Oh Shit, I’m A Racist | Hacker News Reader

Oh Shit, I’m A Racist

uncrunched.com

If you click on Soledad O'Brien's name in the second paragraph, you get this link: http://uncrunched.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/soledadobrien....

How delightful. What a wonderfully responsible news organization...

Is there any chance of somehow getting a copy of the entire unedited interview?

That would mean you'd have access to the truth.

Never say anything to the major news outlets, it's not their job to tell the truth, it's their job to spin. They'll pick and choose the sound byte that works best and use it no matter the context. This goes for Fox or CNN, they are just out for eyeballs and don't care about the truth.

Only do press with reporters you know are fair - they do exist, it just might take a little bit to find them.

Very disappointed in Soledad, I'm black and I don't know that many black Tech entrepreneurs myself. I guess that makes me racist right?

Playing this gotcha game has become standard fare in politics other walks of American life, but bringing it into the Tech space is only going to hurt the very people its meant to help.

I don't buy the color blind thing. That just means the only color you see is white.

I think the trick for doing anti-racism right is exactly the opposite. Learn to be surprised. Hey, that's odd, why no black people in the board room? Why no women? They're half of humanity, why aren't they here? Isn't it a bit odd that everyone in the room is straight, white, male, conventionally masculine and upper middle class?

Is anti-racism and reverse-racism the same thing? If we actually want to use those terms, I think you're both right. Anti-racism would be actively working on not being in a room of straight, white, male people. Reverse-racism would be promoting minorities when you hear about them / when they come to you.

Then again I'd call anti-racism something else entirely. Most people are against racism, but I see that's not the context in which you're using the phrase.

I can definitely believe the colour-blindness though. (slightly related - reminds me of the southpark episode where everyone was alarmed that kids didn't find the flag with black man being hanged racist - while they just saw a group of people hanging another guy)

No, see what I said. Surprise is important. It's not just that you're working to "not be[...] in a room of straight, white, male people". It's that when you walk into such a room, you learn to see the black people who are not there.

This is meant to be a behavior-driving, meta-level change. So for example when you're promoting people, you realize that your candidates are skewed, and maybe you apply your own reverse-skew, maybe you go investigate why black candidates aren't making it to you - you don't just colorblindly take the situation as it comes, as if were unbiased happenstance.

I don't consider it reverse racism to try to skew back a biased pool of candidates towards what an unbiased one would look like. It is perhaps, a bit quixotic to try to repair a society wide disease with local affirmative action. But it does help.

this is ridiculous - why do ignorant people have to always resort to using the race card to stir up controversy over nothing. people need to get the hell over themselves imo and realize no one cares about that stupid shit this day and age.

Here we go, grab the popcorn.

It was CNN. It was "In America". It was Soledad O'Brien.

I guess he didn't see it coming because a man like him is too busy to watch TV, but it was pretty obvious to me.

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A friend has brought to my attention that the tone of this comment is racist. The comment is too old to edit or delete at this point, but I am sorry for the offense I have caused.

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