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Comment by kentrado | Hacker News Reader

I don't usually write responses and I don't have much time to write you a detailed explanation of history.

But are you aware that there are living black people who still remember segregation and Jim Crow? It wasn't that long ago.

The idea that just because recently you decided to treat niggers like human beings, they should instantly have the same level as people who were never treated as subhuman in this US of A, is simply unadulterated pure stupidity.

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When you attempt to incite with such inflammatory language, do you consider how a black person might feel reading it? It isn't necessary to make your point.

Because he said the N-word? Come on.

Words have power and these words are strong. And they should be, because the response is directed at complete ignorance.

This kind of reaction feels quite closed-minded, working on racism-as-a-checklist.

A day without a needless racial slur is better than a day with. Maybe the comment was ignorant, but using a racial slur to try to undermine it is even more ignorant and needless. It is a misappropriation of power of the word, it wasn't necessary, and is an incredibly disproportionate response.

My initial reaction to your comment was along the lines of

> Do you consider how a black person might feel writing it? It seems somewhat necessary to bring up past persecutions.

I had likened this to swearing to highlight emotional intent. However I have no idea how that word affects some people. I'm just a white guy who is in no position to have an opinion on whether this is okay and was wrong to belittle it.

I know EXACTLY how a black person feels. I am not going to explain to you the nuance of using that word to remind parent of the ugly and oppressive history associated with it, because I'm pretty sure you are just being a concern troll.

Nuance? You are flat accusing him of being racist in the laziest way. Let me explain the nuance of dropping a nuclear bomb on a jaywalker: there is no nuance.

I think that his argument was that other minorities do much better, despite also being hugely disadvantaged.

Not to mention immigrants, who often go to USA with noting else than a bag of clotes and a desire to work hard and get a better life, and they do pretty well as a group.

other minority groups may do well in part precisely because they are not black - they are not subject to the same prejudices and stereotypes. Minorities are not fungible entities, especially not in the US, where the primary social distinction is better characterized as "black v. nonblack", rather than he more common "black v white", which obscures a lot of very subtle social stratification. Additionally, recent immigrants do not suffer from a lot of the entrenched negative network effects hindering the black community. Being free of your underperforming network of kin in a society that labels you as 'other' rather than 'danger' is actually advantageous.

The interesting point is that immigrated blacks - Africans and Caribbeans - do about as well as other immigrant groups.

This is very damaging to the skin color discrimination theory of poverty, especially since these groups are considerably darker on average than native born US blacks.

Read 'Black Family in Slavery and Freedom' by Gutman.

There are many metrics by which the black family is doing worse now than it was during slavery. E.g. Teenage pregnancy and female headed households have gone up, with a large spike from the 1960s. Black teenage unemployment was also lower than white teenage unemployment for several years in the 40s.

It can be debated what impact slavery has had, but slavery cannot be blamed for the reversal of these key trends.

That does nothing at all to undermine the point. Why would you expect them to do better after centuries of being taught to obey and strict separation and major disadvantages that still last? Recently I watched a lecture exploring the long-term public health consequences of apartheid ion South Africa. The blacks had been deliberately - and I mean as conscious government policy laid down in papers - taught to live a dependent life, obey the authorities, not think for their own. So of course you get horrible results now that they are "free". You think that proves something about them? When people say "it's cultural" as if that means "it's genetic" - that "culture" also is the result of the policies and treatment they received over the centuries.

Why would you expect them to do better after centuries of being taught to obey

The insinuation that a reason blacks don't do better because they are trained or bred to be obedient is pretty gross, and not that different from the racist "docile negro" rhetoric of a century ago. Why not start with expectations that anyone can better themselves, regardless of race? If you want someone to move up, do you think they have a better chance of doing it if society tells them the can, or they can't?

> is pretty gross

I'm sorry you think ignoring studies because you don't like the results is the way to go, you stupid moron.

You've made about ~8 points which would take longer to address than I currently have to spare. I suggest you read 'Black Family in Slavery and Freedom' as well as Booker T. Washington and Thomas Sowell's work. Their scholarship is infinitely greater than any summary I could provide.

> You've made about ~8 points which would take longer to address than I currently have to spare

You DID have time to spare to say nothing, only that you could say something. Which of course shows that you piece of shit have nothing whatsoever.

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