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Comment by throwaway_jobs | Hacker News Reader

> Doc has a beard, and people are always asking him why he has a beard. Doc learned a long time ago that it makes people angry and suspicious if he tells the truth

I purposely have a big ole homeless looking beard specifically to keep people at arms length.

Ironically one time in a single weekend it backfired twice...on a Friday while doing planks/pushups on a yoga mat in a park I was attacked by someone yelling “get out of my country” because they thought I was a Muslim praying to Mecca. Then the very next day I went to fresh market and ordered bacon and baby back ribs from the butcher and was confronted in the store by a man who followed me into the parking lot to attack me for being a bad Jew and ordering bacon and ribs on the sabbath.

I’m neither Muslim nor Jewish, and even after learning this neither of my attackers were apologetic.

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Have experienced similar things as a Sikh all over the world when I still had an uncut beard.

From not being allowed inside a club for wearing a turban to being hugged by someone for being allah’s son.

Man, did being a Sikh teach me something about negative assumptions based on appearance.

I remind myself that it is nothing but a survival instinct and even I was doing this in one way or another.

> Have experienced similar things as a Sikh all over the world when I still had an uncut beard.

10 years ago, my neighbors were Sikh (I moved since then). They had all sorts of stories about how 9/11 got them confused with Muslims.

They were pretty big extroverts, and threw a lot of parties, and came to virtually every neighborhood party. But I can't help but think that they felt the need to socialize, to make sure their neighbors knew who they were.

Those parties are how I learned what a Sikh was. Before that, I did think they were Muslim. So it worked. But yeah, it probably sucks that they had to work extra hard to make sure people understood who they were.

Even non-Sikh Punjabis tend to be extroverts :)

Being a sikh confused for a muslim is bad, but the implicit assumption that being a muslim is somehow worse is also bad.

Well, for me specifically, it was just kind of embarrassing to be the ignorant one.

Its like, I'm going over to my Muslim neighbor to see their birthday party. Later on... well... actually they were Sikh and I was ignorant and didn't know the difference until I asked them.

Fortunately, my neighbors must have been very familiar with the confusion, because they handled the discussion "what is a Sikh" pretty well.

-------

During 9/11 itself, I was in Catholic school. The teachers made it very clear that we needed to learn more about other religions at the time. So we visited local Churches, Synagogues and Mosques as part of various field trips. So I was familiar with Muslims, Jews, Protestants.

But we never visited a Sikh temple. I simply didn't know that religion even existed until I met my neighbors a few years later.

I think it's more like, if you assume that someone is Italian and then find out that they're Mexican, it's awkward that you made an incorrect assumption about their ethnicity despite the assumption being neutral in terms of judgment.

Yes, it seems that the weirdness of the mentioned interactions does not mainly stems from the confusion of the faith. It's based on people expressing their judgement of you as a person in relation to their perceived faith.

I think it’s absolutely amazing how much we put into looks and first impressions. My story is the opposite of yours, being a fit white Scandinavian cisgendered male who looks the part of an IT/banking manager when I’m clean cut. The amount of privilege afforded to me based purely on my looks and what I’m wearing is just insane, and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve often used it to my advantage.

These days I look like a hippie, sporting a full corona beard, coloured or happy message t-shirts, stretchy jeans and sandals. And it’s a whole different story, people offer me no leeway. Ironically my career and I guess wealth/status has progressed exactly opposite to my looks. So people should really stop judging anyone at face value.

Even then, it is quite likely that people offer you a ton of leeway still. It's only in comparison to your previous style that you see the reduction.

A friend of mine is considered white in the country he was born in (Guyana) and black in the country he's in now (Canada), and despite being always extremely well groomed and styled, he still ends up being very very clearly followed by security whenever he goes shopping. In comparison I've been to those places while looking more than scruffy, not showered, etc.. and have received nods and smiles from the security in every one of those places. Sometimes it's even happening simultaneously: if we enter separately only one of us gets followed. And this is downtown Toronto, one of the supposedly most diverse cities on Earth.

Oh, you’re absolutely right about that. I probably wouldn’t be able to pull off my hippie look in my position if I wasn’t a Scandinavian man.

People just don’t automatically attribute me with financial power anymore. On the flip-side, anything “being a dad” related is much better now that people assume I work less.

>> Ironically my career and I guess wealth/status has progressed exactly opposite to my looks.

A friend of mine is an engineering consultant (software) and looks shabby. He met me for lunch one day after seeing a client and I said "you went to see them like that?" He said it's part of the uniform. It sends a message about being good enough not to worry about superficial impressions. I'm sure in some cases that's true.

The "uniform" thing is very true. I'm a software developer in the Pacific Northwest who loves to wear suits (they look damn good on me). I was told long ago that jeans and a hoodie are the de-facto uniform of my profession, and I needed to dress the part.

That got really hammered home when I showed up to a job interview in a button-down shirt and slacks and I was _far_ more dressed-up than the CEO. Getting bounced for not being a "culture fit" cleared up any lingering ambiguity.

I'm a t-shirt and jeans person but I will never go to an in-person interview without a button-down shirt. If a company judges me negatively for wearing that then it's not a place I want to work.

The opposite thing happened to me. I work as a lawyer and I was advised to get nicer suits and grow a beard to look older. I was told that my work was good, but appearances mattered. They said that I wasn't looking trustworthy enough to be presented to clients.

Once while giving a talk at a dev conference I was heckled just after being introduced. This was over 10 years ago but it was something to the effect of "get off the stage, suit". I wasn't wearing a suit but apparently my overall look screams "sales guy"...

I was pleasantly surprised when I completed my talk and the guy who heckled me (I never even saw him) came up to me and apologized. Then again this was in Toronto so maybe the old stereotype about apologetic Canadians is more true than not!

The "shabby nerd" stereotype is a very real thing and it goes both ways.

This is so true. There's been a lot of times when I cleaned up my look and wore really nice clothes to work, just because I felt like looking good -- and the number of "going for a job interview?" jokes I got all the time was countless. It's like a requirement to dress down.

Then again it might be more due to the change compared to the baseline.

> "going for a job interview?"

I always reply with "every day is a job interview, baby" and do cheesy finger guns. That shuts them up.

Ugh, that joke was thrown around so many times at our office, whenever anyone dared show up to work in a button-down shirt and slacks. Or some variant like "Good luck on your job interview today!" or "Looks like you need to take an extra long lunch today. Let me know how it went."

Also bandied about here in the UK as an accompaniment to that is: "Going to court?"

"Yes, I've been stealing hearts."

I got a more conservative haircut once and the CEO asked if I was job hunting.

I dont think it is amazing at all. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

Adhering to aesthetic cues signals conforming with society at large. If you are not in, you are clearly a threat. For example, if you dont follow simpler things, what bona fides can you provide that you will respect fundamental aspects of the society you are part of?

First impressions are a self-preservation mechanism.

Its not illogical. That being said this presents very interesting diamond-in-the-rough opportunities to visionaries

I've seen something similar with my fitness. I've gone from competitive powerlifter to very obese to moderately fit, and the ways in which it changes the way almost everyone interacts with you, all the time, is just insane - from the quite subtle (being more deferential, more pleasant, slightly more generous with their time) to not subtle at all ("you're so smart! You look so shy; I wouldn't have guessed you're so smart until you started speaking.")

I wonder if some of that is that you also behave differently when more fit vs not. Like maybe more subconsciously confident when fit?

I feel like that's pretty likely a bigger element of it when I was younger, though I'm sure it always figures in to some degree. Although part of it is circular: when people all treat you like you're nicer/smarter/etc. you feel more confident, too.

But some of it was just a bit too much of a stretch to just be confidence. I'm /generally/ a pretty confident person, and comfortable with people, and the difference in how many people suddenly can vs. can't find the time of day for you is pretty dramatic.

And, of course, some of it was just not subtle at all. I'd been told pretty frankly I was too fat to be a doctor. Because, you know, clearly my personal struggles with my weight have a direct correlation to my ability to diagnose your ailment. (Okay, I'm still salty about that one.)

Slightly off topic, I bought a pair of "stretchy jeans" recently but didn't know the term or know how to define what was good about them, so thanks for that! (Apparently there was some effort put into marketing these jeans - ostensibly "women's clothing" - to men https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/jeggings-... )

I've heard stories from salesmen at Porsche dealers that the people who come in puffed up, clean cut and suited are more likely to buy a base mode;, while the guys who buy the top end cars are often scraggly looking. Definitely something to be said for being successful enough you're no longer trying to convince people you're successful.

...by buying a top of the line Porsche?

Most of the top line Porsche are very performance oriented versions of each model with some pretty radical departures from normal car features. Lack of back seats, rollcages, hard racing suspension, loud. The people that buy these are after race cars for the street.

You might be shocked to find that people buy top-end kit to impress absolutely no one. I have a top-of-the-line BMW motorcycle. I don't care if you know that, nor if you are impressed (you shouldn't be, they're less expensive than many Harleys). I bought it because I wanted it, and it would do the things I wished it to do.

I was, however, probably the scraggliest customer in the showroom when I bought it.

Everyone in auto sales has a story like this. The moral is to never judge someone by their looks. Always act like they're going to buy.

Anecdote: I once was able to board a high speed train going back to my home country while carrying a license plate from the country of departure and I only got a slight frown from the train officer(?) when I handed out my first class ticket (for a really long travel).

These two comments remind me yet again how our appearance is "marketing." I recognized at some point mid-highschool (10th year of schooling Age 15/16) that the way people dressed was being used as a signal by other people on how to treat them.

Because I found this interesting I created an arbitrary taxonomy and then talked to people I knew who fell into different branches and tried to understand if they were actively or passively participating in that branch of 'dressers.' Not surprising to my older self, a large number of people conformed to the taxonomic dress code due to external factors rather than internal ones. I suspect the adage 'you can't read/judge a book by its cover' is an expression that suggests a lot of other people found the same things my young self did.

As a result I try very hard to not "see" (and by that I mean color my perception) of someone by what they are wearing or how they present themselves. But I also recognize how difficult that is.

I vividly recall, in highschool in Los Angeles, right after 9/11, the leader of the class had to announce that our only Sikh student there was in fact Sikh, not Muslim, so please stop harassing him.

Did the class leader's announcement really leave the implication that the harassment should continue were he in fact Muslim?

I remember John McCain being praised in the 2008 election campaign for speaking to a member of his audience who echoed the oft-repeated "Obama is a Muslim" claim, saying that "No ma'am, he's not, he's a good man". Nothing else.

Baby steps are better than no steps, but still, it does leave a sour taste.

That's not true and you are not being fair to McCain.

She said she didn't trust him and he's an Arab. He took the mic from her and said no mam, he's a good man. He didn't even address the Arab comment because he had already addressed it previously.

I see nothing negative either intentional or unintentional about his responses.

We have enough bad in this world. We need to give credit where credit is due and not invent thinks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4

Thanks for pulling up the link, but it doesn't show him addressing it earlier as you said. I did mis-remember however; the lady said "He's an Arab" and not "He's a Muslim". Still, his response was "He's a decent family man and citizen that I have disagreements with".

Look, I know McCain is nothing like the Republicans that routinely use racial dogwhistling as a campaign strategy. But in this instance, he's still employing the right wing version of political correctness that's necessary to employ when talking to supporters that swallow Fox News/Rush Limbaugh views. He can say to his audience that Obama isn't an Arab. He just can't say that even if he were an Arab, it shouldn't be a problem in the United States of America.

Allow me to post a link where Republican former Sec of State Colin Powell comments on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYELqbZAQ4M

Your point is correct. Thanks for saying it at least.

What is a leader of the class?

http://enwp.org/Class_president

>I remind myself that it is nothing but a survival instinct and even I was doing this in one way or another.

Astute observation. I mean we all react differently to a cat versus a snake, based on prior experiences or social conditioning. The average person out there with average intelligence ( nothing to be proud of) can evaluate only in black and white and not in shades of grey. Let's cut some slack (but not too much) for these mentally challenged people.

Most of the societal or political problems of the world are a medical problem: how do you treat IQ deficiency. You solve that, you revolutionize politics, ethics, demographics, etc.

It would be interesting if a new class of drugs was developed that had some of the effects people seek, so they maintained their allure to those who find them alluring, but also amplified impulse control instead of diminishing it. No doubt non-users would complain about users getting a benefit they didn't earn (e.g. the prodigal son's brother), and there are no doubt other consequences I haven't thought of.

Agreed. (At a personal level I have become a hermit of sorts, seeking out the above average people and choosing to deal with the select few)

Allah's son? Did they say that?

In one case, yes, exactly that.

I have no idea what kind of Muslim they claim to be but that is just out there.

if you don't mind, did you cut your beard?

Yes

Not surprising: bigots who go out of their way to insult random strangers probably isn't a demographic well acquainted with introspection or humility.

You're not wrong, but I've had to force myself out of this kind of negative thinking and instead try to approach someone like that from a place of genuine compassion and honesty.

I've been called a "dumbass liberal", "commie", "socialist" and other names at work because the majority of the employees are die-hard Trump fans and/or religious fundamentalists and I made the mistake of expressing compassion for the immigrants in cages when it was big in the news. I've found that explaining my point of view, that as one who follows the teachings of Christ (I'm not overly religious but it's a discipline of love towards all other people and I'm down with that, plus it keeps my religious family happy), I can't in good conscience find pleasure in the suffering of others, seemed to make some of them stop and think about their own prejudices and biases.

I doubt I've actually won anyone over (I tend to just keep my mouth shut about current events these days), but I've definitely seen an improvement in how I'm treated since then. Hopefully expressing positive feelings instead of reacting to negativity with more negativity will continue to improve my relationships with coworkers.

On either side of the spectrum, many people associate with a particular brand of politics as part of their identity. Political strategists are smart, and quite literally divvy up these groups and build a coalition in a process called “tent building”.

Now, I’ve met and talked with plenty of folk who confuse their identity with their political party. Definitely happens on both sides - as I saw growing up in Oklahoma, and now see in the Bay Area.

The point is, people feel (not wrongfully) uncomfortable when their identity is “threatened” by people who represent themselves with a brand of politics that is oppositional to the one that markets to them.

Now I’ve found that when you share your beliefs, and they aren’t founded on identity politics, then it can ease up the feelings of threat and opposition you’re sure to face.

Alternatively, don’t talk about politics - the simpler method. Having always been a bit of a political outsider, I learned early on that proselytizing others is both counterproductive and alienating.

> I’ve met and talked with plenty of folk who confuse their identity with their political party.

What do you mean by "confuse"? What if their political party/orientation is an important part of their identity?

It can be, but it kind of should be the other way around. Your identity and your values should inform what political party you should belong to. Your political party shouldn't inform your identity.

There should be things you disagree with your party about.

I mean, being a proud Democrat or Republican doesn't mean you agree with your party in 100% of issues.

It very much can be, you're right, but I think grandparent is taking it for granted (and I agree that it should be) that this is a smallish, petty identity, unworthy of containing a human soul.

That seems awfully judgy. If you think a political party is unworthy of contributing to one's identity, I shudder to think what you'd say about me identifying as a Starcraft player.

I'm a Starcraft player too. But I am not just a Starcraft player, and neither are you.

Then they should rethink their priorities. Ideals are far more important than party affiliation.

Ideas are cheap. Execution is hard. It's as true in politics as it is in startups.

Parties aren't the only way to contribute to 'execution', of course, but they're one of the most obvious.

> The point is, people feel (not wrongfully) uncomfortable when their identity is “threatened” by people who represent themselves with a brand of politics that is oppositional to the one that markets to them.

Do you have specific examples?

Sure. Go to a Ducks Unlimited banquet and tell folks you’re a Democrat and they may contextualize gun control as your agenda. Tell your Bay Area colleagues you’re a Republican and you’ll be contextualized as close minded.

Tell people you’re unaffiliated and they’ll often see you as an antagonist to their pet causes. Don’t tell people anything, and they usually won’t put up a guard.

> Sure. Go to a Ducks Unlimited banquet and tell folks you’re a Democrat and they may contextualize gun control as your agenda. Tell your Bay Area colleagues you’re a Republican and you’ll be contextualized as close minded.

That's just... assuming you more-or-less support the planks/stances/actions of party you've just told them you consider yourself affiliated with. Where's the identity part come in?

Many people don't support 100% of their party's policies - they just agree with them on the 2 or 3 things that are really important to them. This is a normal state of affairs in a two-party system.

For example, maybe I really like my party's stance on abortion and energy policy; I'm indifferent to their stances on farm subsidies, gun control, and immigration; and I feel their stances on trans rights and corruption could be improved a fair bit.

That would mean, when I meet someone from a different party, we could actually agree on a great many issues.

No no, those are hypothetical. What's happened to you?

You don’t get to arbitrate what has and has not happened to me. What sort of oddball remark was this?

Funny story about that banquet though. A guy at my table paid a few hundred dollars in a silent auction thinking that he was bidding on a gun. He was actually bidding on a lottery ticket for a gun. His wife was unhappy with his mistake. He did win a duck call alongside the lottery ticket IIRC. This was in NW Arkansas and was a part of a crawfish boil. Definitely not the Bay Area.

You're right. I apologize.

An auction for a lottery ticket to win a gun. Are you sure there wasn't a raffle involved somewhere? :^)

A raffle for a rifle?

Better keep the riffraff out.

I'm fascinated how people don't seem to be receptive to your promotion of positivity (by how you've been downvoted)

IMO, your outlook is exactly what we need more of in the world.

In a related vein to you I don't get any satisfaction out of hating others. Especially knowing how easy it is for the human psyche to latch onto those behaviors (othering, outgroup, tribalism, etc.)

> I'm fascinated how people don't seem to be receptive to your promotion of positivity (by how you've been downvoted)

I think some of it is down to how as a species we are tribal by nature, and we have to work hard to get past that and start seeing one another as companions by default, rather than adversaries. There's a time and place for healthy competition and sportsmanship, but issues like politics, religion, and race should not be competitive at all (edit to say I get that politics is a competition/popularity contest, rather I mean that one should be able to support an ideal or a specific candidate without being seen as "the enemy").

A nice ritual (at least pre-covid) for the times and places for healthy competition and sportsmanship is to shake hands before and after, to put parentheses around that competition.

> I've found that explaining my point of view, that as one who follows the teachings of Christ (I'm not overly religious but it's a discipline of love towards all other people and I'm down with that, plus it keeps my religious family happy), I can't in good conscience find pleasure in the suffering of others, seemed to make some of them stop and think about their own prejudices and biases.

How do you think this would have gone if you hadn't claimed a religious exception? So rather if you simply said that you couldn't find pleasure in the suffering of others, but with no references to Christ?

I don't see it as a religious exception, rather the opposite: Because of my existing convictions, I find Christ's teachings about loving one another and helping others to be compatible with my views.

I get what you mean though, and I wonder too if it would have made any difference good or bad. I think with some folks, maybe it would.

Similar here, I was rockin' a pretty serious beard while working for a company that maintained POS equipment in independent grocery stores. Many of our clients were smaller ethnic shops, mostly Arab of various derivations.

There were a few where, the first time I walked in (moments after calling to say I'd arrived), the staff greeted me in a friendly "hello brother" sort of way, once in exactly those words. I didn't see any point in arguing, but when prayer time rolled around and I said I'd keep working, the shock was delicious. All good-natured, just unexpected all around.

I had to ditch the beard recently to get a good seal with a respirator, but it'll be back someday.

> greeted me in a friendly "hello brother"

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we all greeted each other like this regardless of color, creed, nation, etc? I think I’ll just start doing this - “hello brother!” “Hello sister”

Word. I've been trying to do similar in my life and when I do make the effort to raise myself to the same level as those I am greeting the interaction is so much more fulfilling for us both.

No, it would not be good. There is a difference between brother, best friend, friend, buddy, etc. You can be friendly to people without diminishing what those words actually mean. Not everything has to be "awesome", some things are just great, good or even okay. And that is literally okay.

It's all fun and games until someone is incredibly offended because she actually identifies as a genderfluid demisexual wolf in a human body and you just referred to her as "sister"

I like using buddy or ma'am. Everyone can be my buddy until they do some action that proves otherwise.

Non native. Does ma'am have the same ring as "buddy"? It always sounded somehow deferential to me

No, ma’am is the female equivalent of sir. They’re formal terms, not familiar like “buddy”

This is my go to as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade

Roman emperor Domitian expelled the Stoic philosophers from Italy. Some of them just shaved their beards so they could pass as 'normal' and stay.

Is it more stoic to keep the beard and leave, or shave the beard and stay.

With access to shaving technology, a beard is something you can control. I don't think a beard is absolutely mandatory to be stoic, is it?

depends. is the beard or Italy the thing that makes you more happy.

Ah, those trouble making Stoic Philosophers (I capitalize this because my wife and I are ardent followers - a sane and practical philosophy for a crazy world).

Well, actually, quite the trouble makers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoic_Opposition

It's actually really cool in a weird way in that it's measurably consistent. I live somewhere in the west and have skin of the moderately darker variety and the amount of general street racism I face is directly correlated with the length of my beard.

Ugly and Horrible.

People will find any excuse to be cunts to each other and feel entitled to do so.

Sometimes it feels like nobody is following the cardinal rule: be excellent to each other.

Could we maybe choose less sexist insults in the thread on acceptance?

Don’t be a dick.

Sure, but everybody has an asshole.

Could we maybe choose less ableist insults in the thread on acceptance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperforate_anus

Notably; this kind of pedantry is problematic, nobody thinks of gender when genitalia is used as an insult. Obviously insults are designed to offend; but adding additional meaning and then attacking the faux meaning is not meaningful.

This sort of behaviour fuels anti-liberal rhetoric; as it does nothing to prevent actual sexism it’s just people attacking a straw man at the expense of well meaning people who used some word of the month which has been deemed “troublesome”.

If I had led with “dick” as the insult I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t have been called out in such a way.

False arguments serve only to “beat” other people so you may feel superior for a moment, but they push others to conservatism for being attacked for innocuous commentary.

This is a problem because the conservatives are very effectively using the snobbery of some on the “left” to win people over and putting back liberal causes by decades in some cases. Leading to things like Trump - and the senate being stacked with republicans.

Let’s go after actual issues.

Maybe the poster is Australian.

I've heard that Jedi is an official response in Oz, but is there anywhere one can claim "Bill & Ted-ism" as a religion?

Being excellent to others, in my book, means giving people the benefit of the doubt and not presuming that they will find any excuse to be entitled cunts to others.

In my experience, most people are not like that. There are, of course, self-righteous jerks everywhere, but in every society I find them to be a small minority.

It’s true. Occasionally I’ll dress like people from other parts of the country) think Texas, or what have you, or in Texas dress like a surfer). People look at you funny. People think all kinds of things. Like passive aggressive things: look you up and down, block your way, etc. on the positive side sometimes you get complements.

I've not had the same or similar experiences, I am a pale ginger with a big ginger beard, but I have been treated like and told that I look like a homeless man by strangers, friends, and even family. I've had a (medium or large) beard since 2006, I shaved it completely off exactly once in all of that time, in 2008. It was short for my wedding but I brought the length right back. I like it, I hate that I used to make excuses for it.

> I think it must be a lot easier to be a weird misfit now than it was in 1935.

This is probably true in a general sense but people still suck as much in 2020 as they did in 1935, which is evidenced by current events and this very comment thread. The big difference being that there's so many more people today than there were then. Maybe that indicates that we've made some progress but I'm less hopeful.

It's ridiculous. Living in the UK I've had several people talk about Muslims and immigrants and how they change culture and take jobs... One even said "you're alright mate"...

Are you serious? I don't understand how people can think this way. If I and other foreign coworkers were alright, why are others bad? Where are they?

Terrible media and politicians with their own agendas pushing trash down people's eyes and ears, and they turn on some other group, it's fking sad.

I’m sure some learned person here can give us the right nomenclature, but it’s the difference between “they” and aa single individual. It’s easy to be convinced that some group is the problem, it’s very different when you are confronted with a single individual and suddenly realize that groups are seldom as homogeneous as they appear.

Does this happen in the east as well?

I feel this is common in the west, because people externalize internal conflicts, and they have to project their "righteousness" and "judgement" to justify their existence, as there is nothing left in ourselves besides atoms.

Hell ya me too, I like to ride that line between looking tidy and insane

I would suspect it's location-based.

In Oakland or San Francisco you wouldn't get a passing glance. Even if you upped your tattoo game.

Only in NYC...

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