this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Here's the list:

  1. Listen more to more Black people – and amplify their voices
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  5. Approach it intersectionally

The full article goes into detail, and also has links to anti-racism resources and appendices with a list of common mistakes to avoid and blocklist resources for moderators.

Thanks to everybody who gave feedback on earlier drafts!

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Biologically, race isn't a coherent ontological classification; you're thinking of ethnicity/culture and heritage. Whiteness isn't a biological classification, but a belief system. Incidentally, part of whiteness is the belief that races exist and are meaningful classifiers, along with the belief that whiteness is worth defending, leading to white defensiveness, also called white fragility.

If you still insist, then here's a speedrun: are they white? Why or why not? The Ainu, the Inuit, Michael Jackson, the Scottish, the Irish, the Italians, etc. Whiteness is one of what George Carlin called "big clubs;" they are defined primarily by power-sharing agreements between political power brokers rather than by scientific evidence. The power of whiteness has been extended in various ways even as science has shown that it is bullshit.

Also, on a personal note, I'm routinely discriminated against because of the color of my skin, along with other physical properties. I don't deny that this happens to me or others, nor do I deny that it is a large part of our society (or at least the USA.) I merely opine that this discrimination is undesirable, unmoored from scientific evidence, and something that we should work to eliminate. I'm not pulling one of those stupid "colorblind" routines.