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Comment by doublekill | Hacker News Reader

What I learned from diversity training is that you need to accept the fact that society is systematically racist, and as a white person you benefit from this. So all whites are profiting from racism already. They have to come to terms with this, acknowledge the role that their ancestors played in furthering or creating racial inequality, and do everything in their privileged power to right this wrong: hire more black people. Promote more black people. Mentor more black people. Pay reparations to black people. Be a vocal supporter to black people. And realize and appreciate that you are different, and will never have to share what black people go through every day. What more can you do?

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> society is systematically racist, and as a white person you benefit from this. So all whites are profiting from racism already

American society, certainly. Some white Europeans are a bit miffed at being lumped in with America’s problems. Europe has race/diversity problems of its own, but not on the same scale as the US’s.

My first European colleague was a male-to-female person. She had worked at a major company for years, got a bad performance report, and attributed it to her transition. It went to court and the company settled, instead of defending not promoting her (with or without regard of her transition). Very good programmer. She worked there for 1 year more, doing only things that the company laywers agreed to.

In America I see similar things. I think it is seductive to be swept up with identity politics, and suddenly that promotion that went to a white person, feels different, feels racist. Or you employ a neurodiverse low-social skill person who makes an edgy unfunny joke, because he is nervous. That's "racist humor on the work floor" when going to a lawyer or journalist. It is a dangerous world out there. Current climate not helping.

I don’t believe neurodiverse people make racist jokes as a matter of course. At least, that hasn’t been my experience.

I think journalists are also able to tell the difference between “some dude made a poor-taste joke once” and “dudes were always making poor-taste jokes targeted at one specific minority when the employee was present”.

I’ll also say that, at my reasonably woke US company, I’m not aware of any neurodiverse person getting in any trouble for making a bad-taste joke.

The journalist won't get to talk to the neurodiverse person. Usually someone lacking a thick skin or easy to take offense, goes to HR to complain (anonymously if need be) about offensive, awkward, sexist, racist, far-right, ... speech. The neurodiverse person will (rightly) get a warning, an internal investigation finds no systemic harm done, and that's that, you won't even hear about it, as it juridically not smart to be transparent about such cases.

Then the offended person changes jobs, complains on Twitter about sexist humor driving her out of her previous job, a journalist searches for leads on their next story, and suddenly you are in the news with "multiple people complained about sexist and racist humor on the work floor, but nothing was done about it, and no complaint or investigation resulted in any action. We asked the company for a response and they replied that these internal investigations turned up nothing and that they don't accept discrimination of any kind".

Nearly every company has incidents of sex between co-workers, or people taking illegal drugs on a company get together. Depending on who you get to talk to that's "it seemed like every other week I saw a used condom in the stair ways" or "management regurarily used cocaine during company parties". You won't talk to anyone relativating it, and company PR is shy to even admit that stuff.

I'm a white american, and my ancestors had nothing to do with american slavery and were in fact slaves themselves in the ukraine.

I'm a white American, and at least one of my ancestors died to end slavery. My father was named for him (middle name).

Now, it's also true to some degree that I benefit from society in a way that blacks don't (at least not to the same degree). And the right thing to do is to work for a world where blacks share in the benefits of society to the same degree that I do. (Where they don't have to be any more careful in a traffic stop than I do, for example.) But "acknowledging the role that my ancestors played"? I do, with pride.

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