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Comment by SOLARSYSTEM | Hacker News Reader

If you open the article, you will notice that the word "White" is in the title.

Todays news has nothing to do with journalism, it is about nitpicking to fit whichever agenda you have. In fact that entire website is a bunch of pathetic filth:

"Is Cold Weather Racist?"

"The Most Useless Types of White People"

The Root is a black news website, so perhaps I will make a white news website of my very own; I doubt whichever factual information I spout will get any coverage on Hacker News, though. You snowflakes would not be able to handle reality and it will be swept aside as "racist" and against policy, that is, before Cloudfare gets around to shutting me down.

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If anyone can get past the headlines, there is some seriously funny satire in the verysmartbrothas subdomain. I love that they show headlines from the Onion, as well.

The theroot.com/tag/news is pretty standard boring news, though.

Overall, seems like a nice site.

Edit: <meta property="og:title" content="Very Smart Brothas - Commentary, essay and humor about news, pop culture, race and sex.">

When I saw The Root at the top of HN, I thought: oh no, I don't want white folks to know about The Root.

Why?

> "The Most Useless Types of White People"

I honestly understand their tone (dislike, but understand — it's not mine to appreciate or not), but a worldview that classifies people by utility leads to some ugly places.

Oh that explains so much of the US! The tax bill; the immigration policy; the daily insults to working class people.

>but a worldview that classifies people by utility leads to some ugly places.

... and that's how the US has classified black people for most of its history. Even today, American politics both on the left and the right tend to treat black people as a resource.

So yes you're right, but in some ways, turnabout is fair play.

Saying "the US" as a way of lumping in everyone together as if we are all sitting here scheming ways to utilize black people unfairly is pretty disingenuous. It's a lot like saying "The Jews" crucified Jesus. There is no factual content being put forward. It's purely intended to be offensive.

Sometimes, the truth is offensive. Being comfortable with the privilege granted by a racist system is, itself, racist. Progress has never been made by allowing the powerful or privileged to remain comfortable. Sometimes you have to shock people to get them to see a different point of view.

You would probably make your point more effectively if you could A) recognize that you aren't helping your case by being offensive toward allies who are not actually the people you are condemning and B) make use of specific details about actual events rather than just making it seem like everyone is guilty. If everyone is guilty then no one is, in reality, guilty. It's like saying all men are rapists or everyone who masturbates is offending the sacred trust of god. This way of replacing argument with attempts to trigger people is getting no one closer to goal that every one actually wants, which is justice.

When you say "the US" and then make an offensive comment as if none of us have ever fought for justice for anyone, most people just tune you out as obviously wrong.

No, turnabout is NOT fair play. It's still racism. In fact, it is justifiably WORSE racism, because it is done with malice in order to get payback. According to that logic the cycle of racism will never end. If a victim of a crime turns around and perpetuates said crime because "do unto others", is it any less a crime? Who would expect to be seen as a victim while they run around doing exactly what they are crying about having been done to them? Being racist because others were racist against you justifies nothing, it merely continues the cycle of hatred.

I apologize if my tone is off here, I just see this sentiment a lot and it makes me incredibly sad, as it feels as though we should be progressing, and instead are regressing. It's almost as if the internet, rather than bringing us all closer, has instead pulled us further apart.

As an aside, EVERY politician sees EVERY race as nothing more than a resource.

I mean, on the one hand, you have centuries of systemic oppression and violence, and the election of a President on a wave of populism fueled by white anger, and on the other hand you have a listicle, which if we're to be honest is just clickbait.

OK, fine, so that's racist too. But maybe people shouldn't be so triggered by something so innocuous?

Maybe part of what's holding back progress is the culture of easy offense and equivocation?

Not agreeing that turnabout is 100% fair or virtuous, but in many philosophical systems or legal systems "extenuating circumstances" are fair game for consideration.

I agree it would be nice to be progressing, but as someone who deserves what she gets if I don't stand up to things, needs to turn the other cheek if I do stand up to things, and is being "inappropriate" if I just try to be snarky about it, at some point you just pick which thing to be criticized for as you gotta do something. The Root has picked -- and the Smart Brothas as noted above are very funny!

> deserves what she gets if I don't stand up to things, needs to turn the other cheek if I do stand up

The same things? Do those comments come from the same groups of people? I can't see what things require a racist response, there are multiple ways to stand against something.

It's a weird coincidence to see this domain on here. I just heard of them the other day. I agree that these folks display a lot of racial resentment, so it's generally not something that belongs on HN, but the topic happens to match.

Just FYI your post is (currently) getting downvoted, and you may suspect that it's because the "snowflakes" here can't handle your perspective. However HN is actually pretty open to different points of view so long as your tone is in line with the culture.

You don't think there is perhaps any other way to read that headline? Like, "a non-African man in the US has been arrested for a crime where nobody ever gets arrested because the perpetrators are usually in Africa."

In general I'd agree, but this site is not any old news site:

https://www.theroot.com/tag/white-tears

I'm not saying it makes it right, but for every one of these, there are a dozen right-wing sites saying similar or worse things about minorities. Some people were assholes on the internet. Nothing to write home about.

> for every one of these, there are a dozen right-wing sites saying similar or worse things about minorities

But the premise was not "the root balances the scales of alt-right internet injustice"; It was "the root is not an appropriate source". Those other dozen right-wing sites are also inappropriate source material, whatever the quantity/rarity.

Fair enough, but your original point was about their use of the word "white" probably just being informative. Given their agenda, it seems unlikely to me.

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