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> " I am aware my opinions are absolutely related to my skin color and that's precisely why you all need to pay special attention to them. Not because of some s

> " I am aware my opinions are absolutely related to my skin color and that's precisely why you all need to pay special attention to them. Not because of some sort of silly inherent genetic thing, but because I have experiences that many of you don't." We used to think of this as racist stereotyping, but in the pendulum of history we have swung back to where in order to not be racist (or, better yet, anti-racist) we have to be actively racist. The zeitgeist is to view everything through the lens of race / skin color ostensibly in an effort to combat racism, but in reality all it does is create more racism. The fact that we have multiple black people commenting here with opinions diverging as widely as they do should be proof positive that race or skin color has almost nothing to do with your opinions. Two people can go through the exact same experience and come out entirely different persons or very similar. Two people can have the same skin color and go through totally different experiences. Two people can have different skin color and go through very similar experiences. Thus when dealing with individuals we should not ascribe to them stereotypes unless we have to make an informed guess, because statistical patterns apply only to groups not individuals. Guessing my race based on my opinion will be left as an exercise for the unconvinced reader ;)

jrm4 5y ago
A little exhausting to, as always, have to thread the needle and calm things down, but let's try again. My insistence on what I said isn't about anything permanent or immutable. This is about what I hope to be a temporary state of affairs, namely that -- it is at least plausible that the lack of black folks in tech today is leading to unintended negative consequences, and perhaps we should talk about that directly without having to worry about the fragile torpedoing the conversation by confusing this hopefully temporary state with some bigger overarching "statement about people." And maybe I didn't quite say this in the exact way that won't set people off the first time, but you know (or should know) that we have to do this A LOT. I was hoping to be able to skip it, but hey, guess not for now.
- pure_simplicity 5y ago
  No need to calm things down or thread needles, since I am rather stoic. You wanted interaction rather than downvotes, I gave you exactly that, so no need to complain about it being exhausting either. The downvotes may have come from individuals who also think it would be helpful if you treated yourself and others as individuals rather than avatars of their racial collective. Your opinions are your opinions, there is nothing black or white about your opinion (in terms of skin color at least) or anyone else's opinions. There are white people that think like you, and there are black people that think unlike you. Having a certain skin color doesn't make your opinion more valid or more worthy of being listened to either, even if you are in a demographic minority. For your opinion to be valid it has to have merit, so you have to back it up with good arguments that can convince a reasonable person. There's no racial cheat code we can/should insert into public discourse to bypass rational evaluation. That would be the bigotry of low expectations (you can't argue effectively for your case because of your identity, so we're gonna accept your conclusion because of your identity). Shifting from the indefensible: "my opinions are absolutely related to my skin color and that's precisely why you all need to pay special attention to them" to the much milder and very different: "[it's] plausible that the lack of black folks in tech today is leading to unintended negative consequences", and glossing that over as "maybe I didn't quite say this in the exact way that won't set people off the first time", rather than admitting you were racially stereotyping yourself and (at least implicitly) other individuals is poor form. That's not a clarification, but a different argument. I think it's high time white leftists and leftist blacks confront their own racism, cuz that's the only form of socially acceptable racism that currently exists in the west. Having said that, I think there's not much interesting about the hypothetical you raised. Changing the demographic composition of any group of people is almost certainly gonna change the distribution of opinions on the spectrum on any given topic, but that does not mean we are getting closer to truth. In the end, all that should matter is the facts and the arguments. That's why slavery and segregation were abolished at a time when blacks were vastly outnumbered in the population and in politics. We don't need population level representation of blacks in tech (though it may be beneficial) to hold big tech accountable and achieve meaningful change, we just have to make the argument and raise awareness and reasonable people of all races will join in your cause if your argument has merit. Let's get back to MLK's ideal of color blindness, because those who are teaching us to see color are teaching us to hate each other.

jrm4 5y ago

A little exhausting to, as always, have to thread the needle and calm things down, but let's try again. My insistence on what I said isn't about anything permanent or immutable. This is about what I hope to be a temporary state of affairs, namely that -- it is at least plausible that the lack of black folks in tech today is leading to unintended negative consequences, and perhaps we should talk about that directly without having to worry about the fragile torpedoing the conversation by confusing this hopefully temporary state with some bigger overarching "statement about people." And maybe I didn't quite say this in the exact way that won't set people off the first time, but you know (or should know) that we have to do this A LOT. I was hoping to be able to skip it, but hey, guess not for now.

pure_simplicity 5y ago
No need to calm things down or thread needles, since I am rather stoic. You wanted interaction rather than downvotes, I gave you exactly that, so no need to complain about it being exhausting either. The downvotes may have come from individuals who also think it would be helpful if you treated yourself and others as individuals rather than avatars of their racial collective. Your opinions are your opinions, there is nothing black or white about your opinion (in terms of skin color at least) or anyone else's opinions. There are white people that think like you, and there are black people that think unlike you. Having a certain skin color doesn't make your opinion more valid or more worthy of being listened to either, even if you are in a demographic minority. For your opinion to be valid it has to have merit, so you have to back it up with good arguments that can convince a reasonable person. There's no racial cheat code we can/should insert into public discourse to bypass rational evaluation. That would be the bigotry of low expectations (you can't argue effectively for your case because of your identity, so we're gonna accept your conclusion because of your identity). Shifting from the indefensible: "my opinions are absolutely related to my skin color and that's precisely why you all need to pay special attention to them" to the much milder and very different: "[it's] plausible that the lack of black folks in tech today is leading to unintended negative consequences", and glossing that over as "maybe I didn't quite say this in the exact way that won't set people off the first time", rather than admitting you were racially stereotyping yourself and (at least implicitly) other individuals is poor form. That's not a clarification, but a different argument. I think it's high time white leftists and leftist blacks confront their own racism, cuz that's the only form of socially acceptable racism that currently exists in the west. Having said that, I think there's not much interesting about the hypothetical you raised. Changing the demographic composition of any group of people is almost certainly gonna change the distribution of opinions on the spectrum on any given topic, but that does not mean we are getting closer to truth. In the end, all that should matter is the facts and the arguments. That's why slavery and segregation were abolished at a time when blacks were vastly outnumbered in the population and in politics. We don't need population level representation of blacks in tech (though it may be beneficial) to hold big tech accountable and achieve meaningful change, we just have to make the argument and raise awareness and reasonable people of all races will join in your cause if your argument has merit. Let's get back to MLK's ideal of color blindness, because those who are teaching us to see color are teaching us to hate each other.