3 ms·

> Industry Layoffs Are Hitting Black And Brown Workers Hardest Pardon the tangent, but I've always thought "brown" was a derogatory term. Is it not?

by Tade0 4y ago

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
No, it is not.
maxfurman 4y ago
It's often used to include people of color who aren't necessarily Black
- prepend 4y ago
  But aren’t South Asians people of color? And overrepresented in tech companies. I’m not sure that brown people are underrepresented in tech or that these layoffs hit them harder. In fact, the article doesn’t share any data that the layoffs hit black people more than any other so if they are underrepresented in tech companies at only 7%, doesn’t that mean they would also be underrepresented in layoffs? So there are actually fewer impacted by these layoffs than non-black. In the US, black is a race so I think I understand the usage. But not sure what brown means unless it’s some offensive term for Latino. I don’t really think that people who have brown skin share many socioeconomic characteristics as they are many different races and ethnicities and cultures.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    That's what I was trying to get at - brown isn't terribly specific. Just about anyone living close to the equator is going to be at least brown in skin tone. I've only seen this term used to lump all these people together and deem them insignificant.
3pac 4y ago
I think the author took a shot by capitalizing it. Capitalizing Black to change it from a race to an ethnicity is one of the best things to come out of the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter time. Making Brown a capitalized "other" though does not really make sense to me.
bfung 4y ago
All depends on how any term is used (the context!). Used to discriminate or say something bad, ex: “<this color skin people> are annoying“, of course it’d be derogatory. For this headline, it’s trying to capture the right small group(s) of people affected by layoffs - ok!
KhoomeiK 4y ago
No, it’s regularly used as shorthand for South Asians and/or Latinos. It certainly can have derogatory undertones though, just like “Mexican” isn’t inherently racist but often has negative connotations. This has been statistically investigated using word embeddings to claim that language models are racially biased, but in reality it just shows the way we use language—in a racially biased way.
CoastalCoder 4y ago
I think any term can be derogatory depending on the intent of the speaker. Any any term can be perceived as derogatory depending on the mindset of the hearer.
elevaet 4y ago
Absolutely not

> Industry Layoffs Are Hitting Black And Brown Workers Hardest Pardon the tangent, but I've always thought "brown" was a derogatory term. Is it not?

by Tade0 4y ago

> Industry Layoffs Are Hitting Black And Brown Workers Hardest Pardon the tangent, but I've always thought "brown" was a derogatory term. Is it not?

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

No, it is not.

maxfurman 4y ago

It's often used to include people of color who aren't necessarily Black

prepend 4y ago
But aren’t South Asians people of color? And overrepresented in tech companies. I’m not sure that brown people are underrepresented in tech or that these layoffs hit them harder. In fact, the article doesn’t share any data that the layoffs hit black people more than any other so if they are underrepresented in tech companies at only 7%, doesn’t that mean they would also be underrepresented in layoffs? So there are actually fewer impacted by these layoffs than non-black. In the US, black is a race so I think I understand the usage. But not sure what brown means unless it’s some offensive term for Latino. I don’t really think that people who have brown skin share many socioeconomic characteristics as they are many different races and ethnicities and cultures.
- Tade0 4y ago
  That's what I was trying to get at - brown isn't terribly specific. Just about anyone living close to the equator is going to be at least brown in skin tone. I've only seen this term used to lump all these people together and deem them insignificant.

3pac 4y ago

I think the author took a shot by capitalizing it. Capitalizing Black to change it from a race to an ethnicity is one of the best things to come out of the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter time. Making Brown a capitalized "other" though does not really make sense to me.

bfung 4y ago

All depends on how any term is used (the context!). Used to discriminate or say something bad, ex: “<this color skin people> are annoying“, of course it’d be derogatory. For this headline, it’s trying to capture the right small group(s) of people affected by layoffs - ok!

KhoomeiK 4y ago

No, it’s regularly used as shorthand for South Asians and/or Latinos. It certainly can have derogatory undertones though, just like “Mexican” isn’t inherently racist but often has negative connotations. This has been statistically investigated using word embeddings to claim that language models are racially biased, but in reality it just shows the way we use language—in a racially biased way.

CoastalCoder 4y ago

I think any term can be derogatory depending on the intent of the speaker. Any any term can be perceived as derogatory depending on the mindset of the hearer.

elevaet 4y ago

Absolutely not