I just feel that it's not reasonable to hold GP responsible for a touchy subject, when the touchy subject is part of the article they're commenting on in the first place. If it came out of nowhere, then obviously that'd be a different story.
That's the point. From a moderation perspective, comments are at least partly responsible for the subthreads they spawn: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
The GP was well-intentioned but unfortunately that's only a necessary condition for not starting a flamewar. It isn't a sufficient one: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Btw, I don't think it's quite true to say that the touchy subject was part of the article. Even if it were, though, the burden is on commenters not to take an HN thread further into flamewar. This is in the site guidelines:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
1) They clearly didn't intend to incite people to attack, and
2) How much responsibility are you really going to lay at their feet for that? If I say in a comment, "yes, we really need to do better at fighting climate change", there will absolutely be some people who will take that as an opportunity to start a flamewar. Some topics are controversial enough to where fairly innocuous statements might get people flaming -- is discouraging the innocuous statements really the right move? You're essentially saying that it's each commenter's job not to offend people, even if the offended parties are being unreasonable. That effectively hands a subject-matter banhammer to them.
I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying about expected value of the subthread, I just think that there's a line there, and in this case the GP stayed well on the right side of it.
"You will still face difficulties because of your gender and ethnicity" seems particularly subject-changing, and also patronizing, since it replaces the author's specific story of her own experience with a generic story based on different filters. We can't know and shouldn't presume to tell her what her future experiences will be.
I feel bad spelling this out because it makes the GP comment sound worse than it was—it doesn't deserve an exhaustive critique. But when people question what I posted, I feel obliged to share my thought process. Which requires figuring out what it was, since a lot of it by now is instinctive pattern-matching.
The specific comment I made about gender/ethnicity seemed to me like an obvious given, not some prophetic word. The article implied this struggle quite clearly, I thought, as well as the tone of the the OP's other comments in this discussion.
I think given how things actually did play out that dang's actions were totally fine here. As a result I'll try and be more conscious of my words, because I don't want to be a part of a flame war anyway. I try to avoid sarcasm and destructive criticism in general. My history on this site shows that, I think.
The general principles are repeated (ad nauseum, I'm afraid) here:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It might also be about spread of corporations into every culture, but here I remember the "Other Conquest" in Central America where it didn't ultimately matter who came into the culture, because the culture held up under force. Both sides changed. I am as excited for Google as for the OP. These moments make the past unreal, and the future becomes about this kind of dream coming true and surpassed.
She is going to Europe, not USA. Unless she picks a really bad place (but most Google HQs there are in a good place), she won't have any such issues.
Europe doesn't talk as much about gender and race, but they actually do things as well, while in the USA everyone kinda pats their back for "walking out for Black Lifes Matter" and calls it a day.
Also, would you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...
While it's true that racial oppression is often less in Europe due to better government regulations and social safety nets and whatnot, on a personal level there's still plenty of bigotry and xenophobia, sometimes moreso than the US.
I'm an American living in Munich (working for Google actually), go ahead and try telling foreigners here that landlords they're talking to while applying for an apartment treat them the same way as native Germans. The idea is laughable.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a poll on whether people in different countries feel that increasing diversity is a positive change. Note that the US comes out ahead of most of the European countries listed, as well as substantially ahead of the European median: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/04/22/how-people-aro...
One example out of many: while walking on the street in Denmark, there were two instances of passersby on bicycles yelling racial slurs at me as they drove by.
There’s no part of me that finds it easy to believe that a female, minority worker in tech is going to get the same opportunities as a white male anywhere in Europe.
I’d think the more sinister patting of one’s own back is assuming that “at least we’re not like that here” without hard evidence to back up that assumption.
I agree, she's a woman, she will definitely get much more opportunities than a man. The potential employers will bend over backwards to fill their diversity quotas.
Please explain how things like 'Zwarte Piet' fit into your narrative? I remember the first time I walked around a town center around the holidays and was accosted by multiple white Europeans in blackface asking for donations.
Why is a Moor from pre-Reconquista Spain Santa's little helper?
I'm not as confident as you are about the author of this post getting an easier life in the EU vs. the US. People escaping the wars the EU/US coalition (in whatever form) have started in the middle east are going to find their way to greener pastures through Turkey, Greece, Italy and be shunned every fucking step of the way, no matter where they settle.
But you don't have to be coming from Turkey or be somehow Arabic, or Muslim in appearance, you only have to turn to the UK to see the sheer derision towards Polish people and immigrants further east despite the immense proximity between the countries. Or the attitude to the Romani people across the whole continent.
The author is from Palestine. She will suffer from prejudice purely for having a name that ignorant people will connect to Islam or terrorism, and ignorant people who will take Israel's side on the matter without thought.
If Dalia Awad has an easier time and avoids issues wherever she is, it's because of what she's had to do for it, not because she chose the EU over the US.
i don't think Israels' side of the matter means persecuting people just because they happen to be Palestinian. That just isn't true.
The EU isn't the paradise the parent poster thinks it is.
It's not talked about so loudly like in the US, but I've experienced so much low-key, out in the open racism in Europe towards Arabs, Moroccans, Chinese, Africans and so on.
I'm not white and while I don't feel like my life is in danger, I know from looks and behavior that I'm not on equal footing with a white European.
In Germany, I get more of the feeling of, "oh, we don't have those kinds of problems here". It's basically denialism, like when the Dutch defend Zwarte Piet. Not that you don't see that in the US for some people too, but it seems to be more widespread in many European countries, where the very fact that it hasn't been as widely discussed before leads people to believe that it must not exist.
What planet do you live on?
You will still face difficulties because of your gender and ethnicity. It's horrible and wrong, and I hope it changes. But your tenacity and drive will show everybody your real value in the end, and I think you'll do well! I believe you are and can continue to be part of the change.