4 ms·
How in the hell is that not racism?
by TheRealSteel 6y ago
How 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