Hacker News Reader

Comment by emerged | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com