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The article does not cover at all why black people didn't invent their own film technology or were a sufficiently organised or attractive consumer group to spur

The article does not cover at all why black people didn't invent their own film technology or were a sufficiently organised or attractive consumer group to spur someone else to (it was chocolate and furniture makers) "Hating" is perhaps too strong a word, but the author makes multiple accusations of racism against companies, technicians etc - from my reading thinking things are far too intentional and getting angry/offended - where in reality it's a mix of money and physics - not racism against a people.

dang 8y ago
"Hating" is much too strong a word to describe the article—so much so that invoking it in a thread like this is a big upping of the flamewar ante. There's no need to do that, but it's hard to resist, when a topic stirs up powerful emotions. This creates a need for relief, and venting that energy in the form of extreme words is one way to get relief. Unfortunately, it doesn't relieve anything at a community level. It just tosses the hot potato around in a way that only makes the potato hotter and more painful to the one who catches it next. What provides relief at a community level is when people find ability in themselves to acknowledge truth in what the other is saying. I would say there is more love in the article—consider the passages about the author's grandfather, whose humiliation she in a way dedicated her career to repairing—and later about her father. Note how she includes a moving (to me at least) moment of reconciliation at the end ("Her eyes were glassy as she said goodbye. Mine were, too, grateful for her vulnerability."). How easy it would have been to shame the woman who made the faux pas instead. Such moments of acknowledgment are hard to come by, and are worth emulating. This is not someone who's just out to hate. > thinking things are far too intentional and getting angry/offended A more charitable interpretation of the article is that a series of omissions can compound into a bias, even without deliberate attempts to exclude. That's interesting, and I'm a bit puzzled by the aversion in some commenters to look at it. Yes, angry accusations have been made and still get made, but that leads us to hear them also when they're not really there. We need the ability to notice when they're not really there, so as to respond in kind. That would be a de-escalating movement. > the author makes multiple accusations of racism against companies, technicians etc I'd urge you to read the article again and see whether those are really there, or if you haven't somehow filled those details in, perhaps because it felt that way while reading it. I just reread the whole thing myself, to see whether I had missed some accusation of racism against a company or a technician. I didn't find any. In fact, the second reading convinced me that the author must have taken great pains to restrain herself from doing that—since nothing would be easier for someone in her position to do. The article does contain a lot of pain—the pain of being unseen, excluded. And she does do something difficult for the reader: she creates tension by never expressing the pain directly. It's there implicitly, which heightens the effect. That's a pretty effective device for making a point, and I wonder if that's really what people are reacting to: the discomfort we feel when something intense is present but not expressed. But there's also generosity in this. If someone holds back from expressing as much as they could, even when feelings are intense, it creates space for others to do the same. Those opportunities are worth noticing and acting on, because otherwise we all just repeat the cycle.

dang 8y ago

"Hating" is much too strong a word to describe the article—so much so that invoking it in a thread like this is a big upping of the flamewar ante. There's no need to do that, but it's hard to resist, when a topic stirs up powerful emotions. This creates a need for relief, and venting that energy in the form of extreme words is one way to get relief. Unfortunately, it doesn't relieve anything at a community level. It just tosses the hot potato around in a way that only makes the potato hotter and more painful to the one who catches it next. What provides relief at a community level is when people find ability in themselves to acknowledge truth in what the other is saying. I would say there is more love in the article—consider the passages about the author's grandfather, whose humiliation she in a way dedicated her career to repairing—and later about her father. Note how she includes a moving (to me at least) moment of reconciliation at the end ("Her eyes were glassy as she said goodbye. Mine were, too, grateful for her vulnerability."). How easy it would have been to shame the woman who made the faux pas instead. Such moments of acknowledgment are hard to come by, and are worth emulating. This is not someone who's just out to hate. > thinking things are far too intentional and getting angry/offended A more charitable interpretation of the article is that a series of omissions can compound into a bias, even without deliberate attempts to exclude. That's interesting, and I'm a bit puzzled by the aversion in some commenters to look at it. Yes, angry accusations have been made and still get made, but that leads us to hear them also when they're not really there. We need the ability to notice when they're not really there, so as to respond in kind. That would be a de-escalating movement. > the author makes multiple accusations of racism against companies, technicians etc I'd urge you to read the article again and see whether those are really there, or if you haven't somehow filled those details in, perhaps because it felt that way while reading it. I just reread the whole thing myself, to see whether I had missed some accusation of racism against a company or a technician. I didn't find any. In fact, the second reading convinced me that the author must have taken great pains to restrain herself from doing that—since nothing would be easier for someone in her position to do. The article does contain a lot of pain—the pain of being unseen, excluded. And she does do something difficult for the reader: she creates tension by never expressing the pain directly. It's there implicitly, which heightens the effect. That's a pretty effective device for making a point, and I wonder if that's really what people are reacting to: the discomfort we feel when something intense is present but not expressed. But there's also generosity in this. If someone holds back from expressing as much as they could, even when feelings are intense, it creates space for others to do the same. Those opportunities are worth noticing and acting on, because otherwise we all just repeat the cycle.