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> I believe this is driven with good intentions. Some people call this "reverse racism", and "it's not really a thing since white people are privileged". As a

> I believe this is driven with good intentions. Some people call this "reverse racism", and "it's not really a thing since white people are privileged". As a brown person I am vehemently opposed to the notion that white people are all privileged or don't face trials and tribulation. Two wrongs don't make a right.

pessimizer 4y ago
> white people are all privileged or don't face trials and tribulation. This is an equivocation. I am privileged to downvote people on HN because of my karma, while others aren't. This is not the same as saying that people who can downvote people on HN don't face trials or tribulation.
munificent 4y ago
> I am vehemently opposed to the notion that white people are all privileged or don't face trials and tribulation. Sure, but who actually claims that? The actual claim I hear often is that whiteness, as one of the many facets that makes up a person, confers privilege. I don't think many people consider privilege a boolean property which is forcibly latched to true if a person's skin tone is above a certain threshold. Instead, privilege is more like a point measure that can be increased by each property a person has that aligns them with the dominant group in their area. You can certainly find unreasonable people online who take it to extremes, but there is always strange personalities like that. I think the actual reasonable perspective that most progressives hold is that privilege is a continuum affected by many factors. (I do think even reasonable progressives overfit to named group identity components of privilege versus individual components, but that's a somewhat different problem.)
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  These complaints are always so interesting because it is like they are discovering intersectionality (privilege/oppression isn't a binary yes/no thing) and treating it like this is a big new observation when the "woke" community has been steeped in this idea for 30 years. If it were the 70s then sure this would be a legitimate criticism of a lot of activism but things are way different now.
random314 4y ago
> As a brown person A typical brown person in the US is very privileged, so the qualification doesn't add weight to the argument. > don't face trials and tribulation. Nobody has made this claim.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > A typical brown person in the US is very privileged, so the qualification doesn't add weight to the argument. In what sense?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
coding123 4y ago
Many (most?) SV startups and larger companies are run by brown people (mostly Indians). I guess they must be the most white folks out there if whiteness is the root of all power.

pessimizer 4y ago

> white people are all privileged or don't face trials and tribulation. This is an equivocation. I am privileged to downvote people on HN because of my karma, while others aren't. This is not the same as saying that people who can downvote people on HN don't face trials or tribulation.

munificent 4y ago

> I am vehemently opposed to the notion that white people are all privileged or don't face trials and tribulation. Sure, but who actually claims that? The actual claim I hear often is that whiteness, as one of the many facets that makes up a person, confers privilege. I don't think many people consider privilege a boolean property which is forcibly latched to true if a person's skin tone is above a certain threshold. Instead, privilege is more like a point measure that can be increased by each property a person has that aligns them with the dominant group in their area. You can certainly find unreasonable people online who take it to extremes, but there is always strange personalities like that. I think the actual reasonable perspective that most progressives hold is that privilege is a continuum affected by many factors. (I do think even reasonable progressives overfit to named group identity components of privilege versus individual components, but that's a somewhat different problem.)

UncleMeat 4y ago
These complaints are always so interesting because it is like they are discovering intersectionality (privilege/oppression isn't a binary yes/no thing) and treating it like this is a big new observation when the "woke" community has been steeped in this idea for 30 years. If it were the 70s then sure this would be a legitimate criticism of a lot of activism but things are way different now.

random314 4y ago

> As a brown person A typical brown person in the US is very privileged, so the qualification doesn't add weight to the argument. > don't face trials and tribulation. Nobody has made this claim.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
> A typical brown person in the US is very privileged, so the qualification doesn't add weight to the argument. In what sense?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

coding123 4y ago

Many (most?) SV startups and larger companies are run by brown people (mostly Indians). I guess they must be the most white folks out there if whiteness is the root of all power.