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Racism at a gaming company
- bdr 14y agoThe company is Kixeye.
- lazugod 14y agoThat's quite an ad-copy filled Wikipedia page they have (and an even weirder website). Not that this says whether Kixeye is the company described by OP.
- bking 14y agoIf the poster is of that company, you can do a quick google search for "rule the interwebz" and it shows the web address at the bottom of the poster.
- bonzoesc 14y ago"Not that this says whether Kixeye is the company described by OP." The image at the top is from one of their many, many, obnoxious ads.
- w1ntermute 14y agoSee the second figure in the article here: http://allthingsd.com/20120530/kixeyes-games-on-facebook-are-not-cute-or-cuddly-just-like-its-prickly-ceo/ http://allthingsd.com/20120530/kixeyes-games-on-facebook-are...
- w1ntermute 14y agoI was gonna visit their site, and then it turned out to be all Flash... Really? In 2012?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jtchang 14y agoFun site though...very creative.
- cstross 14y ago"We don’t even tolerate people brining up concerns of racism here." Translation: "we don't want to admit that we have a toxic, racist corporate culture so we're going to blame the messenger." The emphasis here is on racism, but there's a ton of casual sexism -- and I'd be surprised if ageism wasn't present, too. This is, at best, a company where HR have taken their eye off the ball. More likely, there are serious institutional failings (and probable harrassment lawsuits coming down the pipe in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... if they don't do something about the corporate culture fast). Note: this is me trying to stay dispassionate and non-angry. If I was the author of this piece I'd be incandescent. Props to him for staying calm and documenting this stuff rather than simply walking out. Or exploding.
- MartinCron 14y agoIf I was the author of this piece I'd be incandescent Reading this made me so angry... If I were a juror, I wouldn't convict the author for murdering the people in this post. Edited to add: No actual murder has happened, nor should any actual murder happen. This was an overstatement meant to reflect outrage at injustice.
- ghayes 14y agoThat's a pretty unacceptable viewpoint, especially as you have heard only one man's side of the story.
- MartinCron 14y agoIt's hyperbole meant to express my profound outrage at an apparently outrageous situation. To be clear, I do not endorse murder but when reading the article, I empathized with the author in a way that made me feel murderously angry.
- benihana 14y agoGet a grip. Murderous rage isn't typically an acceptable response to things that upset you.
- 3minus1 14y agoInteresting read. The number of times the author mentions "white men" honestly made me uncomfortable. How is a statement like "Steve then proceeds to do what white men always can’t help but do: “educate.”" not racist in and of itself?
- kaonashi 14y agoBecause the author is being made to feel like he is an 'other', and he is using language to reflect that.
- wwarneck 14y agoI felt this exact same thing. The author specifically writes out "Dumbwhite" a few times after making a point or outlining some situation. While the author certainly doesn't deserve to be treated with disrespect, I think there is some looking inward that needs to happen here too.
- lowboy 14y agoWithout a doubt it's racist. But if you consider power structures and privilege, not all racism is equally bad. As a white male, I'd rather he not have that opinion of me based solely on my race, but I'm willing to give him some leeway due to his experiences.
- cowsaysoink 14y agoMeh that is bullshit. What makes that more acceptable than calling someones dress thuggish because it appears similar to what all the gang members you went to school with wore? Experience doesn't get to dictate racism.
- aidenn0 14y agoI think if he were wearing baggy jeans and gold-chains, the thuggish comment would have made more sense. His dress is more reminiscent of a gay san franciscan than a gang-banging Angeleno. On the other hand, he's black and he's dressing different from other people at the office, so it's "thuggish"
- eridius 14y agoI thought their ads were bad enough. Assuming this story is true, it sounds like Kixeye is the absolute epitome of the worst that our profession has to offer.
- hugh4life 14y agoI quit reading once I realized I was reading a gay man denouncing gentrifiers as being "neoliberal colonizers". Ugh... he may have experienced racism but he's also suffering from self delusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator
- lowboy 14y ago> I quit reading once I realized I was reading a gay man denouncing gentrifiers Why does his sexual orientation factor into his credibility for you?
- bduerst 14y agoI don't think he is referring to the sexual orientation alone.
- lowboy 14y agoI agree - s/he had a complaint about "denouncing gentrifiers as being "neoliberal colonizers"". But the sexual orientation is extraneous, unless s/he is going to relate sexual orientation to gentrification or colonization.
- twism 14y agofrom his comment, he does factor it in.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- citricsquid 14y agoI dunno if he's just angry, I guess it makes sense, but I agree that some of his comments seem off, like he has "problems" beyond the situation, these are just as racist: Also, at some point after this conversation took place, one of the women looked at my prized necklace and said “Hey, that looks like a calculator, is that a calculator?” I said “um no, it’s a necklace, it’s African, from Nairobi.” And she replies “Oh, huh…..well, it looks like a calculator.” Dumbwhite********** and then: do what white men always can’t help but do: “educate.” I get that he had a bad experience, but it seems he's descending into pointless casual racism too. edit: this too I cannot afford to take white people’s shit anymore.
- tfinley 14y agoBrogrammers Wanted Kixeye, the gaming startup that proves Silicon Valley’s frat-house culture isn’t going away anytime soon. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/brogrammers_wanted_kixeye_s_hiring_strategy_caters_to_male_fantasies_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/...
- r00fus 14y agoI know another dev who used to work for another small gaming company in SF. He was non-chinese asian, and the management was mostly Han-Chinese and he also got a lot of vaguely racial comments and despite being a rather productive employee, quit a few months later in disgust at disrespect. I can only imagine this kind of attitude can be go unchecked in an insular frat-boy-ish culture where strong ties and long hours are valued more than respect and work output. Definitely something to watch out for - even if you're in the in-group and not being harassed, it's not fun witnessing this kind of petty abuse.
- bking 14y agoI agree with taking up a lawsuit. He is a racist dick. On that same note, don't bring yourself to his level and start throwing out racist slurs too. Your words are public domain now, and if they get a lawyer with any sense, they might find a defense in your offense. kick his teeth in in court though! (figuratively of course)
- languagehacker 14y agoThanks for submitting this, and having the courage to speak out about a really awful corporate culture. I had a feeling they were like this from their horrible, obnoxious recruiting billboards, and it's kind of sad vindication to see how terrible they truly are in practice. I hope the author finds a nice job that fits with his moral compass and treats him (and everyone else) with the respect he deserves.
- cmwelsh 14y agoAt various points in the article, the author uses terminology that stoops to the level of the people he's railing against. Don't let racists bring you down to their level.
- victorhn 14y agoWarning - This post contains pornographic content (at the bottom of the page).
- andrew_wc_brown 14y agoUnfortunately confirmed. If your at work don't scroll all the way down.
- ctide 14y agoThis really isn't that surprising to me. Game testers are the same young kids who are running around xbox games going out of their way to be as offensive as possible to everyone. It should come as no shock that they act the same way at work when work is just an extension of their regular gaming life. I'm not defending it, mind you, since Kixeye is going way too far with it, but the 'culture' he speaks of is the online gaming culture.
- MartinCron 14y agoIt should come as a shock when they act the same way at work. Why? Because we're trying to be a civilized society and that kind of bullshit is expressly illegal. You can't (and shouldn't) regulate online gaming culture, which isn't tragic because you can opt out of it (I don't play Xbox games online for that very reason) but you can't expect a person to opt out of the workplace.
- JPKab 14y agoI'm sorry, but this kind of whining is what I've heard from professional victims my entire life. Talking about gentrifiers as invaders discredits the rest of the story in my eyes. As a former trailer park country boy who grew up in a mostly black county, I can attest to how blatantly (and without even realizing it) racist and insensitive whites who grew up in affluent suburbs can be. My best friend (since age 11) is a black male who dominates at his company. He has told me dozens of stories of dealing with these kinds of white boys. All the stories end the same way: He tells them, directly, in the same manner as if he were talking to a drunken buddy making an ass of himself at a bar, "what you just said was offensive/racist/etc. I'm gonna assume that you didn't realize it, but now you do. Cool?" He told me this has resulted in all of them apologizing with minimal awkwardness afterwards. Racism/racial insensitivity isn't an incurable disease. It's the result of attitudes and ignorance. If people would, instead of isolating people displaying these behaviors, instead approach them and talk to them and continue to treat them as friends, it would go a long way towards fixing things.
- tptacek 14y agoGet past his politics and read the direct factual assertions he is making about things that happened at that company. They're spectacularly bad.
- bri3d 14y agoAlso, read more about the company: Kixeye. Not only is this terribly racist and sexist culture not just a figment of the author's politics - it's something the company is proud of: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/brogrammers_wanted_kixeye_s_hiring_strategy_caters_to_male_fantasies_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/... I really hope these jokers get sued out of existence. These kind of companies are the reason anti-discrimination laws should exist in the first place.
- lotso 14y agoJust look at their YouTube video that is on their homepage www.kixeye.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0
- dos1 14y ago>I cannot afford to take white people’s shit anymore. That’s been my mantra this year, and I’m still on it, even if that means getting the law involved. From the comment above (and several other parts of his article) he certainly appears to be just as racist as the people he's trying to demonize. Not to mention there's a crazy amount of self entitlement going on. >I had a whole month of potential creative and community building energy stripped from me for the sake of this company’s profits. That shit ain’t cool. A "whole" month of your "potential creative and community building energy"? Really? I have LOTS of months where I don't get to focus ANY time on any sort of creative or community building endeavors because I have other things that need to be taken care of. I do not condone what he experienced at his workplace and that's terrible that it happened. However, his tone in the article and apparent prejudice towards white people makes it difficult for me to summon a lot of nice things to say.
- kevingadd 14y agoAre you serious? You read the description of events in the author's post and your response is to complain about how you have it worse because you're busy?
- rmc 14y agohe certainly appears to be just as racist as the people he's trying to demonize There are several definitions of racist talk, one is essentially "making references to someone's race and implying everyone in that group is the same (in some attribute)". Lots of people like this definition because it's nice and simple and it means black people in the USA can be racist to white people if they say things like "Dumbwhite". There's another definition, which is talk that's designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races. Right now, if modern USA life was a video game, "white male" would be an easier difficulty level than "black male". There are statistically less problems for the "white male" group. Racist talk is talk that re-enforced that imbalance. This definition is harder for some people to accept because it means that you need to look at yourself and think about what power imbalances you might be benefiting from, and it means you can't just do s/white/black/g and make it just as racist. So no, it's more racist to say "dumbblack" than "dumbwhite"
- DanBC 14y agoThere is overt racism. It's disappointing that no-one else stood up against the blatant examples given in this article. I agree with CStross, that company is ignoring serious problems and leaving themselves wide open to big lawsuits. There is covert racism. That's harder to stop, but a good way to start ending it is to accept that in the workplace you might want to restrict the "jokes" that you tell. And then there's all the sub-conscious prejudice that's so hard to eliminate.
- drats 14y ago"Dumbblack" "then proceeds to do what black men always can’t help but do" "black men always telling which way is up because they feel they are the “authority” when it comes to any and everything, most often when they don’t know shit about shit" " I know when black people start to speak down to me from their pedatsol which is white privilege, they aren’t listening, nor will they" "I cannot afford to take black people’s shit anymore." Those are all quotes from the article, except I put 'black' where the author put 'white', both sets are clearly an unacceptable way to speak. While I am sure this guy has faced real disadvantage from some bigoted people, this post is laced with racism against white people and ridiculously over-the-top statements about colonialism and "neoliberal white supremacy".
- tptacek 14y agoWHO CARES? Yes, let's suspend his Guardian Of Society Medal Of Honor until we sort his personal politics out. Meanwhile, this guy says that management at a large SF gaming company is routinely harassing black and latino staff members. The story here isn't about him.
- columbo 14y ago> WHO CARES? It unnecessarily adds doubt to the claims being made. If your narrator has an agenda it becomes difficult to trust that narrator.
- tptacek 14y agoYou're saying you doubt this happened?
- sliverstorm 14y agoAt the very least, the magnitude and gravity claimed become suspect.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
- chromaticorb 14y agoas horrible as it is for him, and as vile as his colleagues were, i really don't care his writing style. it reads like a bad fan fiction half the time. plus the run dmc segue into the 'what i wore today' image was a bit gratuitous
- rbellio 14y ago"Dumbwhite" "Oh..hell..no.." I had to remind myself that this was a blog post. That it wasn't a literary article or technical diagram. I look for unbiased, factual reporting that is meant to educate and improve awareness. This is not one of those things. It's an inflammatory post where an individual is airing his grievances. I feel sorry that someone can be treated so poorly in a workplace, but at the same time, the author damages his point by using equally vitriolic and occasionally stereotypical phrases. I hope the author is able to find a work environment that is more progressive and that is more respectful of all genders, creeds and sexual orientations.
- columbo 14y ago> calculator Was that inherently a racist thing to say? Because looking at it... it does look like something electronic. There's no question that the workplace was hostile, but there are too many side quests in this article. I'm not sure what Jose's marriage or the Dumbwhite-comment has to do with it. Maybe I'm missing something.
- king_jester 14y agoIn the context of the preceding few minutes of conversation the author had with this manager, the only way the necklace question can be taken is as a racist comment.
- columbo 14y agoHuh... >Also, at some point after this conversation took place, one of the women looked at my prized necklace and said “Hey, that looks like a calculator, is that a calculator?” I didn't really read that as immediately after, more along the lines of "sometime later that day someone walked up and asked if my necklace was a calculator"... the sentence doesn't give a good grasp on timing.
- king_jester 14y agoAh sorry, I didn't really explain myself clearly. I mean to say that after being the subject of some really stressful and severe racial harassment, I don't think it would have been possible to take that comment as anything other than racist. In hostile work environments, it is really hard to take comments and questions in a straight-forward manner. This is how toxic cultures poison the ability of people to work together, by undermining the mental and emotional health of the staff.
- jason_slack 14y agoKixeye should be ashamed. Hopefully enough bad press and folks commenting will get them to take a look how they operate and what they tolerate and change it. Maybe they should actually try and focus as a company. 1. insist the programmers work. There games are not that great. 2. insist their website get up to 2012 standards. I would assume they were not a serious company based upon their all Flash website. 3. Look at Chick-Fil-A and the onslaught of people pissed off at their stance on gay's in the workplace. We should be equally pissed at Kixeye and boycott them too. 4. There are standard stereotypical jokes and then there are blatant racist comments. Example Joke: Asians have a lot of trouble parking and stopping at stop signs. Blatant racism: "Hey Joe, I mean Ying, to use your real name, nice 30 point parallel park this morning, you really are Asian." There is a difference. I am white and I live in a very predominantly Asian area of Cupertino and the joke would be funny to a lot of Asians. The racism, no. Kudos to the OP for writing this. We can all tell he is upset at what he experienced. Some of this shows through but boil this down to the essence and we have a company that is openly encouraging a racist environment and in 2012 nobody should have to worry about being black, white, purple, gay, straight, trans-gender, dress like a thug, cross-dress, etc... Edit: Thinking about this more, the OP gets irritated when the company served a lunch of "Fried Chicken and Waffles". He implies indirectly to Black folk this is an insult. However, look at the menu of "Waffle House" and it is an item on the menu. There wasn't anything really wrong with the lunch they served. It is one of those lunch combinations that people just know about and associate with Blacks. Example: Fried Chicken and Watermelon - Black Corn Beef and Cabbage - Irish Tea and Cucumbers - WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) Mac and Cheese with Hot Dogs - White Racist company and an OP that is coming down to their level more often than he should. Let the water roll off a ducks back...
- kevingadd 14y agoLook, I'm not a fan of Kixeye's games either but I think we should be able to agree that the quality of their website is not really a consideration when it comes to the topic of discussion here. What does Flash have to do with this?
- jason_slack 14y ago
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- xyentific 14y agoCan't fight racism with racism. Backwards racism at it's finest.
- ultramundane8 14y agoI'm always a big fan of terms like "backwards racism" and "reverse discrimination."
- tene 14y agoFascinating. Personally, I'm a "reverse fan" of those terms.
- smallblacksun 14y agoYou're right, the author isn't a "reverse" or "backwards" racist. He is just racist, period.
- minouye 14y agoIf you had any doubts about Kixeye before this, their hiring video should seal it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0 (probably NSFW)
- kespindler 14y agohttp://www.crunchbase.com/company/kixeye-2 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/kixeye-2 Note who has given them funding. Send this blog post to the VC companies that have given them funding. Should hit them where it hurts. And yes, take legal action. (Although seek legal council to ensure first bit isn't considered slander or what have you. Be in best possible position for a legal battle.) Companies like this give the profession a bad name.
- danielweber 14y agoI'm really hating Kixeye right now, but can we hold off on the guilt-by-association for a bit?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jjwiseman 14y agoSlate article about Kixeye's brogrammer culture: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/brogrammers_wanted_kixeye_s_hiring_strategy_caters_to_male_fantasies_.2.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/...
- angry-hacker 14y agoConsidering his racist remarks against white people he found a perfect place to work at - a full place of racists?!
- iandanforth 14y agoA couple other commenters have mentioned this but in case the author is reading I want to emphasize the importance of winning the rhetorical war before you proceed to fight the fight you actually care about. As with any story a reader wants to like the characters they are reading about. It's hard to like someone who is constantly angry, depressed, sarcastic, and bitter. You, as a person may feel these things, and be completely correct to feel them, however you make it hard to read your story without a contrast. For example, "I love games" or "I love the way I feel in Oakland" or "I am so proud of my necklace I don't care what others think." People can empathize with pain, but they also need joy, hope, and a reason to like you. Another way to win the rhetorical battle is to use humor. Your reactions to the abuse are shock, horror, rage, and sarcasm. Feel free to interject a joke or two. In ten years you will be telling jokes about these ignorant people. Make them into caricatures, lampoon them, exaggerate their folly so that people will not just be angry at them on your behalf but seem them as an absurd throwback to a time you wish had passed. Tell a story that demonstrates the moral high ground. What I remember from your post is that you tried to say something, gave up, then went home, got high and watched Netflix. People want to be inspired to take action, and if you have a story, even if it means talking to HR, that is incredibly powerful. How does your behavior model an appropriate response for others who might be in your shoes? A lawsuit may be appropriate, but from reading your story it seems like a dramatic escalation, you need to lead people into it. I can't say I understand what you're going through, but I do support your effort and I'm disgusted on behalf of white-straight-geeks everywhere. If an apology means anything I'm sorry you are going through this.
- rmc 14y agoThat's good advise for rhetorical speeches, but maybe he's just tired. Maybe he's been putting up with a stressful and hard-to-deal-with workplace and he's just had enough and he wants to vent.
- luchak 14y agoIf you sympathize with the author: do not post things like this. Listen to him. What makes you think you were the intended audience? What makes you think you know why he was writing? Do you see the irony in you trying to "educate" a black person on talking about racism? If you actually want to help, first listen.
- kevingadd 14y agoIn my experience, game development is stressful enough as a white, biologically male young adult. I can only imagine what kind of a personal hell it must be to work in an environment like the one described by the OP. I've ranted and raved before about how despicable I consider some of the HR practices common in the games industry, how how in particular I feel that certain companies treat their employees as disposable and prioritize the success of individual products over the health of the team and the health of the company culture. This, however, is on an entirely separate level: The company management itself being complicit in the abuse of employees, and taking actions that not only damage the team & culture but actually jeopardize the success of products by seeding anger and distrust between team members. That even a single person in a management position would allow this kind of shit to go on is disgusting. When Harbin (Kixeye's CEO) quoted Conan the Barbarian in their tasteless recruitment video ('What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.') my instinctual response was negative. To me, even for a company that intends to appeal to the hardcore male gamer audience, using that kind of language - language of oppression and sexism and violence - when talking about making social games felt unnecessary and excessive. It made me wonder if perhaps the company's CEO actually shared the perspective espoused by the fictional character of Conan - but that couldn't possibly be true, could it? Could someone actually feel that way about others so strongly that he'd be willing to say so, unabstracted, in a video designed to present his company to the rest of the world and excite prospective employees? Of course not, right? I also find it extremely interesting to contrast-and-compare Kixeye's depictions of Zynga/Mark Pincus, and Kixeye, in their recruitment video [1] with my personal experiences with both companies. I almost feel as if the staff behind that video were projecting their own fears and insecurities onto their competitors. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l-nnR4Bx0
- lnanek2 14y agoHe writes Dumbwhite a lot in his blog, but he wasn't willing to say it back in person? He should have just said it instead of going home and feeling hurt. I think they'd respect him more if he gave as good as he got in a frat boy environment like that with everyone talking shit. I've been on sports teams like that, lol.
- bmalee 14y agoYes, I can't imagine why a lone gay black man in an office full of straight white guys might not feel comfortable confronting people.
- flipstewart 14y agoA NSFW alert in the title would really help seeing as there are two sets of erect male genitalia at the bottom of the page.
- mratzloff 14y agoHe would have been better off filing the lawsuit and keeping the story off his blog. The guy's got a big chip on his shoulder--but he's not wrong. Apparently the working environment at Kixeye clearly crosses the line from "all in good fun" to "insulting and humiliating".
- run4yourlives 14y agoRidiculous and juvenile corporate culture aside, the irony of the author's narrative is slapping the reader right in the face. Hard. So hard it hurts. If you are going to take exception to racist, sexist and stereotypical joking - which is most certainly your right in a professional work environment, you may want to re-evaluate your own notions of "the evil white oppressor" and recognize it for the racism that it is. I wish I could take this tale at face value, but the author is clearly looking for oppression whether it exists or not. I'm not sure at this point one could expect that this telling is even remotely close to accurate.
- MartinCron 14y agoclearly looking for oppression whether it exists or not Is there an explanation for the events in the story that aren't clear examples of oppression? I can't find one.
- run4yourlives 14y agoThe big assumption is that things happened exactly as they are being presented. While I normally don't think a particular view would be that far from reality, in this case the author's clear bias - to the point of railing against a woman that made the cardinal sin of comparing his necklace to a calculator somehow equating to racism - I'm not so sure.
- dmorgan 14y ago>Is there an explanation for the events in the story that aren't clear examples of oppression? I can't find one. Really? How about some guys talking BS and making irreverent jokes? You keep using this word "oppression". I don't think it means what you think it means.
- MartinCron 14y agoI think the word "oppression" perfectly applies to multiple unwelcome instances of strong verbal abuse coming from someone in a privileged class directed at someone in a non-privileged class. If there's a better word, I haven't found it yet. Even if we take the most charitable interpretation possible, that this wasn't anything more than "talking BS" and "irreverent jokes" and that the person making jokes was just clueless and not trying to be deliberately hurtful, that still doesn't make this kind of behavior OK. Ignorance of common decency is no excuse not to be decent.
- bluestix 14y agoMost of the companies I have seen in SillyCon Valley solve this problem by not hiring any black people. It's still racist but with less confrontation. If you want to know why just go to a bunch of venture capital websites, click on the 'About Us' link and browse the pictures. They will be 85% white and 15% Asian and Indian.
- praptak 14y ago"The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim. [...] Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about that. [...] Don’t worry though! There IS something you can do to nip this potentially awkward and embarrassing situation in the bud. By simply derailing the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down inside! " The more you know: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html
- davidw 14y ago"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Between the racist PoS featured in the story, and the author's various nasties about "white neoliberal imperialist blah blah blah", the above quote is my take on things. I'll also add that articles meant to elicit rage are usually not great; they're often intended to shut down one's thinking processes, and lead to heated discussions.
- FireBeyond 14y agoHuh, what? I find it hard to take seriously a rant on racism in the work place where, on not just one but several occasions, refer to someone who is being ignorant as a "dumbwhitemotherfucker". Yeah, not buying it.
- its_so_on 14y ago* to be honest, this is why i don't work in an it office full of poorly adjusted creeps. it's not that these guys are racist. it's not that they're sexist. they're just insensitive jerks. this actually comes across every moment of every day. it's your fault for working for them if you're white. i won't say 'it's even worse' for working for them if you're black, i will just repeat the sentence. it's your fault for working for them if you're white. it's your fault for working for them if you're black. get to a more sensitive, creative place. have a look around. do you see anyone like yourself? then it's time to head for the fucking door. this goes for someone who is just creative as much as anything else. to be honest maybe 1 out of 50 programming or internet startup places is even worth lingering for more than a hundredth of a second in. -- * this post has a tag, #creative - if you prefer the #rational tags you probably won't like it - but i think it's important for you to read it all the same
- anigbrowl 14y agoThis doesn't surprise me too much; a company whose advertising is straight outta 4chan is probably going to have an internal culture like that of 4chan (hyper-adolescent, ignorant, and frequently toxic) but without the benefits of 4chan (total anonymity, non-persistence). There are upsides to such an anything-goes environment as well (creativity, originality), but it's clear that in this case, anything goes to the extent that you're white and male. I'm not wholly in sympathy with the author (that necklace does kinda look like a pocket calculator, and the inquiry didn't seem malicious), but think he is right to seek redress. That said, it would be a good idea to consult an attorney about how much to say in public; showing an advert for your employer that will be recognizable to many other people in the locality may be a bad idea.
- tsahyt 14y agoUh, well. I don't know where to start really. On the one hand, this article is about racism and other forms of hatred at a large company, which is obviously wrong. It is about a personal experience. Every sentence written tells about what OP endured emotionally. I understand that this sort of discrimination is emotionally crippling and that it affects him deeply. But this wouldn't be my comment if I agreed with everything. Then I'd just have upvoted the post further. The problem here is, that this article also paints a picture about the author and it doesn't paint a very welcoming one to me. The article itself is littered with racism and typical "anti-hate" buzzwords. The kind of words I usually hear from people filled with lots and lots of hate themselves. That is definitely not the answer to any of the problems OP has faced. Is it understandable? Yes. Does it help? Not at all. Don't get me wrong: It's important that people get the word out to fight racism, because it's still prevalent all over the world but fighting fire with fire never helped and calling a racist any racist slurs only makes things worse. Then there are some things I personally disagree with in general. PC speech is incredibly bad (and ineffective anyway) I think. Not only does it just shift the problem to a different domain, it also attacks free speech. Being pretty fundamentalist about free speech I can't find any good about trying to make a language "politically correct". After all, the problem aren't the words. The problem are the values different people assign to them. What we need to do isn't "banning bad words", we need to make people more open-minded. If this isn't accomplish, banning words won't help anyway, because one day the "politically correct" word will have the exact same value attached to them as - say, for example - "nigger" has today. Language isn't written in stone. It always moves and evolves and after all it's a reflection of culture and society. Besides - not really related to the article - I don't believe in never offending anyone. In fact, I think I offend people on a daily basis just by stating my opinions and seriously, I couldn't care less. Obviously, racism is a bit more than just offending. Oh yeah and by the way, last time I checked, neoliberalism was a school of economic thought.
- oinksoft 14y agoI'm sadly not in the least bit surprised by the comments here, actually accusing the author of being the racist, professional victim, all of that horse-shit. I am a white man, but the author's points really hit home for me, not because I've myself been treated this way, but because I have had to tolerate conduct like this for pretty much my entire life, just not directed at me. I can't tell you the number of times I've come to the defense of minority views over the years, and I've basically given up on it because the racists just turn their anger on me: "Hey, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you're not black." (laughs all around...) "You know you're white, right?" "Slavery ended a long time ago, blacks have nobody to blame but themselves by now" (roughly paraphrased) "I've got plenty of black friends. They agree with me on [fucked up view]." I'm a human being and I've seen black Americans treated more like shit than anybody else, by far, throughout my life. Usually it's the side-swiping stuff the author talks about, but sometimes it's right in my face, usually when discussing politics and social issues with my peers. Ultimately, I end up doing what most everybody else does in my situation: I withdraw. I don't debate anymore. I don't grin, but I bear it. I help people where I can, silently. I know I really only make technical posts on this website, but shit, sometimes you've gotta vent.
- droithomme 14y agoI agree with what you have said, and yes, anyone speaking truth about institutional racism and white privilege gets downvoted. Since discussion of the reality is not permitted, I find it helpful to keep for my personal records names and company affiliations of people defending white privilege.
- whyaduck 14y agoRelevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- latexsalesman 14y agoSounds like a real butthurt nigger. If he doesn't like the people there he should quit. He has no right to dictate how others should behave in private. Workplaces are private; this is not Nazi Germany, yet.
- wtvanhest 14y agoJust a side question. I lived in Santa Clara for a summer and spent basically all my nights out with a black coworker including going to SF multiple times and never saw any racism whatsoever. The author seems to imply that SF is really racist. Is there any truth to that or did I just not notice while I was there?
- condensor 14y agoThis stupid white dumbf*! Can't distinguish baggy pants from skinny jeans!!11 Looks like someone is uber sensitive.
- juridatenshi 14y agoI want to create physical copies of Derailing for Dummies just so I can throw them at most of the commenters in here. You are hitting so many of the points. :( http://derailingfordummies.com/complete.html http://derailingfordummies.com/complete.html
- tptacek 14y agoDecoder ring for nerds who are unable to read past words like "neoliberal colonizer" without racing to the nearest TEXTAREA: * A black coworker is singled out by another (non-black) coworker with "watch out for that guy, he’s trouble, he talks a lot of shit" * Referring to a latino coworker, that same coworker suggests jokes: "Like ‘you’re a mexican whore’ or like ‘your mother’s a Mexican whore?" * The black coworker is given a dictionary and told "I got this for you cause I know you speak ebonics." * The latino coworker is then told "I would have gotten you one too but they didn’t have wetback to english" * The author, who is black, is then told "Hey he’s dressed like Run DMC, does he know how to rap?" (The author is wearing a Pitchfork Media-compatible outfit including skinny jeans and a long-sleeved print t-shirt) * The black coworker later informs the author that "Steve wanted me to let you know that we’re dressing too thuggish in the office and we need to dress in a way that reflects the company better". "Steve" is the previously-mentioned white guy, and also apparently a manager. * After telling that coworker that he is considering telling HR about racism in his group, "Steve" takes him aside for a 1-1 meeting. The author is informed that any attire is acceptable except for baggy jeans. After hearing the author's complaints, "Steve" says, "Whoa whoa whoa, those comments you’re hearing aren’t racist; they’re jokes", and then "The problem is that you’re too sensitive. You need to check all that at the door before you come here to work", and finally "We don’t even tolerate people brining up concerns of racism here.". * Later, a women asks whether the pendant the author is wearing, which is from Nairobi, is "a calculator". * "Steve" later informs the author, "it’s ok to make jokes about slavery because that’s over". Then, "Also, you should be grateful that your ancestors went through slavery." Peppered throughout the post are cultural signs and signifiers that mark the author as an advocate for a fairly specific set of political and social beliefs. A reader could be excused for having concerns that the author was not an objective witness. On the other hand, those signifiers are so obvious that you could also question whether someone who had set out to unfairly tar the company would put them into the post. Apart from the comment about the pendant, any one of the comments listed above would be a firing offense here.
- iuguy 14y agoThe author had me up till: > Going back to the matter at hand, Steve then proceeds to do what white men always can’t help but do: “educate.” Not all white men can't help but educate. There's a line between banter and offense. I would never want anyone in my team to be offended and I tend to try to (mostly) stay on the side of caution on the banter front mainly because my job is to make it as easy as possible for people to do theirs. I did feel from the photos that the author's attire was not appropriate for the offices we work in (but might be fine for his), but find comparisons to Run DMC much more inappropriate. For one, if I was a member of Run DMC I would greatly protest against the style of the author's dress sense, but then again I grew up in the 80s, the decade that fashion forgot. At the end of the article, it's clear there are no winners, only losers. It's good that the author is no longer there because he doesn't have to deal with idiots like that. Life's too short to have to put up with any form of crap in an environment that doesn't suit you, regardless of the reasons. It's also good for the idiots working there that he's no longer there either because frankly they lack the maturity in their environment (even if they have it individually) to cope with having someone that doesn't fit their world view there. Racism in the workplace is unacceptable but it does happen[1]. The trick is to deal with it sensitively and objectively while making sure that people understand that they're wrong, why they're wrong and what they need to do to be right. If they screw up with it repeatedly, then maybe they need to find a new job. [1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM
- thebigshane 14y agoI have such mixed feelings about this being on HN. Yes, I think we should read it and learn from it. I absolutely agree with the author. It's one of those things I wish everyone knew but for some reason there are still people who don't, so maybe showing up on the front page every once and a while is a good reminder. But the comments should be turned off. This is such a heated topic and are there aren't any right answers to this problem besides "keep it in mind, don't do what they did". What can possibly be discussed here besides emotional bickering from both sides. It does not seem productive and is not interesting conversation. (I posted this exact same comment on another thread on HN today, about the sexism at a tech conference... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602688 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602688)
- MartinCron 14y agoThe fact that there is such a ...passionate... discussion about it, from "this is terrible" to "this guy is just being too sensitive" or "OMG, the OP is racist as well!" shows that there isn't a consensus opinion about this kind of behavior in the workplace for our industry. This, along with sexism, is difficult to talk about well, but I don't know if that means we need to stop talking.
- thebigshane 14y agoDo we need a "consensus opinion"? Does it need to happen here? My point is that discussing controversial social issues is generally unproductive. Worth thinking about, but unless PG devotes his next essay to this topic, I don't think anyone is going to be changing their minds here. For what it's worth I agree with most of your comments on this thread, and the backlash you are getting has really lowered my average opinion of this community. It's disgusting.
- MartinCron 14y agoI totally see where you're coming from, and I don't think that we need a consensus opinion on everything. I'm just really disturbed that "don't be a sexist asshole" and "don't be a racist asshole" are still actual controversial positions in a community I care so much about. I don't know if talking about it will make anything any better, but I have a hard time with the idea of not talking about it as a way to improve things.
- ender7 14y agoAll right, so yes, the author is responding to some clearly racist behavior with some nasty and racist/prejudiced words of his own. Such behavior is understandable, but it still weakens his piece. That said...there is a difference between some guy ranting on a blog and a 200+ company with what appears to be institutionalized problems of sexism and racism ingrained into their culture. In a respectable tech company, any one of the alleged comments made by Steve would have landed him in a hotseat meeting with HR but-quick. The fact that he still works there at all is troubling to say the least. Put another way, if any of this is even remotely true then you couldn't pay me enough to work there.
- cmcavoy 14y agoReally good to read this...sad, disturbing, but a good reminder that company culture can be _wrong_. I know that I'm guilty of pushing jokes too far, to the point where they're objectively wrong, inappropriate, wildly unprofessional. At some point it starts to feel wrong, but you shake it off, because everyone is laughing, and it feels like you're in some special place where you're beyond racism or sexism or culturalism, but you're wrong. You're never beyond those things, you have to realize that they're things that shouldn't be dismissed as light office banter, there's too much history to them. This post is a reminder that of that, I'm really glad to read it. These kinds of stories should be required reading in any company, much more effective than canned videotaped play acting in HR videos.
- caycep 14y agoIf its really that terrible, he ought to quit and find a new job. Don't bother w/ legal action, as that will just expend precious time and money that he could apply to a much more productive pursuit...
- jamesmiller5 14y agoIf you replace the instances of "white men" with "mainstream white culture" his arguments are much stronger and I believe to be his original intent. "And it’s not a matter of generalizing white people, rather it’s being real about the culture San Francisco creates." The author is angry that white culture perpetuates racism and privilege, which himself and other cultural minorities are now forced to tolerate at their workplace. His choice of words was obviously inappropriate and while I'm not excusing how his point was said I don't believe it was his intention to make his point using racist statements. This is a classic example of "What you said was racist VS. You are a racist": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
- justinhj 14y agoThe unfortunate thing is about this is that I don't think the employees see themselves as racist or prejudicial at all. They think they are just cool, edgy and funny. When people get to positions of authority before they have grown up then you see this kind of shit. I think the OP will harm any tribunal or legal action he takes here because of the public racist comments he himself has made, but at least the company's culture has been outed, and hopefully there is at least one adult at the organization that can step in and stop it.
- twism 14y agoHmm... 153 points in 1 hour and this is dropping off the front page rather rapidly.
- Uhhrrr 14y agoIndeed - I guess there are some things people don't want to hear.
- btilly 14y agoHe "won't name the company." But searching on the text of the picture finds http://www.meh.ro/2012/06/07/rule-the-interwebz/ http://www.meh.ro/2012/06/07/rule-the-interwebz/ which tells me that it is Kixeye. And then https://www.google.com/search?q=kixeye.com+racism https://www.google.com/search?q=kixeye.com+racism turns up lots of other stuff including people on the forums complaining that they don't police racist comments in game, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/topics/kixeye/# http://www.theatlanticwire.com/topics/kixeye/# complaining about the sexism there, and so on. If you search this forum you'll find other links supporting their bad corporate culture. He certainly didn't hide the company very well. However knowing the company makes his allegations much more plausible.
- Tichy 14y agoI wonder if that main character is really racist, or if he is "merely" trying to intimidate his colleagues to be the boss, and racism is simply the easiest route to intimidation. While it might sound as if in effect there is no difference, I think there might be: one variant makes the victim think "whoa, the world is full of racists out to get me", the other is "just another asshole boss". I mean the latter case would be somebody looking for weaknesses in his opponents. If the other person is a white guy, he would probably find something else, joke about is weight, being poor or whatever applies. That's of course no excuse, it just seems easier to remove yourself from the affects of one bad boss/colleague than from racism.
- anuraj 14y agoThe fact is this type of talk in an office is simply inappropriate and cannot be tolerated. I have only sympathy for people who are trying to defend here. Just proves America would need another 100 years to be civilised.
- throwaway503 14y agoIf not anything else, the fonts seriously suck on that site.
- asdfprou 14y agoThank you tldr.io bookmarklet.
- anu_gupta 14y agoI'm surprisingly shocked at how inherently racist so many of you are. Instead of jumping on what the guy with no power did wrong, why not focus on the utterly despicable way in which he's been treated? If that's not your first and most urgent concern, then you really need to ask yourself why it isn't.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- prayag 14y agoCan we please not try to attack the credibility and language of the OP here? Can we please not question his language? He is venting. That's the language you would expect from someone who is extremely frustrated with the harassment he has experienced in the workplace. Can we stick to the point that a tech executive was able to get away with something that would have been unacceptable in almost any other industry. Even if this IS exaggerated the allegations are still very serious. Times like these are a reminder that the tech industry is still living in the dark ages where sexism and racism is rampant at worst and disconcerting at best. WE will not get past this problem if we keep questioning everyone who raises the issue. We need to be more accepting of the issues that exist instead of attacking the messenger. I wouldn't say I am disappointed by the discussion here because the HN crowd is generally sheltered from the problems of prejudice(consisting mainly of straight, white, men) but unless we as an industry start accepting this issue we will continue to languish as a one of the most gender and racially lopsided industries in the world.
- TheMagicHorsey 14y agoThis is one side of the story. Just because the author is a minority doesn't make this a true story. Its possible that the story is true, but I find it highly improbable in SF where juries are HIGHLY favorable towards plaintiffs in civil rights based actions, and where HR departments are trained to follow specific procedures to prevent lawsuits. This reads like a document constructed to support a litigation. I highly doubt any organization with an HR department is going to fail this colossally today.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pja 14y agoJust as an exercise, I went and collected all the responses here that matched entries in Derailing for Dummies (http://derailingfordummies.com http://derailingfordummies.com). We have at least: "You're too hostile", with a side order of "You're being Overemotional" and "You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry" plus a few "But that Happens to Me Too!" and plenty of "But I'm Not Like That - Stop Stereotying!". Any more? (I could link to the guilty parties, but they'd probably only start arguing the toss.)
- cantastoria 14y agoI love how someone always hauls out this set of speech codes every time there's any discussion of race or gender in a forum as if there's a "correct way" to participate. If you want let a bunch politically correct rules dictate how you discuss these issues then go ahead, but please don't expect the rest us to follow suit. Hopefully, the rest of HN doesn't subscribe to that kind of self-censorship.
- cantastoria 14y agoI love how someone always hauls out that set of speech codes every time there's any discussion of race or gender in a forum, as if there's a "correct way" to participate in these discussions. You're not our proctor. If you want to let that absurd list of rules dictate how you discuss these issues then go ahead but please don't expect the rest us to follow suit. Hopefully the rest of HN doesn't subscribe to that kind of self-censorship.
- erikpukinskis 14y agoIf I am having a conversation with my friend about struggles he's having with his boss, and you come in and start talking about how difficult is is to hire good people, you're being an asshole. It's not wrong to talk about hiring, but you're a jerk if you insist on derailing our conversation. Now being a jerk isn't so awful. But we could just walk away and have our conversation in private, right? It's a free country after all. But when this kind of derailment happens over and over again to the point that no matter when or where you bring it up, SOMEONE finds a way to derail the conversation, it starts to become oppressive. At that point the community is conspiring to prevent people from discussing racism. And so we implore you to decide, FOR YOURSELF, that you would like to join us in making space for real talk about racism. The notion of "self-censorship" is nonsense. We all have free will and and we can decide what to speak about. I'm not going to get the government to silence you, I'm asking you to understand the effects of your words and to take responsibility for them.
- beatpanda 14y agoI don't doubt for two seconds anything the author wrote. I wanted nothing to do with Kixeye after seeing their ads, and I'm not at all surprised. But this dude's attitude is fucked up. It's statements like OP's that keep me from engaging in any meaningful way with organizing against racism and gentrification. If you're a white cis male, even one that acknowledges and tries to check his privilege, who thinks poor people shouldn't be displaced on account of Twitter moving to the Tenderloin, a whole lot of people in the anti-gentrification movement think the only appropriate thing for you to do is move out of the city yourself, because you being white and male and having gainful employment is part of the problem. I went to one meeting where one black speaker insinuated that white people "don't have a right" to move to Oakland, whether or not they're moving for economic reasons. That's racist. Straight up. Nobody should make excuses for that kind of language, regardless of the extreme privilege historically enjoyed by white men in this country. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I'm a colonizer, or fetishizing poverty, or anything else, and the knee-jerk bigotry expressed by the original poster needs to be addressed by people in activist circles who just let stuff like that go unchallenged.
- fixermark 14y ago" I was approached by a person who runs a contracting “company,” hiring video game testers to work at various game companies." ... which is where the story starts to go bad. Videogame testing is a notoriously terrible space with incredibly unacceptable behaviors (see http://trenchescomic.com/tales http://trenchescomic.com/tales for a selection of them). Which is not something I note to imply that our blogger should have known better; it's something I want to hilite to raise consciousness about it. I'm glad this author is taking action and hope he gets all the support he can from his communities (including this one). This stuff is poisonous, unacceptable, and right under the noses of a lot of tech companies. It needs to stop.
- mekoka 14y agoAs people from various backgrounds get the opportunity to mingle, some obviously have a hard time with how to handle these encounters. They harbour an uneasiness when faced with the differences based on some false assumptions that they've made, maybe due to misinformation or (often inaccurate) cultural stereotypes. e.g. when a black person meets a white person, that black person is particularly concerned if the white person is racist. So they decide to bring forth what they perceive to be the elephant in the room, by preemptively expressing that they themselves are very open to cultural differences. Now, the way this is done takes some interesting forms, from the more subtle: I have a friend from [insert some exotic country here]. I love [insert some singer from some minority group here] To the more awkward: What's up bro! [insert awkward racial remark of your liking here] It comes to no surprise that some would even choose to compensate by exhibiting a bold racist behaviour that, they think, should be received with some reverse psychology acrobatics: I'm preemptively making racist jokes, because I want to show you that I'm not actually racist and rather open. (I'm also kinda covering my ass now, in case I do happen to trip over my tongue later and say something really out of place). Sadly, an increasing amount of people who behave like this also think that it's ok and that racism is now in the eye of the beholder. So they will tell their jokes to Kevin, who they've just barely met and if Kevin takes offence, then it's Kevin who's too sensitive about that kind of humour. So they will apologize by saying something like relax bro, I didn't mean it in a racist way. I have many black friends. Racism doesn't exist anymore. Chill, have a sense of humour. They never stop to wonder, did Kevin, who is from Ghana, connect with their African American stereotyped jokes? Do his black friends actually even call him "bro"? Does he or the people he associates with actually use the n word? Do they actually acknowledge that this behaviour isn't acceptable? The way they reason is, I'm not racist, so I can just keep calling my black friends n, as long as I don't mean it in a negative way. So it's not surprising that later they'll try the exact same jokes on Robert, thinking he might be of the "more open minded inclination". My tip when it comes to befriend minorities (this is going to be a let down): They're just people, get to know them like you would anybody else. Don't attempt any "hacks", don't play games, don't test them thinking that the outcome should be different from any other human being. Take the time to know the person, don't assume that you've figured them out based on their gender, orientation or physical appearance.
- DigitalJack 14y agoI guess I'm very naive, because I found this shocking. I hear about racism, but I guess I often think that things must be blown out of proportion. I mean, how can there still be such racist people out there? What kind of mental malfunction allows that kind of thinking? This blog post has been a very sad reality check for me.
- S4M 14y agoAbove everything else in that story, I am most shocked by the fact that the guy Steve said to the OP something in the lines of "you should consider yourself lucky your ancestors have been slaves, so that you can work in this company". I find this statement really, really shocking, and I think the OP should have reacted strongly and put this guy to his place. It was a private meeting so there were no witnesses, but he should have done something. Take Steve out of the conference room and say "can you please repeat in front of everyone what you just said to me?". I mean, you should be able to sue people for saying enormities like that!
- jeffreybaird 14y agoI don't know if the OP is reading this but he should probably be a little careful. I found it incredibly easy to track down "Steve's" Linkedin profile. While what he went through was awful, fighting a libel suit would only make this worse even if he eventually won.
- herval 14y agoI'm genuinely curious about one thing: is the person that asked about the calculator (necklace) also being racist?
- jeffreybaird 14y agoI don't know if the OP is reading this but he should probably be a little careful. I found it incredibly easy to track down "Steve's" Linkedin profile. While what he went through was awful, fighting a libel suit would only make this worse even if he eventually won.
- egypturnash 14y agoHoly crap. What backwoods Alabama town did this Steve crawl out of? I'm a white person from the South and I want to punch this dumbass cracker. I will be sure to avoid Kixeye's games (Battle Pirates, Backyard Monsters, War Commanders), and hope to hear of them going under soon.
- robododo 14y agoBut... it does kind of look like a calculator.
- jere 14y agoI can't even imagine this kind of shit in a professional environment and for some naive reason figured it never happened in a place like SF (I live in a rural North Carolina town). Maybe this is a dumb response, but I'm immediately led to wonder if this has anything to do with it being in QA. I have a friend who worked in QA at a game company and, while he never mentioned witnessing such racism, he did describe a shocking amount of disrespect and hostility and a widespread attitude that HR would do absolutely nothing to deal with it. Again perhaps it's a silly thought, but maybe when your barriers to entry are "hey do you play videogames" and you're picking up anybody off the street, you aren't going to create the best team.
- prickappa 14y agoHe sounds more racist and sexist than his coworkers, and almost as much as a jerk. Dude needs to get over himself. I can't believe this got over 300 points on HN, I thought people here were smarter than that. What a disappointment.
- ucee054 14y agoWhen I was in high school, if a guy called me "raghead", I'd call him "white trash" back. I didn't see it as me being racist, just as retaliation. But then again, I didn't see the other guy as racist, just as an asshole. I was eccentric and the mean kids wanted to pick on me. I assumed that their basic motivation was malice, so had I been white (so they couldn't use mild racial slurs against me) they'd just have found something else nasty to say. I put that into a separate category than racist, which to me meant something like the members of the KKK or the Nazi party. Is this a false distinction? I get the same vibe about the mentioned workplace, like it's a bunch of jock assholes (and definitely meets the definitions of "hostility" and "harassment", for what it's worth).
- mkramlich 14y agoLast week I was called "white fuck" by a Hispanic teenage invididual hanging out with a large group of his friends, while walking through a public park. Yet you don't see me crying about it on the web or expecting to see it discussed on Hacker News. In fact, I've been harassed many times by Hispanic and black individuals over the last 10 years, as an adult, and almost every one of those times my race, white, was explicitly cited as an epithet. But again, I just suck it up and attribute it to low-class, ignorant, immature people. Not to some grand conspiracy to oppress. There's a heck of a lot of sucky people in this world. And a heck of a lot of decent ones too, of all races, genders, ages. Deal with it.
- mkramlich 14y agoLast week I was called "white fuck" by a Hispanic teenage invididual hanging out with a large group of his friends, while walking through a public park. Yet you don't see me crying about it on the web or expecting to see it discussed on Hacker News. In fact, I've been harassed many times by Hispanic and black individuals over the last 10 years, as an adult, and almost every one of those times my race, white, was explicitly cited as an epithet. But again, I just suck it up and attribute it to low-class, ignorant, immature people. Not to some grand conspiracy to oppress. There's a heck of a lot of sucky people in this world. And a heck of a lot of decent ones too, of all races, genders, ages. Deal with it.
- fractalcat 14y agoI get a 404. Anyone have a copy of the original text? Google doesn't seem to have cached it.
- whiterabbit2 14y agoTo those who keep arguing whether the complains were valid. There is just one thing that makes it racist - referring to "culture fit" and then letting this guy go wasn't a "joke". This is discrimination.
- boboblong 14y agoI am racist and sexist and I'm very confident in the quality of my understanding of the world compared to that of egalitarians. I strongly believe that the present received wisdom in the West regarding race and sex will be viewed in the future as some sort of mass delusion, or possibly a kind of atheistic Christianity-substitute heavy on self-flagellation.