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Comment by ifokiedoke | Hacker News Reader

Hey, I agree with everything that is being said here but I think it might be unnecessary here to be making personal attacks such as calling somebody racist or implying white resentment because somebody is mis-informed. Especially because -- growing up in a racist society -- we all have internalized racism in some way, which we're just slowly trying to unlearn.

Just based on current events, even many dense non-Whites (myself included) have just started to realize how deep the problem goes when it goes to both conscious and unconscious bias.

We can definitely do better, and I hope the trends do indeed show that we're heading that way.

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In my view a huge part of the problem is that we keep giving bad people a benefit of the doubt they don't deserve, and keep treating bad faith nonsense as arguments worthy of consideration. In my view I am not making a "personal attack" so much as calling a spade a spade.

To be clear: I believe OP is not just ignorant, but is being a bad person. OP's point was not simply that anti-black discrimination is no big deal - which would be reprehensible enough - but that the opposite is happening, to the detriment of whites. It doesn't matter if OP is parroting racist propaganda or creating it themselves: it is highly potent racist propaganda, designed to convert whites into overt racists by playing on their resentment.

OP isn't "less racist" if they sincerely believe the propaganda due to misinformation: racism is racism and OP is perpetuating it. "Just because he's repeating a racist lie does NOT mean he is a racist" is unfortunately a common line of thought in the US. But this only assuages the feelings of whites, and does not accurately describe racism in America.

Ah, I see what you mean. You're saying that intent does not excuse action, and if somebody is repeating things that are racist then they are engaging in racism, and a racist is someone who carries out the act of racism. Therefore they are a racist.

I can't disagree with that. Thanks for making the effort to explain.

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EDIT (5 minutes later): Man, now that you put it that way I can't stop thinking about how obvious that is.

"Just because they're repeating racist things doesn't mean they're a racist" Is a pretty weak line of thought, since that's quite literally the definition of racist. It's alarming what you internalize living somewhere for long enough. Sorry ojnabieoot, I've got it now.

When you say 'OP', who are you talking about?

> Any company that has diversity hiring numbers that they are supposed to hit is discriminating based on factors outside of performance if it influences their hiring process at all.

> OP's point was not simply that anti-black discrimination is no big deal - which would be reprehensible enough - but that the opposite is happening, to the detriment of whites.

You.

You do realize I didn't say any of that and this person hallucinated a giant rant right?

One way to do better is to recognize that the onus is by default put on minorities to explain discrimination. For example, black people in the US spend extraordinary amounts of time explaining racism to white people, an exhausting and neverending effort. It's like a DDOS.

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