Because SXSW is one of the most important events of the year for launching digital products that are not games? Lots of regulars of this website (myself included) are part of product launches at SXSW.

It's also a diversity-related story, which has been becoming an increasingly important topic for HN.

> It is Travis County, the liberal mecca of Texas.

There are lots of liberals who act in racist ways.

What does that even mean?

If you're saying that dividing cities into "safe" and "not safe" requires an arbitrary threshold, then yes, it's arbitrary where you set the threshold. But even then, you can non-arbitrarily label cities as "safer" and "less safe" when compared to each other.

But if you mean that the concept of "safe" is arbitrary: Safe means that there's a lower chance (not zero!) that I'll be on the receiving end of crime. Less chance that I'll be put in the hospital (or in the ground) or have my stuff stolen. That translates into less worry and less attention that I have to pay to keeping myself safe. (It does not mean that I can pay no attention!) That "less worry" and "less chance of being injured or killed" are not arbitrary. They make a real, concrete difference in my life.

If safe/unsafe is dependant on who you are, then calling a place "safe" or even "safer" needs lots of provisos.

Anyway, bad choice of words. In retrospect "safe is a relative thing" gets closer to what I mean.

And I agree that "safe is a relative thing".