Comment by rimantas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rimantas | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You are not alone. I blame PC, overprotective upbringing and "I am offended by that" trend. As soon as some subject becomes taboo to discuss people lose the understanding why something is bad and start to treat everything related as bad and unacceptable. Reminds me of this: http://i.snag.gy/kdu77.jpg (doesn't matter if experiment was real or not). This is very prominent with sexism and racism—these words are losing the meaning really fast. Now merely acknowledging someones race is called racism. Same goes for gender. And god forbid you find someone attractive. I really don't get what kind of society these people want. The one where everybody walks covered in burqas? You are not allowed to look at attractive person—you will offend them. I wonder how soon a simple glance will accepted as a kind of sexual assault. You are not allowed to approach the person you like—it will be "unwanted advances". It's "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If woman will say that it makes her feel good when she senses attention she will be explained, that's just because patriarchal society made her to feel this way. More often than not those explaining will be males, ironically. What a terrible society to live, luckily it will die out soon for the lack of reproduction.

As for this story: it has nothing to do with sexism. Nothing at all. Actually the real sexists are the ones who think all this happened because of the sexism. Guys (and girls): these issues are much much more complex and deserve to be treated with much more respect instead of rubber stamping like it is common now. Women and non-white people can be assholes too and I would like to retain the right call them as such without being accused of sexism or racism. Though this right might be long gone. Quite often it is a fun mental experiment to reverse the genders or races and think how vastly different reactions would be (if there would be any). Imagine that black person says: "I am proud to be black!". Now imagine that the white person says "I am proud to be white". Now throw away you knee-jercky reaction and think about it.

>Imagine that black person says: "I am proud to be black!". >Now imagine that the white person says "I am proud to be white". >Now throw away you knee-jercky reaction and think about it.

I thought about it, and here's what I found: The different reactions which those two assertions may elicit depend crucially on different shades of meaning of the word "proud" which come into play, depending on the colour of the person who says it. These different meanings come into play because of the history of oppression associated with these colours; we don't (usually) think in a vacuum. To make this clearer, consider the following, slightly modified thought experiment:

Imagine that a black person says: "I am not ashamed to be black!". Now imagine that a white person says "I am not ashamed to be white!". How strong is the knee-jercky reaction now? Think about it.

But that's exactly what the parent was saying - if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism. Some people might call it positive racism/discrimination, but it's still racism.

> if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism.

What textbook would that be? My dictionary defines racism as:

1. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

2. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

This does not suggest to me that it is racist to acknowledge that a shared history (of oppression, in this case) may have an influence on the language of a people.

(in reply to gphillip)

There's a whole bunch of literature on the topic beyond what's contained in a dictionary definition.

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive.

When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind of makes you sound like an asshole, because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. True, any given white person might not be some sort of evil society architect, but white people are clearly those who most benefit from this society. Blaming this on political correctness is a cowardly and conservative move that stems from a false sense of equality between people.

As progressive and bottom-up our community can be, we are not a meritocracy, and everyone is not equal.

Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly.

But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic.

Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) and still face disadvantages, despite being largely equal in most facets, this does not make their racial pride any less "asshole"-ish.

Pride is reserved for things once has accomplished, not ones that you're inherently born with. Just by that alone, racial pride is frivolous.

Even further, by setting up this double standard, you are actually contributing to the extension of racism. Why? You're giving people carte blanche to keep focusing more and more on racial characteristics as being essential to them as people.

"It's bad to be racist, but we still must be preoccupied with race and being inoffensive at all costs."

That is only slowing progress down. You go from a society that is maddeningly obsessed with race as a way to persecute people they don't understand to a society that is maddeningly obsessed with a race as a way to kiss ass, idolize and never question those majestic black people who can clearly do no wrong and deserve to have double standards because they have suffered injustices throughout their history.

Yet so have all races and cultures, honestly. Black people do not hold a monopoly on persecution.

You make it sound as though racism against black people is a largely resolved old issue rather than an active and present problem.

I invite you to take a walk around Oakland and SF and see if you think that is still true.

It's not resolved, but it has improved drastically. There's still barriers, primarily in socioeconomic status and tendencies to cluster in ghettos as a result, but it is still far better than one could have ever imagined.

If you want a crippling issue, go for homophobia. Homophobia is still very much rampant in the USA and it is still completely fine for politicians to be openly homophobic for reasons like "preserving family values".

Yet when was the last time you heard a US politician make openly racist and white supremacist statements? When has a white supremacist been elected? David Duke is the most recent example I can name of, and he was reviled.

Racism for US politicians is an instant career killer, no question. Race is a touchy issue and the moment a representative says something unfavorable concerning race, they get annihilated by press and public advocacy. Not the same for homophobia.

It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything.

> It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything.

So really you are claiming that racism is over as a problem. Nice.

No, I'm not. You're twisting my words to fit your agenda.

By dividing complex social issues into dichotomies of "oppressor versus oppressed" and allowing double standards as a perverse form of reparation for past injustices that current generations no longer have to suffer from, you are exacerbating the issue of race.

The ultimate goal should be to render race as a non-defining characteristic, one that should not cloud peoples' judgement or fuel their insensitivity. Instead, what's going on is that we're turning race into an emotional circus.

The fact is that being white by itself does not mean your ancestors were involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Mine were too busy being under Ottoman rule. Conversely, being black does not make you exempt. Many tribal warlords traded slaves with the Europeans voluntarily. There were some few thousand or so black slave owners in the USA before abolition.

People are not responsible for what their ancestors perpetrated in the past, and the world does not revolve around the West. Yet these ideologies of white guilt and reparation act like it's exactly that way.

What you're doing is turning race into a novelty.

> The ultimate goal should be to render race as a non-defining characteristic

That's a pretty OK goal, although it's unrealistic, because we can only get closer to that by successive approximation.

However your real mistake is trying to use your long term goal (ignoring race) as a short term strategy (ignoring racism). You're correct that racism is a less big deal in many contexts than it used to be. But for the time being, racism is quite a big thing in many other contexts. And ignoring it won't help get us to the place where we can safely ignore it.

Then what do you propose? Exacerbating it?

I would propose learning what you can about what it's like for people different than you so that you have more opportunities to lend help and compassion.

Racism isn't about the past.

Just out of curiosity (not interested in joining the debate)—do you mind if I ask whereabouts do you live? Bay area, east coast, somewhere else?

I'm white and queer and can assure you that racism and sexism are much more serious problems than homophobia in the US.

Right, because gay people have civil rights but black people and women don't...

Then again "queer" these days often means "straight but wants tumblr oppression points," so your perspective might be different from an actual gay person's.

People do say they are proud to be white all the time, just in a different way. I hear "I'm proud to be Irish!" all the time. The thing is "white culture" isn't really a thing, "white culture" is simply the dominant culture in our society that we tell other cultures they should adapt to.

No one is saying white people can't be proud of their heritage. They can be proud, and they do celebrate their heritage all the time. Acknowledging someone's race isn't extending racism, it's embracing them and their culture.

To be honest I used to think similarly, I never got why people had to be proud of their race, or why it was part of their identity. Eventually I realized it's because the dominant culture is white, I don't have to ask myself what it means to be white or what it means to be american. It is part of my identity, I just have the luxury of not having to think about it.

Anyway, I would highly recommend watching "The Color of Fear", it changed my mind on a lot of stuff I'd never thought about critically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEc

Of course there isn't a "white culture" because people are not homogenous in their customs by their skin color alone. Finnish culture is separate from Polish culture is separate from American culture and so on.

Black culture isn't a thing, either. What, you think all people have the same traditions and customs because they have a common skin color? What idiocy. What frivolity. What (inadvertent?) racism.

Being overly attentive to race is not an embracing of their culture. It is a fallacy, a misunderstanding of how the world works under the lens of this Western postmodernist narrative that people as an entire superficial group are responsible for misdeeds of their ancestors, whom they share no relation to whatsoever beyond their whiteness.

You're not embracing culture. You are erasing culture with your narrow, Western-centric guilt narrative where everything works in binaries. That being black dictates a common culture, and that Irish people have no culture, because they're white.

You sound like a racial nationalist.

Ummm, I kinda explicitly pointed to the Irish having a distinct culture that people celebrate.

And where did I say people are responsible for the misdeeds of their ancestors? You definitely aren't responsible, but you do benefit disproportionally from a long history of oppression. You shouldn't feel guilty, but you should be aware of it.

Nor was I saying we should be overly attentive to race, I'm simply saying that acknowledging someone's race isn't racist. And I hate to break it to you, but yes people do have a shared experience based on their skin color. Whether you're black and 8th generation American, or you're from Africa, there is a shared experience in the way you are perceived and treated in a society dominated by "white culture."

You sound like every defensive white dude ever who can't handle the fact that just maybe our society is built around us. You are the one who is erasing culture.

Seriously watch that video I linked (better yet, watch the whole movie).

Everyone benefits from the oppression of others in some way. Everyone who participates in consumer culture: white, black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. are benefiting from it. I'm not a special case.

To say there is a "shared experience" between all people of the same skin color is completely ignoring cultural and socioeconomic rifts that are present in the equation. There is common ground between subgroups, but ultimately, what you're speaking about reeks of an ethnic nationalism.

Is our society built around white people? Western society? Yes, most likely. It's hardly surprising when it has a predominantly white racial makeup.

Good to know I'm a defensive culturally erasing white dude for not buying into a narrow and binary white guilt narrative where some 80% of the world's population is under a homogenous yoke, that is inconsistent with how the world works at large. Some history lessons might do you well, I believe.

I saw the video. All I saw was an emotional man yelling out a black nationalist argument, largely as a reaction to how he may have been personally mistreated.

The modern world was invented in a cosmopolitan Europe. I think we should recognize that and preserve the best parts of that legacy, and yes, even be proud of it.

I don't buy into the whole white-guilt complex

> because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage.

Thinking of 'white' as a single group of people who are always middle class is a fantastically ignorant thing to do.

Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer?

People frequently confuse class and race. We should really be thinking about the former (though obviously the two are related to a degree).

Full disclosure: my grandfather was an uneducated Ukrainian immigrant (:

>Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer?

Nope, but he's going to get one as a white person who lives in America.

In Texas at least the opposite will happen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com