Iran threatens sanctions against US over treatment of Black Americans | Hacker News Reader

Iran threatens sanctions against US over treatment of Black Americans

al-monitor.com

16 pointscolinprince19 comments

Isn't it obvious that Iran is just playing politics here?

If I were an adversary of the US, I'd want to shine light on racial and political division.

I'm sure this type of divide and conquer attack is something they've thought about but not sure if Americans would be capable of recognizing it.

> Isn't it obvious that Iran is just playing politics here?

> If I were an adversary of the US, I'd want to shine light on racial and political division.

Yes, it's literally classic whataboutism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

> "And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: "А у вас негров линчуют", A u vas negrov linchuyut; which also means "Yet, in your [country], [they] lynch Negroes" and the modern translation "And you are lynching black people") are catchphrases that describe or satirize Soviet Union responses to United States criticisms of Soviet human rights violations.[1][2]

> Isn't it obvious that Iran is just playing politics here?

Of course it's playing politics. They're two different countries. Poltics are always what's at play.

I'm genuinely ignorant here and looking for an answer. If Iran were to impose sanctions, how would it hurt?

Lol thanks for being brave enough to ask because I'm in the same boat. I was under the impression that both countries had sanctioned each other to the maximum possible level.

It won't, I see this as the equivalent of a middle manager making a cosmetic skin change to the company app. To get promoted you don't need to satisfy the customers - you only need to satisfy your superiors.

I'm sure some nice officers in Tehran are patting each other's backs.

This is exactly what I was thinking when reading about the recent Olympic boycotts. Our hands are not so clean to have any moral high ground.

> https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

> access to political rights and civil liberties

> Score: United States 83, Iran 16

I guess their hands are a little bit dirtier than the USA

Who worked out those scores?

"Freedom House is a non-profit, non-governmental organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. ... The organization was 66% funded by grants from the U.S. government in 2006, a number which has increased to 86% in 2016."

Do you doubt any particular part of the data? Funding source is only relevant if you can show it intentionally wrongdo funding previously.

A boycott would mean the players would not go like the real boycotts of 1980 Moscow or 1984 Los Angeles. This fake boycott of diplomats is not even performative art.

Virtue theater

I expect to see a lot more of this in the next couple of decades as the world adapts to American (and to a lesser extent Western) tactics. The term whataboutism was invented to deflect international charges on killing and lynching of Blacks or genocide of Native Americans when say the Soviet Union was attacked for human rights violations at the UN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

> The term whataboutism was invented to deflect international charges on killing and lynching of Blacks or genocide of Native Americans when say the Soviet Union was attacked for human rights violations at the UN.

And those criticisms were themselves made to deflect charges of human rights abuses committed by the Soviet Union. The term whataboutism just draws attention to that attempt at deflection.

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