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Comment by Yetanfou | Hacker News Reader

Please don't capitalise the term 'black' here, leave that to political pamphlets like the New York Times (who seem to be the ones who started this). The more people start identifying themselves with their inalienable characteristics like skin colour, hair colour or eye colour , the further we'll get away from the ideal of a colour-blind society.

Yes, that is the ideal, that the colour of your skin does not matter. If you don't want to take my word on it, maybe Martin Luther King can convince you:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

[1] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

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I genuinely believe people who don't see the colourblind society as the ideal are so deeply racist that they would froth at the mouth at any MLK quote that they didn't know came from him.

  Please don't capitalise the term 'black' here

The San Jose Mercury has just changed their style guide to do exactly this (capitalize Black when used in a racial identity context)[0]. When using "white" in the same context, it remains uncapitalized.

[0] example: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/03/protesters-march-to-s...

I don’t see that quote as advocating for color–blindness. There is a difference between seeing the color of someone’s skin and judging them for it.

But if you adopt MLK’s views like this, can I take it that you then support reparations and civil unrest in response to racial oppression? That you think the biggest obstacle to racial justice are white moderates? That you oppose capitalism and support socialism?

> But if you adopt MLK’s views like this, can I take it that you then support reparations and civil unrest in response to racial oppression

Why would you think that? MLK was his own agent and so am I. Just like he agreed with some of the things e.g. Fredrick Douglas said but disagreed with others, I agree with some things he said and disagree with others. On the subject of the response to racial oppression I can, in some cases, support civil unrest as that is often the only way of breaking a status-quo. I do not support direct reparations because a) this does not solve the problem and b) neither those who would pay nor those who get paid are either guilty of enslaving people or having been enslaved. Targeted investments in areas which still suffer from the effects of earlier redlining and similar Jim Crow laws are something I can stand behind, as long as they are just that: targeted and effective. I do not support "Socialism" since I interpret that as being the precursor to Communism which has cost enough lives by now that it should be clear to even the most stubborn observer that it is a dead-end street - literally. I do not oppose Capitalism as it is implemented in e.g. north-western Europe, i.e. an economically liberal social democracy. Is it perfect? No, certainly not. Can it be improved? Absolutely. Given all that it still seems to be a reasonable compromise between individual liberty and social responsibility, both terms which when taken to the extreme lead to (extreme liberty) chaos and (extreme social responsibility) oppression.

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