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Comment by rexpop | Hacker News Reader

For much of history, laws in many countries were designed to uphold systems of privilege for white men. Segregation, discrimination, and unequal treatment were institutionalized, limiting legal protections for non-white individuals and women.

I mean, the legal discrimination against people of color throughout history has been accompanied by extreme violence and oppression. It's a brutal legacy that cannot be overstated.

Slavery and human trafficking, lynching and extrajudicial killings, Jim Crow laws, police brutality, denial of voting rights, economic exploitation, forced relocation and genocide, invasive medical practices, cultural suppression, and educational disparities... when you whinge about "decades" of legal protections for marginalized identities, I just wonder why you think you're making anywhere close to a salient or meaningful contribution to discussions of justice.

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>>> For much of history, laws in many countries were designed to uphold systems of privilege for white men. Segregation, discrimination, and unequal treatment were institutionalized, limiting legal protections for non-white individuals and women.

For much of history, most countries did not have an upper class made up of white men.

And for those that did, the absolute majority of white men in these countries were not that far away from slaves.

The people who effected slavery and what not are long dead. A poor white boy of today or 30 years ago getting penalized in favor of a black lawyer's daughter achieves nothing in terms of justice.

Nearly half of my aunts and uncles saw Martin Luther King Jr speak live on TV.

Donald Trump was in college when active discrimination by the government became illegal.

Do you think that after Jim Crow was dismantled in the 60s, that all of those people who were against it, that you see in the video footage and photos violently protesting it, suddenly disappeared?

Yes, 20 year olds from the 60s are in retirement homes.

Still waiting for a good argument on penalizing one set of people who weren't born then in favour of another set of people who weren't born then is fixing any wrong done in the past.

A miserable person is a miserable person. Any affirmative action style policy gives less-miserable people a boost over more-miserable people.

I'm not familiar with the socioeconomic category of "miserable person".

How far back should we go with the eye for an eye that someone with superficially similar characteristics once took approach?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

That's not what this is.

Explain the difference, please.

Do you believe that the law should treat people differently based on the color of their skin? Do you believe my father-in-law, an Eastern European immigrant who fled communism, should be given disadvantages due to his being white, even though neither he nor his ancestors had anything to do with slavery in this country? Do you believe the likes of Claudine Gay, who hails from a wealthy family and grew up in the very picture of privilege, should be given advantages due to her being black?

Do you believe in punishing the son for the sins of the father? Do you believe in punishing someone who just happens to look like the sinners of the past? Do you believe that nonwhite people's ancestors did not commit the same atrocities at some point or another in history as white people's ancestors?

I'm not white, but I find ideas you espouse to be just simple racism, and nowhere close to "justice".

Your father-in-law, an Eastern European immigrant who fled communism, benefits from ongoing racialized distributions of privilege, power, and money.

So, yes, I do believe he is "cutting in line," and should have the humility to stand in solidarity with, rather than standing on the necks of, marginalized communities. Your father-in-law is not climbing out of anywhere so deep a hole as the Black and Hispanic populations on this continent. Not even close.

Even the Gulag Archipelago pales in comparison to the centuries of slavery, genocide, rape, and disenfranchisement we have visited on these peoples in order to accrue the wealth that your father-in-law now has the privilege to work for.

You're still talking promoting group A at the cost of group B for what group C did to group D, people in groups A and B having not much to do with C and D. Even considering descendants of original group D, the benefits are overwhelmingly reaped by those affected by whatever extant systemic injustice remains the least.

Let's exchange reading lists and revisit in six months.

That Eastern European immigrant is a result of centuries of feudal slavery. The serfdom of population east of Oder meant lack of freedom of movement, mandatory free work for the lord and the clergy, great poverty and no education. Lord could decide about life and death of their serfs and killing of serf by a different noble was just resolved as part of the business with a fine/repayment. Serfs were just another commodity in lords property, the further east, the worse serfs were exploited.

Despite XIX century reforms dismissing serfdom in some regions, generational poverty of peasants kept them in serfdom like conditions up until end of WW2. And even after WW2 you could end in Ukraine with forced exports of food resulting in genocidal famine.

That Eastern European immigrant has family history of half a millennium or more in slave like conditions.

That doesn't really matter once you arrive in the US. You're now a beneficiary of American political economy.

You are currently standing on the shoulders of minorities to rise yourself above others.

If you are indeed honest about it, you can personally take a step back and promote anyone you want. Demanding it from others is just self-righteous and your intentions are questionable.

Look up the origin of the word slave. Your world view is myopic.

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