YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders • Hacker News Board

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#251

Post by 13thLetter » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #235

13thLetter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

Everyone is racist on some level, including those who would prefer not to be. It is deeply ingrained through constant cultural conditioning and has been shown to be true in many many studies. 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 on…

> 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.

The difference between this and "We are all sinners; all you can do is accept Jesus into your heart" seems to be merely a manner of terminology.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#252

Post by djtriptych » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

robot wrote: post #64

Hand-holding minorities label them even more as a group that needs to be helped. They should be encouraged to be successful in the "same" environment as others and treated the same. The moment you do something "for" them is the moment you label them as that group that needs hand-holding even more. I don't think they need special treatment this way. It is done by good intention, but it does not need saying, you're bla…

Have you ever asked a black person what they think about that?

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#253

Post by dang » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

joepie91_ wrote: post #245

dang wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it serves HN very well to have exactly the same entirely generic debate come up every time there's a thread about anything like this. Rehashing the same political divide over and over merely produces the identical hash over and over. That doesn't count as interesting in HN's sense—nothing predictable does. Meanwhile, interesting discussion about the specifics of the story at hand largely gets drowned out…

If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that it's a topic that requires more discussion. Waving it away is, then, just going to make it come up again the next time. For what it's worth, I do agree with Uptrenda. I do also want to explicitly highlight that this certainly is racism - and that whether it is justifiable racism is a separate discussion entirely.

> If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that it's a topic that requires more discussion

That might be true on a general discussion site, but it's a non sequitur on HN, which values substantiveness.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#254

Post by dpeterson » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 8:48 PM UTC

I'm an idiot. I feel idiots are underrepresented in the tech community. Will I get special office hours too?

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#255

Post by leeleelee » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:23 PM UTC

This is the definition of racial discrimination.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#256

Post by McDoku » Fri, Sep 18, 2015, 1:48 AM UTC

stepmr wrote: post #66

Is this open to Indigenous (i.e. Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, etc) founders?

I am always happy to see the Métis represented on an American site. Thanks my friend, most people don't know much about us. Seriously though, I am not sure that returning to a philosophy of segregation is the best path.

Perhaps focusing speakers that cover challenged and topics of interest is better then reducing intercultural exposure?

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#257

Post by McDoku » Fri, Sep 18, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

johnathanNYC wrote: post #87

As someone who is both (afro-latino), I'm really excited about this. After reading the majority of the comments, I'm a little disappointed. It seems that many do not understand that being white and male in the United States, by default, affords many privileges that monitories struggle to obtain. If there any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer. Curious to why the word Hispanic was used instead of Latino. If…

Red River Metis here. We look white to dark... but we have a very similar history of generational abuse by the Canadian government.

If anyone has read April Rain Tree. Well that was a Metis author. You can't judge a book by its cover. So I get being held two steps back and what trauma does to opportunity.

I think there are better ways to support experience specific generational understanding/education with then segregated environments.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#258

Post by ericson578 » Fri, Sep 18, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

I gotta stop supporting this racist site. I will not pretend being actively discriminated against is ok.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#259

Post by foiboitoi » Fri, Sep 18, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC

danenania wrote: post #235

13thLetter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

Everyone is racist on some level, including those who would prefer not to be. It is deeply ingrained through constant cultural conditioning and has been shown to be true in many many studies. 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 on…

It's ridiculous to start going back to this sort of racism. This is the "affirmative action or positive discrimination" that is tearing apart Africa right now.

The only sort of racism that should even be considered these days would be genetic research of ethnic groups. That's not something evil BTW. Researching those prone to heart disease, cancer or have positive/useful genes that could be used to protect all of us in the future. Alas, we aren't living the movie Gattaca yet.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#260

Post by cowwithbeef » Fri, Sep 18, 2015, 3:21 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #44

6stringmerc wrote: post #30

You planning to open up such a thing for the handicapped as well? I mean, until the ACA came along, I pretty much took a risk-aversion pattern career path so I wouldn't get thrown into the "prexisting condition" abyss, and I'm probably not alone here. Personally speaking, a lot of handicapped folk I've met through the years are quite clever, innovative, and determined, because starting life at the plate with a 3-2 co…

> You planning to open up such a thing for the handicapped as well? This is part of the problem with things like this - while good intentioned, it inevitably alienates another equally oppressed group. Why can't we just have "Office Hours" and make it absolutely clear it's for anyone -- and actually follow through with the intent. It just seems silly to says "these here are for only this one small group - and that's h…

No one ever tries to help ugly people, but we all know they face discrimination.