Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway7878 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand.

If I make generalizations of an individual of a class based on characteristics of the class as a whole, that is racism. Example: "A young black male like you is much more likely to be a criminal."

But if you do the same thing with privledge, that is considered acceptable (and an indicator that you are an enlightened) Example: "A white male is more likely to go to a school that can afford up to date books" (from macimumloam.)

Both things are true. But if go around saying the first one all the time whenever I speak to a black male I'll be ostracized, but if I say the second, everyone will feel good about themselves about showing some white male his place.

(Posting from a throwaway account because of just this reason.)

View on HN

Look at what you are actually writing here.

"A young black male LIKE YOU is..." vs "A white male is..."

Regardless, facts are facts. If (big if) black men are incarcerated more per capita than white men, it is not racist to say so. What is racist are the usual reactions:

* Calling on the "black community" to denounce the culture that supposedly causes this

* Discounting the idea that police might be structurally racist and arrest black men less than white men, or investigate crimes typically committed by people with low economic means more

* Discounting the idea that the justice system might be structurally racist and find black men guilty on sketchier evidence

* Discounting the idea that structural oppression plays no part in this and that black people "just decide to join gangs and commit crimes" without any insight into the pressures of their life.

* Pointing out to every black man you meet that they are more likely to be criminals (I am actually aghast at the idea that you think this is not a contemptibly rude thing to do), when you don't point out to every white man you meet that they are more likely to be paedophiles.

For some more clarification, I agree with the concept of privilege.

I completely would agree that I have privilege. I was brought up by two loving intelligent college graduate who put a high emphasis on education and nurtured my interests in technology from a very young age. Unlike some people, my race or gender did not make things harder for me.

I think it is very offensive to people when they are told to "check their privilege" and that because they are white they automatically went to a good school and etc., when in the case of rfnslyr he had nothing to eat and had to escape a communist regime.

I think the issue is this. In the first case you are attempting to pass judgement on the actions a person may or may not take based on their race. in your example, commit a crime, which is an unjust judgement of that person's character.

In the second case it is an example of how society will affect you based on your race, outside of the personal actions of that person. The sentence makes no judgment on that person's character.

So what about someone instead saying "A black person is more likely to be stupid (to be concrete: having lower math SAT scores) than a white person."

That doesn't judge their character but you still can't go shouting it whenever anyone brings up black people.

Here the overarching problem with these statements. They are trying to pass judgment on a race based on certain statistics about them. Is it racist to say that black students on average score lower on the SATs? No, it is a statistical fact. Is it racist to proclaim these students as stupid because of that? Yes, extremely, because you are judging their intelligence base on race without understanding why that statistic might be true.

Instead of being so heavily concerned with what you "can" and "can not" say without being racist, its important to focus on why these statistics do exist and understand why they are true.

Your statement implies that the student is stupid because they are black. That is racist and strictly false. So why do these students score lower? Probably due the incredibly high level of institutionalized racism that they experience every day of their life.

We need to work towards building a better society together, and eliminating societal constraints based on characteristics beyond their control characteristics. By focusing on how you can't say racists things (and if you didn't know it would be racist, then not bothering to understand why), and how that is unfair to you takes focus away from the real issues. Black students are scoring lower on the SATs, and its because as a society, we have institutionalized racism towards them. That is the great injustice here, not the lose of anyone's right to remain ignorant.

"Probably due to the incredibly high level of institutionalized racism that they experience every day of their life." I completely agree. I have seen first hand cops being completely racist to minorities. And there are numerous cases of African Americans having their race being a factor in getting a job (http://www.chicagobooth.edu/magazine/sum_fall03/bertrand.pdf). There are a million other difficulties they face. I wan't to do everything possible to remove those barriers.

I'm not implying people are stupid because they are black. That is just something you are picking up from nothing. What I said is the English version of: P(scores is in bottom decile | student is Black) > P(score is in bottom decile | student is White).

Is there a difference between someone being "stupid" and someone scoring very low on a g-loaded intelligence test? The first definition of stupid on Google is "lacking intelligence". Is it wrong to say someone whose intelligence test scores are very low is stupid? I'd probably say test scores <25 percentile = stupid, between 25 percentile - 75 percentile average, >75 percentile smart. (Obviously you have to make sure the test isn't biased which is why I originally mentioned math).

If I changed from saying scored bad on the SAT to being illiterate as an adult does that make my statement any better. It seems like no one can say someone who is illiterate isn't stupid.

My point isn't to worry about what you can and can not say without being racist. I already know that judging individuals based on their race is wrong. I'm trying to use an analogy to say that if we can all agree that saying one thing is wrong, saying another thing about judging white people when it is also a generalization/stereotype is equally wrong.

You can't go shouting that because someone with low SAT scores isn't necessarily "stupid".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com