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Maybe. Or maybe the point is that for some people systemic racism isn't just another abstract problem that doesn't really affect them every single day of their

Maybe. Or maybe the point is that for some people systemic racism isn't just another abstract problem that doesn't really affect them every single day of their lives.

darawk 6y ago
It seems to me that's what's happening in this thread is privileged people with no experience of systemic racism telling Filipino veterans how they ought to feel about the country they fought for. The people with the concrete experience are speaking, and HN commenters are telling them they're bad and wrong and should be more mad. Seems strange, in light of the prevalence of the word 'listen' of late.
- hootbootscoot 6y ago
  You had me, then you lost me. Hubris and the unwillingness to comprehend real problems and the desire to cover them up with "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" won't go down well. What I'm seeing is more apologism for wrongful historical actions, perhaps in RESPONSE to what you described, but at this point it's become an "AMERICA IS GREAT SO SHUT UP"
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    It's not "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" so much as pointing out specifically why the claim that it isn't great is wrong, to which the responses were a moving of the goalposts to some other, generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified and so can't be addressed.
    - cookie_monsta 6y ago
      Patriotism is just as absurd as any other dogma to a person who doesn't share it. I think the US has done some great things as have most countries. It's when you start blindly believing it's perfect that it seems less than rational. > generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified Surely you don't need to hear the list again?
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > It's when you start blindly believing it's perfect that it seems less than rational. Who said it was perfect? > Surely you don't need to hear the list again? Is there somewhere they keep this list? I keep getting partial versions. There's the ones where we list bad laws that haven't been on the books in many years, the ones (like police murders) that do literally happen but are dramatically less common than the level of attention would lead you to believe, the thing where people try to claim things with aggregate statistics without adjusting for confounders... I'm sure there are some legitimate ones, what I can't understand is why the focus is regularly on all these ones that evaporate upon examination. Maybe it's the toxoplasma thing, which I can't link to because SSC is gone. :(
        cookie_monsta 6y ago
        Hmmm... let me guess: You got where you are 'cause you were the smartest and worked the hardest and won the race amongst equals?
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Don't do that. Don't attack the speaker instead of the arguments. You don't know anything about me.
        cookie_monsta 6y ago
        It's nothing personal, merely an observation of the phenomena that it's hard/ uncomfortable to see the unfairness of a system of which you are clearly a benefactor. The idea that everybody's equal starting... now! is lovely if you can ignore the fact that some people have a 500 year head start.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > The idea that everybody's equal starting... now! is lovely if you can ignore the fact that some people have a 600 year head start. Except that nobody is claiming that, and even if they were, you would then be having a class dispute rather than a race dispute anyway.
  - darawk 6y ago
    Nobody is saying "America is great shut up". America has very serious problems, both currently and historically. The point of this piece and the other commenters in this thread in defending America is not that we should ignore the problems. It's that we should work towards fixing them in a positive way, not a "fuck America" sort of way.
- cookie_monsta 6y ago
  Seems like an odd place to put this comment. Nobody's talking about Filipino vets on this sub-thread, much less how they should feel or who is bad or wrong or should be mad. Am I missing subtext?
  - darawk 6y ago
    It seems to me that the thrust of this sub-thread is a debate over narratives. One narrative is "America is basically good, but it has serious problems, and we're working on fixing them". Another narrative is "America is basically bad, we should burn it to the ground and start over". Neither of these narratives are right or wrong, because all narratives are false. But I think one of them is more useful than the other.
    - cookie_monsta 6y ago
      And can I argue against your strawman as well, or will that disrupt your momentum? This subthread started with "Well, ACTUALLY, if you look at the statistics, state sponsored/condoned violence against black people in the US barely exists and all this kerfuffle is an overreaction" That's not admitting a serious problem, and calling it out as revisionist BS is not saying we should burn the country to the ground.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > This subthread started with > If you can't trust the society to not murder you, why would you refrain from tearing down anything you don't like?
        cookie_monsta 6y ago
        Oh, OK - I misspoke. It was the sub-subthread that started off cherrypicking statistics. But if we're going to be pedantic it's worth noting that tearing down the things that you don't like is selective whereas burning everything to the ground is much more indiscriminate and there's a big difference there. To put it another way, calling for the razing of America is totally unreasonable. But such calls are in actual fact extremely uncommon.

Maybe. Or maybe the point is that for some people systemic racism isn't just another abstract problem that doesn't really affect them every single day of their lives.

darawk 6y ago

It seems to me that's what's happening in this thread is privileged people with no experience of systemic racism telling Filipino veterans how they ought to feel about the country they fought for. The people with the concrete experience are speaking, and HN commenters are telling them they're bad and wrong and should be more mad. Seems strange, in light of the prevalence of the word 'listen' of late.

hootbootscoot 6y ago
You had me, then you lost me. Hubris and the unwillingness to comprehend real problems and the desire to cover them up with "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" won't go down well. What I'm seeing is more apologism for wrongful historical actions, perhaps in RESPONSE to what you described, but at this point it's become an "AMERICA IS GREAT SO SHUT UP"
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  It's not "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" so much as pointing out specifically why the claim that it isn't great is wrong, to which the responses were a moving of the goalposts to some other, generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified and so can't be addressed.
  - cookie_monsta 6y ago
    Patriotism is just as absurd as any other dogma to a person who doesn't share it. I think the US has done some great things as have most countries. It's when you start blindly believing it's perfect that it seems less than rational. > generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified Surely you don't need to hear the list again?
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > It's when you start blindly believing it's perfect that it seems less than rational. Who said it was perfect? > Surely you don't need to hear the list again? Is there somewhere they keep this list? I keep getting partial versions. There's the ones where we list bad laws that haven't been on the books in many years, the ones (like police murders) that do literally happen but are dramatically less common than the level of attention would lead you to believe, the thing where people try to claim things with aggregate statistics without adjusting for confounders... I'm sure there are some legitimate ones, what I can't understand is why the focus is regularly on all these ones that evaporate upon examination. Maybe it's the toxoplasma thing, which I can't link to because SSC is gone. :(
      - cookie_monsta 6y ago
        Hmmm... let me guess: You got where you are 'cause you were the smartest and worked the hardest and won the race amongst equals?
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Don't do that. Don't attack the speaker instead of the arguments. You don't know anything about me.
        cookie_monsta 6y ago
        It's nothing personal, merely an observation of the phenomena that it's hard/ uncomfortable to see the unfairness of a system of which you are clearly a benefactor. The idea that everybody's equal starting... now! is lovely if you can ignore the fact that some people have a 500 year head start.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > The idea that everybody's equal starting... now! is lovely if you can ignore the fact that some people have a 600 year head start. Except that nobody is claiming that, and even if they were, you would then be having a class dispute rather than a race dispute anyway.
- darawk 6y ago
  Nobody is saying "America is great shut up". America has very serious problems, both currently and historically. The point of this piece and the other commenters in this thread in defending America is not that we should ignore the problems. It's that we should work towards fixing them in a positive way, not a "fuck America" sort of way.
cookie_monsta 6y ago
Seems like an odd place to put this comment. Nobody's talking about Filipino vets on this sub-thread, much less how they should feel or who is bad or wrong or should be mad. Am I missing subtext?
- darawk 6y ago
  It seems to me that the thrust of this sub-thread is a debate over narratives. One narrative is "America is basically good, but it has serious problems, and we're working on fixing them". Another narrative is "America is basically bad, we should burn it to the ground and start over". Neither of these narratives are right or wrong, because all narratives are false. But I think one of them is more useful than the other.
  - cookie_monsta 6y ago
    And can I argue against your strawman as well, or will that disrupt your momentum? This subthread started with "Well, ACTUALLY, if you look at the statistics, state sponsored/condoned violence against black people in the US barely exists and all this kerfuffle is an overreaction" That's not admitting a serious problem, and calling it out as revisionist BS is not saying we should burn the country to the ground.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > This subthread started with > If you can't trust the society to not murder you, why would you refrain from tearing down anything you don't like?
      - cookie_monsta 6y ago
        Oh, OK - I misspoke. It was the sub-subthread that started off cherrypicking statistics. But if we're going to be pedantic it's worth noting that tearing down the things that you don't like is selective whereas burning everything to the ground is much more indiscriminate and there's a big difference there. To put it another way, calling for the razing of America is totally unreasonable. But such calls are in actual fact extremely uncommon.