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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I don't get the rest of your argument. It seems to be "my country doesn't have a problem with racism so racist comments are fine."

It's more "A culture that has historically had heavy racism problems should not export their overcompensating hysteria that everything touching on ethnicity/race is racism and consider its own preoccupations universally applicable".

>So what grudges do you think the Irish held leading to this stereotype?

Why not ask the Irish themselves?

https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/why-irish...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nurturing-a-grudge-1.315764

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/50-year-itch-epic-grudge...

Or on a funny note:

https://lovin.ie/news/feature/18-petty-things-that-irish-peo...

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My god, all those links refer to Irish Americans. If anything, it shows that Americans hold grudges throughout generations. It's quite telling that an American conflates Irish-Americanism with being 'Irish'. The hyphen is there for a reason.

>It's more...

I'm curious where you're from that you think doesn't have a similar history, but it still boils down to "if you don't have a racism problem it's not actually racist." I don't get that logic, you can argue it's not harmful but it's still racism.

>Why not ask the Irish themselves?

I find it strange that all the Irish you are asking are speaking English, but the Irish Times hits why this is offensive.

>Well, Brian, the record so far is a whopping 800 years: this being the period, rounded down to the nearest century, for which we claim to have been oppressed by the English.

Everything else listed is fairly standard, and you could make similar articles for any ethnicity.

>I'm curious where you're from that you think doesn't have a similar history, but it still boils down to "if you don't have a racism problem it's not actually racist." I don't get that logic

Note that I never said "If a place doesn't have a racism problem then them doing racist acts is OK / it's not racist".

My argument is "Places with heavy racist history tend to look at all kind of non-racist acts as racist, either from guilt or to overcompensate, and then try to force their hyper-sensitivity on others".

Instead of getting sensitive about stereotypes like "Irish can hold a grudge", "the Italians like pasta", "Scots are tightwads", "Germans have no humor", "Greeks are fiscally irresponsible", "Asians do everything better" or whatever as "racism", better act on actual racism, like systemic racism, redlining, over-representation of blacks in what's the biggest prison population in the world, racist cop shootings, college admissions, under-funded districts, WASP domination, etc.

>My argument is "Places with heavy racist history tend to look at all kind of non-racist acts as racist, either from guilt or to overcompensate, and then try to force their hyper-sensitivity on others".

Even if this is true, that was a racist statement for the reasons I originally outlined. That doesn't change if Irish say it, and it is of the "x are inferior sense" you mention. That's what has me confused,

>Instead of... act on...

So I should better prioritise the racism I address in my country, ignoring smaller examples until I can fix major ones? I tend to just address the ones I encounter, though I think understanding that past treatment can still cause current problems we need to address is an important message.

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