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I can imagine a very easy parallel to the tech community: "I taught my daughters their nerd cred would protect them." It's irritating how the author has to but
by tedks 12y ago
I can imagine a very easy parallel to the tech community: "I taught my daughters their nerd cred would protect them."
It's irritating how the author has to buttress his statements on privilege with "of course, the existence of white privilege doesn't mean all white people are violently racist." White people, and white men in particular, are so reactionary when confronted by the mere existence of their institutionalized privilege that they demand such things. I'm sure this post won't be popular for exactly that reason. It's a lot like this Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-support-feminism-if-it-means-murdering-all,37301/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-support-feminism-if-...
- Bootvis 12y agoIt seems we here on a HN are a bit more enlightened. The article is at four now (for me).
- wozniacki 12y agoIt was at four for me, earlier, before a brief HN outage. Now its at 18 !?!
- ColinWright 12y agoSinking like a rock: http://hnrankings.info/8574299/ http://hnrankings.info/8574299/
- shitehawk 12y agoOh how the mighty have fallen
- wozniacki 12y agoFor posterity's sake - in case someone goes digging sometime in the future wanting to investigate the prevailing sentiments of HN, circa 2014 - the post currently is at 62 after once reaching 4, two hours since its inception.
- mineshaftgap 12y agoHN is majority American. Republicans just won both houses. Coming to Europe soon.
- Bootvis 12y agoAnd then the comments went bad :(
- ahoy 12y agoI agree that it's a bit upsetting that he has to put out that fires, but I understand why he does it. He's speaking to a broad audience, and in order to not get his message muddied by a sea of "but most white people dont do that!" he takes a proactive measure. Hopefully we'll eventually reach a point that this isn't necessary, but for now I think it's probably a net positive. By including that disclaimer of sorts the author might just manage to reach some people that would have otherwise dismissed him
- ColinWright 12y ago> I can imagine a very easy parallel to the > tech community: "I taught my daughters > their nerd cred would protect them." That's why I posted it, and believe it's directly relevant to this community, rather than just generally relevant to the wider world. I try only to post things that I think have a specific attachment to the tech community, and you've nailed it exactly. I pleased someone sees the point - thank you.
- splintercell 12y agoInstitutionalized privilege? It was a different thing when we demanded equal treatment in front of law, and removal of laws which prevented free interaction among individuals. The problem with this white privilege argument is that it has numerous parallels with Marxists polylogism idea. People are a lot less racists now, but somehow a culture has to be created which has to explain why in an era of low racism some groups are more backwards than the others, or why 'affirmative action is still required'. All you end up doing is create a class of entitled progressives who think that somehow their lives were better because they are white/male/etc. Do you know why people tend to be racists? They tend to be racists because at the end of the day believing that somehow the 'average' of their group being better than the other groups makes their own shitty existence better. So your life sucks, you don't have a job, you are fat as fuck, but thank god you are white. People apologizing for White privilege tend to embrace it for the same reason(its not like they can experience it, it is always a second hand experience).
- facepalm 12y agoI'm not convinced the plight of women in tech compares even remotely to the plight of actual minorities in the US.
- dragonwriter 12y ago"Minorities" have always been a bad term for the real issue (was the plight of black South Africans somehow less real because they were the majority?); if you think that women aren't a group that has been, for an extended period of time in the US, subject to both informal and, (at a minimum) until fairly historically recently such that it still has a substantial impact on attitudes, overt and formal discrimination, then you haven't been paying much attention.
- tedks 12y agoIf you're a man (I'll bet $20 right now that you are) your opinion isn't relevant.
- wernercd 12y agolol that's the way to win an argument. Don't judge me by what's not between my legs, but what's between YOUR legs makes you irrelevant.
- facepalm 12y agoJust a thought: why do you then hang out on a web site with presumably mostly people whose opinions you consider irrelevant?
- webjprgm 12y agoI think the point is that if the speaker is not one who may have experienced the discrimination then the speaker is not able to say that it does not exist. Do you agree or disagree with this idea? (Pithy comments may be fun, but a flame war is not productive.)
- shitehawk 12y agoAnd this is why feminism is dead.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 12y agoWhite people, and white men in particular, are so reactionary when confronted by the mere existence of their institutionalized privilege It's funny that we fight stereotypes with stereotypes.
- 1234098756a 12y agoInferring properties about a member of a group from averages about the group is a difficult thing to do without falling into The Ecological Fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy). Privilege-checking is generally done at the individual level, in all my experiences it includes the ecological fallacy. It's almost always done in a hurtful, inappropriate manner, often in public where somebody is being embarrassed in front of their peers. These are all good reasons to react negatively to somebody so innocently pointing out my privilege.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]