Hacker News Reader

Because statistically, the homeless are most likely to be African America.

Source: www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30442.pdf ("By race, the homeless population was estimated to be, on average, 49% African-American, 35% white, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American and 1% Asian.")

View on HN

You've refuted a strawman, but you haven't given an actual justification for the original wording.

Using the phrase "poor people" instead of "poor black people" is equally effective -- more, actually, because "poor black people" makes you wonder why the hell it matters that they're black -- and has the virtue of not perpetuating (many) people's unconscious associations of "black" with "poor".

I agree with your point, and although I'm not the original writer of that post, I'm guessing he was trying to give a more nuanced response aware of the racial tensions that exist in socio-economic contexts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com