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> Don't act creepy to little kids.

I am amazed at how a man smiling at a child is presumed to be creepy. I mean, we are biologically programmed to like kids (at least the sight of them, sound may be a different matter :), a phrase "cute kid" is as cliche as it can get. And still, if a man smiles to a child, he must be a creep. Strike that, he is a creep, it's definite and sealed. And, of course, it's his fault - after all, he should know that as a man he can't do such perverted things as smile at the sight of a cute kid.

Is that unique US thing? I've never seen so much paranoia about kids and males as in the US in other countries. It feels really weird to me.

> At the risk of telling you how to feel, how about feeling sad that people are actually victims of racism.

One can do both. Both feel sad at people who are victim of real racism, and people who are victims of everything being reduced to racism.

> I've never seen so much paranoia about kids and males as in the US in other countries.

The US is, I believe (its been a while since I've seen stats on the perception and reality, this was definitely true last I did see them) in a multi-decade long media-driven misperception of a rising tide of crimes involving stranger (especially male stranger) abduction and violence against children, while the actual incidence of such crimes has been declining for decades. So, yeah, its probably a uniquely (or at least, especially) American thing.

Thank you, I've edited my point to hopefully make my thoughts a little more clear.

> A persons skin color is part of their identity

Unless they're white, at which point they get shunned if they even try to embrace that part of their identity.

If a black man says he's proud to be black, that's perfectly fine. If a white man says he's proud to be white, people think "what's wrong with being any other skin color?"

I think you've missed the point about racial identity.

White people do get to embrace their identity, but how it's how they do it that matters.

"White pride", for better or worse, is closely linked to "white supremacy."

That is different than, https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/ which embraces and celebrates "white" culture, without demonizing other cultures.

> https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/ which embraces and celebrates "white" culture

Seriously? Have you read it at all?

You clearly missed my point.

How would you celebrate white culture?

I wouldn't assume there is such a thing as a single, monolithic "white culture", to start with. (Or black culture, or Latin culture, or...)

Stuff White People Like describes what is specifically the culture of coastal urban white hipsters, which is a relatively small subset of white people in the US. It's really inaccurate to think of those traits as "white culture" period. And I'd call what SWPL does with its subject matter less "celebration" than "savage excoriation". Maybe the people it describes don't take it so; I don't know. I've never yet knowingly run into anyone who took it any other way.

I've yet to see an example of anyone seriously celebrating being white in some way that wasn't automatically being treated as racist.

Things like what you link seem to get a pass because it's somewhat satirical in nature.

How would you celebrate white culture?

The United States is the only place that I have lived that has celebrated 'black culture'. It's in fact, the only place where the culture is even defined like that.

Because the native ethnic cultures, and tribal ties were destroyed by years of slavery, the United States is one of the few places which has a culture for 'blacks' that's uniquely different from anything of a specific tribe.

Being from a W. African country, I'm keenly aware that we do not celebrate 'Africanism', or even nationalism in any respect despite the government's best efforts to get us to do so. Everyone is broadly aware of their family, their tribe, and their choice religion/philosophy.

With respect to white culture, I think it must be hard to celebrate it in isolation. Almost anything that you would want to celebrate, could be given to a specific nation (thus be patriotic, not race pride), or given to a specific European ethnicity (e.g. most foods, older music, and the like).

> The United States is the only place that I have lived that has celebrated 'black culture'. It's in fact, the only place where the culture is even defined like that.

Oh yes, that's a good point. In Europe, Germans celebrate German culture, Frenchmen celebrate French culture, etc. Culture is not considered to be the same thing as skin color.

> With respect to white culture, I think it must be hard to celebrate it in isolation. Almost anything that you would want to celebrate, could be given to a specific nation (thus be patriotic, not race pride)

Or in other words, already celebrated everyday here in America.

celebrated != experienced

Type "celebration of black" into Google, look at the auto-complete results. Imagine those things, but with black flipped to white.

That sort of celebration happens defacto. I guess you prefer it to be called out explicitly?

Or when you were in grade school, did you only learn about ["black","asian","latino"] authors, musicians, scholars, scientists, inventors, actors, etc etc?

It depends what country you went to school in. So, yes, there are quite a few places where you will get only "["black","asian","latino"] authors, musicians, scholars, scientists, inventors, actors" till you get to university and get exposed to more. I mean, you don't think in Columbia, or Ukraine or the Philippines you'll read much American authors, musicians, scholars, scientists, inventors, actors, etc., other than those part of the global patrimony?

This entire thread is about the US.

So the US is exceptional and defies the phenomena we see in other countries?

Strawman.

Being "proud to be white" is meaningless. Being proud to be Irish or Italian or German is not.

If I'm born in my Australia, and my parents were, and their parents were, and their parents were, I'm not Irish or Italian or German or whatever majority-white European country you want to pick that I have a vague connection to. I'm Australian.

The same applies to the Aboriginal people who have been here for thousands and thousands of years, before my ancestors invaded under a false pretense and treated them like garbage.

However, those were my ancestors. Each generation is progressively less racist than the one before, and we're just as Australian as each other.

The issue is not one of national identity but one of racial and cultural identity. Realistically, it's something that white people will have to put up with and understand as we're still in the long hangover of our more racist years. However, at some point our children (or our children's children) are going to ask why it's it's socially fine to embrace other races and cultures when it's shunned to embrace their own for reasons that are totally out of their control.

> Yes, this is something all men should be aware of. Don't act creepy to little kids. I was the same way, until I had a kid of my own. You're better off smiling at the mom first, before making gestures toward small children.

This may be good practical advice, but it's worth comparing your suggestion to this quote from the piece:

I would say things like, “oh, well I understand that I’m a big, Black guy, and that if I don’t shave for a few weeks and walked down the street at night, I’d probably be afraid of me, too.... what?”

That is, you're suggesting it's the parent's responsibility to cater other people's fears of him. Yet I assume you would not make the same suggestion to the author of the piece? Is there a fundamental difference? What about if a mother grabs her child as a big black man walks past? Is that okay, because her justified fear of men (white and black) around her child over-rides any implications of racism? Or is it not allowed, because of the suggestion of racism (even though race is not, in fact, the motivator of her fear in this case)?

> Yes, this is something all men should be aware of. Don't act creepy to little kids. I was the same way, until I had a kid of my own.

Let me clarify this statement a bit: before having a kid, I was mindful of how I interacted with strangers and their children.

> Is that okay, because her justified fear of men (white and black) around her child over-rides any implications of racism?

I can't speak for all parents, but I hope if my wife feels uncomfortable about a situation, she does something about it, especially if our kids are involved.

A persons safety trumps any desire protect someones feelings against racism. If a 6'2 male is going to cross my path when it's dark, I will certainly become more aware of my surroundings, regardless of their race. I will also turn and make sure they continue walking past me.

Right, I get it. I feel the same. But the thing is, the logic "A persons safety trumps any desire protect someones feelings against racism" is exactly the logic that racists use. Some of the people who want to build a wall feel genuine fear, never mind its basis in reality. In their reality it's real.

I'm not arguing that the logic is in itself wrong -- but whether that logic is being used in a reasonable way (as you seem to be doing) or being twisted into the service of something unfair and evil is, in the end, a matter of judgement and context.

> Yes, this is something all men should be aware of. Don't act creepy to little kids. I was the same way, until I had a kid of my own.

Teaching your children that a friendly smile is creepy is a great way to reinforce the statistically irrational stranger danger and bring them up with the idea of men-as-beasts and women-as-prey that reinforces patriarchal societal structures.

Please consider reading up on enough basic feminism to realise just how much of a disservice that would be to your children.

> At the risk of telling you how to feel, how about feeling sad that people are actually victims of racism.

Both can be true - racism surely exists, and that is sad. But people attributing things to their race or sex that are not actually caused by their race or sex can also be quite tragic and self-defeating. My impression is that it happens a lot, at least with feminists - I have less experience with the issue of race (not living in the US).

> But people attributing things to their race or sex that are not actually caused by their race or sex can also be quite tragic and self-defeating.

I was at AWS re:Invent last year and had heard that a PagerDuty was having a party, and that we (a customers of theirs) could stop by their booth and pick up a wristband for VIP access. I stood behind a couple of my coworkers, who walked up, got wristbands and left. When it was my turn, I asked, but was turned away saying they are only handing out a limited number of wristbands. I explained I was a customer, and she had just given two wrists bands just seconds earlier to my coworkers, but she was very adamant about not letting me have one.

I went to my room and angrily penned an email to our rep, asking why I wasn't given a band, when my two white coworkers were. Their response was that they only had a limited number of bands. The people working the booth were using their own judgement for who should get one and who shouldn't. At that moment, I wasn't Alan, director of engineer, an attendee of a poor public school system, the first in his family to graduate from high school (let along college). Instead I was just some brown guy who wasn't worth anything. In that moment, it made me remember my most painful memory of racism: when I was 14 years old, and having to comfort my mom as she cried because her boss denied her vacation time, then approved another of her coworkers vacation, despite my mother having more seniority, and having submitted her vacation first.

The point of my story: if you've never really been a victim of racism, it's probably hard to understand why those of us who have been living with constant racism, turn to it first as a reason for how we are treated.

You _assume_ that, at AWS re:Invent, you were a victim of racism, but you don't really _know_ that is so. Nonetheless your default stance was, and remains today, to _assume_ racism.

Also you speak of "constant racism". So, even when you're alone, do you feel the pressure of "constant racism"?

You cannot change the past and you cannot change how others act, but you can change how you think. Is it good for you to have a base assumption that you will be racially discriminated against? Are those the color of glasses that you want to wear in this modern world? What will it gain you?

There have been studies that show that it best to take the optimistic assumption: e.g., in this instance that they indeed were limiting the number of wristbands. Being a "realistic optimist" is a healthy frame of mind.

And really, if a denied wristband is the worst instance of perceived insult that you have experienced, count yourself lucky. I've been treated far, far worse at conferences, not because of racism, but because people can be jerks.

You've validated my point. It's hard to understand why someone defaults to racism, as you likely haven't experienced it the way People of Color have.

Worst instance, no. But one that I felt that story resonate more with the readership of HN, more than my other experiences.

I fail to see how I "validated" your claims of racism.

Your perspective is that of a paranoiac: no matter what is said or done your fears of racism are further confirmed.

Whitesplain.

Horsepuckey.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most white people are afraid of being labeled a racist, especially white people selling something. Why don't you use that to your advantage? As director of engineering, I'm sure you can vote with your company's dollars. The beauty of capitalism is that the overtly racist company is only going to get money from overt racists. Companies that want to do well don't treat people like that. Not to diminish all the hurtful discrimination certain groups of people face, but I'm not sad that the New Black Panthers probably don't want me in their club, and neo-nazis for that matter, but I don't think those clubs should be outlawed. People like you and me just say fuck'em and find places that make us better people. Doesn't sound like PagerDuty is that place. Their loss.

Honestly, because our SRE team has better things to do than switch off PagerDuty (although VictorOps seems pretty cool) to appease my hurt feelings.

In my opinion, this could have easily been avoided if they used a quantitative approach like "first come first serve" vs qualitative.

As I said, I think racism is real. Your story about the VIP party sounds like a clear cut example. Just hearing it makes me really angry - I hope if I had been your coworker, I would have told the PagerDuty people to shove their wrist bands somewhere unpleasant. Wouldn't want to go to a racist party anyway.

That said, for example I also struggle with connecting to coworkers. It is a constant worry for me, to somehow stay connected to the "loop". At that conference, maybe I would have been the last person who heard that there is a party (or maybe I wouldn't have heard at all).

No doubt that is nowhere near the issues people affected by racism face every day. Just an example that there are many things that can be attributed to racism, but maybe aren't. In my case, it is probably being introvert, interested in other things than other people, things like that. Or a feeling that stuck from childhood to not fit in, for various reasons.

I think there are also barriers that are difficult to overcome. For example as a dad, I think I simply don't connect to the other mothers in the same way as mothers talk among each other. I don't think they don't like me, but women among themselves will probably talk a little bit differently than with me present. Or they have it easier to also become friends with each other. It's just a little thing, but maybe over time it adds up - it's the tips and gossip you don't hear. Maybe there is a deadline to register your kid with a certain school, or an opportunity for some special event to participate in, that you miss out on - without any malice or bad intentions. Or even simpler, the lack of suitable playdates for your kid.

In the same vein, maybe if I had coworkers of a different race, it would be just a tiny little bit more difficult to connect. I wouldn't be sure if they are interested in the same things I am interested in, things like that. (Not sure if it would really be an issue, just a theory). So without bad intentions, they would be a bit less "in the loop".

You should write a blog post about it, and publicly shame them. It's the only way for things to get better.

I don't think you are being very fair to the poster.

> That is different than assuming you must be an athlete because of the color of your skin (racism).

They could be thinking he plays a sport because of his race, or it could be the fact that he is 6'2" and weighs 240 pounds. Likely it is a combination, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We make assumptions based on race because a lot of things correlate to race. I have been 6 feet tall since middle school and was always asked if I played basketball because, well, a lot of tall black kids play basketball. When trying to have a conversation with a person I don't think their is anything wrong with trying to find a topic based on that person's appearance (i.e. clothing, height, weight) why should race be excluded?

> That reason isn't because the color of your skin.

Again, I think it is unfair to just say his feeling that people avoid sitting next to him is not only true, but it is because all those people are distrustful of him because of his skin color. Everyone feels like people avoid at times, an ugly person may thing it is because they are too ugly, a person who just ran a marathon may think it is because they stink. I don't think you should take his feelings as fact.

> how about feeling sad that people are actually victims of racism.

It is unfair to imply he doesn't already feel sad about those who actually experience racism, just because he is sad about something else. You can be sad about multiple things. And I (a black dude) think it is perfectly reasonable to be sad about racial divides that feel as if they are growing year by year.

> A persons skin color is part of their identity, and we should recognize that, but not use that as a way to group, categorize, or otherwise use as the basis for how we behave towards that individual.

I kind of agree here, but I find your statement somewhat hypocritical. You say a person's skin color is part of their identity but you also say we shouldn't group or categorize people based on skin color. You were also unhappy earlier about assumptions being made based on race. It sounds like you can't assume any cultural or societal standards for anyone based on race then it is just skin color, and then I don't understand why you would have a problem with everyone being colorblind, if you don't think race correlates to anything. Or do you think people should just completely ignore these correlations despite their existence, no matter how benign (like being more likely to ask if you play a sport you look like you could play based on physical appearance)?

> Or do you think people should just completely ignore these correlations despite their existence, no matter how benign (like being more likely to ask if you play a sport you look like you could play based on physical appearance)?

This.

Okay, I don't personally find things like that annoying, but I can see how some people would take some of the things I have experienced as social slights or just, ya know, annoying. Thanks for answering.

> You say a person's skin color is part of their identity but you also say we shouldn't group or categorize people based on skin color.

It's a part of your identity you don't get to choose, and how you identify with it - if at all - is solely up to the individual. So, no grouping or categorizing.

Yeah, I don't think I worded this in the best way. I am not trying to advocate for people making significant decisions about others based on race, or really any decisions at all. But he criticized the reommendation of a color blind world and then, in my opinion, advocated for one. I was trying to show that by removing the assumptive part of race (as I think you mostly should) you can only react to people based on their actions and how they say they want to be treated. I believe this is a color blind society. No presumptions, but people can still address their race.

I don't personally believe in a purely color blind society, though. I mean, in the article he talks about how it makes him feel when people are surprised by the fact he works in a technical field, which is fine, his feelings are valid. I just don't see anything strange, rude or racist about a person being surprised about a black person doing CS, we are a very small portion of the degrees given in CS, in particular, degrees from prestigious universities (At Stanford about 6%, compared to Asians at 36% and Whites at 38%). And we are a much larger percentage of, say, football players or basketball players. I am not saying you should go an buy your black neighbor Air Jordans so he adds you to his posse when he goes pro, but I do think acting like some one who asks a 6 foot 2 inch tall, 240 pound black guy if he plays football is racist is counterproductive.

When I went to the courthouse in St Louis to get our marriage license, both me (dark brown) and my wife (very white) had to swear under oath that we were not related.

I get a chuckle from telling that story, but it's a silly attempt to be "color blind."

To me, "color blind" means the complete abolishment of race as an issue, and I think that will actually hold us back from the real goal: where people are measured and judged by the content of their character, and not by the color of their skin.

I believe your race makes up a part of who you are, and society should not do away with that.

> I just don't see anything strange, rude or racist about a person being surprised about a black person doing CS, we are a very small portion of the degrees given in CS

A single person, just an isolated incident. Happening over and over again, I can easily empathize there.

///

Another anecdote about me and race. As a teenager, I worked at Burger King at a local mall. I noticed that by and large, black people would either get Orange Soda, or Sprite with their combo meals, with the occasional person asking for iced tea. It got to the point where I would automatically hover over the "sprite" and "orange" buttons on the cash register when a black person would order. Then there was one black guy who ordered a coke.

"I was the same way, until I had a kid of my own. You're better off smiling at the mom first, before making gestures toward small children."

I have kids of my own, and I think treating someone like a creep just for smiling at your kid makes you an asshole.

Yes it's pretty clear that smiling != creepy.

So it seems that these parents who are marching their kids away are doing so for a reason other than the smile.

Unless that smile is creepy, and/or the parent commenter is creepy.