Comment by Moodles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Moodles | Hacker News Reader

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Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible.

So many stories.

My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that are basically shit tests: “are you one of us?” Pretty sure I failed that test. Oh well.

One time quite recently I shared a Joe Rogan podcast on slack (Moxie from Signal was on there). I then went to sleep. Man, when I woke up the thread was popping with “I refuse to click on this link”, “Joe Rogan is a transphobe”. Someone posting stories about Joe Rogan being friends with Alex Jones and how problematic that is. Nothing to do with the actual podcast episode with Moxie. If anything, it was hilariously ironic because they were talking about how Signal provides privacy for people and how, if you don’t have privacy, people will scrutinise everything you’ve ever said and find ways to #cancel you. Just bizarre. I couldn’t even be bothered to respond.

Honestly most stories at work are just the accumulation of tiny comments here and there. Just the odd joke about conservatives or the implicit assumption you agree with them. One time some girl at work told me “I can tell you’re not as liberal as us”. I asked her why, because I definitely wasn’t but I also definitely didn’t bother arguing at work. She said she could just tell by my vibe. I mean it’s true. Fair play to her I guess.

Your skip level manager experience reminds me of an interaction with a diversity officer at my previous employer.

The company had hired a diversity officer and she began an initiative that requierd all company employees take an optional cultural course that was essentially something about power dynamics between culture/race. Since it wasn't really relevant to my role, I decided not to take the course as it was optional... until I found out it wasn't. I started receiving emails and phone calls from the diversity officer that I should take the course. I thought it was a bit weird and just ignored her. She then contacted my boss and told her to tell me to take the course. Starting to get pissed off, I asked my boss if the course was option, she said yes, then I said I'm not taking it.

I'm mixed race with mainly French and Indian ancestry and while I can pass for full white (albeit a white person that spends time in the sun), my skin is tanned just enough that I can pass for other ethnic groups as well. However, my name is undoubtedly French.

I then received an email from the diversity officer saying that I was an example of a problematic white person and that I was probably ignoring her because she was female and Indian. Then I was contacted by HR for discriminatory conduct and told to report to their office. When I showed up at the office, I could visibly see they were confused as they were clearly expecting someone that didn't look like me. Luckily for me, some of my family is Hindu and I happened to be wearing a religious bracelet I received as a present and I was basically able to fend off their accusations of racism and whatnot. Left the company shortly afterwards.

Is this the type of harassment based on (perceived race) that you could sue over?

If that were me, my next few words back to the diversity officer would probably get me fired depending on how rational the people in charge of my employment were. If they were just as irrational as her, I would definitely be getting the boot though.

This also sounds like Scientology or at the very least a high pressure religion.

"Joe is an evil person who will introduce you to evil things! We do not speak of him here."

"Are you a true believer or not?"

"We can tell you're not a devoted Scientologist."

"Fall in line, or we'll bully and ostracize you."

The term is "Suppressive Person" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person

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