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Comment by dbrueck | Hacker News Reader

> You no doubt have any number of other things you could be doing, but you’re in here. Might be worth thinking about why that is.

Obviously this applies to you as well. Maybe you've taken what I wrote as some sort of disagreement or getting defensive or... something? And then from there concluding that I shouldn't be allowed to participate? I'm not sure, but this is a discussion site and I'm participating in the discussion, and please don't take this the wrong way, but it's really not your place to tell me that I shouldn't participate. My original comment was in agreement with the poster I was replying to, and I was adding nuance and finding common ground in a semi-shared experience. None of that is wrong for me to do. Have a great day!

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> My original comment was in agreement with the poster I was replying to, and I was adding nuance and finding common ground in a semi-shared experience.

Do you genuinely not see how "adding nuance" to a "semi-shared experience" is taking the focus away from the parent commenter's experience? When someone is recounting racism they suffered, how is adding "other people experienced other kinds of hate" adding any nuance? Do you genuinely believe that there's valuable common ground between, for example, a black person being called the n-word and another person who isn't black being called the n-word or some other slur?

> Obviously this applies to you as well. Maybe you've taken what I wrote as some sort of disagreement or getting defensive or... something? And then from there concluding that I shouldn't be allowed to participate?

You're allowed to participate, but I trust you can understand that in many situations there is a difference between what discourse is permitted in a space, and what discourse others might see as appropriate or a value add to the discussion.

> I'm not sure, but this is a discussion site and I'm participating in the discussion, and please don't take this the wrong way, but it's really not your place to tell me that I shouldn't participate.

Hmm, it is your place to be able to post whatever you like as long as it's permitted by the rules, but it's not the place of others to suggest doing so might not be appropriate, even if that is also permitted. Kind of a narcissistic, authoritarian mindset, it seems to me. Note that I didn't post "mods???" or report you.

"Authoritarian mindset" indeed!

Anyway, you seem to have misunderstood by initial and subsequent comments, so other than rereading them in good faith until you believe me when I say that I was neither disagreeing with the comment, nor trying to undermine his experience, nor defending bad stuff online, I don't think we can make any progress, so I'm moving on to other things. Have a great day!

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