“...and nothing of value was lost.”
It wasn't a racing car, and it was in a television show, and so what if there was? If there were a famous car from 1940s Germany with a nazi flag on it, does that make symbolically broadcasting nazism today fine behavior? The confederacy was a regime constructed explicitly to defend the practice of slavery. (https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...)
HN is divided much as society at large is divided, just like any large-enough population sample. It's also a highly international site. Cultural norms vary more than people assume they do, especially when you factor in the international aspects. Since the debate and struggle right now is around just what "current cultural norms" ought to be, it isn't surprising that commenters disagree.
The most important thing to realize about HN is that it's a non-siloed site. Everyone is in one big room here. That means you're far more likely to run into people who hold opposing views on these topics, and they may be the very same people who you agree with about other topics. This is very different from internet environments where users self-select into tribes (silos) and where the tribes are clearly identifiable. There, you know what awfulness to expect from the other side, you can dress up in the battle gear of the internet before confronting them, and you know that your own team will have your back.
On HN, by contrast, you don't know what awfulness to expect, because the tribes are not identifiable and the community actually functions relatively well some of the time (don't get me wrong, it's the internet and there are a ton of problems—but, relatively speaking). This creates a feeling of normalcy and so people expect this place to be normal ("current cultural norms", as you say). Some of the time it does indeed feel that way, and then—blam, you run into something awful and hideous, something anything but normal, which you did not expect to encounter here and which hit you when your defenses were down.
This comes across as a nasty shock. After a few of these shocks, the mind inevitably adjusts its view of the community from "normal place" to "painful nasty place", with the sense "HN is not what I thought it was". I'm going to guess that this is the reason why you use the phrase "astounds me".
In other words, we're in a paradoxical situation where the HN community is objectively less divided and nasty than other places on the internet (which "solve" or, more precisely, defer this problem by segregating into silos), but it's still divided and nasty enough to create unexpectedly painful experiences, which makes it feel more divided and nasty.
This has probably always been the biggest issue for HN's long-term survival, but it has taken years to begin to realize it, and of course current social pressures are intensifying and highlighting it. It's not clear yet what we can really do, let alone if it can survive in the long run, but from the beginning this place has been an experiment in staving off self-destruction for as long as possible (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).
I wrote another thing about the shock experience here if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
Even then, the community is big enough that you're going to regularly run into comments from users you either don't recognize, or didn't realize were of the opposing tribe (or opposing-tribe-adjacent, let's say). So the shock experience never goes away. But I think you're right that it's most intense for less-familiar users, and that explains why there are so many people who use HN for a little while, inevitably encounter the shock experience, feel hurt, and leave. That's a common occurrence and which pains me personally.
The deeper point is that the site is designed to keep everybody together. It's not partitioned by friends or follow lists. There are no subreddits or social graphs. Design differences at that level are profound and affect everything.
edit: That probably sounds more dickish than I meant it. I don't know a better place than HN for identifying clusters and following trends in the thought of "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
It's not only that, which is why I still come here. But that's the strongest theme by far.
Such perceptions are notoriously unreliable. People notice different things and weight them differently, based mostly on what they dislike: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since everyone dislikes different things, everyone has a different weighted average, each reflecting their own preferences. In other words they are in the eye of the beholder, which explains why people come up with such wildly contradictory generalizations about HN.
From my perspective, that's the strongest theme by far. Does my argument apply to my own perception? For sure. It has to.
Now memories of my childhood are darkened, and millions of adults are confused and don't know why. Because people who are long dead thought it would be great fun to raise a generation of f3cking racist kids who would grow up and raise another generation of f2cking racists. It f8cking sucks to be in this situation.
Thanks for nothing, ancestors.
"After the first season, it distressed producer Gy Waldron that the cast was entirely white. So in subsequent seasons, visiting federal agents that investigated Boss Hogg were black, as was the sheriff of the adjoining Chickasaw County."
https://www.neatorama.com/2011/05/04/23-facts-you-might-not-...
Now you might say that it doesn't matter how those people feel. They're not us. They have their culture and we have ours. Well, what if 10 years down the road there was a new hit show in the Arab world where the characters were all very charismatic, wholesome and diverse, but their car had an ISIS flag on it?
What?? How in the universe are you getting there? Talk about a strawman!
The real explanation is much simpler: They didn't know the flag was racist. Because, despite attempts to rewrite history, until recently most people did not know that flag was racist.
I mean, even the producer of the show, who went out of his way to hire black actors, did not even realize that about the flag.
Today, things are different, I think most people know the flag is racist. But in the past? I suspect the vast majority did not realize it.
I find this extremely unbelievable. The American Civil War is a milestone in American history that has been taught in schools for a long time. Most people, despite attempts to rewrite history, know that the Confederacy fought for the right to own black slaves.
For example take a state flag from a rebel state (and assume the flag has not changed since the civil war). If someone flew that flag today, would you think they are implying state rebellion, or just pride in their state?
It's the same with the confederate flag, to most people it's just a flag that symbolizes a group of southern states. To northerners it means rebellion, specifically for slavery, but it doesn't mean that for everyone.
The Confederate States of America (CSA) is not an ambiguous entity. From beginning to end in its short 5 year history, it was made to fight for black slavery. It existed for no other purpose and was subsequently disbanded when slavery was abolished. Literally the only heritage the CSA created in its short life is rebellion and racism.
If you are aware of this widely-known history, it's obvious what this flag narrowly represents. The argument that the CSA could conceivably represent Southern pride is a joke. Ask any non-racist southerner if the most racist institution in US history and its deepest shame is a good stand-in for Southern pride.
Here's a thought experiment: if a group of Germans claimed that the flag of the German Reich represented their pride in Germany's independence and the valor of its veterans, would you be defending it like you are now? Would you use the same excuses?
I can accept that some people may be completely unaware or are too dim to put 2 and 2 together. I simply expect that once they do learn about it, they understand why it's indefensible.
Everyone has always known the flag was a symbol of racism. That's why it was adopted. That's what it was deliberately revived for in the 20th century—as a symbol specifically against racial integration and civil rights—and what it was actively and consistently used as throughout the civil rights movement.
Adults when the show was produced, less than a decade and a half after the Civil Rights Act of 1965, would not generally have failed to understand the symbolism of the flag, or the naming of the car after General Lee.
It's possible that the individual producer was ignorant, but TV shows are not made by one person alone in a vacuum.
If he had really wanted to do something he could have introduced a regular POC character.