"Minorities don't need white Knights to save them"

It always depends and I would not generalize too much. The jewish minority in europe during Nazi reign did needed someone to save them. As does the single minority outsider, that gets beaten up on the school ground, for being the outsider.

But yes, if you want to emporer people in general, you cannot fight their battles for them and declare them of uncaple of fighting their battles.

There are always exceptions and genocide is very obviously one. I was referring more to the socially constructed self inflicted battles society has been engaging in lately.

I was looking around for societal battles that were not socially constructed. But I guess I'm visually impaired in that respect. Maybe you can help me?

I was looking around for something that is not socially constructed. But I guess I am socio-constructually visio-impaired in that respect. Maybe you can help me?

In that case I think we have to find some one-eyed man and make him king.

Maybe we can take some of the 'intellectual dark-web'figureheads and blindly follow them. They pretend to have a grasp of this scoial-construction thing.

But I'd rather like to continue searching the intellectual deep-web for a person with actual sight.

Got me ;)

It's a somewhat common exception unfortunately.

Please don’t shoe horn in Jew and Nazi political points from 100 years ago into a hacker news tech discussion. We aren’t interested, lots of fights occurred in history, lots of people were slaughtered. Simply look at what the British Empire did to the 7 million Irish when they manufactured a famine and genocide. There are millions of examples and it’s off topic.

I didn’t know the British had manufactured potato blight. That’s quite advanced tech for the time.

Parent doesn’t say that they manufactured blight but that they manufactured famine.

This is also incorrect although they did preside over one and were reluctant to intervene for a variety of reasons, some economic and some philosophical.

Edit: and just to add, it was certainly not an attempt at genocide.

The blight in itself of course was not manufactured, however the policies that led up to the total dependency on one type of crop never failing, and the botched emergency reponse; was.

However, this famine is of course, not even a tear in the sea compared to the holocaust, which remains the most horrific act ever, forever; and every other act past or future will only be a tiny fraction of the depth of its importance. History begin and ends with the holocaust the plight of the Jews.

If you mean the disease, no.

If you mean blight as in "a thing that spoils or damages something", that something being the Irish substinence, they absolutely did. Read some history.

And since a million died, it's not exactly laughing matter to joke about.

Well, the nazis and jews and the evaluation of the events is a quite clear example.

The jews went into the death camps, because no one came to save them and they had no chance on their own at that time.

There are not many people debating this, I supposed. (but might have been wrong)

That's why choose this example and not to discuss about Hitler.

Where on the other hand your example, is pretty much debatable, like you see on the reactions.

So why on earth, are you lecturing me about HN from a green account?

Hi, I'm Jewish with family members who died in the holocaust. Get rekt with your phony savior fantasies. Your type would be the first ones to tattle on their neighbors.

So your family members would have rejected the help of Schindler and co while under occupation and in direct death threat?

Or would have rejected the allies when they came liberating the camps?

Seriously?

As far as I know, the jews and all other surpressed minorities of europe were making great risks, to get information (like from a hidden radio) about the advance of the allies. Because this was the main thing bringing hope.

>So your family members would have rejected the help of Schindler and co while under occupation and in direct death threat?

They would have accepted it out of necessity. Doesn't mean depending on "white knights" is desirable or effective. Didn't work out of several other million, for starters.

Even less desirable when there is no "direct death threat", and the victims are perfectly capable of having opinions and speaking for themselves, as opposed to others co-opting and/or hijacking their concerns.

"Doesn't mean depending on "white knights" is desirable or effective."

Well sure, no one wants to be in the position, where he or she needs to be saved in the first place, but if you are in that position - help is still needed and wanted.

"Didn't work out of several other million, for starters."

And that is simply, because no one came in time.

"Even less desirable when there is no "direct death threat", and the victims are perfectly capable of having opinions and speaking for themselves, as opposed to others co-opting and/or hijacking their concerns. "

And yes, which is why I wrote: "if you want to emporer people in general, you cannot fight their battles for them and declare them uncaple of fighting their battles. "

Nope. I did not made any claims about myself here.

I merly stated, that no one came to save the jews in europe, which is why they went to the death camps.

Which you are debating for some reason, along with personal insults.

I suppose because you think the jews should have been organized better and fend for themself? Well, maybe. But they were not organized. They were in the weaker position and chased by the Nazis. In this situation, outside help is needed in my perception, but you may think whatever you want about it all. And if you can share what you think without insults, I might read it.

> I suppose because you think the jews should have been organized better and fend for themself? Well, maybe. But they were not organized.

You sound like an autistic person in a fog of confusion. (not a dig)

Let me be as clear as possible: between far right Neo-nazis and woke do gooders I'm honestly not sure whom I'm alarmed by more as a Jewish person. Genuinely alarmed. As in afraid for myself and my loved ones futures. As in this shit is all too familiar.

I've had the misfortune of interacting with both of these groups in real life. They have many things in common not the least of which is this weird confidence combined with an ignorance of history as a trampoline into really dark beliefs. A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

Please don't try to "help" anyone or mention the holocaust again. I beg you.

Jews in WW2 needed the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, they did not need Churchill to stop using the word Jew because it is offensive.

It is not similar, unless if you have the preconceived notion that 'language is action'

"Jews in WW2 needed the Allies to bomb Auschwitz"

I don't really think, the jews in the camp, would have welcomed to be bombed, on top of the daily routine.

Can you elaborate how being blown to pieces would have helped anyone, except maybe a lucky person used the chaos to escape (to where exactly)?

Also I did not say anything about language equals action and were just speaking in broad terms about helping minorities.

And "jew" is not offensive, but there are offensive terms for jews. And whether banning them would have helped, I did not made any statement about.

But I forgot, it is friday and probably not the best time to comment here.

Auschwitz was effectively a factory of death. Bombing the gas chambers, crematorium, rail lines might have helped.

About Jew: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/05/jew-not-sl...

Also forgive me if I have assumed because of the context that you argued through analogy for protecting minorities of harmful language, my bad

As a Jew, what else would you call a group of us? A flock of Jew? A gaggle of Jew? A Jewbilee?

Feel free to use the word Jews, otherwise it's just going to get weird ;)

This right here strikes at the root of the issue - if someone wants to refer to a group with hate, there is NO way to fix that by changing the term.

And changing the term to try to avoid it just results in weird terms and euphemisms, it doesn’t eliminate hate.

Human migration.

The thing that makes it weird is that "Jew" represents both a religion and a people. We really don't see that in other cultures or religions. Now as likely as my profile isn't going to be outed, but 'joining in' is a great way to be tarred as an anti-semite, whether you sincerely hate Jews or not.

And also, since you're Jewish, you're allowed to use comments and jokes like "Jewbilee". It's similar to how African Americans can use "nigga/nigger" amongst each other but is completely forbidden for anyone else. That's primarily due to the power dynamic of those words, and how they traditionally were used as a slur. This is examples where members of the group change the definition to be positive rather than negative.

I grew up with my trash of parents teaching 6 year old me to negotiate at flea markets by "jewing them down". And although I won't have children, I make a conscious choice not to continue that language. My language shapes my reality. So no.

What do you call a group of Jews though? If Jews is off the table?

I totally hear what you are saying though and I know you are coming from a good place. The Jewish race/religion thing is an odd one. Ive always considered myself Jewish by race, 99% Ashkenazi but not religion, I have no religious beliefs.

Conversation reminds me of the infamous lunar new year invite.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/ap6022/man_...

A Jewish group

A group of Jewish people

So in a sentence you would say

"The church is full of christians and the temple is full of a group of Jewish people"

That sounds odd.

"The church is full of Christians and the temple is full of Jews" sounds correct and treats each group equally.

I know you mean well but I just disagree with linguistic gymnastics in order to be pc

To be fair, its best not even to discuss. It's not like discussing Jewish stuff is normal... well, outside being Jewish or being a neonazi/white supremacist, or awkward discussions here.

But discussing here, I try to keep as neutral as possible. If we're talking about the religion, I use people of Jewish faith. And if talking about Ashkenazi Jews (hereditary), I use that term. And past that, I try to keep as matter-of-factly plain simple language, and check for any colloquiums that have alternate white nationalist meanings.

But usually, this topic doesn't even come up. It's only awkward HN comment chains that have this weird political forced neutral writing. But that too is self-defense.

I hear you. I regret that we live in a society where we have to police ourselves for fear of cancellation and offence when no offence is intended.

as a fellow jew: “he’s a jew” vs “he’s a _jew_”

and “the jews run X”

i’d prefer jewish / jewish people.

we’re not a monolith, nor is any other minority group. and for that matter, navigating society and learning that not all people prefer the same terms/words/pronouns is just life.

i’m sorry people cant do and say what they please and offend others, but that’s just part of being an agreeable human and living in society

I'm not Jewish, but I find the distinction between Jewish and jew-ish to be entertaining, and really descriptive

When that congressman claimed he meant he was Jew-ish I flat out laughed. Dude is a liar and a crook and totally undeserving of serving in congress but the sheer chutzpah that took was amazing. I found myself more amused than offended. I still chuckle when I run across a reference to it.

Absolutely, each to their own but its never really bothered me. There is obviously a difference in the tone its said when used by someone like Kanye or a neo-nazi vs a rabbi. I've never really allowed myself to be defined or bothered by things like that. I've had beers with neo-nazis before with them full on knowing I was jewish. They obviously toned downed their rhetoric and we had a pretty decent conversation. No friends were made that day but it was a fun chat. Obviously there are levels to this though, they were not marching calling for my death.

> Auschwitz was effectively a factory of death. Bombing the gas chambers, crematorium, rail lines might have helped.

I think there's a misunderstanding happening here. You seem to be suggesting Auschwitz get bombed assuming it would not blowing up the Jews (and gypsies, and homosexuals, and others that made the Nazi list of "deviants") being actively imprisoned, which sounds great but would have been unfeasible. The previous reply doesn't seem to be asking what would be specifically helpfully in blowing up Auschwitz. I think it's unanimous "that factory of death was bad and making it stop is good, " so I think it's more like they're taking into account how dropping bombs in WWII actually worked, which was a pretty imprecise process. Ultimately, bombing Auschwitz would also have blown up the people held prisoner in Auschwitz, and those people might not think being blown up was super helpful for them, regardless of whether Auschwitz was destroyed in the process.

There a historical documentary film that tells the story of people who escaped Auschwitz to bring definitive proof of the atrocities happening there to the Allies.

As I recall it, their request was for the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, though presumably targeting railway lines and other elements that could knock it out of action.

Train loads of people were coming in daily to be slaughtered, over 80% were killed on arrival and were not kept as prisoners, while deaths among prisoners was very high.

This was not a static prison camps that kept the same people during the war (except for very few). That’s why I think this was effective even if bombs had hit the living quarters themselves.

You are setting up a Trolley Problem and solving it.

Such problems are known to not have correct answers, so it is reasonable to agree to disagree.

Well, they are known not to have correct answers, but in my brand of ethics risking the lives of people that are destined to die in order to save millions is pretty clear cut

Especially during a war where Dresden was fire bombed and Hiroshima was nuclear bombed

You mean the home-country-challenged people living among THE biggest oppressors in history needed help after literally-hitler was about to unalive them?

I can't explain the downvotes. Visit https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous.html for a chronicle of some of the people who saved some of my people.

"I can't explain the downvotes"

I forgot it is friday and "white Knight" is a trigger word for some.

So when there's a headline that says:

"Banning words won’t make the world more just"

and then I say "it depends" to a subpoint with white knight, then I seem to represent the woke enemy to them, who wants to dictate what words they are allowed to use (even though I am actually very pro free speech).

And as a german regarding the righteous and why there were so few of them:

I know the mindset from my grandparents and it was/is one of having a very strong taboo of doing anything against the state, or just thinking about it. They were not nazis and knew what the state was doing was wrong even though they didn't know the details. But they kept their head as low as possible, as most did. And marched in line, if ordered so. So they share their responsibility.

I would like to think, that I would have acted different, but would I? I would have been a different person, being born into that time and culture.

So it is also a tough question of what I personally feel about it. Should I feel personally sorry about industrial mass murdering done by "my kind"?

Well, I don't really feel connected to those germans as a whole at all.

But I do feel connected to my grandparents, so sorry on their behalf, that my family didn't do anything to my knowledge, to help your people. (And personally I do my best to keep the local nazis in check today)

edit: and those words still feel empty. But I don't find better words.

Because the holocaust was just outstanding industrial mass murder with the goal to wipe out a whole race. What can you say about it? Certainly not, what a member of the new german right said: "The german history is a great one and the holocaust was just a litle dirt on it"

So back on topic, I think this person should have the right to say this. Because everyone else now knows what those people (who are all officially against nazis) are really standing for.

Identity politics is not unintentional. Those indoctrinated into it may be unaware but the intention is to divide us.

I think that's not the only reason, sometimes not a reason at all.

Instead, 1, sometimes, someone is looking to make a career, or get a job, make money. And then, in identity politics, they might see an opportunity. Career, status, money then being a goal, and any division a side effect.

And, 2, I'm not saying that identity politics is or would always be bad or anything like that. So many unfairness in the world, to try to correct.

Exactly. The average DEI director salary is $200k:

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/diversity-e...

What if we all just stopped for a second and realized that no matter what "side" we're on, we're all just human beings? Namaste.

I mean, this sets off my satire alarms but wouldn't that be a worthy goal? We can cynically deride all attempts to connect humanity as worthless hippy mumbo jumbo, and while I think perfect adherence would be impossible, I think a step or two in that direction is both possible and beneficial for us. This cynical attitude (assuming satire) is exactly the type of thing preventing us from making that kind of progress.

Call me a cynic but I am all for that. And afterwards you encounter the flat earthers and the holocaust deniers and the Putins and Alex Jones of the world and all kinds of other extremists in all kinds of extremes of all directions. And then it's not so simple.

I wasn't being satirical.

I wish we could ban cliches on HN. This has less value than "we live in a society"

While partially true, what most fail to see is that identity politics is played by virtually everyone. It’s just “your” side is the right approach and “not really identity politics”.

Identity politics has been the bedrock of American politics since before the Mayflower Pilgrims[1] landed at Plymouth rock, and hasn't ever stopped for even a day. Any claims of recency says a lot about the speaker rather than reality.

1. That they were "pilgrims" is enough evidence. All the jey moments in American history are underpinned by "identity politics": the the 13 colonies, manifest destiny, expansinf west, the declaration of independence, slavery, civil war, reconstruction - all of it.

Well, it's a newish power niche that's getting exploited.

(One (postmodern) interpretation is that it's yet another "society of control" in crisis. Basically, the old tools that provided stability (social conventions, morals, beliefs/prejudices) all used to look like big formalish institutions, from family-school-factory-military-prison, and you were either in the system or completely out of it. But as this system of systems post-WWII has "eaten the world" it's now bound to face its own limitations, hence the crisis. Hence all the reforms, real and so-called ones.)

The niche is (was) that most people has (had) only a super basic over-simplistic belief about language, which could be summed up as "something something the n-word". Instead of the more correct "when talking to/about someone it's very disrespectful to call them names they don't like".

> the intention is to divide us

Who actually has this intention and why?

In general, creating division between classes, races, religious groups presents opportunities for individuals to gather power by taking up the cause for one group. By establishing an “other” you have an enemy to rally support for your leadership. This is the basis of power for every demagogue from the Cleon in Athens to Joe McCarthy and the American Red Scare. This is also a core theme in Orwell’s 1984.

In the context of the OPs topic, there are those who honestly are trying to improve the world, but many people have new found careers and political power created by the division on both the Right and Left.

Still not buying this in the current context but interested if you have any concrete example.

This is like someone swimming in an ocean asking for proof that water is wet.

Concentration of wealth under capitalism?

The "who" is pretty easy - it's corporate media outlets: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great...

while i dont find that conclusion unbelievable at all, that article excluding fox news is a smell to me, not gonna lie

if the intention is to divide, then in the alternate scenario where those divided are united, the question becomes united for what and against whom?

I think that people feel increasingly alienated. They feel bad so they search for their special "community". In doing that they alienate themselves further from average person. They create terminology and adopt language for their niche with clear disregard of any real people and issues.

Web accessibility is indeed a very important thing for people like me. I am aware we are a very small minority with rather special needs in this regard, but believe me, investing in accessibility and therefore allowing people with visual and motor disabilities to interact with the digital world can have unexpectedly wonderful consequences for those benefiting from it. It is not often that I manage to pull tech people into this topic such that it actually lasts, but the few I know have made quite a difference. I am pretty thrilled to hear I might have sparked an interest in web accessibility in you. Thanks for caring! Its a wonderful rabbit hole.

I'm only colour-blind, but I am too, benefitting from accessibility work meant primarily for blind people.

And so do the elderly. Which will be all of us in the future (except those who plan to live fast and die young). Humanity is getting older and older on average, too.

Thats right. My girlfriend works for an assistive technology reseller. A growing number of their customers are elderly people who end up using technologies designed for the blind to keep on communicating. iOS with VoiceOver comes to mind. This was designed for the blind. But a determined elderly person whoes vision has deteriorated enough can also use it to avoid being cut off from everything.

I'm interested as well. I run a small science club for kids, mainly coding and electronics. Accessibility and being more inclusive is a very old bullet point on my long list of things to do, but I never found a place to start. Do you have any recommendation on where to learn this?

Hard question, because the field so diverse. In a sense, accessibility is much more then just trying to make computers useable for the blind. At a fundamental level, it is about making software flexible enough to be used in different modalities. People with very little motor capabilities are quite capable of looking at a screen, but they need help moving the mouse and perhaps a good predictive onscreen keyboard to be able to type. Blind people on the other hand are mostly quite content with a standard keyboard, but they need a totally different way of output, like tactile braille or synthesized speech. For the output part, it boils down to having an API which makes a third party app (like a screen reader) able to traverse the logical structure of what the application is presenting on-screen. That is mostly a sort of tree which reflects which widget contains what, and the different types of content. Such an API, however, is not only required for screen readers, but also very useful for things like automated testing, for instance. So a web automation or testing framework could actually be written on top of the accessibility APIs, and sometimes actually is. I am rumbling about this to get you in the right mindset. Its so hard to not see the forest because of all the trees around...

That said, if we're talking about web accessibility, the obvious recommendation is the WAI WCAG. Maybe not the best reference for learning on how to implement things, but its a good start.

Depending on the platform you're at home with, there are screen readers (NVDA, Orca, BRLTTY) which are open source and can be studied. On the user side, and on the "how is this implemented" side.

Installing NVDA on Windows and turning the monitor off is a good way to get your feet wet. It might feel strange at first, but you will notice that things can actually get done this way. Its also a good way to test a website if you have no specific accessibility knowhow yet. Just try to navigate and read its contents.

> [...] and turning the monitor off is a good way to get your feet wet.

Is it weird that I, as someone with normal sight, had never thought of that as a simple way of testing whether your software (and the whole operating system together with it) works correctly with screen readers? It's like there's some sort of unconscious bias which links typing on a computer with its monitor being turned on.

And I lived through the times when most computers didn't come with any pointing device, which led to most software back then being accessible to keyboard-only users (notable exceptions being things like Paintbrush, which required a mouse), so I understand the link between the lack of a device and software being designed to work well without that device.

There seems to be a quite widespread confusion regarding input and output devices when it comes to assistive technologies for the blind. I am being asked a lot how my "braille keyboard" works. Even by people from the tech industry. Thats when I typically gently explain that a good secretary doesn't need to look at their keyboard, the faster you type, the more you need to type blindly. Most assistive technologies for the blind are about output, and not about input... But it is frequently being confused.

I'm currently debating with myself whether I should create GUI programs (with the main code written in Rust) using Qt or Tauri. Tauri is a Rust based GUI framework based on a webview, similar to Electron, although it can use the OS's native web renderer [1]. Do you think one would be better than the other with regards to accessibility? Or is it mostly a question of how I, as a programmer, make use of the tools? For context, those are currently just small tools and utilities I make on my own and provide as Open Source.

I don't currently have Windows. Is there a good way for me to test accessibility on Linux? As a fallback, I will get myself Windows once I port the tools to Windows, so I could test accessibility then.

[1] https://crates.io/crates/tauri

I have no experience with webview based local apps and their accessibiility, nor did I ever look at Tauri. So to assess if it works, I'd have to check. I am a bit reluctant to recommend Qt because they have let me down in the past at times, but all in all, Qt is mostly accessible, even cross-platform.

Which brings me to your second question. Linux has a GUI accessibility API as well, the AT-SPI. GNOME Orca is the screen reader to use on Linux. If your distro configures things right by default, you should be able to access your Qt application with Orca as a screen reader on Linux.

OK, I'll try Orca, thanks!

For getting confirmation (like when I've got a first version of my app), do you have a suggestion for a forum where to ask?

> In a sense, accessibility is much more then just trying to make computers useable for the blind. At a fundamental level, it is about making software flexible enough to be used in different modalities. [...] For the output part, it boils down to having an API which makes a third party app (like a screen reader) able to traverse the logical structure of what the application is presenting on-screen. [...] So a web automation or testing framework could actually be written on top of the accessibility APIs, and sometimes actually is.

I agree. If the features are well-designed, then they can be good for many uses, whether or not you are blind.

You could also add pronouncing file (especially if a document is using unusual words), it is useful if you are blind and using synthesized speech, but also if you are not blind and do not know how is the word pronounced then you can easily learn. (Likewise, if you watch television then you can put on caption in case you do not know how to spell some unuusal word (such as someone's name). Captions could also be useful for a "caption scrollback" menu to display prior captions in a list, although I have never seen this implemented, but I think it would be useful.)

Another situation where speech synthesis is often used (by people who are not blind) is GPS-based navigation systems. They often pronounce the street names wrong, so adding data for pronouncing, and then implementing that properly, would be better.

(I have mentioned before that I think that adding a "ARIA view" (with user-defined CSS) might be a best way to make a consistent visual display which uses ARIA instead of the visual styles defined by the web page author (widgets, etc can also be used, and would also be consistent instead of each web page having its own widget styles). However, I have not seen such a thing implemented in a good way.)

I recommend taking a look at https://teachaccess.org/ as a starting point. They are non profit focused on bridging the gap between accessibility and education.

I think they are mostly focused on college level exercises, but if your kids are doing coding I'd imagine their tutorials would be something to take a look at: https://teachaccess.org/initiatives/tutorial/

As a complete aside for anyone reading this post, I think of improving accessibility as the "curb-cut effect", curb cuts (those ramps on sidewalks while cross streets) were created to improve urban access for those in wheel chairs, but also make it easier to use strollers, bikes, carts, and really for everyone walking in a built environment. When we as technologists make design decisions to make things more accessible I believe we end up with better products for everyone.

Hey man, what software do you recommend for screen reading? I'm trying to test my websites on accessibility and I've tried JAWS and NVDA so far (while using Lynx to navigate it) but found them a bit confusing. I'm not sure how one would use them in practice to navigate a site like Hacker news, which is relatively simple.

Do you use something else entirely?

I am not quite sure I understand. If you're really trying to use JAWS or NVDA to work with lynx on the web, you are mixing things up. There are basically two worlds for blind users: the "old" text-only terminal interfaces thing which started in the good old DOS days at least for me) and was kept alive in Linux terminal applications. And the GUI world, where you have a screen reader interact with the various elements an application is putting on-screen. In the first world, the screen reader basically just sees a grid of characters. In the second world, the screen reader needs to reconstruct a text representation from the widget info it can obtain.

In other words, if you want to work on the web, with something like NVDA as a screen reader, you want to use Firefox or some other modern browser, not lynx.

If you are like me, spending 99% of your time in tmux, lynx is a nice thing to use, but there is nothing really accessibility specific here. Lynx is just a terminal application. And if you are a skilled blind user used to dealing with plain-text grid-stuff, you can use it just fine for whatever it still works for...

Thank you for the explanation, it's a lot more clear now!

After reading Ian Hickson's proposal[1] to kill HTML and replace it with proprietary, binary content structure, I'm starting to think accessibility APIs might end up being the future of open, interoperable web publishing.

1.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1peUSMsvFGvqD5yKh3GprskLC...

One way to look at accessibility is that it’s a side effect of a well designed data exchange format. The same type of semantic document structure that let screen readers work, or increasing font size, is allowing all kinds of advantages to the user, such as adblocking and customizations. Every year that the state of software and apps deteriorate further, I am more and more impressed how the initial web struck such an incredible balance of all facets of a healthy software ecosystem. It stands as one of the marvels of the world, imo, that it remains virtually the same today, surviving the most vicious attacks on openness by both mega corps and governments alike.

>It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them.

It also help give the later a role, some power over others (policing various such language and issues, using it against their enemies -out of good nature of course, sure), and sometimes, a full career...

I have been told in no uncertain terms that the word “minority” is offensive, as it has come to have pejorative use. No alternative term was suggested, rather that one should refer to specific groups of people with their specific terms, and never generalise.

Additionally, “white knight” I have also been told off for, for the reasons you might expect.

In both of these cases (actually, almost every case I can think of) my language was being policed by, um, materially unencumbered birthgivers of reduced melanin.

I love the term white knight specifically because it's offensive to those I reference with it and because it does such a great job describing my view of them and ironically their unconcious view of themselves. Also the amusing thing is that they are always white.

> they are always white

Might it be because they think they know best?

I feel like, Materially Unencumbered Birth Gives of Reduced Melanin, is approaching an actual usable acronym for the typical pejorative, Karen. I bet chatgpt could bridge the gap

I don't see white women standing out in their behaviour, but they sure will always remain an acceptable group to beat up on without losing your progressive or otherwise credentials.

Karen at this point is always pejorative and pretty much just not well hidden sexism at best.

That's been the most impactful change of the entire progressive movement. It's now ok to be sexist and racist against white women. It's feminism stood on its head. The reduction of white women to a meme has been incredible to watch. No idea why anyone would be for this.

Is materially unencumbered rich or poor?

> If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem.

It's a pretty big cognitive load though, to remember what everyone finds or doesn't find offensive. This is what bothers me about the recent obsession with pronouns - I have enough trouble remembering people's names; and now I am also asked to remember how to modify my grammar or lexicon when in vicinity of a given person? That's the complexity I don't want.

We have externalized what used to be an internal issues

Offense is a you problem, not a me problem. We have abandoned the axiom of "sticks and stones" and replaced it with "words are violence" or even worse "silence is violence"

Today it no longer enough to be "tolerant" you have to actively affirm, support, and validate everything about everyone at all times and support their emotional state no matter the practicality or reality of the situation.

It feels a bit hypocritical to make this sort of proclamation on a social media site with extremely strict moderation.

Almost as though this isn't as simple a topic as "stick and stones" and that everyone has different tolerances for what they'll put up with depending on the setting and context.

> Offense is a you problem, not a me problem

Most definitely not. Of course people need to work on themselves to avoid being offended.

But if you communicate with other people, it's because you want to achieve something. Probably not offending the target (or else fuck you I guess ;-)). So, usually, offense gets in the way, so you should care about not offending your target. And beyond this, as human beings, we usually care not to hurt other human beings.

It's a we problem.

> no matter the practicality or reality of the situation.

Do you have example of this? Of course you are expected to show some empathy/sympathy, but I've never seem people impose unrealistic expectations.

I would not call anyone the N-word but would ask for a brown paper bag if I needed it at the grocery store. I have personally never met someone that is offended by the use of eg. colors as a concept but yet some people are trying to remove them from language.

Nobody is saying you can't say the word brown FFS.

Exactly. Nobody is saying that but still it was removed from eg Roald Dahls books.

  > it was removed from eg Roald Dahls books.

who removed it?

The editors of the new editions most probably on command of the publisher

There are entire documents in technology written to erase words

White / Black List -> Allow / Deny

Git "master" -> Main

and about 10,000 other examples.

You can name a branch master on git to your hearts content. We still have branches named master. We still have stuff we refer to as "whitelist" even though that was never an accurate descriptor for it in the first place.

This shit isn't banned. Nobody stops you from using them.

It would be unconstitutional in the US to ban it, the question or comment thread is not about being illegal to use the word..

The issue the social pressure against these terms, and the ever changing landscape one political segment of the population has in being forever offended by everything

It's certainly not unconstitutional for organizations to ban words. It's happening every day at major tech companies.

This entire comment thread should be a master class in logical fallcies as every reply shifts the goal posts back and forth....

Which i suspect is the end goal as that way no one actually have to address the underlying issues of compelled / socially enforced speech and the ongoing attacks on free expression on top of the ever shrinking mental health of the population has society coddles people into believing everyone else has to manage an individuals mental health instead of having to harden your own mind and come to terms with the fact the life is rarely fair, kind, nor do people (nor should) about your "feelings"

> one political segment of the population has in being forever offended by everything

Which segment is that?

Companies now have "inclusive language" policies. There are dashboards that track team compliance and people that cheer this stuff on.

Master branch gets renamed to main meanwhile one can freely talk about how they used their MasterCard to buy a new Jazzmaster guitar that they keep in their master bedroom with a Master lock on it and they're almost done with the master of their new album showing off their mastery of musical and production that they learned taking lessons on MasterClass. Did I mention there's a cover of Master of Puppets?

Think this sounds crazy? Don't read this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675987

Looks like we know why Mozilla is falling behind, they are wasting limited dev time removing these things..

that is CRAZY!!~!!!

You just made me sad :(

Or perhaps, temporarily happiness challenged.

Muahahaha, well said.

> This shit isn't banned. Nobody stops you from using them.

Speak for yourself. I had a PR rejected because I named a variable `blacklist` and was unaware that it's now considered a social faux pas. Of course, changing it to `blocklist` was simple enough, but wasted a couple hours because I had to ping the person again after finding out the PR was rejected, fixing it, retesting the code to make sure it didn't break stuff, pushing the changes, waiting for those tests to rerun, and then finally waiting for the person to re-review the code.

>Do you have example of this?

How about the push to rename words in technology that have been in use for decades, like changing the default git repo from master to main.

or the parent comment I replied to originally -- "This is what bothers me about the recent obsession with pronouns - I have enough trouble remembering people's names; and now I am also asked to remember how to modify my grammar or lexicon when in vicinity of a given person? " for which there is not even any social indicators of this, and for a given person could change at any given time from week to week or day to day. A person that changes their pronouns daily seems to me to have an unrealistic expectation that people will be able to keep track of that.

Have you come across anyone who changed their pronouns daily and expected you to keep track of it?

It annoys me how often this discussion gets bogged down in weird hypothetical scenarios. In my experience, people who use nonstandard pronouns (or pronouns that you might not guess from their experience) are completely reasonable about it. They only ask that you make a genuine effort to remember the correct pronoun choice – which is not very much to ask. It's certainly no more work than, say, remembering the correct pronunciation of their name.

It's a waste of time to just imagine someone making bizarre and unreasonable requests regarding pronouns and then get angry about it in real life.

I have met people like this. And heard someone correct someone else for using it wrong. In fact, when during introductions, this person said their pronoun so loudly that I forgot their name (partly because it made no sense to put two pronouns after a name, so it spent a lot of time trying to parse the grammar, as I had just recently moved to a very Progressive city and it was the first time I had encountered it personally).

There is another group I am in that has name tags and there are stickers with pronouns I've never even heard of (something like ver/ver, xe,xer, etc.).

I cant imagine ever getting to the point where I care enough what people call me to make a big deal out of it. I work with people that have been saying my name comedically wrong for months now and I couldn't care less. I have a couple other people that think my last name is my first name and call me by that. Its hilarious. Imagine getting upset or aggressive with someone just because they don't remember the pronouns you made up. That's a you problem, not a me problem.

I don't know the name's of 75% of the people I work with (I work with a 100+ people a week) and I really have no time or inclination to make the effort. If someone makes up pronouns that don't correspond to their image they are going to get mad at me because I am pretty much incapable of remembering their name let alone their pronouns. If I remember, cool I will use them but I'm really not going to spend hours practicing. Its not an intentional insult, I want everyone to be happy, I just don't have the effort or inclination in me to expend on it.

So many ifs in this thread! It sounds like no-one has ever got really angry with you in reality for using the wrong pronouns, right? I’ve never experienced anything other than a polite correction. The person you’re replying to also doesn’t describe any such experience. They said (1) that someone they met loudly emphasized their preferred pronouns and (2) that they went to an event where some people put neopronouns on their name badges.

Those don’t sound like people who are changing their preferred pronouns daily, unless I’m misunderstanding. You’re just talking about people who use non-standard or difficult-to-guess pronouns.

The more times I read through your story the less there is to it. Someone introduced themselves, said their pronouns, and you didn’t remember their name. Ok, so what?

Neopronouns are an interesting case, but my previous comment about ‘they’ applies. It’s gender neutral, so use ‘they’ if you forget which more specific pronoun is applicable.

> I might add that almost anyone will be ok with singular 'they', if you're ever unsure, as it is gender neutral.

Please speak for yourself, and not for me and all others for whom this is also untrue.

To some extent this is a hill I’m willing to die on. Singular they is pretty entrenched usage now, and as it implies nothing about its referent’s gender, I don’t see how someone could legitimately object to being referred to in that way.

However, if someone tells me that they don’t want me to refer to them using singular they (something which has never once actually happened to me outside of arguments on the internet!), then I would respect their wishes.

If you live in an English speaking country, listen closely for a week or two. You’ll probably find that people around you are already (without conscious intention) using singular they to refer to individuals of known gender.

I also wonder if you might not be undermining your own line of argument elsewhere in the thread. If you get to be fussy about being referred to using singular they (which is certainly unobjectionable from a grammatical and semantic point of view in modern English), then presumably everyone else gets to be picky about their pronouns too.

The singular they is entrenched when you don't know who the person was ("I hope they realize they left their umbrella here and come back and get it.") It is not entrenched at all for referring to an individual who is standing right there.

I recall being contacted by a distressed neighbor who had been referred to as "they" in a thread on NextDoor. She has a name that could be male or female (it's short for different things), but her photo was unmistakably female. She was offended that someone referred to her as "they" and asked me if her photo looked at all male.

I would also imagine that someone who is presenting as a particular gender and wishes to be referred to as that gender could also be offended to be referred to as "they" because it could imply that the person is in-between, and not successfully presenting as their desired gender.

Lastly, people who are unaware of the changes in pronoun usage (older people, people who don't interact with people in liberal enclaves) may be confused by usage of they. They may think you're talking about multiple people, for example.

It is in fact quite common (at least in some parts) to use singular they for people of known gender. I hear it all the time here in London. Here’s an abstract that covers some of the patterns of variation: https://www.colorado.edu/event/cuny2019/sites/default/files/...

> could also be offended to be referred to as "they" because it could imply that the person is in-between

‘They’ is gender neutral; its use implies nothing about a person’s gender. If someone gets offended anyway then the simplest solution is obvious - use their preferred pronoun. But taking offense at singular they doesn’t seem to be something common, at least in my experience. It’s certainly the option that’s least likely to cause serious offense if you can’t remember (or were never told) a person’s preferred pronouns, with at least as much cause.

I’d also repeat the following point. If we’re ok with cis people being fussy about being referred to using singular they, then presumably we must also allow trans or non-binary people to be fussy about their preferred pronouns. You can hold that the use of singular they to refer to known male or female persons is potentially objectionable; but then you should also recognize that other sorts of people might be similarly picky about their pronouns.

> [older people] may be confused

Confused != offended. But singular they has such a long history that I think such confusion is rather unlikely in practice.

As soon as you reach for Shakespeare in order to justify a word's usage in vernacular English, it's clear that you've missed the point.

The point in this case was simply that singular they isn't a recent phenomenon. This is relevant when considering the (probably incorrect) claim that singular they is confusing for older generations.

In any case, my mention of Shakespeare was an aside and not crucial to the overall argument of my post; so it is arguably you who are missing the point.

> taking offense at singular they doesn’t seem to be something common

That's probably because most people don't refer to people as "they" except when specifically asked to. If people went around using "they" as the standard pronoun when referring to known people, there would be much more offense.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that point. I often hear 'they' used in that way and have not see anyone take offense to it. Nor can I see any logical reason why people should take offense. There are plenty of languages where pronouns are gender neutral (e.g. spoken Chinese). People who speak these languages seem to do ok without constantly explicitly referencing each other's gender. There's a huge difference, both logically and emotionally, between misgendering someone and simply not making reference to their gender.

By the way, I am totally fine with not using singular they to refer to people who are genuinely offended by it. I just have not actually encountered any such person outside the class of 'argumentative people on the internet'. For this reason I think that 'use singular they if unsure' is good, though not infallible, advice.

> There's a huge difference, both logically and emotionally, between misgendering someone and simply not making reference to their gender.

Referring to someone as a "they" would be considered misgendering to a lot of people. It is not "not making reference to their gender" because the vast majority of people who want to be referred to as "they" are not cisgender. Referring to someone in this way suggests that you think they are not cisgender.

> I just have not actually encountered any such person outside the class of 'argumentative people on the internet'.

The neighbor who approached me after having been referred to as "they" was not an argumentative person on the internet. She was someone (who lives in a very liberal area, BTW) who was perplexed and offended to have been referred to that way.

I see what you mean, but I think it's slightly the wrong analysis on a linguistic level. 'They' doesn't generally introduce a presupposition of non-binarity (either semantically or via pragmatic inference). If it did, it would be hard to account for the innumerable examples of 'they' being used with unambiguously masculine and feminine quantificational antecedents.

For this reason I think that people who are offended by being referred to by 'they' are wrong to be offended. I think they're wrong in a way that, say, a trans woman is not wrong to be offended if someone insists on using 'he'. In the former case, the person may feel that they are being misgendered – but only on the basis of a dodgy linguistic analysis. Of course, we should accommodate people's pronoun preferences, regardless of whether we agree with their underlying logic in any given case.

The story about your neighbor doesn't really make sense to me. Surely it occurred to her that the other forum poster might not have cared much what her gender was, or have paid much attention to her photo, or simply didn't care to take a guess even if she appeared clearly female. To interpret this as intentional misgendering seems a bit nuts. If she was simply worried about whether she appeared clearly feminine in the photo, then that's an understandable anxiety, but one that has little to do with singular they. (If singular they were off limits then I guess the poster might have used 'he' instead, which hardly seems better.)

> For this reason I think that people who are offended by being referred to by 'they' are wrong to be offended

My understanding is that these days, we are not allowed to opine on whether others are wrong to feel offended. In modern parlance, I'd say that you don't understand why they're offended. It seems you're trying very hard not to, considering that this term is not the preferred term of reference for practically anyone who is cisgender.

Are we not? I’m doing it right now and no-one has come to arrest me yet.

If the best you can do is tell me that I have to accede to the ineffable and indefinite reasons for your neighbor taking offense, then I suppose the discussion is over. (Of course I do accede in practice - I’m not going to refer to her as ‘they’ just to be a dick.)

If you really believe that people are entitled to be arbitrarily offended by pronouns, then you can have no objection to trans or non-binary people being arbitrarily fussy about their use. I mean, I’m “woke” by HN standards and am all in favor of respecting people’s pronoun preferences. But even I don’t believe that the subject is entirely in the realm of subjective feelings of offense and beyond rational discourse.

> I’m doing it right now and no-one has come to arrest me yet.

Good faith has left the building, and I'm right behind. Enjoy your hyperboles all by your lonesome!

Bingo.

Nice example. So the photo should be enough to infer the gender, and the person somehow expected that, failing it, was offended. Very nice. Imagine how a blind person must feel, in this social minefield? Thats exactly a problem we have. Given unspecific voices and unusual names, we are left pretty much out in the cold regarding how to address someone. We cant just look at the body or clothing.

How would you be offended if somebody referred to you by "they"?

It could be interpreted that they think you look androgynous, which would offend some people.

> How about the push to rename words in technology that have been in use for decades, like changing the default git repo from master to main.

How is this unpractical/unrealistic?

Some people adopted main, some people kept master, the world did not end, things are going well. Not much thought on this in the day-to-day work.

> Some people adopted main, some people kept master

Some people used “trunk” since well before Git existed. If ever there was an example of how the umbrage at renaming things was baselessly manufactured, master -> main has to be right up there.

> Offense is a you problem, not a me problem. We have abandoned the axiom of "sticks and stones"

I think you miss the point of "sticks and stones". The point is not that it's ok to say whatever you want to anyone else. The point of "sticks and stones" is not to let other people bring down your self-esteem.

Other people will intentionally try to denigrate you. They'll call you "stupid". They'll call you "ugly". Or they may call you a racial slur. That's all unacceptable. That's a "me" problem for the speaker. The point of "sticks and stones", on the other hand, is to resist internalizing these external insults and degradations. It's to put on a virtual suit of armor to protect you from verbal attacks — and let's be clear, they're real attacks.

> Today it no longer enough to be "tolerant" you have to actively affirm, support, and validate everything about everyone at all times and support their emotional state no matter the practicality or reality of the situation.

That’s absolutely not true though - you only have to affirm/support/validate people’s identities and emotional states when their identity/emotions aligns with the zeitgeist; if those things contradict the zeitgeist, then affirm/support/validation is somewhere between optional and evil.

> I am also asked to remember how to modify my grammar or lexicon when in vicinity of a given person?

No? Same grammar regardless of who is near, just need to remember which pronouns to designate which people, which:

- is the intuitive one for most people

- the asked pronoun for the few people who have pronouns that don't match your intuition.

(I also have troubles with remembering names, but pronouns are fine)

And for not implying a gender when speaking of someone for who we don't the gender, it's a constant exercise that also does not depend on the vicinity of a given person.

It requires some effort, of course.

I work with maybe 100 people on a consistent basis. I probably know 25 of their names. Many of these interactions are random one offs, large meetings, etc. Many of them are foreign (to me) compounding my difficulty with their names. In addition I'm remote so can't associate names and faces, everyone is just white text on a black background. If any portion of this group started requesting I use varied pronouns I would probably lose my job in short order. Not because I don't care but because I am so incredibly busy I simply don't have the mental reserves to do it. Currently I am regularly working weekends and until 4 in the morning. I'm burnt. To expect me to somehow remember people's pronouns is a mission impossible.

I don't remember individual interactions with many of my coworkers at all, they all blur together.

If work wants me to do it then they'll need to reduce my workload by half just so my mind can absorb it.

You situation doesn't seem very healthy regardless of the topic at hand. I hope you'll be able to find a way to get a lighter workload.

Remote too, but I met most people in person at least once, we use avatars, and definitely don't work with 100 people.

That said I know a few trans people, the number of people I know with pronouns that don't match the name is 0. The number of people wanting the equivalent of they in my language is so small I can remember it easily.

This seems extremely unhealthy for you. Specifically the work environment you are currently in.

I agree, crazy thing is this is the 4th straight job I've had like this. As far as I know this is just what work is

They requires effort... or just using they left and right for everyone, who needs pronouns when they exists anyway? Or better yet, avoid using pronouns by using the name over and over. That is what I do, not he, not she, not it, not especial ones. Only they, they supremacy.

Repeating the name over and over would be cumbersome.

I would agree with always using a genderless pronoun, the gender should almost never matter, but I would probably be in for endless debates if I started to do this now.

I agree that would be an actual progressive agenda. But people wanting me to call them with another pronoun where I can no longer use biological cues is just cementing gender roles. Because if I present as a man but say I am a woman you just also gotta accept that since a woman does not need to conform to some societal gender role. If a guy dresses up like a woman he can still be a he, maybe he just likes skirts and nail polish. If a woman can be whatever she wants what does being a woman even mean except biology. If you want to assume a gender role previously tied to sex it clearly reinforces the idea that gender roles are an actual immutable category. How you can at the same time also hold the belief that biology is not doesn’t make any sense to me.

Maybe it is the just deserved revenge on a society that ties so much to sex and gender roles that logically has no relation to it. I am talking about things like job expectations or assuming competence at random skills, division of domestic responsibilities etc. I cannot believe though that this fixation on gender identity continues forever. It just doesn’t seem like a sensible end state.

I'm with you on the second paragraph.

> But people wanting me to call them with another pronoun where I can no longer use biological cues is just cementing gender roles

I believe there's more to this. IIUC, for some (most?) trans people, there's actually something, probably related to their biology, that makes them feel as the gender they were not assigned at birth. They have may look like one gender, but feel like the other one: gender dysphoria [1].

These people might be fighting more for solving this issue than for getting rid of the gender roles. Some would actually transition to the other sex for this, though I would expect trans people to also be more familiar (and sensitive?) to these gender identity questions, since they had to think about them.

Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open question for me.

Now, it would be best if a trans people could directly speak about this, because this stuff is mostly theoretical for me, I haven't experienced it first-hand.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria

(hi, I'm a trans people)

Your understanding is largely right, though I'd expand "look like one gender" to "be perceived and treated as one gender". I regularly confuse the hell out of people with my obviously feminine name and appearance and very deep voice.

> Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open question for me.

Depends on the person, I think. Many trans people still would. I probably would've just shaved a bunch of body hair off and started wearing skirts and been done with it.

As for pronouns, "he" is just another sound people use to refer to other people. It has no inherent meaning beyond what we ascribe to it. I don't use it because society does ascribe a lot of meaning to it that doesn't apply to me - the same sort of feeling a man would get from being called "she". If genders weren't so much of a thing in society, I can't imagine myself caring nearly as much, though maybe in that world we'd all use the same pronoun anyway.

But there's a whole spectrum of trans people - in the same way you don't really grok dysphoria, I don't really grok e.g. genital dysphoria, so I can't and don't intend to speak for anyone else here.

I have a random question and I really mean no offence by it, I just want to get the opinion of a transexual person on something I have wondered. I know this question is out of left field. My apologies for asking but you are the only trans identifying person in the thread and are answering questions. Please feel very much in your rights to ignore me, I really do mean no offence with the question. I will not take your answer as representative of trans people as a whole.

Do you think people can be trans racial? Should society be accepting of it? For example a white person identify as black and shade their skin to pass? Why or why not?

Again feel free to ignore me, I'm not going to argue with your response I'm just curious about your perspective as you have a very different life experience than me. I am not trans anything its just a random thing I have pondered occasionally and wanted to get a trans persons opinion. I know its a loaded question so again feel free to ignore me.

I take no offense to respectfully asked questions, just as a general principle.

I have no idea, though. I've never considered that before, or even heard of it. It's hard for me to comprehend why anyone would care what race they are, but also holds up the hands of a very obviously white person

I see no reason to not let people do whatever makes them happy, though, even if I don't understand it. That's all I ask of other people for gender, no reason I shouldn't extend that courtesy to other people.

Thanks, appreciate it

In English, "they" has two main purposes: Theoreticals where sex doesn't matter, and as a gentle nudge to the person you're talking to that you don't really know the person you're talking about. That second one is completely lost when you just use "they" for everyone.

Interesting, I didn't know that, makes sense :-)

Though I haven't felt the need for this so far, nothing comparable in French, annoying to have to stop to say the equivalent of "he or she, btw?". I guess we could use iel now. Still sounds new and weird to most people but it might become familiar at some point.

I've seen people using -@ as a suffix in Spanish to cover both the -a and -o forms of gendered words. I have no idea how it's pronounced, and it's probably comically inconvenient in actual use, but I have to admit it looks mildly clever.

They is plural. You would use it for a singular person. And it does lose context.

You just like that assumed their native language?

> just need to remember which pronouns to designate which people

And over time. Plenty of people who have custom pronouns will also change them occasionally.

Why would you need to know someone's pronouns just to speak to them. This is what I do not get, these pronouns refer to someone in the 3rd person and do not affect your conversation with them in anyway. They could easily be referring to you in all sorts of derogatory manner, worse than that of the wrong pronoun, "Dickhead Dave". etc. etc.

I myself have a name that's most used with the opposite gender, I am reminded of this atleast on a weekly basis by others in society. Them accidentally referring to me as the wrong gender does not bother me in the slightest, firstly they did not know/it's not out of disrespect and secondly, why should it matter? What is wrong with being a woman if I am a man and vice versa?

Unless someone is publishing something about someone, there is very little need to know this upfront. If interactions are frequent, you can tell them if they didn't already know as your bond would be deeper. And if it's an issue you can tell them.

It's much like the whole idea of cultural misappropriation, a twisted idea that basically encourages segregation/apartheid. It's as simple as don't be a dickhead about someone's culture (don't demean it) is the common sense, age old and correct solution, not that new thing.

... but ... are "group of academics [..] sit around and decide that a group as a whole needs saving"? (Yes, probably some are, academia always has a few truly crazy people.)

Mostly they parrot the same "old tautologies" (like language matters, structural issues are real, people's personal prejudices manifest in many ways, etc) in various new forms, shapes, phrasings.

However, that doesn't mean they are wrong. (Nor that they are automatically right.)

white knights are not academics, they are usually the walking-talking examples of severe Dunning-Kruger phenomena.

... I'm writing all this, because your post uses very broad and general terms like progressives and academics, and I think that's bad. (Because it forces my ego to reconsider the `progressive` label, that I used to apply to myself. Naturally without doing anything good/bad progressive really. :| )

The absolute worst incarnation of this is "latinx". Don't worry latin world, the english speaking world is here once again to tell you how backwards your entire language and culture is! The absolute height of "offensive sensitivity" in my opinion.

> But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide that a group as a whole needs saving

If this isn't one of the core problems with every aspect of society...

You'd think that, Latinx does come from Spanish speakers, both with the -x and -e endings

https://youtu.be/P3yfGQivroE

I can't speak towards how other people, particularly minorities or the disabled think, but, as a woman, I hate the unintentional "othering" of people trying to do the right thing. I am typically the only woman at work, and people will often correct others who use terms like "guys" with statements like "guys or girls". I understand that they are doing it with good intentions and don't get angry, but to me it just serves to drive home the point that I am different. I am not like the others.

As a "minority" I completely agree with you. IMO, the White Knights target the "others" for an opportunity to virtue signal. It got old after the first time it happened.

> I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending.

I don't know how "unintentional" it is, but it sure is "discrimination" and "condescending." It's like how liberal whites dumb down their speech when talkign to black people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/white-liber....

The dynamic is entirely consistent with them thinking about themselves as shepherding sheep. It's why they don't really care that nobody likes "Latinx." Who care what the sheep want to call themselves? It's also why they don't care whether the people they platform as icons of minority groups (Ilhan Omar, etc.) are representative of those groups or not. It's not coalition politics with give-and-take and compromise. It's a parent/child relationship.

Isn't it enough just to point out that Hispanic/Latino people reject "Latinx", rather than continuously trying to psychoanalyze the people (who are not exclusively white) who do choose to use it? At a minimum, you're now citing social science research to make your point, but you are yourself a vociferous critical of social science research.

You're making it hard to agree with you or to reach a shared understanding; like, I think "Latinx" as a universal term for Hispanic/Latino people is silly and mostly an elite discourse shibboleth, too, but the Extended Rayiner Cinematic Universe of paternal white behavior is not something I buy into.

"Latinx" is just an easy-to-analyze example of a wider phenomenon where elite whites intervene on behalf of minorities while being wholly indifferent to what those minorities actually want. "Defund the police," racial preferences for hiring and education, "micro-aggressions," and many others are examples.

I think the psychoanalysis is necessary to understand the phenomenon in a coherent way. Obviously I can't get in their heads. It's just a theory based on conversations where mentioning polling and statistics would be met with dead shark eyes in response.

Well, racial preferences for hiring and education was something you used to support. What were you thinking when you supported it? Does it line up with your diagnosis here?

I think if minorities didn't want jobs as lawyers, they could simply not apply for the job. Getting hired at a big law firm isn't something done to people unwillingly.

Pretty much, yes. That was before I got kicked out of the house and become one of the objects of that elite concern. It was also before I confronted the prospect of my kids having to do some sort of diversity dance to pique the interest of some white admissions officer.

I don't understand the first part of this but I do understand the latter part about your kids. I'm a white dude who sent his kids to their flagship state school; they'd have been better off, just learning-wise, if they'd started at directional state, or even a community college. So consider that the elites might be doing you a favor. :)

Are you two in the same city? This would be a great conversation over a beverage of choice and in person.

We've been to dinner before! He's in DC, I'm in Chicago. He went to school out here.

If your point is that this is noodly enough not to be interesting to anybody else: fair enough.

> We've been to dinner before!

Great to hear.

> If your point is that this is noodly enough not to be interesting to anybody else: fair enough.

Not at all. Please carry on. It is a good discussion. I meant, I would enjoy hearing you guys debate this topic in person where you're not limited by text or latency.

What happened for you to get "kicked out of the house"? This is sometimes in the back of my mind. I'm usually just curious - but sometimes even asking a question is seen as an indication of wrong think.

You may be surprised at the spectrum of people who are a)admissions officers and b)support the current thing.