostensibly to be able to relate better or whatever. There is no shortage of these stories to be read in books, online or elsewhere. Where in my opinion it crosses the line is when it's in the work environment.

The only exception I can see for this is if your work revolves around deeply understanding or catering to a specific racial/other demographic that is not your own. That's problematic enough as it is, but in those cases it wouldn't be personal in the same way that these conversations seem to go.

The whole thing is voyeuristic.

Especially so when it is simple to look up what has been written about these kinds of questions. There is literally a book (quite well known) titled "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria".

I think that, if someone had to actually write a book like that (and it sells, so people do want to know), that kinda reinforces my point... ~

To clarify, I'm not defending the question that were asked on that interview. That's not learning, that's trolling (or else an astounding depth of ignorance). My remark was in regard to the general concept that, yes, we should be actively seeking to learn about other people's experiences, and you really can't do that without asking questions (and no, spending time with them is not a substitute, since you can't spend it from their POV - although it is also a valuable learning tool).

That said, even misguided and offensive questions like that are not as meaningless as they seem, given the right context (which, again, obviously wasn't a case in that interview - but could be a case in, say, a study on the subject). For example:

>> What decisions are you making that are based on questions like "why do black people sit together at lunch?"

If the answer involved discrimination or exclusion by other students, which is the most likely explanation based on everything else, then those are issues that need to be addressed. And even if this is outside of your personal area of responsibility, at the very least, you have a moral responsibility to ensure that the people who you elect and/or fund who are responsible for it, pay appropriate attention.

But, other people aren't there as your personal learning opportunity. Instead a little time to develop a friendship or working relationship will bear its fruit for everyone.

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