Comment by fnovd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fnovd | Hacker News Reader

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>You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet.

Talk about coded language.

zeitgeist: Focusing on diversity is just a temporary fad, I'm thinking ahead by sitting this one out

domesticated: Changing my opinion is akin to renouncing my freedom and autonomy

"ally": People like me don't really agree with those crazy diversity people, we just need reasonable cover

mindless pet: Those who don't agree with me have freed themselves from the perils of rational, enlightened thought. Like dogs! Or pigs, being fattened for the slaughter

I do agree with your premise (talking about diversity as a cis-straight-white-male can be a minefield), but there has to be some recognition that one's race (among other factors, even!) can color your experience on the job or in an interview. You may argue that social class or cultural upbringing have more of an impact, but those variables have an undeniable connection to race/ethnicity as well.

"Ally" isn't my word. We actually get called that. It's a pat on the head that doesn't buy you anything. You get asked to not have an opinion about certain things, to not enter certain spaces ala "White media to the back, black media to the front"

Quite frankly, I don't believe you. I work in a very liberal area, in a very progressive company, have had encountered nothing like what you describe, whether at my present employer or any previous one.

The opposite: "Quite frankly, I don't believe you. I work in a very conservative area, in a very alt-right company, have had encountered nothing racist or sexist, whether at my present employer or any previous one."

I'm glad you haven't dealt with it personally, but there are definitely people in tech who view white and asian men as being guilty until proven innocent.

weird. I'm an academic in the Humanities and a straight white male. I don't think I've ever been called an ally and I have never been asked not to have an opinion on things or to enter certain spaces.

I was involved in an LGBT club for a bit, doing activism and such. Every person involved who wasn't LGBT was called an ally.

Some people saw allies in a positive light while other saw them as being merely neutral -- "it's the least they can do after oppressing us for so long!"

The "allies are merely neutral" attitude was painful to deal with since it 1.) implied that straight people are bad by default and must prove otherwise and 2.) that straight people can never do enough to gain equal moral footing with LGBT people.

I can see how allies who dealt with that sort of attitude might have felt used.

If you've ever been to a Pride parade and didn't protest against it you've been called/considered an ally, whether you really sought it out or not. At least that's my experience.

Waiting for your turn to speak isn't the same as being silenced. Being asked to listen to the opinions of others isn't the same as being asked not to have an opinion. 'Entitlement' is the relevant buzzword here.

Just googling "a good ally" I get things on the front page like http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/11/things-allies-need-to-kn...

Even a quick skim shows several references to shutting up as well as how it's not an ally's place to discuss racism. I frequently see similar idea whenever a discussion of what being an ally is, comes up. I'd say that being an ally is being asked/told to be silent

Wow. They're getting more blunt about it than they used to be. There's basically no consideration for the ally party in that piece. They're just tools. They can get punished for bad behavior & rewarded for good behavior but don't decide on their own. The comparison to pets is fair with Pavlov-like conditioning for participating parties.

Note: I was just saying on another forum that the liberals would often reject that whites in minority-dominated areas deserved any help for structural racism they face but then demand with straight face that same whites needed to fight racism minorities face every day. The feedback indicated people didn't buy that or care to respond. See last paragraphs of No 4 on this list.

"Waiting for your turn to speak isn't the same as being silenced. "

In mostly black schools, whites aren't given a turn to speak on this. They shout over us in unison with some beating the shit out of the white people that disagreed with them. That was common for years in all of the ones my brothers and I went to. On public media, they just tell us we don't understand, can't understand, are the oppressors, etc and we need to stfu on permanent basis. Also, we need to promote their message, support their pro-minority programs, and step aside in their ensuing rise.

This isn't about turns. It's about them dominating people they disagree with much like others dominated them. Group vs group politics. They neither care what we have to say nor want us to be able to get our message across. Personally, I listen to and try to help them but not vice versa. They're clear we don't count.

Note: There's certainly exceptions to the above rule as always. I'm not talking about them.

You assume too much. There is frequently no asking. There has been (in my personal experience) a lot of demanding, and (yes) entitlement to expect that an opinion from one is more salient than a fact from another, owing only to the heritage or physical characteristics of those that voiced it.

Stop allysplaining

My other comment is kinda referring to a former online friend who would proudly mark himself as a social justice warrior or particularly, an "ally".

He described that he constantly feels "guilty" about his privilege, like being born a white male meant he had to atone for the misdeeds of other white men in history. I found this concept... somewhat abhorrent, because it's not like he chose to be a white man. People shouldn't feel guilty for their gender, the color of their skin, or any other factor of their life entirely outside their control.

It seems like most men who end up in the social justice circles have a similar attitude, or at least, won't question the opinion of a woman or person of color. If you internalize the idea that being a white male makes your opinion invalid because of your privilege, you just assume you must always be wrong if you disagree.

The other type I've seen, of course, is men who claim to be feminists or social justice allies or what have you to exploit women, and there are a few high profile examples of that in recent history.

> You may argue that social class or cultural upbringing have more of an impact, but those variables have an undeniable connection to race/ethnicity as well.

The position that is gaining in popularity on the left is no, you can't argue that social class or culture have any impact on a whole number of classic civilizational ills the world has been dealing with for thousands of years.

They argue that social disparity and many other things can be explained by race exclusively. Race is an intractable division and so as a member of an oppressive race you simply can not have a seat at the table of the 'oppressed'.

It gives the groups that espouse it an immense sense of unquestionable power. Its a regressive and fairly totalitarian ideology.

It may be gaining popularity with liberals, but such a position is at odds with key tenets of "the left", i.e. socialists and marxists.

Yes I know. A lot of the left is as horrified as everyone else about some of these illiberal movements. But there are naive people in powerful positions who think this is just a big virtue signaling game on twitter giving them a platform.

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