10 ms·

Some people will say there is no discrimination anymore. Who's saying that? There's discrimination everywhere you look, and it doesn't have to take the form de

by finid 10y ago

Some people will say there is no discrimination anymore. Who's saying that? There's discrimination everywhere you look, and it doesn't have to take the form detailed in the article.

vertex-four 10y ago
A surprising amount of people feel like gay marriage was the final thing to implement for an equal society. There's an argument that equal treatment under the law results in equality in practice, which is of course incorrect, even if we did have equal treatment under the law (some things disproportionately affect minority groups, so just saying "we do it to everyone" doesn't help).
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  True, and it's actually worse than that--we finally have a national marriage equality law, but we don't have national employment or housing equality, which should be even more fundamental. And God help you if you happen to be trans. There's a great deal of bitterness from poorer GLBTs that they've been essentially thrown under the bus by the gay rights movement. Marriage is important, but there's a lot of fair-weather activists saying "mission accomplished" when the basic survival needs of millions of people are still completely unprotected.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    > bitterness from poorer GLBTs that they've been essentially thrown under the bus by the gay rights movement This one seems weird to me as someone who is part of that community; the two issues seem orthogonal unless we're talking specifically about things like discrimination against LGBT employees and LGBT kids that are thrown out of their homes. I guess the best explanation is that some people base too much of their identity on their sexuality and forget that they can also be active in more general human rights issues.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      > This one seems weird to me as someone who is part of that community; the two issues seem orthogonal unless we're talking specifically about things like discrimination against LGBT employees That's what we're talking about. I mentioned employment and housing protections. It is a fine and wonderful thing that bigots can no longer prevent you from getting married, but they can take away your job and your home at will, in large parts of the USA. That seems like a backwards way to go about it. > I guess the best explanation is that some people base too much of their identity on their sexuality That's kind of a nasty thing to say about people who are legitimately worried about their survival.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> Who's saying that Lots of people say that right here on the Hacker News forum.
libeclipse 10y ago
I feel that the younger generation has very little to no feelings of prejudice towards ethnic or sexual groups. I'm talking as a teenager myself. It's more the older people that generally discriminate. It's possible that, over time, the problem will solve itself.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  I feel that the younger generation has very little to no feelings of prejudice towards ethnic or sexual groups. That's only two forms of discrimination. Everybody discriminates.
  - pokemongoaway 10y ago
    When you say everyone discriminates... Do you mean based on ethnicity and gender? Mind mentioning where you live and your ethnicity and gender?
    - pimlottc 10y ago
      He means people discriminate on many other qualities and factors: age, class, profession, religion, appearance, language, grammar, accent, weight, education, political party, musical taste, programming language, text editor, etc...
- Retric 10y ago
  It's very useful for people with followers to promote an out group. This is just as true of high school politics as presidential elections. "It's them damn foreigners!" Tends to quickly move into racial or ethnic lines.
- 8ytecoder 10y ago
  Not a snark - it is also possible that over time interactions with a few individuals could change you enough to ostracize entire groups - unless you explicitly guard against that.
  - 10y ago
angry-hacker 10y ago
I would add discrimination is a common fir humans and will be. I discriminate all the time against people who are not my family. So based on groups, I would even say based on genetics because I prefer the ones who are very similar to me.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> Who's saying that? Bigots, mostly. And a lot of really naive people. But especially bigots. After the 2008 election, I saw an article called something like "Racism is Dead." The author was saying that, with a black man in America's highest office, it's clear that black people are now fully equal and unimpeded in America. So at this point I'm thinking he's just a naive, blinkered idiot. But he goes on, in a rambling and insinuative way, to basically say "Therefore, any black person who claims discrimination either has a persecution complex or is maliciously lying." Open racism/sexism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) is very much out of fashion now, but there's still a major audience for people willing to vaguely imply (but never out-and-out say) that minorities are trying to snatch power from straight white people and need to be slapped down. It's very popular among people who want to enforce their bigotry while being too cowardly to say so outright. Also see my response to Vertex-Four below. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13248096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13248096
- metaphor 10y ago
  Not quite understanding all the downvotes.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    The soft bigotry of "I don't see a problem from here, therefore there isn't a problem and don't you dare imply otherwise, because I don't think of myself a bigot and that's all that matters."

by finid 10y ago

Some people will say there is no discrimination anymore. Who's saying that? There's discrimination everywhere you look, and it doesn't have to take the form detailed in the article.

vertex-four 10y ago

A surprising amount of people feel like gay marriage was the final thing to implement for an equal society. There's an argument that equal treatment under the law results in equality in practice, which is of course incorrect, even if we did have equal treatment under the law (some things disproportionately affect minority groups, so just saying "we do it to everyone" doesn't help).

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
True, and it's actually worse than that--we finally have a national marriage equality law, but we don't have national employment or housing equality, which should be even more fundamental. And God help you if you happen to be trans. There's a great deal of bitterness from poorer GLBTs that they've been essentially thrown under the bus by the gay rights movement. Marriage is important, but there's a lot of fair-weather activists saying "mission accomplished" when the basic survival needs of millions of people are still completely unprotected.
- Spivak 10y ago
  > bitterness from poorer GLBTs that they've been essentially thrown under the bus by the gay rights movement This one seems weird to me as someone who is part of that community; the two issues seem orthogonal unless we're talking specifically about things like discrimination against LGBT employees and LGBT kids that are thrown out of their homes. I guess the best explanation is that some people base too much of their identity on their sexuality and forget that they can also be active in more general human rights issues.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    > This one seems weird to me as someone who is part of that community; the two issues seem orthogonal unless we're talking specifically about things like discrimination against LGBT employees That's what we're talking about. I mentioned employment and housing protections. It is a fine and wonderful thing that bigots can no longer prevent you from getting married, but they can take away your job and your home at will, in large parts of the USA. That seems like a backwards way to go about it. > I guess the best explanation is that some people base too much of their identity on their sexuality That's kind of a nasty thing to say about people who are legitimately worried about their survival.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

> Who's saying that Lots of people say that right here on the Hacker News forum.

libeclipse 10y ago

I feel that the younger generation has very little to no feelings of prejudice towards ethnic or sexual groups. I'm talking as a teenager myself. It's more the older people that generally discriminate. It's possible that, over time, the problem will solve itself.

FrancoDiaz 10y ago
I feel that the younger generation has very little to no feelings of prejudice towards ethnic or sexual groups. That's only two forms of discrimination. Everybody discriminates.
- pokemongoaway 10y ago
  When you say everyone discriminates... Do you mean based on ethnicity and gender? Mind mentioning where you live and your ethnicity and gender?
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    He means people discriminate on many other qualities and factors: age, class, profession, religion, appearance, language, grammar, accent, weight, education, political party, musical taste, programming language, text editor, etc...
Retric 10y ago
It's very useful for people with followers to promote an out group. This is just as true of high school politics as presidential elections. "It's them damn foreigners!" Tends to quickly move into racial or ethnic lines.
8ytecoder 10y ago
Not a snark - it is also possible that over time interactions with a few individuals could change you enough to ostracize entire groups - unless you explicitly guard against that.
- 10y ago

angry-hacker 10y ago

I would add discrimination is a common fir humans and will be. I discriminate all the time against people who are not my family. So based on groups, I would even say based on genetics because I prefer the ones who are very similar to me.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

> Who's saying that? Bigots, mostly. And a lot of really naive people. But especially bigots. After the 2008 election, I saw an article called something like "Racism is Dead." The author was saying that, with a black man in America's highest office, it's clear that black people are now fully equal and unimpeded in America. So at this point I'm thinking he's just a naive, blinkered idiot. But he goes on, in a rambling and insinuative way, to basically say "Therefore, any black person who claims discrimination either has a persecution complex or is maliciously lying." Open racism/sexism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) is very much out of fashion now, but there's still a major audience for people willing to vaguely imply (but never out-and-out say) that minorities are trying to snatch power from straight white people and need to be slapped down. It's very popular among people who want to enforce their bigotry while being too cowardly to say so outright. Also see my response to Vertex-Four below. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13248096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13248096

metaphor 10y ago
Not quite understanding all the downvotes.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  The soft bigotry of "I don't see a problem from here, therefore there isn't a problem and don't you dare imply otherwise, because I don't think of myself a bigot and that's all that matters."