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Comment by OoTheNigerian | Hacker News Reader

Hi, author here.

I live in Lagos, Nigeria but visit Silicon Valley frequently and follow the situation closely.

Being near but far, has given me unique perspectives on these type of issues.

I sent my report to 22 US media companies (the ones covered, NYTimes, WaPo, CNN, Guardian, Wired etc) and was essentially blackballed. Thankfully we can self-publish.

I am here in the comments and happy to answer any questions you may have.

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thanks for this great post. I was wondering how does the Tech community in Nigeria feel about the renaming of Tech jargon as currently implemented by Githab, Redhat, Twitter and others (links below). Do you think this is something companies should be doing? It seems like a cheap shot to me personally and it would be cool to get your opinion on this in a future post on your blog.

thanks!

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/03/tech/twitter-jpmorgan-sla...

https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-engineers-replace-racially...

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article243876977....

https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-dropping-coding-term...

Painting a house that is getting rotten is easier than doing a proper renovation.

These are feel good measure, done to tap themselves on their backs and make it seem like work has been done. But no one is fooled.

While some terms can be improved or neutralized, it’s also true that people in Africa like any other place, are also afraid of the dark. It’s part of the human experience. And lack of light or darkness is one ingredient in how or why people perceive things in particular ways.

What exactly are you trying to say? what is light and what is darkness?

GP is saying that most terms using black with a negative connotation, like "black list", didn't originate from racism towards people with dark skin, but from the fear that many people have of darkness. GP is suggesting that this is pretty universal across humanity, including among African cultures.

I...hope this is sarcasm?

African people are afraid of the dark...just like little kids?

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Most cultures including european have mythologies and folklore around the dark. So there is psychology surrounding this. It’s why a good portion “scary movies” involve darkness. But it’s also prevalent in other cultures.

What successful paths have you encountered in Nigeria that propels local disadvantaged populations into areas of the economy that would typically be out of reach to them and which may be applicable in the US?

When it comes to economic growth, Nigeria is so far behind policy wise. Sadly, there is nothing I can offer you around policies that can or should be replicated.

On the individual level, I have seen people transform the lives of their families by learning to code.

This is one https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-went-from-programmin...

> blackballed

Honest question - Is that a racist term? Doesn't appear to be based on Google search, but I see people removing words with black in them such as "blacklist" so I am curious.

No. It refers to a supposed part of the process of joining the Freemasons. The members of the lodge vote anonymously whether to accept a prospective member by depositing a white or black ball into a closed box, with the black ball representing a “no” vote. So “blackballed” refers to some exclusive group excluding outsiders.

I’m not a Mason so I don’t know if this factual, but that’s the idea.

Of course, someone could be blackballed because they are black—if a particular Masonic lodge had racist members—but it’s not inherent to the concept.

So no, but really yes. It's just as racist as "black list" and "white list".

That’s more the general case of the word “black” being used both to denote bad/negative/disallowed and to denote people of African ancestry. But there isn’t a specifically racial meaning to either “blackballed” or “blacklist”.

For me, racism is about the intent. Sometime, those are words, but most times they aren't about words.

So it depends.

> when you are busy pointing your torch at others, you forget to point it at yourself.

Big tech should stop fronting and you should stop pointing.

Please try your luck with Quillette[1] - it's a dissident media magazine, not only open for, but indeed interested in, publishing articles that go against the popular narrative.

[1] https://quillette.com/about/ the "How can you pitch an article?" question

The nation is pretty evenly divided so I wouldn't say that they go against the popular narrative, instead they go along with one of the two popular narratives.

Actually, I believe they are vilified for being moderates.

Quillette has argued numerous times on behalf of phrenology[0][1]. More receipts[2]

How do you think they’ll react to an African techie?

[0] https://theoutline.com/post/8104/phrenology-hirevue-quillett...

[1] Phrenology is "the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities."

[2] https://www.pinkerite.com/2019/07/yes-kevin-drum-quillette-i...

Could you post the link from quillette itself?

Sure, could you tell me for what purpose first?

I want to learn the wonderful field of phrenology of course. :)

But seriously, I've seen that claim previously, but never pointing to original source (unless the article was deleted?). I didn't carefully read the articles you provided, so sorry if it is in there somewhere.

Not surprising, HN loves Claire and her Murrayan novelists.

Here you go[0].

Out of the links I shared[parent], the former link takes a deep dive into Quillette authors (one of whom wrote the article I cite below), the latter delves into the actual arguments they make in advancement of "neophrenology".

To reiterate my initial comment (I am not here to make a value judgement on phrenology), this does not seem like a publication the OP would like to submit to.

[0] http://archive.is/6okTx

:EDIT: minor clarifications

Thanks. I skimmed the article and the author seems to be bashing a book (with some good arguments, but since I didn't read the book itself, I can't tell how justified they are). So the main problem is that he published something worse somewhere else?

You have a point that OP might not want to submit there, guilt by association is all the rage nowadays. I mean they are currently trying to cancel Chomsky for signing an open letter on freedom of speech, just because some other people also signed it. This is literally Hitler liked pippies situation...

The main problem (and again, I shouldn’t be doing a value assessment of Quilette sticking to my original point, but you’ve asked) is that Quilette “scholars” seemed to have started from 1700s race research, jumped to Jim Crow-era race research, and seemingly skipped everything before and after The Bell Curve(1994) research that does not suit their argument of genetic determinism.

To my initial point, value-arguments aside(I’m certainly not going to convince you), does an African developer want to seek out Quilette to publish?

HN downvotes me because Claire Lehmann is a Paul Graham darling, but the only thing "Libertarian" about Quilette is the fact they bypass violation of the NAP with the argument the black people are either (A)not people or (B)"less than" people.

>HN downvotes me because Claire Lehmann is a Paul Graham darling

I don't speak for HN, but I can speak to why I personally downvoted you. I downvoted you because of the hostility and passive-aggressiveness, the scare quotes and browbeating of your respondent. I think it's reasonable to discourage that sort of behavior, because it's one of the leading causes of long term forum degradation.

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