6 ms·

Care to address the parent's postulates, rather than calling names?

unclebucknasty 10y ago
It's so bad on so many levels that it is actually difficult to respond. Literally don't know where to begin or end. But, your parent summed it up nicely. It's not just name-calling. It's a concise description of the thinking and attitudes that would produce such a misguided comment: pure racism.
lkrubner 10y ago
kamau is not calling anyone a name, they are correctly categorizing the parent post. The parent post is typical of the type of post that is written by racists. That is not name calling, that is the act of categorizing. If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid.
- flukus 10y ago
  So if an argument is used by racists everyone else that uses it is racist, no matter how sound the argument is? | If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid. Now try it by changing squid to white and cat to black and see if you still think it's a good argument.
- hueving 10y ago
  Whether referring to the post or the poster, the comment is vapid.
kamau 10y ago
I could. But frankly I'm tired of educating people with racist viewpoints. I'm really thinking that the racism displayed in that post is an intractable problem with (at least here in America), with outlets like Fox News flourishing. So, downvote away. Not being racist isn't rocket science and like I said, I'm pretty much done with carrying the burden of educating racists while they frolick the day away wallowing in their various isms.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  What do you think the demographic of Hacker News is? Why are you surprised?
  - dang 10y ago
    There is a wide range of people on HN. This community is not defined by its worst actors—who inevitably appear in any place on the internet where the doors are left open, as ours are. Rather, it's defined by an overwhelmingly decent majority of participants, whom you're not welcome to slander here. I notice that of all of you complaining about how racist that comment was, not one of you bothered to flag it. If you won't even do that much to help the community, in my view you forfeit the right to complain about it.
    - kelukelugames 10y ago
      No, that is not what I said. When people say overtly awful things, they are downvoted. No one defines HN by those. The problem is the well intentioned but naive opinions that are upvoted and popular. Do you remember the popular comments from the GitHub diversity posts? Any diversity post for that matter. The demographic here is mostly male. In a homogenous environment, regardless of which combination of race, gender or anything else, people have blindspots. This remains true when the majority of participants are decent. For example, a group of polite dudes can create an environment full of casual sexism. Lastly, I flag insults and one line jokes. Maybe you can help us understand what gets flags and what gets downvotes. However, I am happy the comment is removed. You are right, maybe I don't give the moderation enough credit.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        If you believe, as I do, that subtle (and sometimes over) racism and sexism are real problems for the HN community, it's especially important: (a) not to dismiss HN as a bastion of racism and sexism, as doing so concedes the whole site to those ideas (b) to challenge racist and sexist arguments on the site both reliably and civilly. Most of the people putting those arguments forward are trolls, and are seen as such by the site (watch what gets flagged). One of the most effective strategies race and gender trolls have is to rile up thoughtful people so that they make dumb, angry arguments. It creates a kind of autoimmune disorder on the site. Don't enable them.

It's so bad on so many levels that it is actually difficult to respond. Literally don't know where to begin or end. But, your parent summed it up nicely. It's not just name-calling. It's a concise description of the thinking and attitudes that would produce such a misguided comment: pure racism.

lkrubner 10y ago

kamau is not calling anyone a name, they are correctly categorizing the parent post. The parent post is typical of the type of post that is written by racists. That is not name calling, that is the act of categorizing. If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid.

flukus 10y ago
So if an argument is used by racists everyone else that uses it is racist, no matter how sound the argument is? | If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid. Now try it by changing squid to white and cat to black and see if you still think it's a good argument.
hueving 10y ago
Whether referring to the post or the poster, the comment is vapid.

kamau 10y ago

I could. But frankly I'm tired of educating people with racist viewpoints. I'm really thinking that the racism displayed in that post is an intractable problem with (at least here in America), with outlets like Fox News flourishing. So, downvote away. Not being racist isn't rocket science and like I said, I'm pretty much done with carrying the burden of educating racists while they frolick the day away wallowing in their various isms.

kelukelugames 10y ago
What do you think the demographic of Hacker News is? Why are you surprised?
- dang 10y ago
  There is a wide range of people on HN. This community is not defined by its worst actors—who inevitably appear in any place on the internet where the doors are left open, as ours are. Rather, it's defined by an overwhelmingly decent majority of participants, whom you're not welcome to slander here. I notice that of all of you complaining about how racist that comment was, not one of you bothered to flag it. If you won't even do that much to help the community, in my view you forfeit the right to complain about it.
  - kelukelugames 10y ago
    No, that is not what I said. When people say overtly awful things, they are downvoted. No one defines HN by those. The problem is the well intentioned but naive opinions that are upvoted and popular. Do you remember the popular comments from the GitHub diversity posts? Any diversity post for that matter. The demographic here is mostly male. In a homogenous environment, regardless of which combination of race, gender or anything else, people have blindspots. This remains true when the majority of participants are decent. For example, a group of polite dudes can create an environment full of casual sexism. Lastly, I flag insults and one line jokes. Maybe you can help us understand what gets flags and what gets downvotes. However, I am happy the comment is removed. You are right, maybe I don't give the moderation enough credit.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      If you believe, as I do, that subtle (and sometimes over) racism and sexism are real problems for the HN community, it's especially important: (a) not to dismiss HN as a bastion of racism and sexism, as doing so concedes the whole site to those ideas (b) to challenge racist and sexist arguments on the site both reliably and civilly. Most of the people putting those arguments forward are trolls, and are seen as such by the site (watch what gets flagged). One of the most effective strategies race and gender trolls have is to rile up thoughtful people so that they make dumb, angry arguments. It creates a kind of autoimmune disorder on the site. Don't enable them.