Comment by oskarth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oskarth | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what happened to my comment, but I posted something along these lines.

You are kidding right?

Where would firstlook be without Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden? Affirmative action is great, but this is absolutely ridiculous.

To clarify, there's nothing wrong with having a strong policy to counter-act "normal" discrimination. What is wrong is explicitly discriminating against a group of people, regardless of who they are.

This reminds me of some radical feminist fractions who say most books are not worth reading because they are written by dead, white, males [no citation]. It's absolutely true that white males are unfairly dominating the classics section, but the way to combat this is not to blacklist them. That's a recipe for disaster, and I'm quite certain Simone de Beauvoir would agree with me.

EDIT: Since this will be part of the discussion, it's important to understand what affirmative action is. Here's the definition from Wikipedia: policy of providing special opportunities for, and favoring members of, a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination.

It's about positive discrimination of disadvantaged groups, not elimination of advantaged groups.

EDIT 2: This topic has been flagged already, but I'm writing this for future reference. What this seems to imply is that if a new Greenwald or Snowden comes along, they are explicitly not welcome. This is not affirmative action at all, it's just an unreflected usage of it, without understanding the true meaning or function of affirmative action.

An organization with such an attitude will eventually die. I hope this was just a poorly worded reply from an individual that doesn't reflect how firstlook actually deals with these things.

> EDIT 2: This topic has been flagged already, but I'm writing this for future reference. What this seems to imply is that if a new Greenwald or Snowden comes along, they are explicitly not welcome. This is not affirmative action at all, it's just an unreflected usage of it, without understanding the true meaning or function of affirmative action.

Go back and read the question. You're perpetuating a narrative that takes his words out of context. The question was asked if there was anything they were specifically looking for. He said yes, people who are not white males. They are already mostly white males and they want to write something that is less from the perspective of mostly white males.

That is affirmative action. You have the definition correct.

Also, what are you trying to do by name dropping Simone de Beauvoir? It doesn't earn you any credibility. It does sound though like you think of yourself as a feminist or at least a supporter of equality if you won't use that label, since you're also creating strawmen feminists (who the hell says most books are not worth reading because they're written by men? Please tell me about which feminist scholar or author wrote about that). Read things more critically before you promote a narrative established by taking things out of context to pretend that First Look is discriminating against white straight men by being a bunch of white straight men and not trying to become MORE white straight men while not explicitly ruling that out at all.

This is what affirmative action is. They are not outright saying NO to white males, they are specifically looking for people who are not white males though, considering they already hired mostly white males. Read the comment he replied to. They did not say that they will not hire white males, because that would be ridiculous, considering that they are already mostly white males.

"They are not outright saying NO to white males"

Cook's statement was: "Not white. Not male." That seems to be pretty unambiguously saying "no" to white males.

Affirmative action would be something along the lines of: "We encourage applications from women and ethnic minorities."

Did you read the question? Because in context, it really DOESN'T look like they're saying that. I can't believe people are accusing an organization that is MOSTLY white males of discriminating against white males!

Q: Are there particulars attributes or beats you’re looking to fill

A: Not white. Not male.

I agree 100% with your reasoning here.

And I want to add also into the mix another aspect I feel is relevant: we are talking about journalism. In the field of journalism (and writing in general), there is incentive to represent bold and challenging ideas. It is clear that they have the white male perspective covered. From that viewpoint, it seems fair that they would seek to cover their bases with journalists who speak from other cultural backgrounds.

If that is part of his reasoning, I rather agree with the sentiment.

Affirmative action as it is implemented in the US simply states that if two candidates on paper have the same qualifications then choose the minority candidate.

The reasoning is that it counters a pre-existing bias towards non-minorities and/or women.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com