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Comment by gamblor956 | Hacker News Reader

The following is an actual quote from the stream:

Scott Adams: "the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people"

That is not "racist rant" to you?

Unfortunately there is a segment of the population which doesn’t see *anything* as racist unless it involves white hoods and burning crosses and even then they would want the “context” of the burning cross before they could make any determination. If Scott Adams saying white people should avoid black people doesn’t check that box for them, almost nothing will.

It would help to put it in context.

He basically referenced some poll that asked black people if "it's ok to be white". And half said "no".

So he said "that's a hate group"

And said "the only solution is to get away from people [black people] who hold those views"

Classic. What's the context for the poll? You're giving one party the benefit of the doubt but not the other.

There is no context to that poll. That's the whole question. I was hoping there's more, but it looks like it was just done to create controversy and attention. It's a meaningless (yet loaded with subtext) question that the author had to realise will do what it did. And people like Scott can grab onto that and cause more havoc on top with a side of some ignorant spicy takes.

I'm not making any claims about the accuracy of the poll results because I have no idea how it was conducted, but the question "Do you agree or disagree with this statement: 'It’s OK to be white.'?" is certainly not meaningless even if it's loaded. There is a very unambiguously correct answer to that statement and if there is a population with a significant amount of people answering "no" that clearly demonstrates something problematic about current public attitudes and race relations.

I agree, it's only unambiguously correct in vacuum with no social context. Unless you control for what possible extra meaning can be assigned or implied here, it's a terrible poll - that's why I called it meaningless (as a poll question). If that one doesn't resonate for some people, let's try some other examples that should have unambiguously correct answers: "Is it ok to say gay?", "Is it ok to be a proud boy?", "Is it ok to support uniformed workers?", "Is it ok to love children?", etc. Now add the actual social context you're thinking of... Are they still unambiguous?

A more meaningful one would be "do we still have issues with racism?" without a gotcha approach. (That the poll creator did not acknowledge)

>it's only unambiguously correct in vacuum with no social context No it's not, lol. There is quite literally no social context where objecting to someone's given race is the correct moral choice.

"it's okay to be white" is a troll that originated on 4chan. In that context yeah you can disagree with the phrase.

That actually doesn't at all justify disagreeing with the phrase. Having a problem with a 4chan troll campaign is a different issue (and one I suspect most people have little to no knowledge of). This can very easily be likened to BLM. It's ok to not fully agree with the organization/movement but to disagree with the phrase "black lives matter" is simply wrong.

The question is a racist dog whistle. Knowing that I'd hesitate to answer in the affirmative even as a Caucasian. I'd probably decline to continue with the poll.

Yeah, if all they had to choose from was a simple 'yes I agree' or 'no I don't agree' refusing to answer is the right move. Some answers need further explanation or else a lot of people will misunderstand you.

Yes, but you have to realize that is you and other people will react or think differently - and you're starting to get at why this compromises the poll entirely.

I think you need to get off the internet for a little while. The world does not revolve around 4chan memes, and the phrase "it's okay to be white" does not signal that someone is secretly a racial supremacist.

Are we cancelling the people who made the poll? Are we cancelling and calling those who said yes racist? No. We're cancelling the person who said stay away from people who said that because it might offend those people?

Seems to make 2023 sense. The era of ignorance and racism.

> We're cancelling the person who said stay away from people who said that.

Factually wrong. He is saying to stay away from "Black people" in the abstract. It is plainly racist and there is no redeeming context in the video.

Redeeming? I thought that was a weird choice of words bar to set. So this person's video wasn't able to save you or people from sin.

"able to save people from sin, error, or evil" (oxford dictionary)

Calling his reaction plainly racist when the entire thing is highly racist is being dishonest with yourself and this conversation. The redeeming part of this video is calling out people who ignore racism when it suits them and point fingers when it doesn't. Racist publisher creates survey you ignore. Survey shows about 1/2 black population is racist. You ignore. Crazy guy says stay away from black people.. you call him racist. Same story but half of whites surveyed are racist against black. Would you have ignored it? Are you part of the problem or solution?

This is a lot of mental gymnastics over a simple point I was making. The post I was responding to falsely claimed that Adams was suggesting people stay away from only those Black people that allegedly held racist beliefs. I was merely pointing out that this was factually incorrect by highlighting that Adams was clearly talking about Black people in the abstract rather than only singling out Black racists.

Widen your len. They literally have produced the most racist survey that showed half the people responded in a racist way and you want to call out the person reacting to it? You want to call me out? Because he didn't qualify it by saying only the black people who responded when he prefixes the entire thing by telling you about the survey so you know who he referring to.

What is the point you are trying to make? That you are defending racist people by calling others racist for them.. and you are an ally to racism?

Criticizing racism isn't automatically anti-racist. You seem to be assuming that it is, such that pinning the racism tag on the poll absolves Adams. This is fallacious.

It's not a good thing that the academic zeitgeist can be racist without suffering repercussions or even much self-criticism, but the right answer is to hold the line of anti-racism rather than jumping into the cesspool and partaking in one's own racist rants.

You can't selectively hold the line. By letting some through you negate your neutrality. Your outrage needs to be broader or it becomes hollow.

I can't figure out how you're getting "let some through" from what I said. In fact that seems to be exactly what you are doing by defending Adams's racist rant because it happened to be calling out other racism. It's possible to call out the original racism without going on a racist rant yourself, and if you want to be anti-racist that is what you need to do - otherwise one is just being a different flavor of racist.

> What is the point you are trying to make?

I have made the point twice already. You said something factually incorrect. I explained why it was factually incorrect. That's all.

> There is no context to that poll. That's the whole question. I was hoping there's more

There is some context for the poll, or at least for that one question, and I think it's safe to assume that at least some of the people answering would be aware of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_okay_to_be_white

Nuance in phrasing. We're in agreement I think. There's context to the phrase, but the poll itself provides no context or further explanations for the question.

> And half said “no”

A “thin majority” said yes per the article. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the actual poll numbers.

If he was trying to make some comedic social commentary, he should’ve aimed at the poll question itself. Our society is too polarized to find the nuance and if he didn’t understand that then he was overconfident in his market value as a cartoonist.

Essentializing all members of an ethnic group, many of whom have nothing to do with what you're accusing them of, is the definition of racism.

Right, which the original poll highlighted too "it's not ok to be white".

It’s basically one group characterizing another group who is characterizing the first group.

It’s just people with too much time on their hands yelling at each other.

Its not important and most people would improve their mental health if they just avoided all the drama.

The problem with the internet is that it gives anyone a voice and people who hear that voice assume it's important.

> So he said "that's a hate group"

If you think saying that Black Americans are a "hate group" is context that makes him seem less racist, you're wrong.

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