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Comment by firstworldman | Hacker News Reader

HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community. It's disheartening to see the number of replies expressing dismay at race being an interesting and notable part of this story. Representation is a crucial concept in history and media, and a key element in why conversations about privilege are necessary.

Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race, why don't you just actually ask yourself the question? Why does it matter that he is black? You all are great problem solvers. I think you can come up with some interesting answers.

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> HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community.

I'll respectfully disagree with that. I think the rules set up in HN around both manual and automatic flagging mean that controversial stories quickly get buried, and only very straightforward, non-controversial articles get visibility.

Many users think this is a positive feature. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but have come to accept that HN is simply not a place where controversial things are discussed with any measure of success. But don't mistake that for HN being a progressive haven.

EDIT: prophecy fulfilled. This submission got flagged off the homepage.

Is this a controversial story? FFS it's about the first internet search engine. It is pretty on topic if anything on HN is.

You might be making a meta statement regarding other stories. Still this is pretty benign stuff.

I was making a comment about HN being a "progressive wing", not about this article.

Admittedly, I'm more of a lurker and slightly-more-than-occasional visitor, so my experience of HN is probably not representative of the norm. However, I have seen racism and other prejudice called out frequently enough that I felt justified in giving the community some credit. Perhaps more than it deserves. Sadly, can't help but look at the discussions happening here as vastly more enlightened when compared with the ones that take place, for instance, in many Facebook groups related to tech.

With respect - that's not what the OP is referring too. I'm sure if someone was being overtly racist they would be called out and banned. Most racists are smart enough to know that you're not going to get away with using a racial slur.

But power can be exercised in more subtle ways, including limiting what gets discussed in the first place or leaving comments like 'Thanks for not making it political' on threads about Haskell.

The flagging and downvoting of what I would call progressive but others would call 'political' themes falls under that category.

> It's disheartening to see the number of replies expressing dismay at race being an interesting and notable part of this story.

If only. Far worse is the number of replies saying that he isn't black enough. It's so weird when you get racially policed by white people if you don't conform to a media stereotype, or if you're not dark enough.

How about "of sub-Saharan African descent?"

Also, it shouldn't be confusing that the descendants of northern Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans look Mediterranean. It really makes a lot of obvious sense.

All those comments about whether someone is black are a pretty much inevitable result of turning race - which is something that, when it comes down to it, is basically made-up nonsense anyway - into the most important defining characteristic of someone. Doesn't matter if you're doing it for progressive or discriminatory reasons, either way the whole charade ends up running headlong into the reality that people don't actually fit all that well into those neat little racial categories.

> HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community.

Its really not, though it includes some member of the progressive segment of the community (as well as the diametrically opposite segment) and a moderation policy which suppresses neither, so it can sometimes appear to be either extremely progressive or extremely regressive (but mostly just a mix of both, and positions in between and off to the sides.)

"Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race, why don't you just actually ask yourself the question? Why does it matter that he is black? You all are great problem solvers. I think you can come up with some interesting answers."

I can answer to this. His race is mentioned because today's radical left wing journalists think that separating minorities and putting them on a spotlight is progressive and going to fight against racism.

Well...that's pretty much absolute bullshit. Actually it's doing the complete opposite. For example in this article the credit for the achievement is stolen from the person himself and given to a generic group of people with only thing in common being the race. This is active way of telling his not "us", but his "them".

When journalists and people stop seeing black, white, yellow, green, gay, straight etc. or just stop caring about race and start seeing just people we most certainly won't have society without racism but we might have a society with much less racism from all sides.

> HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community.

Your statement is belied utterly by almost all of the below replies and it is savagely disheartening.

Hacker News is full of alt-right people and trump supporters, which you'll see any time anything vaguely immigration, race or gender related gets posted. Just by nature of the subject matter, middle-aged white male libertarian types are going to be over-represented.

I don't think so. HN has a mix of all types, and in my opinion, the group has a nice mix of progressives and some libertarians. But given most libertarian stories, like involving online privacy, the two groups overlap, it gives people a false impression that HN leans libertarian in general.

The alt-righters pop up once and again but they are usually downvoted out[0] when they turn to race baiting and blatant propaganda (posting of sketchy research supporting inherent differences between the races, for example).

[0] Hell, just look at the comments down in this section.

'Is full of alt-right people and trump supporters'? You could justly say that about Breitbart but unless you have a metric to support your assertions why should any credence be given to your opinion regarding the readership of HN? I have previously suggested the opposite opinion but I was wrong to do that. I simply do not know and neither do you. Room for a technical analysis if someone can be bothered.

Why the hell is this getting downvoted?

Removing my comments because this thread has sparked unnecessary discourse and reactions that this comment is the cause of.

> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there.

We lived in a world where racism exists, regardless of your own personal attitude. This is just like global climate change - simply because you personally are carbon neutral doesn't mean we don't have a systematic crisis on our hands. You are far, far too willing to wash your hands of the whole topic, and it is very naive. The fact of the matter is that advantages and disadvantages are built into your socioeconomic class, and race is a very strong indicator of your class affiliation. On top of this, like or it not, there are a huge number of racists of all types, ranging from people who proudly burn crosses to much more subtle or unintentional racism. Denying that people's attitudes is something that must be taken into consideration is just... staggering. To put it quite simply: the fact that you, an enlightened individual, do not take race into your moral consideration is laudable but it in no way affects the fact that hundreds of millions of people are already racist and you are willfully putting blinders on to this fact. The most concerning part is that many of these actively (or passively) racist people are in positions of power. Ignoring that is just childish. [There is a strong analogy to this comic by XKCD about the ridiculous beliefs of US Senators.](https://xkcd.com/154/)

> And if you can't accept that people view this issue differently and think there are different solutions, you are part of the problem.

Pot, meet kettle.

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The debate the OP is getting is this: 'people' vs. the individual. I think everyone agrees that the goal is for people to treat each others the exact same, but 'people' is a very messy concept.

Is it better for me, as an individual, to treat you the same as I do anyone else and wait for gradual societal pressure to push others to do the same, or is it better for me, as an individual, to highlight the oppression that very much still exists, in a bid to make others notice?

I don't think there is a right and wrong answer here, just different approaches to a problem. The good thing is that we can all agree the problem exists, which isn't always a given.

I understand if my tone came off as more condescending than necessary - I am a corporate lawyer I am prone to being a bit incisive - so I apologize for that. I do tend to adopt a bit of snark when writing online - it gets those precious, precious upvotes.

However, in the end, my point is this: I am of the opinion that collective action is necessary to address this issue and I believe the weight of the evidence is on this side. The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective. It is just not the world in which we live.

The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective.

I think you are misunderstanding the point treehau5 wanted to make. I think he wants to say the same thing as I [1], we should take action to boost disadvantaged groups in order to close existing gaps as quickly as possible but that should be done in away that avoids focusing on the distinction one wants to go away. It is not about ignoring an existing issue, it is about not additionally emphasizing it.

What good is it, if you want to get rid of racial bias, to point out the race in a context where it does not matter at all? Maybe you could argue that there are people believing that black people made no significant contributions to our world and you are trying to correct that but that does not seem a very strong argument to me.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13707121

The (now deleted) comment said:

> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there.

I do not see how that is open to interpretation and it appears to run entirely contrary to your point.

If you interpret »not paying it mention in any sphere« broadly enough as not talking about it and not doing anything against it, then yes, it would mean ignoring the issue.

My interpretation as a non-native English speaker focused on »mention« and so I did not interpret it as excluding any actions. But with you pointing this out and after having a second look I can see how »in any sphere« could make the point stronger than what I thought.

I the end I am neither in the position to judge what the correct interpretation of the phrase is, nor what statement treehau5 actually intended to make. I of course stand by my point, whether it is the same one treehau5 wanted to make or not.

I argue about words for a living, so I am always happy to hear competing interpretations.

However, here it is pretty clear to me, and likely why he deleted his post, that he meant "we should just ignore it." Which I don't think is a particularly defensible position.

That is correct.

There are black people who are very privileged (e.g. Obama) and white people who are very unprivileged (e.g. the homeless). So focusing on race will inevitable lead to bosting outcomes of some privileged people and ignoring other non-privileged people.

A better way to solve this problem would be to focus on people from disadvantaged backgrounds (== poor), regardless of race.

No, it is not correct. The problem, as above, is not just the socioeconomic background of an individual - it is about whether the power structures in society are, themselves, full of people who bear animus toward unimportant birth-characteristics of certain people - not merit characteristics, not moral characteristics, not regarding intelligence or achievement, but simply being born to parents of a certain ethnic or religious heritage.

The playing field is not level. I truly do not know why this point is so hard to communicate.

You can be the wealthiest, smartest black man alive - you are never going to be a grand dragon in the KKK. That should be quite obvious.

Now back down from that hyperbolic example - what about being a black man in the Mormon Clergy? That was impossible until very recently.

Now what about being a black man as a corporate CEO? Definitely doable. There have been 14 such individuals in the history of the Fortune 500: http://fortune.com/2017/01/16/black-women-fortune-500/ # But it may be less doable depending on the organization. Don't you see there is a continuum here? That the qualifications of the individual, including their privilege, are irrelevant when the ladder that individual is trying to climb has a "no [characteristic] need apply" sign at the third or fourth rung? Why is this so hard to understand?

# Note that this is a pretty low number.

Getting the interview in the first place is a good marker of the privileged upbringing that most tech industry job applicants have. The path to getting a high paying, high quality job interview is littered with cul-de-sacs where smart, hard working people without access to those same opportunities are asked to build their houses and stay for good. And class mobility (the American Dream) is mostly a myth (for a good and accessible look at this issue, check out the recent On the Media series on poverty, Busted http://www.wnyc.org/series/busted-americas-poverty-myths ), so hard work is not the way out either.

Ah yes, if you truly want to get rid of bugs in your software, then not mentioning them is the best way to get there. Start acting like your code has no bugs now!

The status quo doesn't change if people don't talk about, analyse and challenge it.

"Fuck it, ship it" as applied to bugs in political systems... I like it.

Maybe it can help get through to people who write code all day that racism is built up technical debt, and ignoring it doesn't mean it will go away?

I think that the solution lies in shining a light on, and whenever possible, celebrating differences, not ignoring them. Maybe some far off day we will be 'one people', after a few (dozen) generations of widespread interracial coupling, but that mostly misses the point.

There are real divisions between people, socially constructed ones. That will likely always persist, and discussing categorical representation (or lack thereof) is an important part of making genuine strides toward diversity (in the workplace, in culture, etc). The goal is not to have everybody be the same, it's to make the 'thing' representative of the the diverse people that make up the 'thing'.

Do you not agree that a young black kid deserves black heroes that she can relate her own story to? Why ignore that aspect of the story?

Probably much healthier to celebrate diversity than pretend it does not exist.

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It's irresponsible to mention quotas and affirmative action, but not the systemic (and legal) racism and sexism that made those programs necessary in the first place.

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Not sure why you think calling the ACLU to fight on your behalf grants you a license to promote color-blindness as viable tactic against racism in this country.

probably better to be silent than to feed the alt-right, neo-Nazi trolls. Why can't privileged white people just keep quiet and listen for a while. It's time we recognize the tremendous contribution to computer science made by African-Americans. There is no place on HN for intolerance and hate.

HN has diverse commenters, some "progressive", some "libertarian", and some "concervative"

There's a fair number of programmers here, and they use regex; why does race matter? Well, now we have two problems.

;)

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