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Comment by lewisj489 | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but notice the absence of minorities on this website.

Edit:

Like it or not, people of different colours bring culture and a welcoming variation to a city. I get it, the French are minorities in Lithuania but you're nitpicking, being ignorant and missing the point.

There are 12 picture with exclusively white people. Why would any who isn't white want to move there is that's the only group represented.

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What do you mean by "minorities"? Do you mean "non-white" people? If so, then sure, but most of eastern Europe is fairly homogeneous in terms of skin color.

I take argument, and actually some offense to your comment because there could definitely be maligned groups in the website. Polish people deal with discrimination in many parts of Europe even today, and Lithuania has a history of this (read about the Lithuanization of the Polish). I have Polish ancestry and have been in situations where I've been told to keep quiet to avoid problems.

Skin color doesn't always show the battles that people fight against discrimination every day.

To be fair though, last time I went to Poland (Krakow 2011) they were super-racist.

One of our friends was black, it was very scary at times. Lots of skin heads, random people spitting at our friend, getting followed by gangs of people.

I have no idea what it's like in Lithuania, but there can still be some pretty extreme racism going on in E.European countries.

Me and my brother went to woodstock in Poland and it was not a welcoming experience at all (We are black)

Brit living in Vilnius. It's true you don't get many people with dark skin here, but people are friendly and I don't think they would behave that way. They may stop and stare, but it's more out of interest. For context, my wife's grandma lives in a village and has only seen black people on TV.

I have a couple of Indian friends who live here and they don't have any issues. To be honest I'd say this country is more welcoming to foreigners than the UK.

I've been to Poland quite a few times (love it!) and, as a mixed race (western european + west african heritage), the worst racist comments and treatment I received was, ironically, from a jewish person in Krakow's jewish quarters - (if he was actually jewish is anyone's guess). I'd agree that it's a generally racist society but I wouldn't go as far as saying super-racist, but then again, I was never spat at. Of course I could come up with dozens of anecdotes, like a woman refusing to shake my hand saying "I don't touch black people" after shaking everyone else's hand in my group, but I'm not comfortable generalising since almost everyone I met was super welcoming and friendly, without a hint of hatred or disgust. Let's not judge a country by a few rotten apples!

> Skin color doesn't always show the battles that people fight against discrimination every day.

But it is the biggest factor. An instant identifier to discriminate against.

so you think people should use a token black person even though that’s not representative of the actual minorities. don’t you think that’s racist in itself?

A city which want's to become powerful much have representation for everyone.

It'd be nice if that was true but its not. A lot of Asia being a perfect example.

Well... I can't deny that.

One thing that always surprises me is the inability of many Americans to accept that the whole world is not US. We are simply not fighting the political and racial battles that they have. In order to be a citizen in a globalized world, one has to be able to see things from perspectives of different societies, not impose their own perspective on everyone. I agree that the original comment about racial diversity makes sense in US and I would completely agree with it if the site was about US or similar countries where there are significant visually-distinguishable minorities. However, it simply doesn’t make sense in Lithuania. Also in many other EU members

I'm not from the US. I live in France.

the french history of black slavery is worse than that of the US, which is why there is a considerable black minority in france. this is not the case for lithuania, or many other european countries.

Well, that's going to be hard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_ethnic_gr...

"Main minority groups include Poles 234,989 (6.7%), Russians 219,789 (6.3%), Belarusians 42,866 (1.2%), Ukrainians 22,488 (0.7%) and Jews 4,007 (2001 census data)."

(https://minorityrights.org/country/lithuania/)

So, how did you figure out from the photos that those people are not among Lithuanian minorities?

> I can't help but notice the absence of minorities on this website

Aren't a region's minorities a product of its composition? White people are minorities in Asian countries.

False equivalency.

What do you mean by that?

White people in an Asian country is not the same as an Asian in a "White" country. White people used to be colonial masters in most Asian countries and the reverse is not true.

This isn't an Asian country...

It is not an Asian country, but it is a country where both the majority (Lithuanians) and minorities (mostly people from other European countries) visually look the same. You can distinguish them by languages they speak, which is something we cannot infer from photos on the website.

For example, I am a Croatian expat in Czech Republic. The only way Czechs figure out I'm not one of them is when they try to talk to me in Czech. Tell me how to represent that in a photo.

I would also be a minority in US, but no one would consider me as one only because I'm white. And that's called being racist.

Different skin colors does not always equate to a diverse, better actualized, or welcoming society. Culture and attitude do, and for the US that includes skin color as a marker for varying lived experiences. Assuming varying skin color is the full explainer of a positive society is cart before horse, as other comments have sufficiently explained.

We should make sure that folks are welcome, but drive by critiques aren't going to get us there.

so you think all of those people are lithuanian? you sure there’s no poles, russians, ukrainians, etc? how would you know?

just because people aren’t varying shades of brown doesn’t stop them being a minority

What do you mean by that?

Non-whites

Lithuania is not the US. You saw Swedish and Italian people on the website, in Lithuania they are minorities.

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