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Comment by beaconstudios | Hacker News Reader

Which groups are deserving of criticism that they're currently protected from?

For example, almost everything I’ve ever heard about white privilege is also true for Jewish people but it would be a career ending mistake to talk about the over representation of Jewish people in positions of power.

It's remarkable that this needs saying: nobody gets fired for mentioning that Jews are over-represented in whatever industry you choose. It's a plainly verifiable fact. What they get fired for is claiming that said over-representation is the result of a conspiracy in which Jews, by virtue of a mostly amorphous cultural identity, are the conspirators and main villains.

Confusing these two fundamentally different statements is one of the oldest moves in the reactionary playbook.

Jewish people are white though - and "white privilege" as a concept is primarily about how white people don't have to overcome racism or adapt their behaviour to the dominant culture to get ahead. It does connect with issues of diversity but it's not a direct explanation.

> Jewish people are white though

No, this isn't true. Jewish is an ethnicity that crosses multiple "race" backgrounds.

I agree, but if we're talking about the Jewish people who OP was talking about (in relation to overrepresentation), that's white Jewish people.

“Jewish people are white though”

Say what now?

I'm not 100% sure what GP meant, but it's true that there are Jews who are white (I'm one.)

I meant that most people would say that most Jewish Americans are white. Given the US racial categories, it's the one that most Jewish people in the US fit into.

Of course, racial categories are made up anyway, but some people seem to care about these things.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. There are lots of non-white Jews out there, but average American interaction with Judaism has probably been through Ashkenazi Jews.

Ironically, the Sephardic and North African Jews that I know are more likely to self-identify as nonwhite, but are probably still counted as white by the US Census. Goes to your point about made-up categories!

“A are B” is not usually taken to mean “some As can be Bs”.

I was assuming the context that we're talking about the US. Did you immediately think of Ethiopian Jews when I said Jewish people?

“In positions of power” is the important thing here. I’m not talking about diversity, I mean statements like “a small number of extremely wealthy white men have a disproportionate influence in the media, government, financial system, some specific company, etc” is a common left wing opinion for why systems work against the interests of racialized people. It’s even more accurate if you add “Jewish” after the word white, but that’s not something we’re allowed to talk about.

It's also more true if you put "Irish" in there, but people wouldn't object so much to that (probably just be confused).

In politics, people are typically arguing for their positions, and thus you can't take simple statements of fact apart from what the speaker is trying to achieve. Basically: why is the speaker talking about Jewish people on power so much? Why do alt-right people love to talk about black crime statistics? Both of these things can be true, but they're not just making random statements, they're trying to imply their arguments. It's dogwhistling, basically.

Every single categorization of people other than white heterosexual men who are in the country legally?

What criticisms of these groups do you have in mind? That's like 80% of the world population.

Also think its a common misunderstanding to think of critical theory issues as relating directly to oneself. I'm a straight white guy and I understand concepts like privilege, and it's nothing to feel personal responsibility or guilt for.

I don’t feel guilt for things I didn’t do. I also don’t have much in the way of criticism for /any/ category of people. But the group I mentioned above is the only group which is allowed to be criticized. Also the only group which is categorically allowed to be punished in the name of supporting every other category of people.

That’s wrong (evil), full stop. No amount of gaslighting will ever change that fact.

How are white people being categorically criticised and punished? I only see this argument made but not substantiated.

I don’t believe this comment. I literally don’t believe you can be unaware of the myriad ways white heterosexual males who are in the country legally are portrayed in culture and treated in hiring practices. That’s not good faith debate.

OK so we're talking about affirmative action then?

I'm talking about interpretation. I think that conservative pundits try to get people to interpret diversity initiatives as an attack against white people. I think people can also come to those conclusions by themselves too of course. But that's why I wanted an example: there's like a dozen programs you might be taking offense to but given that I don't take offence to them myself, I'd need an example.

No, I didn’t reduce the scope to affirmative action. That’s one particular case where people are explicitly racist, know that they are being racist, but do it anyway and justify it with entirely Machiavellian ideological language.

I object to the idea that it's Machiavellian, but I do disagree with affirmative action. I think it's well-meaning but a really ineffective and misled concept. I think demographic outreach is a better approach. Affirmative action tries to solve a systemic problem at the hiring pool, which is stupid.

You still haven't given any other examples though. Like, I get your concerns and I'm trying to have a genuine conversation but I can't discuss pure vagueries. I think liberals misunderstand and misapply critical theory as much as conservatives misunderstand and decry it, so I can certainly agree that some in-world implementations of it are bad.

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