I'm not sure how a barely concealed personal insult helps the conversation. Kenji is expressing a simple true fact: when we meet new coworkers and want to have a casual friendly conversation with them, the question, "So where are you from?" is the simplest and most normal of small talk. Someone interpreting it as a microaggression is a great indicator that they will be difficult to work with.

I can understand that for people who draw attention with their looks it can be annoying if the attention is not just a look, but more than that. I don't feel bad for looking at good looking women at all.

Anyway back to the topic, how is it an aggression to have small talk. Is it really that if you have dark skin that people only have small talk about your origins? Why is it seen as a hostile thing? People can't handle that others are interested, do people rather have it that everyone ignores them, ban all talking to these people.

I guess if one wants, one can see evil in everything, but its a choice, and it doesn't mean its true.

Ever asked the same question back? "what are your origins?"

I already know and read this link. That alone should prove that I am more than equipped to participate in this discussion and willing to understand other people's viewpoints. I regularly force myself to read opinions I strongly disagree with. In this case, however, my disagreement remains firmly.

Your continued use of the word disagreement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the term "perspective." A Perspective is not an arguable or comparable thing, it's how a person views the world through a lens that is constructed from the sum of their lifetime of teachings, experiences and personal biases. It is not something anyone else can 100% understand, and therefore especially is not something that be compared between people, let alone argued.

I disagree with Hitlers perspective on Jews, even if I don't understand it.

Of course one could come with arguments that weaken/counter my disagreement, but I will still disagree.

If you see the world as good and I see it as evil, we have opposing perspectives and I would say I disagree with you.

Hitler's perspective on Jews is irrelevant and not really a topic of debate. His actions in being the figurehead for those who orchestrated the holocaust are objectively terrible, arguable and measurable.

I don't see the world as good, I see it as a collection of billions of people who all see things slightly differently which is why I don't attempt to seek truth in a viewpoint. There is truth in facts, truth in science, truth in that which is measurable and objectively quantifiable. The rest is entirely open for interpretation by everyone, and the best way to entire you have the most complete interpretation is to get as many viewpoints from as large a variety of people as possible, which is the fundamental idea behind diversifying, for example, a marketing team. That way you don't do something stupid like use an important, high ranking member of a Native American tribe as a football mascot.

By your definition, what Hitler did wasn't "wrong". Moral relativism is a slippery slope.

In my mind, you're free to think whatever you want, no one should ever be punished for thought-crime. If you go your whole life thinking Jews are the scum of the Earth that's your business, as long as you keep it in your own head. If you speak those opinions and lose a job, well, that's the consequences to those beliefs. If you act on those beliefs and kill people, then you'll be tried and convicted of murder.

Beliefs, no matter how stupid and shitty, are not a crime.

This is what I agree with. And thought crime is exactly what the article is insinuating.