Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by panic | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

panic

It can be hard to separate criticism from an attack. If you say something racist, and I tell you so, is that an attack?

View on HN

It depends on how you say it.

"You're racist!" is an attack.

"That thing you just said was racist." is better but will still come off as an attack.

"Have you ever thought about how what you said will impact [minority group]?" will work much better.

> "Have you ever thought about how what you said will impact [minority group]?" will work much better.

To summarize: PC phrasing works better among people who voted for the anti-PC guy? I'm not disagreeing with your thesis, just pointing out that it's not obvious that it should be the case.

Polite phrasing that doesn't immediately condemn the subject but instead tries to get them to slowly consider alternative points of view works better with almost all people.

What's worse, being a racist or being called a racist?

If it's the former, being called a racist is a valuable thing. It's somebody telling you that you have advertently or inadvertently acted in a manner that is prejudiced against an ethnic group in a way that perpetuates societal imbalances (racism). Now you get an opportunity to fix it.

Apologize, then stop doing what you were called out for. Now you'll neither be a racist or called one.

Great! Everybody wins.

Have you ever called someone a racist or seen someone else be called a racist? How did they tend to react at an emotional level? Did that tend to make them more or less open to feedback? Have you found it to be a particularly effective way of getting people to change their behavior?

No, it's not. But what has got people angry is that it's not you pointing out that what some person said is racist, but rather a group of people declaring that anyone who supports candidate A is a racist. Tarring all Trump supporters or all Republicans or all rural people as racist because one or some of them are is a problem.

Unfortunately, both yes and no. The word has become near profanity now and is often used as an insult rather than a statement.

The reaction of, "How is it racist?" can be taken as a defense even if it is an honest question.

Luckily, words are amazing and there are ways to diffuse this stuff. "I think some folks might find that insensitive, you know" might be better wording than "That was rather racist" - even though I might prefer the more direct version. Likewise, the response can be reworded for different effect as well.

Is sensitivity a universal value and priority for everyone? Even in the rust belt? Is dismissing sensitivity as a value, allowed?

I think in some cases, definitely.

I'm not sure how to complete this thought right now, but it comes down to: "Do you feel safe expressing yourself?"

Your "safety" might not be important for the situation, may not be relevant for the situation; safety shouldn't be confused with agreement / support, etc, etc.

That's probably the biggest problem here. Many people will regard your response as an attack and shut down. People also think that saying something is their opinion enables them to say whatever you want without suffering consequences.

No, I don't think so. But my (biased) view of the left is that they want to actually control and curate speech via censorship, safe spaces, "hate speech" laws (like UK), political correctness agendas, stereotyping (painting all religious people as bigoted), etc. I view the latter things as an attack on my free speech. People should have the right to say hurtful things without being thrown in jail.

I'd be interested to read a history of how this became the right's rallying cry.

I mean "safe spaces". Of all the problems facing our world today, how did having a place for students to go and chill out on bean bags become a rallying cry. Why this obsession with student activitsts in general, who as far as I can tell have been caricatured as out of touch poseurs for literally decades without it escalating into a full on culture war.

Do people really not see the irony of complaining about political correctness when stats generated by government departments are being discounted as "fake news" by the president?

From the outside it really does seem like insanity, but I have to assume people literally believe these things to be important for some reason.

I'd say it's the natural reaction to extremes like this on college campuses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S3yMzEee18

It becomes a problem when people subscribe to the "punch a Nazi" theme and then label all Trump supporters as Nazis. It's an 'end justifies the means' mentality which is troubling.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com