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Show HN: Anonymously Ask a Black Person Anything via SMS
- leesalminen 11y ago>>> "Luckly for you its free!" Typo on home page.
- waynesutton 11y agoThanks, fixed!
- deandredurr 11y agoEverything I always wanted to know
- ClassicFarris 11y agoHow is it anonymous if I have to give you my number. Is there a way to text from a web client?
- mirimir 11y agoSearch "receive sms online" :) Ed: And use the Tor browser.
- csa 11y agoI really hope that this will be collected in a data set that can be used for research. I think the analysis and observations will likely be eye-opening for many non-black people.
- nerdy 11y agoFrankly, I think we'd learn a lot more about non-blacks than we would about blacks from the data.
- waynesutton 11y agoso True!
- andyidsinga 11y agothats a great point - I was just thinking the same thing. In any case, it might help improve society and reduce racism.
- waynesutton 11y agoYes, we're going to study the data for a research report on culture and race.
- csa 11y agoFantastic! Are you analyzing the data in an exploratory manner or do you have some hypotheses that you are testing? If you would rather discuss this privately in order to avoid tainting the data, please let me know. I will contact you. I think this project has a lot of potential. Thank you for doing it!
- waynesutton 11y agothanks can be reached at ask@askablackperson.com
- curiously 11y ago"I have a black friend who wants to listen to music. What music do I play to please him?" WTF.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- huac 11y agoThe creator's 'explanation': http://socialwayne.com/2015/05/26/how-and-why-i-built-anonymously-ask-a-black-person-sms-platform-that-reached-almost-10000-page-views-removed-from-product-hunt-in-48-hours-with-twilio/ http://socialwayne.com/2015/05/26/how-and-why-i-built-anonym...
- leepowers 11y agoSo - under "Recent Questions" - is there a way to view the anonymous responses to the anonymous questions? I have no questions to ask, but am interested in browsing the answers to existing questions.
- waynesutton 11y agoHi, that's a great idea. We'll add it to the features list.
- websmith 11y agoI really like this idea too.
- vezycash 11y ago@waynesutton you've got a potential product. Many businesses don't know how to convert social media to sales. This however is simple Repackage, repurpose your product for businesses. Try testing small businesses e.g. Hotels, restaurants, schools to see if they'll pay to have customers chat, ask questions or make reservations over the internet. However, you'd need a way to bring the cost of adding a new number down for scaling purposes. You could add a routing code to each SMS to transparently share one phone number amongst multiple businesses. Hope you pivot instead of just shutting down
- waynesutton 11y ago@vezycash thanks. We're back up and running since Friday and getting hundreds of SMS. Good idea.
- grizzles 11y agoWhy doesn't it have a web interface? I wanted to ask who the best new Black Comedians are, but I can't because I don't have a US phone.
- Noctem 11y agoI'm not black, but Hannibal Buress is my favorite. Trevor Noah's stand-up is rather good too.
- waynesutton 11y agoSMS for now. We'll look at adding a world sms version/way
- forgottenacc56 11y agoWhat could you possibly want to ask specifically of a black person? What difference does it make to what someone can tell you? How about "ask a blonde person"?
- DanBC 11y ago"What's your favourite product to deal with razor bump?"
- csa 11y ago> How about "ask a blonde person"? I've played that role. I lived in Japan for 8 years, some of it in provincial areas. I have blond hair. You would be shocked at the number of questions I got about having blond hair. The most common one was "Can I touch your hair?" More thoughtful ones were about hair treatment (I was told that my hair is quite fine by Japanese standards). While I didn't do anything special, and not all blond or Japanese hair is the same, there seem to be some treatments that differ based on the type of hair you have. I am sure that my barber in Japan wished he had a Japanese version of "ask a blonde person" when I first walked in the door, because my appointment apparently caused him to stress out massively. I found this out later as my Japanese got better and I became more integrated into the community.
- octobyte 11y agoAre you truly in denial about the fact that black people (specifically in America, but even on a global scale) have a unique set of experiences due to systematic and institutional racism? Additionally, there is a unique brand of racism pervasive throughout American culture (and again, certainly elsewhere, but I can only speak from an American perspective) wherein ignorant comments and questions are routinely made to unsuspecting black people. So given that, I think there are a good number of reasons as to why it's different than "ask a blonde person".
- TerryADavis 11y agoWhat's a certified random number?
- ryandvm 11y agoAre we really turning old Chappelle Show routines into startups now?
- remarkEon 11y agoI mean, @Wu_Tang_Finance is a pretty hilarious twitter handle, so why not.
- pcpolice 11y agoThe tone of the landing page is extremely racist. IMHO.
- waynesutton 11y ago@pcpolice are you saying that from a black or non-black perspective. What would you like to see changed?
- pcpolice 11y agoThe examples just seem preposterous. Like a sibling post says, "I have a black friend who wants to listen to music. What music do I play to please him?" -- seriously? Would you say that about your friends? What about asking the person in particular, as I'm sure this doesn't generalize to skin color? Or, "Who are your top 5 rappers?" That's making quite an assumption. Or, "I'm having black friends over for dinner, what should I cook?" Like, whatever you normally cook, unless they are e.g. vegetarians or have allergies? Yeah, in summary, I think the thing that bothers me most is what seems to be gross generalization all over... Having said all of that, I am not black.
- waynesutton 11y ago@pcpolice I certainly understand your point but these are actually questions that people are asking. I mean we don't know who they are, what color, age, etc. But that's what people are asking. I mean look at the twitter feed - https://twitter.com/aablackperson https://twitter.com/aablackperson All questions from people
- pcpolice 11y agoFair enough, I guess the main point is that whoever is being asked (you, I presume) is not offended :) At least, I hope you're not (maybe I can get a non-anonymous question in this way :p)?
- waynesutton 11y ago
- gumby 11y agoThis reminds me of the Berlin Jewish Museum's "Ask a Jew" project / exhibition (most, though not all, of the people who objected were not jewish). It raised lots of complicated ethical issues that were hashed out in the press (and I could hear people talking about in cafés). Here's an article about it in English: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/ask-a-jewish-person http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/ask-a-jewish-p...
- kw71 11y agoHow does this generate revenue? Is there some secret to cashing in on receiving SMS that I don't know about?
- waynesutton 11y agoHi we do plan on generating revenue but that's a long tall play. Traction, growth then revenue.
- kw71 11y agoGood Luck!