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Comment by nzmsv | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it a bit weird to have someone who is not Native American (you) tell an actual Native American how they should feel and what kind of experiences they are supposed to have had? I would guess that the subset of Native Americans who have a chance of getting the IBM job are more like the OP and less like the ones you are picturing. But no, instead it's "how dare you think our cringeworthy efforts to make you feel included are cringeworthy" :)

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This happens to me all the time. I’m from Central America and am constantly told about the plight of “brown people” south of the border. I’m reminded how hard working “they” are, and various other saintly qualities. It’s as if we are children where everything good about us is because of who we are and everything bad is because of white people (the adults) either directly or by proxy.

> Isn't it a bit weird to have someone who is not Native American tell an actual Native American how they should feel.

Not. Human experience is universal. Every single human in the planet can understand how other humans feel. We all have experienced similar events before and can provide solid advice about it to fellow humans.

"You can't understand me, because I'm ... (native /black / woman / trans / philatelic...) and you aren't" is a very popular opinion. Very popular, very gratifying, and totally wrong.

It's not binary. Sure, there are elements of being human that transcend racial, ethic and cultural differences, but there aspects that are difficult to understand if you didn't grow up in that culture or have extensive exposure.

Understanding is a thought process, not a genetic or environmental one.

Sure, but think as much as you want you can't necessarily understand 100% what someone is experiencing.

Oh please. Spew this BS elsewhere to people who are actually gullible enough to not see through this rhetorical regurgitation.

Human experience is not universal. Try going back in time and be a slave. Or a victim of the Nanjing rape. Tell me, with a straight face, that you can truly understand the pain and suffering those people went through. You think a royal family member can understand what it is like to be whipped and denied all manner of opportunity?

Frankly, this comment disgusts me.

Are you aware that the term 'slave' cames originary from slavic people, also called 'white people'?

There are lots of white people perfectly able to understand what was to be a slave in Siberia, Germany, Spain or Roma, and for sure asian people could tell us about their own quote of pain. Please don't feel so special, there is plenty of s*t for everyone in the history of humanity.

I'm quite aware of the etymology of the word "slave". Why is that relevant at all to this discussion?

It's about socioeconomic and class status. There are lots of poor white communities that suffer serious oppression and missed opportunities too, but that's not the point of my post, or why I found your post disgusting. There are lots of rich East Asian people who've never had to do any manual labor in their life, or worry about their infant not being able to eat; just as there are East Asians who watched as Japanese soldiers tore the infants from their pregnant mother. Or German/Russian Mennonites who watched as Slavic peoples(as you call them) come in and murder their village. The common denominator here is class, power, and social status, not race.

Are you saying that the rich and poor have equal human experience? Please, answer that point first, instead of redirecting into this tired anti-"white guilt" narrative.

Human experience is anything but universal, or everyone's personalities would end up a lot more similar. Most of today's problems are rooted in people insisting that the human experience is universal. The human experience is very personal, and if you haven't experienced something, you can't truly understand it. Sure, you can study it from the outside, but if your studying causes you to invalidate the experience of others, then it is not a net gain.

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