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Comment by redsummer | Hacker News Reader

The culture has an ideology about race which is shared and fed by the media. It's almost a nostalgia for the sixties where people want to pin halos on themselves by pretending its the 60s and that they are fighting against segregated buses etc.

The demand for stories which fit this narrative outstrip the supply. The same thing can be seen with various 'hate crimes' which are eventually revealed as hoaxes. The media - and the public - are strangely desperate for this bigoted world to exist - because they can feel more noble fighting it.

I'm guessing it has something to do with all the ideological refugees, in academia and the media, from the 60s and 70s who are fighting battles that are long over.

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Not sure how you can say this when a literal white supremacist just literally murdered a random black man in New York because he was black. Is that a hoax in your view?

Gp said the demand for stories exceeds the supply. Any one story being supplied can't disprove that.

Who said anything about proof? It's not as if the GGP proved his claims either.

"iPhone demand is greater than supply"

"Not sure how you can say that when this one guy sold his iPhone"

It sounds like a counter argument and fails to be one.

The idea of "demand" for hate crimes doesn't even make sense, so there isn't any argument to respond to. Clearly, the intention of the original commenter was to minimize the existence of hate crimes. That is what I was responding to. You might also bear in mind that it is not difficult to find other examples of hate crimes than the one I chose, or to find official statistics:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2015

was the random black man literally black or just black?

Depends whether you think that 'black' as an ethnic classification has a separate literal meaning from 'black' as a color term. If you do, then yes, literally black. If not, then no, not literally black in color.

Statistically this event is irrelevant, it doesn't happen often and black person is more likely to die because of anything else, most likely because of another fellow black person. Stop fearmongering.

You could say the same thing about terrorist attacks. The effect of hate crimes goes far beyond the deaths of the individuals involved.

The suggestion that we shouldn't worry about hate crimes until they're a leading cause of death for members of minority groups presumably doesn't deserve a response. Even in the Jim Crow south, it's not as if a majority of black people died from being lynched.

It's quite silly to suggest that I'm 'fearmongering' merely by referencing something that's already all over the news. I don't think my mention of this incident deep within an HN thread is likely to cause anyone to be more frightened than they already are.

It's no better than stormfront users spamming the stats about blacks in prison, black on white rape and crime etc.

As I said, statistically this event is irrelevant and doesn't add anything to discussion.

Saying that I'm no better than white supremacists on the basis of my fairly anodyne comments is pretty clearly crossing the line.

I hope that you are not being sincere.

In any case, as I already addressed your point about "statistical significance", it appears that you have nothing further to contribute to the discussion.

Don't put words in my mouth.

Do you have a police report to link to back that up?

A simple Google search turns up many results.

There is a Virginia gubernatorial candidate encouraging supporters to fly the Confederate battle flag, there are several states that celebrate Confederate History Month (and one more introducing legislation to that effect), there are multiple states with a Confederate Heroes Day or holiday for the birth of the CSA's President, and the POTUS himself has well-documented housing discrimination against blacks, but you believe we live in a post-racial society? Give me a break.

The person you are responding to never said we live in a post-racial society.

They didn't use those exact words, but the comment clearly suggests that racial discrimination no longer exists, and that there are few if any real instances of hate crimes.

I think you have enemies that believe racial discrimination doesn't exist, and then you too eagerly fit random internet commenters into that pattern of your enemies.

It's actually simpler than that. I just read the comment. It clearly says that hate crimes are largely made up.

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