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Comment by bglazer | Hacker News Reader

I can tell you why it's important to note the race of an underrepresented minority who made a notable contribution.

I teach programming to a group of black young adults. Self image is very important to most young folks. Just seeing other black people who are successful computer programmers helps them imagine themselves as computer programmers.

Identity matters to young people who are trying to shape their own self image.

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I would have thought that it would have been more powerful for the article not to mention race, as it really doesn't except in the title, and just have the picture of the guy.

Why? Because then the article isn't trying to claim that one of the most notable things about him (notable enough to be in the title of the article) is his race. Young black people would see him being lauded for his work, regardless of any other aspect about him.

Otherwise, you end up with the idea that the article is saying "Hey look! A black person actually did something notable in tech!" Not the message you want to get across.

Then why is it strictly forbidden to write an article with a title that caters specifically to young white children?

One could say that almost every article caters specifically to white people.

Why do you think so?

Could you not also say that almost every article caters specifically to Jewish people? Or would that be anti-Semitic in your mind?

Can you elaborate on that? Why is this so?

Ignoring whether it's forbidden, I'm not sure it's useful. I don't remember having some identity tied to being "white" as a child. I think white children are more likely to identify as being "Catholic" or "of French ancestry" or "poor" or "from Philly" or some other dimension apart from race.

If there is no identity tied to being white, then how are there hundreds upon hundreds of articles in WaPo and the New York Times which almost literally say "White Men Ruin the World" and contain detailed accounts of how white supremacy won Trump the presidency?

Either you're right, and white supremacy is not a problem at all, or you're wrong, and culture today has made it acceptable to say "fuck white men", which is disgustingly racist and yet no one is willing to publicly acknowledge it except "white supremacists" themselves.

Sure, there's some white identity. I'm questioning if there's enough to market to it as a specific segment.

I'm also not convinced that xenophobia is the same thing as white identity.

I don't think I'll be able to do satisfactorily answer that question in a couple sentences, but I'll try.

White people are a majority in technology, so it's assumed to be obvious to white children that they too can be a technologist. There's not a significant gap in perceived identity between themselves and Mark Zuckerberg, for example.

So, that begs the question, why focus on encouraging specifically white children? They don't face racial barriers and have many famous role models. Preference for white people has a long and ugly history in America.

> White people are a majority in technology

BS, have you seen us brown folks? we are literally the IT race. You could say white blokes are at a disadvantage. Point being, I feel kids should be taught their code and their core values are important, and should be also taught the art of not giving a shit about stuff that clearly doesn't matter. No black folks in tech? all the more reason to become a God

We probably need more white role models who didn't go to Harvard or Stanford, though.

Young white children can see and relate to a large chunk of tech workers. Black people do not have that privilege. Have you noticed that young people generally achieve more when they can model themselves after those who are like them?

Sure, but why is it deemed racist to empower white children?

It's not, but do you really think they aren't empowered to begin with?

it implies some of the following:

- whites are a non-diverse group of people

- whites (of all types, as a group) have been as historically unempowered as nonwhites in America

- whites think whiteness is underrepresented in America

- whites aren't bothered by how nonwhiteness affects outcomes

- messages about race are currently at peak broadcast capacity, so talking about race is a zero-sum game where prioritizing one audience takes a potential piece of information away another audience

- race is something other than ingroup/outgroup attribution

>whites are a non-diverse group of people

Even if we assume that this is true (despite the fact that it's not) what does it have to do with printing articles with headlines that read "{INSERT NON-WHITE RACE HERE} miraculously succeeds in life!"?

I agree, none of those implications are true. That example causes discomfort because the logic is unsound but believed deeply by its proponents.

The reason people like headlines like that is that milestone accomplishments by minorities is inspiring.

Wouldn't it be better to encourage kids to not be racist, and thus encourage them to take inspiration by people different from them (different race, men/women, etc)?

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