7 ms·
On Working with White People – Part One
- 4b11b4 9y agoIf you quotin Drake in the first few paragraphs, I'm done.
- komali2 9y agoDone as in not wanting to read the rest? How come?
- jboles 9y agoSo many spelling/grammatical errors too. It was difficult to parse.
- komali2 9y agoReally? You must have a keener eye than me, I only saw swear words misspelled, which I believe is on purpose.
- komali2 9y agoWhy downvotes? I just ran a spell checker on the post, there are literally no spelling errors. There are, however, non-standard words that you may not find in a scientific publication, but you will certainly find in common discourse, and the spelling of all of these is perfectly consistent. Stuff like "ya boi," "fukk," "nawl," "ho," and "skillz" are words we can find millions of examples spelled exactly like that. They are not mispellings, they are members of the English language that may or may not have been captured yet in some dictionary we all happen to point to and agree is "right."
- hinkley 9y agoAny port in a storm, eh?
- bigpoppa 9y agogarbage
- maxxxxx 9y agoI am white and I am often weirded out by the "uncomfortable" thing too. Fun read.
- majewsky 9y agoI am white and I've never heard anyone argue on the basis of "I'm uncomfortable with this [person|choice]". They at least try to weasel around and present faux arguments. Could be because I'm from Germany. Is this an American thing, or maybe just something that's not happening at my workplace?
- maxxxxx 9y agoI am German too. From my experience Germans are much more direct than the US.
- newsbinator 9y ago> "Do you think that Deb had to list valid reasons why the organization shouldn’t make the hire?" > "This dumb bitch just didn’t wanna have to say it." > "This ho did all sorts of shit to try and make sure that “her man and this new bitch” didn’t spend any time together." Maybe because the hire thinks of people as dumb bitches and hos, sees every interaction through a racial lens, and can't seem to go a paragraph without cursing. Or maybe I'm racist. It's probably that.
- ivanbakel 9y ago>sees every interaction through a racial lens As opposed to all those non-racial interactions you have as a minority in the workplace, or life in general? It's easy to suggest that there exists this social state where race isn't important and everyone is equal, but the material reality, of peoples preconceptions and sub/conscious assumptions is different. As a minority, your experiences are defined and informed by your race - how are you meant to have interactions without a racial aspect?
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- komali2 9y agoI don't remember where I heard it, but it went along the lines of >As a black dude, racism can make you crazy. You have a white guy walk in the room, and he says hello to everyone, but not to you. Did he just not see you cause you were kinda tucked in the corner, or is he racist? The girl at the coffee shop shoots you a funky look, is it because she's racist, or did she just have something in her eye? Maybe your haircut is just weird. It adds up, day after day after day, it makes you crazy.
- newsbinator 9y agoI've got some experience being an immediately visible minority, and once you start to go down the "because she's racist" rabbit hole, there are no brakes. There's a ton of negative interactions that we all experience in any given week. If you start seeing every interaction through a racial lens, it does indeed make you crazy. You go from "she's having a bad day so the way she treated me is about her" to "she's racist so the way she treated me is about me".
- 4b11b4 9y agoI keep my statement about Drake. However. It was a good read. This shit is true. I can picture this exact shit happening in my old work team if a dude with some thug tendencies walked in. People would be uncomfortable.
- fossssss 9y agoI'm having trouble understanding how this would be different anywhere else (even in "ghetto" neighborhoods). thug: a violent person, especially a criminal. Do you mean there's a social setting where that's acceptable?
- 4b11b4 9y agoI only wrote thug tendencies cuz that's how the author described him self.. or somethin like that. Do you pull out fuckin dictionaries when you talk to people in real life?
- owebmaster 9y ago> Because at a pretty young age I had acquired a set of skills that put me in places and situations that I was not culturally prepared to enter. He talks about his thug background to get to this conclusion. His past life interactions didn't "prepare" him to not make office people uncomfortable with him being just him. And of course, this is not his fault, but the people treating him badly. And guess what? This is what stops a lot of black people in tech.
- newsbinator 9y agoYup, generally speaking professional environments and thug tendencies don't mix well. That's because thug tendencies put people on edge instead of letting them concentrate on the work. I don't bring much of my personality into my relationships with clients either. It's one thing to expose the human side a bit when starting conversations. It's another thing to fly blindly down the aggressive and self-aggrandizing tunnel of "Keepin It 100 For All My Real Software Ninjas". To quote the author: > "In case you’re an ignorant muhfukka and can’t grasp the significance of this or can’t see what’s so bad about it, then pay attention you bastard."
- vowelless 9y agoI just might be oblivious, as a middle eastern immigrant, but how is this not a racist piece ? Am I missing something ?
- montecarl 9y agoIt can be hard to understand one's own culture because it may be all you have ever known. So in this case a black man is writing about his experience working in an company where he is the minority. His piece highlights some negative patterns he has seen in his white coworkers that may be common patterns in society. I think that his perspective is helpful. The reason it may feel racist is when you imagine the opposite situation: a white man working at a majority black company and publicly deriding his coworkers' behavior. What is different between these two situations? I think the biggest difference is that if the white business culture is going to change to address the issues he brings up he needs the help of white people to make that change. White people don't need the help of black people because they are a small minority in this industry and a minority overall in the US.
- skndr 9y agoRacism is more than just calling out race in a specific dynamic: ..."racism" is defined not only in terms of individual prejudice, but also in terms of a power structure which protects the interests of the dominant culture and actively discriminates against ethnic minorities.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Popular_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Popular_usage
- komali2 9y agoMy friend and I just had this discussion this morning, because he's having an ongoing argument with his girlfriend, wherein she is arguing that it is impossible to be racist to a white person in America, and he is arguing that that very argument is racist. The gist is she is using the "power structure" definition of racism, and he is using the "prejudice based on race" definition. I feel like this difference in definitions is the root of a lot of arguments in modern discourse.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
- meri_dian 9y agoI have no problem with him writing about what he assumes to be biased or racist behavior he's encountered. But the racist stereotyping and generalization he indulges in is baseless and drains his entire piece of credibility. It has no place on HN or in any sort of discourse.
- ibejoeb 9y agoI don't know. I kinda agree, but if HN will indulge writing on bias from every other demographic, why object to this one? You don't hear much about women in tech without the corollary that the industry is backboned by misogyny and men are sexist womanizers. I think there is a morsel of insight in here: "comfort" is a weasel word. It is the current accepted way of getting out of something we don't want. It can be, as the author suggests, the mask over racism. It is also the "cultural fit" nonsense, where we reject qualified a qualified person for being whatever he is: too ugly, too attractive, too old, too much potential to be my boss...
- Mz 9y agoMy therapist used to say "If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is probably the one you hit." When criticisms from an oppressed underclass comes in, there is usually some polite and politically correct reason to dismiss them. In many cases, if the oppressed could somehow magically find the right words to say it "appropriately," it still would not be acceptable because the truth in such situations is very often that the real problem is criticizing the status quo, not the manner in which those criticisms were framed. Or, to use the terminology of this post, it makes people uncomfortable and they play the comfortable card. Because the comfort of privileged peoples matter. The discomfort of the oppressed never does, no matter how much real and genuine suffering is involved for the oppressed compared to the minor annoyances the privileged group can't tolerate for themselves.
- mugenjin 9y agoWhat an eloquent explanation. 100% agreed.
- ibejoeb 9y agoOn Working with Black People: It was cool. We all got shit done together.
- hordeallergy 9y agoIncredibly low quality piece of writing. Is this an indicator of the direction of hn? I won't stick around. Aside, I'm white and went to boarding school in Africa - does the author think I should write a blog post explaining black people?
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- Overtonwindow 9y agoNo, I don't think you should write a blog post, that is possibly what the author is hoping you will do. Then they can use it to claim you're being insensitive to important racial issues, etc. It's a trap.
- g00gler 9y agoIsn't the "uncomfortable" thing something he and others can learn to use to their benefit? That's my takeaway. Can't wait to flex this new privilege, tell my manager meeting with users/stakeholders makes me uncomfortable. Like, instead of being negative about it, he could have said "Hey everybody, check it out, all you have to do is say something's making you uncomfortable and everyone caters to you".
- aosmith 9y agoThis whole post just makes me cringe. Anyone who has to say they're an amazing engineer that many times is probably over compensating for something.
- Mz 9y agoOr maybe he is saying it because no one else will because that would make them uncomfortable to admit that someone with such a foul mouth and the wrong skin color actually has mad skillz.
- owebmaster 9y ago> had a very odd combination of thug background mixed with highly valuable software development abilities This is my experience, too. And it is very good to read this here. Great article, thanks for the writer and the one who brought it here. We are a minority in tech compared to women but it is difficult to not think that HN is as racists as the article describes when you see articles like "Women in Tech" getting a whole day into the #1 and this one flagged with a lot of racists comments that aren't flagged.
- mugenjin 9y agoIt’s fucking disappointing reading all the comments here. Why is the majority consensus discounting this article because of some street vernacular? I’ve read comments before on HN stating that the majority of the HN commenters are white people, and I’ve discounted those comments. But man. Seems like it’s true. Ya’ll getting uncomfortable with some street vernacular and invalidating the author’s perspective. The dude grew up in a poverty-stricken black community dealing with white communities, so of course he’s going to have street vernacular in his writing. Of course he’s going to write about his perspective of culture shock and interacting with white people. He grew up dealing with that shit. It just all makes sense. Dude’s article is true to his character and upbringing. Nothing surprising but some street talk. Ya’ll failing to understand black culture here when ya’ll discounting his article because of a reference to Drake or some street talk. The fuck. If ya’ll just get over that uncomfortableness, ya’ll can actually see a new perspective. “Wow. I’ve never seen ‘uncomfortable’ being used like that. Next time when I hear someone say they’re uncomfortable, I’ll dig deeper and ask what specifically makes them uncomfortable.” TLDR: majority of HN commenters are people who might be white that fail to become aware of social issues from a black person’s perspective because dude used some street vernacular.
- newsbinator 9y agoStreet vernacular aside, my guess is the article would have been better received if the author weren't "one of the world’s greatest software developers" who "paid a substantial price to achieve my high level of greatness". It's that extreme arrogance coupled with calling all these coworkers bitches and hos that makes me "uncomfortable". Also being broadly racist against white people isn't strengthening the message. > "In a later post I will certainly discuss how White people have this extreme need to identify with suffering." Change the word "white" to "asian" or "women" in the post, and you get something that'll immediately get flagged and removed. I think a lot of us here would love to read, discuss and dissect a post about the different working and social cultures that majority white people set up that lead to barriers for minorities. But this post ain't it. To quote the author: > "Nawl muhfukka. You just don’t like looking at yourself for what you really are… a petty-minded ho with a fukked up perspective on life."
- nunez 9y agoI'm black-Latino and this was cringey as fuck to read
- drivingmenuts 9y agoHe lost me the moment he claimed to be the greatest software developer in the world. Anytime someone brags, I very much want to see them forced to admit they aren't.
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- mirimir 9y agoDamn, this article reminds me why I've loved working with Black people :)