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America is a very different place now than in 1946. I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are Af

America is a very different place now than in 1946. I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey. I looked at one page that had top ten most popular people in America in the 1940s and there were no African-Americans on the list. > Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force Many slavers were African, particularly the ones dragging people out of their homes, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners.

chvid 10y ago
It is a very different place today. And yet this text pops up on the front page of hacker news. I assume it is because of the events in Dallas; but why discuss this text and not the actual event or a million other things related to the topic of race and racism?
- Karunamon 10y ago
  There's probably not much constructive discussion to be had on the event here. These are social problems at their roots, not technical ones.
  - chvid 10y ago
    It is obviously a "hard and controversial" problem to discuss - I don't really understand why. I sense it has something to do with the upcoming US election and maybe there is a lot of campaigning being done online. HN in general has good discussions on economics and social issues but not on this.
mgarfias 10y ago
Not to mention that black slaves were sold to whitey by black Africans.
tptacek 10y ago
That there were Africans involved in the slave trade has no bearing whatsoever on Einstein's argument.
llamataboot 10y ago
Congratulations, that's two spaces on the "arguments white people make" bingo card.
coldtea 10y ago
>I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey. Try googling "over-represented race in incarcerations", "over-represented race in police shootings", "redlining", poverty stats, etc. too. Besides, of those popular people, Michael Jackson tried to turn himself white, MLK Jr was conveniently murdered, Muhammad Ali was persecuted by the state, and Barack Obama is routinely called racist slurs despite being the president. Plus, it's easy to make popular idols of talented black artists and still view down on the majority of them. Louis Armstrong, boxers and other black entertainers were quite popular when the country was openly racist too. >Many slavers were African But none of them operated in the USA or kept slaves there. The buyers of the millions of blacks that came to the US, those who used and abused them as slaves, and who made the trade profitable in the first place, were white Americans. >Many slavers were African, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners. No, but the majority of them had ancestors that were racist, enforcing double standards, unfair laws (segregation, Jim Crow laws, etc.), and in some cases violence (beatings, lynchings, etc.) to the black population. And most of them were racism themselves too.
- chvid 10y ago
  Why is it controversial to say USA is a different place today? When it clearly is: Black president, wealthy black actors, wealthy black sportsmen and so on. sandisk5 is been down voted en masse.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    Of course it's a different place. But it's still a place with an obvious problem with institutionalised racism, and every argument in the original holds true, so what does it matter? It's being downvoted because it's irrelevant, as an interjection it reeks of apologism.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    There's a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It might be a different place than in the era of KKK-cross-burnings, but it still ways from what a modern, racially just, society should be. Token black president or not. I wrote above that blacks are for example over-represented in incarcerations, and somebody said that that's because they are over-represented in crime stats too. Not understanding that that argument, far from being an answer ("see the law it's just doing its jobs, its just that blacks are more criminal") is a great example of racism itself. It's a given to me, that blacks are not more criminal as a race (that is, in biological terms -- except if you agree with KKK and them having "faulty" criminal DNA etc.). So if they are "more criminal" in actual life, this can mean mainly two things: (a) the white-dominated legal system has a prejudice against them (putting more of them in jail, giving them harsher punishment for the same crimes compared to whites etc) and (b) their life circumstances push them to commit more crimes. And I say it's a combination of both (a) and (b). So, let's put it this way: US would be non racist, not just when black people are less frequently shoot by the police, but when black people are less frequently participating in violent crime too. Because that would mean that the systemic causes keeping them down and pushing them towards those means have finally been eradicated.
empath75 10y ago
In the 1860s, black people were slaves. In the 1940s, they weren't. Obviously, no further progress needed to be made.
JabavuAdams 10y ago
Oh, thanks. Next time I'm on business in SF and I start thinking about which cargo pocket to put my phone in to minimize my chance of being murdered by the police, I'll draw comfort from a bunch of token Negros in show-biz and politics.

chvid 10y ago

It is a very different place today. And yet this text pops up on the front page of hacker news. I assume it is because of the events in Dallas; but why discuss this text and not the actual event or a million other things related to the topic of race and racism?

Karunamon 10y ago
There's probably not much constructive discussion to be had on the event here. These are social problems at their roots, not technical ones.
- chvid 10y ago
  It is obviously a "hard and controversial" problem to discuss - I don't really understand why. I sense it has something to do with the upcoming US election and maybe there is a lot of campaigning being done online. HN in general has good discussions on economics and social issues but not on this.

mgarfias 10y ago

Not to mention that black slaves were sold to whitey by black Africans.

tptacek 10y ago

That there were Africans involved in the slave trade has no bearing whatsoever on Einstein's argument.

llamataboot 10y ago

Congratulations, that's two spaces on the "arguments white people make" bingo card.

coldtea 10y ago

>I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey. Try googling "over-represented race in incarcerations", "over-represented race in police shootings", "redlining", poverty stats, etc. too. Besides, of those popular people, Michael Jackson tried to turn himself white, MLK Jr was conveniently murdered, Muhammad Ali was persecuted by the state, and Barack Obama is routinely called racist slurs despite being the president. Plus, it's easy to make popular idols of talented black artists and still view down on the majority of them. Louis Armstrong, boxers and other black entertainers were quite popular when the country was openly racist too. >Many slavers were African But none of them operated in the USA or kept slaves there. The buyers of the millions of blacks that came to the US, those who used and abused them as slaves, and who made the trade profitable in the first place, were white Americans. >Many slavers were African, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners. No, but the majority of them had ancestors that were racist, enforcing double standards, unfair laws (segregation, Jim Crow laws, etc.), and in some cases violence (beatings, lynchings, etc.) to the black population. And most of them were racism themselves too.

chvid 10y ago
Why is it controversial to say USA is a different place today? When it clearly is: Black president, wealthy black actors, wealthy black sportsmen and so on. sandisk5 is been down voted en masse.
- peteretep 10y ago
  Of course it's a different place. But it's still a place with an obvious problem with institutionalised racism, and every argument in the original holds true, so what does it matter? It's being downvoted because it's irrelevant, as an interjection it reeks of apologism.
- coldtea 10y ago
  There's a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It might be a different place than in the era of KKK-cross-burnings, but it still ways from what a modern, racially just, society should be. Token black president or not. I wrote above that blacks are for example over-represented in incarcerations, and somebody said that that's because they are over-represented in crime stats too. Not understanding that that argument, far from being an answer ("see the law it's just doing its jobs, its just that blacks are more criminal") is a great example of racism itself. It's a given to me, that blacks are not more criminal as a race (that is, in biological terms -- except if you agree with KKK and them having "faulty" criminal DNA etc.). So if they are "more criminal" in actual life, this can mean mainly two things: (a) the white-dominated legal system has a prejudice against them (putting more of them in jail, giving them harsher punishment for the same crimes compared to whites etc) and (b) their life circumstances push them to commit more crimes. And I say it's a combination of both (a) and (b). So, let's put it this way: US would be non racist, not just when black people are less frequently shoot by the police, but when black people are less frequently participating in violent crime too. Because that would mean that the systemic causes keeping them down and pushing them towards those means have finally been eradicated.

empath75 10y ago

In the 1860s, black people were slaves. In the 1940s, they weren't. Obviously, no further progress needed to be made.

JabavuAdams 10y ago

Oh, thanks. Next time I'm on business in SF and I start thinking about which cargo pocket to put my phone in to minimize my chance of being murdered by the police, I'll draw comfort from a bunch of token Negros in show-biz and politics.