These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness, so they could always find something racist, sexist, ableist, whateverist in anything you say.

I just named something "blacklist" a couple of days ago. It has nothing to do with races, nor slavery. The only thing they have is a person in-between who connects the two because s/he is a troll, or because lacks context-awareness or whatever.

I do not enable them.

Yeah I personally try and avoid the word police. If I am using a grammatically and contextually correct word I am not going to let someone tell me I can't use the word.

What's hilarious to me is that I think the people who find there to be a problem with these words are the racist ones themselves. They are taking a word out of context and being offended by it out of context. They are the ones looking at a word and thinking negative racist thoughts.

When I use the word "master" or "blacklist" it has nothing to do with any old historical context or usage of the word. I am quite clearly using the word in a technical context as per the dictionary definition of the word. Anyone who thinks that is offensive is the true problem in my opinion.

> What's hilarious to me is that I think the people who find there to be a problem with these words are the racist ones themselves.

That is what I believe as well. I am not that preoccupied with races to make such associations. In all fairness, I still have no clue what "blacklist" has to do with races or slavery, even after having been "shown" this association, because it makes no sense given the context.

There might be people out there who genuinely do not know what the term means in the context of CS/IT, but then instead of assuming that everyone using the term is racist, they should try to figure out the actual meaning.

Killing a child or a parent in the context of computer science is something completely different than... actually killing a child or a parent. :) I can imagine "just kill the child" being misinterpreted, but that can only be the case if someone takes it out of context. Once the context is known, there should be no confusion or mystery.

> These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness

No, they are very much aware of the context. Most of these people are just bullies, who have found a new way to mask their toxic behavior in the name of a good cause.

I added "genuine ones" for a reason. There are lots of trolls, that is for sure. I cannot tell if there are more trolls than genuine ones though.

I have seen bots, too. I remember there was a bot that sent pull requests to over 1000 projects if I remember correctly. All the pull requests involved changing words only, such as "blacklist" to "blocklist" or whatever. You know what is funny? Many of them were merged.

I understand that reckoning with racism is uncomfortable, but I don't understand how that 99 percent invisible episode is a personal attack on you. If anything, it's a reminder that well intensioned design (saving downtown) can have consequences (increased policing of Black men).

I have seen and listened to a lot of race-conscious content over the last few years. As a white man, I can't say I've taken any of it as a personal attack. I'd be happy to talk more about this out of thread.

It's not that it is a personal attack, it's more that I expect more talk about the actual architecture and infrastructure behind the topic versus making it a political topic.

I didn't notice them providing any statistics in regards to the racial issues. All I noticed was anecdotal evidence and an incredibly biased account of a single police encounter that happened back in 2014. They are using one guys story and a single incident involving police in order to talk about the negatives it had on other races. These are bold claims with little backing given.

This is why I don't like when podcasts like this try and tackle these issues. Because they end up being incredibly biased and one-sided. They didn't provide the whole story on the police incident, nor did they provide any other points of views or statistic on the racial issues they mentioned.

I like hearing well-researched and articulated pieces about racial inequality. What I don't like is hearing a biased opinion/anecdote filled podcast episode about it.

It seems every Podcast I listen to now always has some weird need to make it political. This never used to be the case even just a couple years ago. Now we even see sporting programs taking sides in politics and it just seems so unnecessary.

I often spend too much time deep into the weeds on these kinds of topics much like I am now. Sometimes I just want to consume some media without politics being involved. However it rarely seems like I am able to anymore. Even TV shows I watch now are starting to feel ruined and lack the good script writing they used to in favour of shoehorning whatever current PC thing is trending.

> I expect more talk about the actual architecture and infrastructure behind the topic versus making it a political topic.

The problem with this line of thinking is that everything is political. If they had chosen not to address the possible racial implications, other people who felt strongly about those may have felt that the negative social impact that they perceive was being deliberately ignored, and they would have been right to the same extent that you are.

It is similar to the choice of making or not making global warming a game mechanic in the Civilization series of games: either option will be seen as "political" by some people and "apolitical" by others. It's a distinction without a difference.

Not saying something is not inherently less political than talking about it.

Note: I have no idea or even opinion about the actual political implications of skyways. Perhaps they are a real problem, perhaps they are a fringe idea like opposition to the word "blacklist" (a word which existed in the English language since Prince John).

This is the most standard of social justice talking points. I don’t like it at all. But putting that aside, how would I go about determining whether it’s true? Take all y’all’s word for it? Listen and believe? Read exclusively intersectional literature until it takes over my thought processes?

What is the truth value of this stance? If I say viewing everything as political is a motivated choice, you say it could only be so for the privileged. And so I’m stuck in my little fishbowl, and you’re over there in whatever your situation is, and never the twain shall meet.

If only you knew. Literally all I do in my old age is listen to everybody and try to work out where they’re coming from. I thought long and hard about my rebuttal, and I might have almost had a pretty good one. But instead I’ll just say thanks for giving me occasion to think a lot.

So here I am talking about someone dismissing what someone says by calling them privileged and boom, one of them shows up!

What did this contribute to the conversation? Good job you got your jab in calling me privileged in a conversation where I am talking about how stupid of a response that is that people will say.

How is calling someone privileged considered a "jab"?

You didn't correct me on anything. You called me privileged based on a weird assumption you somehow drew from what I've said.

Regardless of what my current status may be or what you think it may be it's not very relevant. Because that would ignore the rest of my life which you also have zero idea about. You're again making assumption. You don't know if I've had an easy life or a really hard life. You don't know anything but act like you know something about me and are using that to try and belittle me.

Anyway this is clearly going nowhere as all you have done is repeat the same insult twice and provide zero constructive conversation or rebuttals to what I've said. You can throw around buzzwords and the big ol P word (privilege) but until you actually respond to what I said I'm wasting my time here.

Please do not reply to me anymore. I'm not interested in hearing insults anymore. Do keep in mind it violates the rules here.

Do not assume what my life has been life. Do not assume what my privilege is. And do not reply to me anymore. You are incredibly rude and unproductive. You are a perfect example of what I am talking about. You throw around buzzwords, provide zero facts/evidence/research and then throw down an insult.

FYI:calling someone privileged, making assumptions, and being a jerk doesn't fix systematic racism.

Very well said!

Jesus Christ, stop downvoting and flagging these comments. As much as I disagree with the comment, it correctly explains what the disagreement is, which is that we have different definitions of racism.

According to this brave new definition of racism, KKK is not inherently racist, because it's a systemic issue, not an individual issue.

The KKK were part of the system, and the system in many states supported them, either tacitly or even openly in some cases. Members of the KKK rose to the highest positions in local and federal politics and influenced police and lawmaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...

The rise of the different incarnations of the Klan can be directly tied to politics of segregation, Jim Crow laws and other factors that in some form continue to hobble black Americans in particular, to this day.

It is a systemic problem, perpetuated by a system that needs an underclass of disposable labor to oppress.

But are not now. There are groups with similar messages that never had any power.

BLM also have supporters in the highest positions and also influenced police and lawmaking, some places actually did defunded their police force.

My point still stands. According to that definition, in the alternate universe KKK or NSDAP would not be considered racist, if they didn't have the majority of support.

Saying that racism in the US is a systemic issue does not imply that individual racism does not exist. One is the basis of the other, as people with racist views implement racist laws and systems, which in turn embolden more people.

The KKK didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of a deeply racist society and system. Similarly the NSDAP didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of a racist (deeply anti-semitic) society and system, which they leveraged along with severely wounded German national pride and massive international sanctions after WWI, in order to rise to power.

Systemic and individual racism go hand in hand, but you cannot fight racism one individual at a time, there simply aren't enough hours in a day. You have to attack the underlying structures and systems that perpetuate racism.

Fighting against the thin blue line, and defunding the police in the US is one way to fight that fight, because of how selective policing is based on race and social standing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HehnDHNoItk

You know, you say things about having a privilege of being ignorant, but you seem to be unaware that this is exactly what you're doing. You all have the privilege of basically downplaying racism to be a just systemic issue of black people not earning or being employed as much, or cops shooting slightly more black people than white people. You have no clue just how much things can go south to the point where there isn't even any system in place and all you have left are the actual horrors of war, that the Hollywood movies won't ever show you.

You're blaming Trump for calling for violence, not because he did, but because his audience interprets what he says as such, and at the same time you say things like "all white people are racist" and expect everyone to understand the intricacies of the white privilege theory. In Europe we had those things called "pogroms" that were massacres organized by the usual day-to-day folks, with zero influence over the system. So it wasn't racism according to you, I guess. It's within the realm of possibility that you soon might have the benefit of your white privilege of finding yourself at the receiving end of one of such massacres.

Don't worry they will let you know you're privileged again to explain why you don't get the mental gymnastics required to make sense of this crap.

So much of the stuff I hear groups like BLM say is very far from being true and isn't based on any stats. They often operate very similar to a terror group and do cause a lot of actual terror. Businesses get destroyed, burned down, they attack federal buildings, they attack police, they attack white people who disagree with their ideology, they attack politicians who disagree, they riot outside of politics houses or people who disagree with them, etc. I'm sick of this being deemed somehow "ok" when if a different group did it they would get labeled as a terrorist group. It baffles me how a small group like "Proud Boys" can be labeled as a terror group despite being leagues less dangerous than BLM. The BLM roots caused over $1 Billion in insurance costs alone. If that isn't a terror group I don't know what is.

All such cases of pogroms, ethnic cleansing and so on in recorded human history, happened because of systems that openly, tacitly or implicitly accepted or promoted racist views, laws and sentiments. In some cases the inaction of the system allowed them to happen, in other cases the system directly inflamed them to happen. In others yet, the system (by extension the military and others directly under command of the system) directly perpetrated these acts.

I say the root cause is systemic, you say the root cause is individual. One cannot exist without the other, but I say it all boils down to a systemic issue causing the individual issues.

Which is what you can see today, with corporations and the media promoting anti-white sentiments.

Well, systems are made up of people, are they not?

If you think the current relatively mild upset of the status quo in any way constitutes an "anti-white sentiment", you've been living an extremely sheltered and privileged life.

White men still hold the overwhelming power in the western world, in politics, business and culture.

The fact that minorities are making their voices heard and demanding their rights be respected does not discriminate against white people. Various minorities have been politely asking for their rights to be respected for decades, even centuries at this point. Now they're demanding to be heard, which shouldn't really surprise anyone.

Yes, I was lucky enough to be born after the fall of communism, so I had the privilege that my parents and grandparents didn't have of not struggling through starvation, not being subjected to attempts of erasing my identity and genocides. See, we white people just don't know what real oppression is, which is low black employment and trigger happy cops.

I don't mind thinking about nebulous things and fully considering their consequences, including societal ones.

But that feeling of walking on eggshells is more related to a surveillance state coming from social media.

More explanatory than I could be: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-yo...

Because of how policed the online world feels with what you say it often feels like it applies in public. However I have yet to work/interact with anyone who seems as far gone as the permanently offended Twitter users seem to be. I swear not a day goes by anymore where I don't here about Twitter going after another person trying to cancel them.

We see people losing their jobs simply for sharing a more conservative view on Twitter. I've seen cases of actors losing jobs for sharing an edgy conservative meme, but than someone sharing almost the identical meme but liberal sided being completely fine.

Nowadays it seems like even things like jobs can simply be determined by how outraged a group of random people feel. Actors lose jobs because people who probably don't even watch the show get upset by a single tweet they made.

The world is starting to not make sense to me and just seems so illogical lately. No matter how factual and objective something is that you say, if it doesn't align with the current politically correct fad people will try to cancel you. People who make perfectly valid and factual claims get shut down by people who just simply call them a "racist" and say "you just don't get it". Instead of trying to help them understand and trying to use facts to logically debate someone they react with emotion and outrage. And then they get dogpilled into submission.

I see why it's hard to find people opposing the current PC culture. As soon as anyone does they get called some "ism" and get cancelled.

You also can’t defend anyone from getting canceled, as that makes you the “ism” as well. You must be anti-whatever“ism” or they will come after you as well.

When I was a little kid I went to a fundamentalist baptist church that worked exactly like this. If a deacon learned that someone wore a skirt above the knee, or listened to a pop song, that person was excommunicated. If anyone then contacted the apostate outside of church, they were excommunicated too. And so on.

It’s a purity cult.

Yes exactly. Either you're "with" the mob or you're getting mobbed. The word police and thought police are in full force on sites like Twitter and reddit now.

It’s really ridiculous on TikTok.

I pretty much avoid platforms like TikTok and Twitter because of these kinds of things.

I've even seen sections of TikToks with people pretty clearly faking mental disorders for attention. It's honestly kinda sad. I guess I am kinda glad I just missed the explosion of social media in school. I'm sure social media just creates so many more issues in young adults. And the weird things you do when you're young will forever be stored somewhere online.

Christ, I'm going to vent, so I'm sorry but, I'm so sick of this bullsh!t argument.

Eggshells?

If you're with someone you know or you don't know and you make a perceived or actual faux pas in their eyes.

Say ..... "sorry" .... "I didn't know that. Tell me more".

How hard is that?

I try to be pretty inclusive, but I'm nowhere near perfect and you know what, when I might have got it wrong this is what I do. And I'm not special for doing so. It's called interacting like a normal human being with another human being.

And you know what, it opens the space for understanding and debate and the chance to reject if you really believe it is wrong.

And as for you unfollowing podcasts because of mentions of priviedge and so forth ... well ... I wonder why that would be recently. Do you unfollow all topics which make you uncomfortable? Do you complain about cancel culture and then cancel podcasts you don't like?

I'm going to be harsh here because your post is very representative of many I see so maybe it needs to be said.

You feeling like you're being attacked everywhere you go is your problem, not those you think who are doing the attacking.

Unfortunately you did raise some fair points but I'm on HackerNews looking for constructive conversations without sly jabs and insults.

> This is true in most of the world, but the US particularly has an especially racially-charged environment, primarily because due to denial for centuries by people exactly like you to have the conversations about how race plays into society and culture and architecture.

I never denied a racial issue and now you're comparing me to people from centuries ago that committed atrocities on other races.

Flame wars are expressly disallowed on HackerNews and I will be ending this conversation now. I warned you of this rule and asked for a mature conversation. It's unfortunate it couldn't be possible.

One must be able to discuss one another's point of view while being able to point out problematic perspectives of the participants in the discussion.

Ideas aren't abstract. They are molded and adapted by the people that hold them.

I know people on hackernews feel triggered by terms like "implicit bias" and "privilege" and will downvote anything that references these concepts, but it doesn't make them nonexistent, and it's unfortunately a problem in a large percentage of the comment group here.

Listening to a podcast about racial privilege shouldn't make you feel "attacked". And my comment should not have made you feel insulted. Comparing you to people who pretend that racism doesn't exist was a valid summary of your point that you'd prefer to listen to informative content about architecture, science and technology without references to any racial connotations associated with it.

It does NOT mean that I associated you with slave owners, eugenicists, lynchers, or genociders. I didn't even imply that you were racist. (If I had that ALSO wouldn't have placed you in the same category as those people because every belief has a wide spectrum). I mean that. I have no evidence or reason to believe that you are racist and have no interest in insulting you.

But if putting a mirror to your ideology makes you feel attacked because you don't like who it's associated with, the problem isn't the mirror.

HackerNews is becoming an echo chamber of "free speech is being suppressed. Diversity and inclusion is a scam. The world is getting too political. And white people are constantly under attack".

There is only a few of us on here that speak up against this narrative, and we get downvoted for making people feel bad about their beliefs under the guise of "not being curious" or "immature". It's incredibly disappointing that I've been in this industry for >20 years, and the exact same problems exist today as then - technologists who fail to take an interest in the human side of the society they provide technology for.