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> Isn't that how everything works? Even the best of things?

You're right, I think I was using that to ease into my argument in a delicate way.

> The west coast where SV is based is full of LGBT+ people.

To be clear LGBT+ != !straight-white-male (the set !straight-white-male includes but is not equal to LGBT+). I've seen really problematic racism on hackernews. Problematic not because it's extreme (slurs, lynchings, etc) but because it's "logical" in a way that disenfranchises black people (for example).

An example (and I don't keep tabs of this, so I don't have a link, but it was in the past month or so) was of someone saying, with respect to a racially sensitive topic "As a black man I think... about this topic." and the replies were overwhelmingly "That you feel the need to qualify with 'As a black man' proves that you are racist. I, on the other hand, do not consider race, ergo I am not racist".

These are well-suited-to-hackernews arguments that invalidate the perspective of anyone outside of the accepted majority and thus perpetuate racism.

I think this is the last I'm going to say on the matter. I'm not trying to argue with you, and I have no evidence that you have done anything like what I'm talking about here. I just think that it's important not to ignore what other people might perceive, especially those with different contexts & experiences, who might perceive things that you do not.

exit: removed unnecessary parenthetical about Dave Chappelle (for obvious reasons) and clarified a bit.



Those aren't well-suited-to-hackernews arguments—they're shallow, reflexive flamebait, and we ask people not to post like that when we see it.




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