3 ms·

> As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fai

by wreath 4y ago

> As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Although I appreciate the intentions of such people, as a non-white guy this always made me feel uncomfortable. That I'm not being welcomed for being a new member but rather a new member who's somewhat different (in color in this case). Whether this is at work, sports groups etc. I guess you call that a token?

ShredKazoo 4y ago
Yeah that's definitely an understandable feeling. But on the other hand, if representation matters (as others in this thread claim), it seems hard to please everyone? Supposing you had a group that's 100% white by accident, and they know representation matters. Because they're 100% white, they're starting from a disadvantage: If you want representation, it helps to have representation already! So from this perspective, being 10% nicer to non-whites who join the group seems like a natural solution, to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem. Maybe the right compromise is to just be especially careful not to be rude to people who are underrepresented in the group, and not worry about it beyond that?
- wreath 4y ago
  But why does representation of different skin colors matter or ethnicity matters? There are very very few occasions where it does, but in most everyday situations like work, sports etc it really doesn't. I'd rather be classified by an attribute that's relevant to the situation such as skill level or expertise rather than arbitrary attribute like my skin color, why not my height or color of my teeth instead?
  - whynaut 4y ago
    Didn't we already establish upthread why it matters? Why are we backtracking 5 comments deep?
    - wreath 4y ago
      Where was that? I must have missed it.
      - Viliam1234 4y ago
        > Not seeing any person of color in an activity makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210289

by wreath 4y ago

ShredKazoo 4y ago

Yeah that's definitely an understandable feeling. But on the other hand, if representation matters (as others in this thread claim), it seems hard to please everyone? Supposing you had a group that's 100% white by accident, and they know representation matters. Because they're 100% white, they're starting from a disadvantage: If you want representation, it helps to have representation already! So from this perspective, being 10% nicer to non-whites who join the group seems like a natural solution, to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem. Maybe the right compromise is to just be especially careful not to be rude to people who are underrepresented in the group, and not worry about it beyond that?

wreath 4y ago
But why does representation of different skin colors matter or ethnicity matters? There are very very few occasions where it does, but in most everyday situations like work, sports etc it really doesn't. I'd rather be classified by an attribute that's relevant to the situation such as skill level or expertise rather than arbitrary attribute like my skin color, why not my height or color of my teeth instead?
- whynaut 4y ago
  Didn't we already establish upthread why it matters? Why are we backtracking 5 comments deep?
  - wreath 4y ago
    Where was that? I must have missed it.
    - Viliam1234 4y ago
      > Not seeing any person of color in an activity makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210289