231–240 of 282 posts
This probably won't be very popular: but isn't the notion of special treatment from YC partners on the basis of race inherently racist? I think anyone who is black or Hispanic would much rather associate with YC on the basis of their own individual merit only now everyone who has anything to do with YC will have to wonder if they are there because YC felt the need to help out the poor, underprivileged, black dude or…
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Isn't that precisely what privilege means? Having advantages that accrue to you simply by membership in one group? There are degrees of privilege, too. I'm not white - I'm multiracial white/Asian, though I look basically Asian. I'm also not a Stanford grad, and my parents weren't millionaires. However, I grew up middle-class in a reasonably affluent suburb, my parents stayed married, they were highly educated, and I'…
What I read in that is that we can say Argentinians are privileged vs Paraguayans, because due to circumstance beyond anyone's control, Argentines are better off than Paraguayans. Same for Greeks vs Swedes?
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As a large white man, similar things have happened to me. "Can we have this conversation in the stairwell so I can stand 2 steps down and make you feel comfortable?" There may be some racial bias here (I don't have enough reliable data to have much of an opinion), but don't think majorities are immune.
I've had similar as well. Literally had managers tell me I can't express anger the way others do because it was intimidating when I did it. Size matters as much as anything in that kind of situation. At one job, I regularly interacted with a man who was larger than me and often angry. He was a few inches taller and 70-80 pounds heavier. He'd had a couple people threaten him with going to management for official notic…
It reminds me of a character in the `Tale of Alvin Maker` series by Orson Scott Card. Forgot the characters name, but he was basically a bully and a 'sadist'. He had a sort of geasa placed on him as a baby, so that he never really got hurt. Anyway, he looses it, and suddenly is hurt badly. He suddenly understands what it was like for the people he was hurting. It wasn't really that he was a bad person, it was just that he had never experienced pain himself. It was enlightening when I read it as a teenager. Is it possible to really empathize until you experience something yourself? Don't know.
BTW, I am not in any way implying you are a bully or sadist. :)
Just saying it is interesting that you had a earnestly hard time understanding why other people felt threatened until... The exact same thing happened to you! Some human experiences are very hard to communicate, they seem to only be learned through direct experience.
You have to know what to search to land on HN or some other popular startup site. My point (and argument) is that most minorities don't know about YCombinator, HackerNews, etc; partially because most live in a non-startup, tech-oriented community. And searching for reasonable keywords like "start a business" isn't a direct invite to the world of startups.
This is why outreach is important. We need to key certain demographics into the startup world via outbound.
Put it this way, there are 50 states in America and the areas with the least amount of blacks/hispanics are where words like "startup" is king (and vice versa). Until then, outreach is vital until certain demographics pick it up at scale.
two cents. More theory than facts.
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It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders. If a group applied with a great idea in the "normal" pool of applicants I suspect they would fair perfectly find against the 6500+ applications. Obviously, YCombinator is worried about their image and cannot figure out how to "close the gap" without this.
"It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders." Which brings up another interesting point. Are all the ycombinator staff comfortable with being accused of being racists? What would happen to any ycombinator staff who publicly objected to this accusation?
It's much more worse to claim that you are in no way racist, since this just suppresses the problem. All you can do is accept that you have deep sub/unconscious biases and try to correct them in your conscious mind, though no one ever fully succeeds.
Eventually, hopefully, we'll all evolve in a better direction. In the meantime, this office hours is a good idea.
This probably won't be very popular: but isn't the notion of special treatment from YC partners on the basis of race inherently racist? I think anyone who is black or Hispanic would much rather associate with YC on the basis of their own individual merit only now everyone who has anything to do with YC will have to wonder if they are there because YC felt the need to help out the poor, underprivileged, black dude or…
I personally find this type of stuff uncomfortable since we are all just people in my book. Gender and race don't mean anything beyond where you might be from or what parts you're born with. This is until programs like this come out and remind us all how good intentions point out differences that none of us can do anything about. It almost comes off sounding like somebody is trying to "fix" skin color based on a weird notion that hue handicaps the brain.
I admit that I yearn for the days when we can all finally be treated equally in a colorblind and gender neutral society. For me, special treatment or lowering/hiring bars based on born attributes is an anti-pattern to achieving true equality. It simply divides us all up more.
Maybe I just wish this read: "YC Open Office Hours for Founders"
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I'd suggest you read the book, it's only 200 pages and I can't summarise it in one sentence. It's sad that someone down voted me for suggesting a book which has voluminous facts and history. Human progress is building on what we have learnt before, if we can't learn from history I don't know how we will make progress.
I did not downvote you. I asked a question. There are only so many hours in the day. So, unfortunately, I cannot read every single thing I wish I could read. It would be nice if you actually answered my question instead of recommending "read this book" for the third time. I heard you the first two times. Peace. Edit: and have an upvote as a token of good faith.
So in regards to your question, AA has been disastrous around the world. In India and Bangladesh hundreds of thousands of deaths, people burning each other in the street, terrifying stuff. All because of class wars instigated by benefits to one class over the other. Same results, on a different magnitude, in Malaysia, Nigeria, Iran, Australia and to a smaller extent the U.S. AA has never worked in all of recorded history.
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> What is the ultimate goal you wish to achieve? Do you want to be known as the "gay black guy", or just another human friend? The fact that you think this is a dichotomy is why the whole proposal sounds ridiculous to you. What if people don't want to feel that they have to choose between expressing their racial/sexual identity and being accepted as a human? Do you seriously not understand that that is the issue -- t…
First, this is not a debate about wether oppression exists; obviously it does. I'm asking if team-sports-like brand exclusivity is right, when our ultimate goal should be the acceptance of everyone. Do think about why you insist on labeling yourself. I don't care if you're gay, and it's certainly not the most important thing I want to hear about you. If we're not talking about sex, why would you bring up your sexual…
> If we're not talking about sex, why would you bring up your sexual orientation?
because it's a big part of who i am. to give a simple example of just how thoroughly oblivious you are - i was invited to many hetero weddings, some pretty big ones, and it had not once occurred to me to come up to the bride and groom and say: "you know, do all these people really need to know you two are fucking?!"
love is a big deal in everyone's life, and i won't stick mine in a closet because you don't want to hear it.
but please, don't let my lived experience or the simple reality of the success of the LGBT rights movement, which is argument enough against your Nirvana-fallacy bullshit, stop you in lecturing other people what's best for them.
P.S. another confirmation of obliviousness, or maybe even bad intentions - nobody said you were following anyone. get it?
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> What is the ultimate goal you wish to achieve? Do you want to be known as the "gay black guy", or just another human friend? The fact that you think this is a dichotomy is why the whole proposal sounds ridiculous to you. What if people don't want to feel that they have to choose between expressing their racial/sexual identity and being accepted as a human? Do you seriously not understand that that is the issue -- t…
> Do you realize that you're calling irrelevant the core feature of many peoples' identity? As long as people are treated with a minimum level of civility and not discriminated against for irrelevant personal characteristics, their "identities" are irrelevant. I don't want to know or care about the "identity" of most people I interact with, and I guarantee you they don't want to know or care about mine. We're all ver…
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I did not downvote you. I asked a question. There are only so many hours in the day. So, unfortunately, I cannot read every single thing I wish I could read. It would be nice if you actually answered my question instead of recommending "read this book" for the third time. I heard you the first two times. Peace. Edit: and have an upvote as a token of good faith.
I was under the impression you were the parent I initially replied to. I apologise. So in regards to your question, AA has been disastrous around the world. In India and Bangladesh hundreds of thousands of deaths, people burning each other in the street, terrifying stuff. All because of class wars instigated by benefits to one class over the other. Same results, on a different magnitude, in Malaysia, Nigeria, Iran, A…
there's also a book out there claiming the Nazi regime was all the work of gay people. look it up, you'll probably love it.