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YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#261

Post by Anonkor »

I think it's useful to mention that this privilege is not just a white thing. It's a "people who were born in a first world country" thing. By default, that huge group of people gets privileges that others can only dream of obtaining. You don't have to spend years of your life just trying to get out of a horrible country where you were born. And most of the time, people don't seem to realize and acknowledge this.

Hell, I've met Americans giving me blank stares when I would talk about how difficult it is for me to get even a tourist visa to go to the US.

First world privilege should end. Black, white, asian, latino - doesn't matter. If you were born in a modern and developed country, you are already a part of a privileged group. Acknowledge this, gain some humility and try to better yourself and others around you.

I urge people to organize YC Open Office Hours for non-first-world people, immigrants and the like.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#262

Post by McDoku »

johnathanNYC wrote: post #181
tcdent wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what privileges you perceive, or know to be true, for non-minorities. I absolutely agree there is a problem. I've heard many first-hand accounts of violence and disrespect from all races. I'm interested in a solution that doesn't just take the labels from a pie chart and reinforce the dividing lines between what ultimately is one group.

At a high level; wealth, education and jobs which is easily afforded due to 400 years of slavery, 100 years of blatant discrimination and 50+ years discrimination built into the American Justice System. White Americans also do not have to worry about mass incarcerations and racial profiling. Laci Green does a fantastic job a breaking all of these down: https://youtu.be/h_hx30zOi9I

Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#263

Post by iksnyrk »

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…

Curious to see if you think there is an Asian privilege as well? Asians make more, get better jobs, get better grades, commit less crime than white people. What about our system makes it so easy for Asian people to succeed?

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#264

Post by dwmtm »

dang wrote: post #253
joepie91_ wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which makes this circular comment a little ironic.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#265

Post by getfitroxana »

nostrademons wrote: post #185
copperred wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is an example of a white male privilege" No it is not. You cannot point to poor treatment of one group as evidence of the "privilege" of another group. There are more than two colors of people.

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'…

Okay, and when are we gonna talk about Jewish privilege? Because they get all the benefits of white privilege when they're white-passing, PLUS the benefits of being Jewish!

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4099803,00.html

(Ynetnews is an Israeli paper, by the way)

"Since the mass immigration some 100 years ago, Jews have become richest religious group in American society. They make up only 2% of US population, but 25% of 400 wealthiest Americans. How did it happen, and how crucial is their aid to Israel?"

Hmmm...

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#267

Post by DanBC »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #176
yummyfajitas wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 notice when he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew he wasn't actually threatening.

No, he actually is treatening if he is angry enough at work to cause people fear, alarm, distress.

It's absolutely not acceptable to be that angry at work. It's understandable if it happens once or twice, but here you've mentioned a person who has had several colleagues talking about escalating complaints about his behaviour.

That employee should have been supported to change their aggressive behaviour (because it causes harm to them, and it causes harm to other employees, and it causes harm to the company) with a fairly stern reminder to stop fucking about.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#268

Post by yummyfajitas »

DanBC wrote: post #267
waterlesscloud wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 notice when he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew he wasn't actually threatening. No, he ac…

If a physical trait causes people around someone to feel fear, alarm and distress, then that person actually is threatening and it's not acceptable.

As noted above, other physical traits (e.g. blackness) also cause those reactions. Your claim - namely that people's subjective perception, rather than objective behavior, are what determines the bounds of acceptability - seems to prove too much.

Re: YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders

#270

Post by johnathanNYC »

yAnonymous wrote: post #269

This wouldn't be necessary if you at ycombinator treated all people equally to begin with. Instead of doing that, you introduce discriminating "open office hours" in which some people are not allowed, based on their race. That's some grade A idiocy.

You've completely missed the point and it also seems your view of the world is very different than it actually is. How do you propose YC approach an issue like this, in a country filled with racism and discrimination? Is your idea really just "treat all people equally" and the world will follow suit? How does that work?
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