Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by ShredKazoo on Sunday January 01, 2023 @05:14PM (#34211602)

For the colorblindness part, I think my core objection to the cultural changes which have occurred since I was a kid is not to increased awareness of biases per se, but rather this phenomenon: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb

My feeling is that the best way to reduce subconscious bias is to have good race relations. And the best way to have good race relations is to have more positive interactions than negative interactions.

A thought experiment: Imagine a non-Mexican person says "I love celebrating Cinco de Mayo. It's an excellent excuse to drink tequila!"

As a culture, we can decide whether that's a positive interaction or a negative interaction.

We can make it a positive interaction by laughing and clinking glasses.

We can make it a negative interaction by calling the person out for cultural appropriation or trivializing an important Mexican holiday.

My intuition is that making it a negative interaction is a big mistake, because it worsens subconscious racial biases and generally makes the world a less pleasant place. I recommend playing this game https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb to better understand my intuition here. (Based on what I've read about Israel/Palestine, the game is an excellent description of why things have been getting so bad there lately.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by dinkumthinkum on Sunday January 01, 2023 @07:17PM (#34212691)

I know this just your example but I think it demonstrates the larger issue with victim culture. Cinco de Mayo is not actually a very important holiday in Mexico. I agree that it’s not good to turn everything into a negative interaction but it’s not clear to me that having “cultural appropriation” as a top of mind issue is a very healthy thing either.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by bennysonething on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:25AM (#34215650)

Cultural appropriation is nonsense. Probably most of what we are is a result of cross-pollination of cultures. Who gets to decide who belongs to one group or another?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by dinkumthinkum on Monday January 02, 2023 @05:41PM (#34224725)

I think they are called Progressives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by BuckRogers on Monday January 02, 2023 @12:30AM (#34214696)

Irony is heavy there, unintentional double entendre of sorts. Mexicans barely recognize or care about the 5th of May. That’s an American Chicano celebration for the most part. Mexicans kind of laugh about its importance in the US.

I say this from Mexico, sitting next to my Mexican wife and her mother.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first ... by garfieldnate on Monday January 02, 2023 @05:11PM (#34224385)

To loop this back to OP, "US Mexicans" are different from "Mexico Mexicans" is something I didn't realize until my adult life. They have their own way of speaking, their own foods, and a more recent immigrant background as a minority, which has a huge affect sociologically. That doesn't make their particular cultural enclave less important, but it is an interesting observation. American Italians are another great example of this, though their immigration ended much longer ago.

[ Parent | on HN ]