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"2019 after being told by a colleague that their skin was much darker than the co-worker expected." This is not fucking racism, and maybe one should seek help
by Guthur 6y ago
"2019 after being told by a colleague that their skin was much darker than the co-worker expected."
This is not fucking racism, and maybe one should seek help if a question like this really affects you.
- TheRealSteel 6y agoHow in the hell is that not racism?
- robinduckett 6y agoBecause the parent commenter is ignorant, ignorance should be met with calmness and education instead of backlash.
- Guthur 6y agoIn what way is it ignorant, should I be offended because some one remarks on my pasty white skin or the slight red tinge to my hair. Please inform me because I didn't get the memo.
- robinduckett 6y agoI dunno, having a bit of ginger myself has made me the target of jokes and ridicule. Being a bit of a nerd means my skin is far often pastier than others, and people comment on it. I have been called translucent and have asked if I have half a soul because my beard is ginger and my hair is brown. People say ignorant idiotic crap all the time. It's ignorance, judging people based on their appearance, and it's been happening to anyone not white for centuries.
- Guthur 6y agoSure, but making everyone scared to have any sort of discourse with people for fear of offending each other will do nothing to improve racial integration. I'm of Irish decent and it has had it's fair share of stigmatism throughout history yet most of us pretty pasty white.
- robinduckett 6y agoI don't know about you, but I don't really wanna discourse with people who are so superficial as to ridicule my appearance. If you offend me, why the hell should I engage in civil discourse?
- Guthur 6y agoRemarking on the colour of some ones skin is like saying you have very blond hair. Are we in denial of skin tone or something and that it's different from various regions of earth, come on.
- booleangate 6y agoNo one gets shot by the police because of the color of their hair.
- Glavnokoman 6y agoI completely agree with what you say. And I wish I knew what you actually imply, but I am afraid that would be a complete nonsense.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gjulianm 6y agoIt's not a remark, it's an expectation. Imagine if you had blond hair and someone said "Oh, I did not expect an engineer to be blond". It's like they are saying "the stereotypes say you shouldn't be smart". At best, it's rude.
- Chris2048 6y ago> Imagine if you had blond hair and someone said "Oh, I did not expect an engineer to be blond" That's because you explicitly added the "an engineer" part to make the insinuation clear.
- ncf04212 6y agoWhere in that sentence is it implied that one race ( or skin color ) is superior to the other ? Maybe that's my autism talking, idk, but I fail to see how one can find racism in that sentence.
- darkwater 6y agoBy the whole surrounding system that treated differently and badly people according to their skin color for ages? People who say a skin color comment is just like a hair color one are delusional. Obviously there are different levels of racism, but a comment like this is already racist because it's expliciting expectations based on people's origins.
- Grustaf 6y agoWhat is racist about expecting a correlation between origin and ethnicity? Would it be racism to expect Mr Wang from Shanghai or Hanako from Kyoto to be ethnically Asian?
- truculent 6y agoIt is not explicitly implied in the sentence, which can make it harder to parse for those of us on the spectrum, but no doubt hearing this kind of comment has an othering effect for most people. The fact that you’re not as “expected” can imply you’re not part of the right group. Racism is the structural discrimination and exclusion of certain groups of people, and this is one of the ways in which it perpetuates. If every person who isn’t white is made to feel unwelcome (even if unintentionally), is that not de facto discrimination? A lot of this stuff goes over my head, but it is there and it’s up to us to learn to recognise it when it has a detrimental effect on our friends and coworkers.
- junon 6y agoRacism is a prejudice based solely on one's race. There's nothing "structural" about it.
- 6y ago
- inglor_cz 6y agoBecause there is no bigotry in that statement, only an awkward observation of a superficial trait? "You are much more smart because your skin is lighter than I expected," now that would be racism. Or "I will be happier to work with you because you are lighter than expected." Or "You must have gotten that job because you are lighter than expected."
- Symbiote 6y agoThere is a long history of white people assuming white people are more intelligent. When you meet a software developer, saying they're unexpectedly dark strongly implies you didn't think someone of that ethnicity was capable of being a software developer. It doesn't need to be spelled out -- the implication is very clear, and if an employee claims to be ignorant of this, they should at least be sent on the race awareness training.
- inglor_cz 6y ago"strongly implies", "the implication is very clear" "Assume the worst" = This is precisely the kind of mind reading that leads to a paranoid, unhappy, eternally vigilant society.
- aurbano 6y agoThe first time I meet a remote colleague I'm often surprised by their height, and a very common statement is "Wow I never realised you were this tall!" I don't see the difference between that and realising someone is a different ethnicity than you expected. Racism is (by definition) prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism. Being surprised because someone looks different than you imagined is nothing like that.
- PeekPoke 6y agoContext matters - and we don't know the context of the conversation. If the commenter was being flippant or dismissive or generally uncaring in their conversation it could be taken as racist by someone sensitive to such things. If the comment was delivered with zero malicious intent and was merely a throwaway observation then it's not racist and only someone looking for offense would take it that way. Like I said, without background knowledge and context it's impossible to determine if it was a racist remark or not.
- melomal 6y agoThat's like someone being offended when someone gets called pasty or pale as hell.
- yerwhat01010 6y agoThis might be somewhat of a tangent, but I'm extremely pale. I don't tan, I burn, no matter how hard I try, and I stay milky white (or turn lobster red) no matter how long I stay in the sun. I used to get teased for this constantly as a teenager. Every time the weather was nice, and especially if I was returning home from a holiday in a sunny destination, I knew I'd get the same idiotic comments about my failure to get a tan. I hated it, and I resented people who said this to me. Not because I'm insecure about the colour of my skin (really, I don't give a fuck about tanning) - just that it was so boring. The same stupid, boring, tedious jokes again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Give me a break. This doesn't make me a victim of racism, and I can't think of any other disadvantages to my skin colour except perhaps an increased suncream budget. But I do find it offensive. You're not funny, and I've heard it a million times before. Rant over. (Edit: to be clear, I don't find it offensive if someone simply described me as "white" or "pale" - only when they make unoriginal jokes about it.)
- melomal 6y agoDitto, I have that fine pale, eastern european, 12 hours in front of a screen colour going. Honestly, the lobster jokes were quite funny for me as sometimes I would wear a matching red t-shirt without noticing just how lobster looking I was. I've had plenty of sun strokes too when I was younger and playing football in peak lunch heat. That's my level of pasty. My wife tans in minutes so I am jealous but so what. I had plenty of eastern european cheap labour jokes from friends, I just played along depending on their skin colour or race. No one was upset and we all laughed at our unique differences.
- whitepaint 6y agoI've been called super white and super pale. Is that racism?
- josteink 6y agoNo, because the new dogmatic definition of racism and sexism excludes the possibility of white people and men as a gender ever being discriminated against at. Also known as “There’s no such thing as reverse racism!”, which as a premise to fight racism (different treatment based on skin-colour) starts off by dividing people into different skin-colours, so that they can be treated differently (and the equivalent mental exercise for sexism/gender). It would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s being done seriously and gaining momentum.
- darkwater 6y agoWere white people sold as slaves for centuries and considered subhuman by a whole civilization?
- saddlerustle 6y agoYes. The word "slave" literally comes from "slavs"
- simmerup 6y agoWhite people have been enslaved at various points in history.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 0-_-0 6y agoNow that I think about it, my (white) ancestors have been enslaved by people with darker skin color, and they never enslaved people with a darker skin color. Does that mean I can call black people racist if they point out my skin color?
- Grustaf 6y agoYes of course, and not just Irish or Slavic people. But how is that relevant to the question?
- toto444 6y agoPlaying the devil's advocate. If someone tells you 'tomorrow you'll meet your new colleague Lars from Sweden' consciously or not you'll form expectation about his skin color.
- Grustaf 6y agoGiven that name it IS statistically much more likely that he's white, so would there be anything malicious about that expectation?
- magicalhippo 6y agoI had something like that some years ago. My sister has a friend called Christine, and my sister had mentioned her several times before I first met her. Turned out that while Christine was born and raised here in Norway, she had two Thai parents. There's not a large Thai population here, and Christine is not a name I associated with Thais, so I was quite surprised by it. Not in a positive or negative way, just plain old surprised.
- toto444 6y agoI actually have one as well. At some point I was chatting a lot with a customer agent from one of our partner. To me their name sounded Russian so I assumed they were of Russian origin. Turns out they are from a Sub-saharan African country. Like you I was very surprised when I learnt it.
- notahacker 6y agoTrue, but there's a difference between having an expectation and clumsily articulating it in a welcome meeting. On the balance of probability a new software developer is likely to be male and so you might be surprised that new dev with unisex name is female, but saying "oh, we weren't expecting a woman" when they walk in is obviously going to raise some very significant questions about your attitude
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- himinlomax 6y agoI'm extremely puzzled as to how you see that as racist, and even more puzzled at how you seem puzzled yourself.
- refurb 6y agoYour right it is. Any mention of skin tone is verboten! We must not mention it no matter the context!
- robinduckett 6y agoI mean, yes, judge people on the quality of their code, not the colour of their skin. It's opinions like these that make me think that clearly public shame isn't enough to get it into people's heads.
- simmerup 6y agoJust because you acknowledge something doesn't mean it's judgement
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- refurb 6y agoWhere was the judgement? If I recall correctly (from the other HN discussion) the person in question had vacationed some where tropical and the comment was about how much she had/hadn’t tanned. I believe the person making the complaint actually raised the topic originally.
- dx034 6y agoIs any discussion about skin color racist? If I see a picture of someone and then see them in real-life where they look different, I'd comment if it was about the color of their hair. Is it not ok to comment if it's about the color of their skin instead? As long as it has nothing to do with work performance or other character traits, I don't see racism here. Otherwise you'd need to ban any discussion about appearances at the work place.
- ilikeerp 6y agoJust avoid comments about peoples personal appearance all together. Maybe somebody doesn't want to be told they're short or dark or whatever. I was introduced to a guy via email and spoke to him on IRC for nearly a year before he came to the office, when he arrived he was wearing a dress and carrying a handbag - I decided to not comment on his appearance. Try it...
- ben509 6y agoBut then you're essentially defining racism as "anything that gets you in trouble." It's perfectly reasonable to adjust coming anywhere close to discussing race as a strategy to avoid getting fired, but it's insane to redefine racism based on that. We're doing that, and it results in a constantly expanding definition of racism, to where there are now "microaggressions." Keep in mind, if you're white, you don't care: as you suggested, you just avoid talking about certain topics and carry on. If you're a minority group, all these white people are, against their own apparent interests, agreeing that there's pervasive racism everywhere. The minority person has to live believing that all this is true. We ought to have empathy and get this right so we don't contribute to a pervasive falsehood that makes people's lives seem worse than they really are. What's no big deal for us can be a ton of stress for others.
- 0-_-0 6y agoWould the statement "your hair is much lighter than I expected" be racist? How about "your eye color is much lighter than expected"? Why is skin color different than any other superficial characteristic?
- cjfd 6y agoIt might be racism if one enjoys putting the gravest label imaginable on a situation. But if that is the worst the person experienced it is something that anyone should be prepared do deal with without invoking all sorts of institutions. I have experienced things like that occasionally because I am gay. The lightest shades of homophobia can be dealt with by just ignoring them. Just being ignored makes a decent person already think something along the lines of 'ow... maybe I should not have said that ...' and they will most likely just stop. The problem with the modern forms of equality thinking seems to be that we need to work very hard to eradicate even infinitesimal levels of racism or homophobia. This then deteriorates into a rather scary thought police that is much worse than the problem it allegedly attempted to solve. I am saying 'allegedly' because these people probably just enjoy bossing everybody around and found this issue as a means to do that rather than actually caring about he issue. The bigger problem is that when people in minorities start believing such things it makes them weaker and not stronger.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Doing that is just as bad as starting it in the first place. "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jpxw 6y agoUnfortunately the word “racism” has been diluted to an extreme degree by grifters like the people mentioned in this article.
- robinduckett 6y agoI disagree, racism is racism is racism. There is a difference between ignorance and hatred.
- CodeGlitch 6y agoSee recent uses of "Nazism". I briefly went on Twitter last night to see what the #superstraight stuff was all about. People yelling "Nazi!" at each other, even though #superstraight has nothing to do with the Jews or genocide (as far as I could tell). Regarding racism: Meghan Markle has taken this to the extreme, accusing people of racism when her skin tone is light enough for people to assume she is white (her ethnicity never crossed my mind before she started banging on about it - I thought she was white), and having plenty of privilege in her life (more so than 99.9% of UK's population). Seems to me people using the cover of racism when things don't go their way - which is massively dangerous when there is genuine racism that needs to be dealt with.
- robinduckett 6y agoJesus imagine having any sort of history education at all and you end up thinking the royal family, who owned slaves, aren't racist.
- CodeGlitch 6y agoBy "history" I assume you mean not alive anymore. I'm sure they had descendants who were racist (like most people), doesn't make them all racist now. She hasn't even said who that person is - so they can't even defend themselves. Additionally one person doesn't mean the whole family are horrible people.
- stdbrouw 6y agoThere are probably situations where it's an innocuous remark, but surely you can see that depending on the tone and what is implied, it might be extremely offensive, not very different from saying something like "oh, you're a woman, that's certainly surprising because women are awful at math and coding!"
- redwood 6y agoIt would be more like that first half of that sentence
- stdbrouw 6y agoHence "depending on what is implied". You make a remark because something surprises you, and the reasons for that surprise might be benign or they might be racist.
- fredgrott 6y agoconsidering the non-African's that have darker skin color probably not. Such as Malaysian, Philipino, Mexican, etc.
- snakeboy 6y agoI can't even imagine what this comment means/how it's used. There is really not enough context here. "expected?" Like the first time they met them? It seems like Google HR's initial response of "assume good intent"[0] seems reasonable, absent additional details: > Cruz, who is Mexican American and prefers to be identified by the pronouns they/them, reported the incident to human resources in 2019 where personnel told them they should “assume good intent,” Cruz recalled in an interview. Unsatisfied, Cruz asked human resources to look deeper into the incident, and an HR official said an investigation into the matter had been closed, Cruz said. I feel like the journalist failed to actually convince us that this was something newsworthy. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-advised-mental-health-care-when-workers-complained-about-racism-n1259728 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-advised-mental...
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoright, especially as "after being told by a colleague that their skin was much darker than the co-worker expected." is a description of what happened, not an actual record of what was said. There are lots of ways that can be said, some of which could be extremely racist.
- gjulianm 6y agoThe key is in "expected". Why did someone expect another person to be of a certain color? Note that the person in question is named Benjamin Cruz, and has a skin tone more or less consistent with their name [1], and not especially dark. So the question is why the expectation of "being white" was there. A reasonable interpretation (with limited knowledge, of course) is that they expected Cruz to be white because they expect mostly white people to be hired at their level. That is clearly racism, as you're attributing intelligence to race. Of course there are other interpretations, but I wouldn't say that 'you should seek help if you see racism' is helpful at all. 1: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-advised-mental-health-care-when-workers-complained-about-racism-n1259728 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-advised-mental...
- matheusmoreira 6y agoThat expectation was there because of a photograph of the employee. The expectation was violated because the employee spent some time in Egypt and acquired a tan in the process. Nothing to do with racism.
- Chris2048 6y agoWas that (relevant) info in an article?
- matheusmoreira 6y agoIt was mentioned in another thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26384305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26384305
- Chris2048 6y agoIt looks like speculation
- that_guy_iain 6y agoI was once called racist because I was surprised that someone I had only talked to via irc was black. I come from Scotland, there was maybe 10 black people in my town of 30,000 people. In the IT security scene most people are white. A few years later, I met a woman at one of the meetups she laughed about how everyone was surprised she was female because she aware everyone just assumes you're a guy. Honestly, I think some people just want to be a victim in some way. Gives them an excuse as to why things aren't going there way.
- dx034 6y agoThat you were surprised just shows that there's something wrong with the system (education, social or whatever) that so few black people end up in well paying tech jobs. Being surprised to encounter one isn't racist as long as you're not negatively surprised. It's the same as being surprised that the CEO of a large company is a woman. That in itself is not sexist but shows that something's wrong with society.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zpeti 6y agoHe just said he’s from a town of 30k people with 10 blacks. How exactly is assuming someone you talk to is from the 99.9% majority not normal? Of course this is the perfect example of our society today, where if you try and see racism sexism everywhere, you’ll see it. Even if it’s not actually there
- marcus_holmes 6y agoOr that black people are uncommon in the region that they were in and therefore not encountered often. Having "10 black people in my town of 30,000 people" is not a failure of any system.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- simias 6y agoIt's a pretty weird comment though, it's hard to judge without knowing more context. Whether this is actually racism or not it's hard for me to imagine a context where such a remark would be appropriate at work. In general I think it's good advice to avoid commenting on your coworker's physical appearance unless you have a very good reason to do so. IMO it's also a bit rude for you to say that "one should seek help" when you don't really have a good understanding of the situation at hand.
- PeterisP 6y agoWhat I'm reading from the description of this situation (this BBC article is scant on details, previous posts had more information) is that the suggestion for medical leave came only after a prolonged, repeated escalation/appeal of a relatively minor complaint. Let's assume that the complaint was accurate, it wasn't a misunderstanding, and that there was an incident in 2019 where a colleague intentionally verbally insulted Benjamin Cruz for some reason. That's bad, but it's not a major issue, that's a single incident, Cruz did not claim that it was a pattern in their work environment, or that they had to continuously work with a colleague that kept insulting them, or something like that - their claims of abuse stop at that single incident. HR looked into the complaint and, one way or another, came to a decision which Cruz did not like. So far, it's a "meh" situation, not nice, but something that's still within bounds of an acceptable work environment no matter which side is right. Okay, a minor bad thing happened, people talked about it, hopefully people will try to be better. If it repeats, then you would have a reason for escalation or further complaints. However, if a year has passed after a single insult and a HR decision you don't agree with, and you can't let it go and keep escalating that issue because it still affects you so much that it hurts your work and causes serious personal anxiety, then that's a problematic overreaction. Letting go seems like a reasonable option, seeking mental help seems like a reasonable option, and quitting seems another reasonable option, and IMHO that's it, you should pick one of these - which was exactly what (according to Cruz) was suggested by the HR. In your opinion what should a perfect HR have suggested for Cruz to do in this situation, assuming that they have determined that some punishment to the other employee (which - in my guess - is what Cruz might have requested by asking HR to reconsider that investigation) is simply not justified? If you expect that you'll never ever have a minor personal conflict or one-off remark at your workplace, that's an unreasonable expectation. If you expect that in every dispute with a coworker the HR must take your side and you refuse to accept a judgement that's reviewed more than once, that's an unreasonable expectation. If you expect that employer will ensure that any assholes get fired after their first asshole utterance, that's an unreasonable expectation. If you can't work because these unreasonable expectations aren't met, then that's on you, not the employer; deal with it or leave.
- devchix 6y agoI've heard "Wow, you speak English better than I expected!", "You have no accent at all!" and similar said to Indian and Asian colleagues, some of these colleagues were born in the US and for all intents and purposes shared the same American childhood as you and me. Is it racist? I don't know. It does imply a ready and closely-held stereotype, though.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads into flamewar regardless of how strongly you feel about something. It's not what this site is for, and it evokes considerably worse from others. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Guthur 6y agoThere is an important aspect of how we interact with each other in the work place and this is indicative of a poisonous anti-human agenda to control those interactions. Unfortunately I didn't really start it off too well and apology for being somewhat inflammatory.
- dang 6y agoI agree with the first half of your first sentence. But 'poisonous anti-human agenda' — I mean I'm no corporatist but that already starts to sound a bit like internet projection to me. We don't really know as much as it feels like we know about these situations when very-partial stories make it online. We're all filling in a lot of details from imagination, based on our own past experiences, without realizing we're doing that (which is what I mean by projection). In my experience, more thoughtful online conversation starts with slowing that mental process down and unpacking it a bit. I've described this in terms of 'reflexive' vs. 'reflective' in the past - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=reflective%20reflex%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Anyhow, you needn't agree—these are just some thoughts that came up when I realized I had a bifurcated response to your first sentence. As for the second sentence: appreciated!