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Comment by john_alan | Hacker News Reader

> Are you telling me that there are no capable African-Americans who could fill that board position?

Of fucking course not.

> If not, the what are you arguing? That increasing the representation of historically oppressed minority groups is bad?

This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism.

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This sort of aggression is not acceptable on HN, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you’re not allowed use swear words?

That's not the issue.

What is the issue? I just got flagged for explaining that they're not aiming for equality but equity.

I find this odd. Iagree with the move sometimes you need to do the wrong thing to get the right outcomes.

If you were flagged, that was most likely by regular users, not moderators.

The issue with the comment above is that it was (a) a personal attack and (b) fulminating.

No it is not. This is not the innocent, pristine untouched garden of eden before Adam and Eve ate the apple. This is a society where the ancestors of one group of people auctioned off the ancestors of another group of people like cattle. This is a society where 38 years ago, the KKK last lynched someone. This is a society, where 30% of all black males in Alabama permanently lost their right to vote. This is a society where you get a slap on the wrist if you are a rich white coke-head but get years in prison if you happen to be black, poor and are caught with a bong.

The counter-example to your argument: Imagine a company with a serious sexual harrassment problem, where men abused and raped female staff. You argue that in such a situation, giving a voice to a female victim is sexism! No!

...in the United states, which contains roughly 5% of the world's population. Reddit isn't just used by Americans.

john_alan asserted that hiring where having a specific skin color is required is racist hiring. Your response is black people have been treated poorly so it isn't racism. Your argument more reads like a justification for treating people different based on race rather than this specific action isn't racist.

Would you be willing to give an alternative definition of racism?

>This might be difficult for you to understand but explicitly hiring someone with a particular skin colour is the fucking definition of racism.

The only difference between what they're doing now and what they did before is the skin color requirement is explicit instead of implicit. Only hire white guys? Meritocracy! Decide you want to hire 1 black guy? Racist!

What is your proof of an implicit skin color requirement?

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