Live data from Hacker News

Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

newsweek.com

201–210 of 212 posts

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#201

The quote in the title of the article is really an inappropriate way to try to describe inclusiveness. It’s not about being less, it’s about including others more.

So if I had kids and they were white and they pushed this on them in grade school, my kids should walk away feeling guilty for who they are? That’s some twisted logic sadly with how the US is treating this.

They should feel guilty for pushing kids.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#202

The quote in the title of the article is really an inappropriate way to try to describe inclusiveness. It’s not about being less, it’s about including others more.

There is, unfortunately, a common disconnect between intent and reality among many in the "woke" community. It doesn't matter what you claim, "its about" - it matters what is actually done. If I believe your soul has been corrupted by the devil, and I burn you at the stake to cleans you of the evil influence, I may very well believe sincerely that I'm helping you. My intent could be 100% pure. When asked about it, wi…

I do believe using the sentence "be less white" is exactly that: someone earnestly trying to help but enshrining a bad behaviour of describing people through their ethnicity.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#203
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which leads to the more fundamental question of how society should stop bad ideas leaking out of the professoriate and into the real world. That in turn raises difficult questions about the structure of academia and universities, its general lack of accountability, the near-total lack of progress on basics like the replication crisis, the prevalence of bizarre and extreme ideologies at supposedly 'elite' teaching ins…

>Which leads to the more fundamental question of how society should stop bad ideas leaking out of the professoriate and into the real world. The consensus on Hacker News has always been that we shouldn't, that any attempt to do so is a slippery slope that leads to tyranny, because free speech must be absolute and non-negotiable, regardless of content, truth or consequence. "I may object to what you say, but I will de…

I didn’t take the post above to be advocating censorship. I took it as being about how to make society resistant to destructive cultural fads.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you maybe, do you speak for everyone else? There are definitely a lot of people who want to reduce whiteness, not just include others more. A concrete example is media capitalizing Black but not white in reference to people. There's also this statement that apparently you would agree with, yet many people got upset by: "It's Okay To Be White". There's even a wikipedia article on it. Inclusiveness is not the same…

I am not "ok to be white". This specific sentence is a dog whistle to show acceptance of white supremacy. I would instead say that the privilege associated with my whiteness is maddening, and must be decried. What I don't like is a corporation including training material telling its employees to "be less white". This is confrontational, and in my point of view could cause more harm to minority groups. When you can, i…

> But as a general point of view of Western society in general, I do think it should be less white.

Exactly my point

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#205

Coca cola was invented/founded by a Confederate Lieutenant Colonel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stith_Pemberton They supported Nazi Germany against US embargo rules, inventing Fanta to keep business in the Nazi economy https://timeline.com/fanta-coca-cola-nazi-845ee7e513af… Theyve had Columbian union organizers murdered by right wing militias https://prospect.org/api/amp/features/coca-cola-killings/?__... The…

I am only replying because I hate the spread of misinformation like this. Hundreds who saw this probably believed you without spending a second facts-checking.

All the profits from Fanta were kept away from the Nazi government by the American Coca-Cola managers in Germany and then handed over the parent company when the war was over. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coca-cola-invented-fanta...

The Columbia story has nothing to with racism. It's all internal Colombian politics, not one race raging a war against another.

John Stith Pemberton died 133 years ago and is irrelevant to any discussion regarding the current Coca-Cola.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#206

Coca cola was invented/founded by a Confederate Lieutenant Colonel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stith_Pemberton They supported Nazi Germany against US embargo rules, inventing Fanta to keep business in the Nazi economy https://timeline.com/fanta-coca-cola-nazi-845ee7e513af… Theyve had Columbian union organizers murdered by right wing militias https://prospect.org/api/amp/features/coca-cola-killings/?__... The…

All the profits from Fanta were kept away from the Nazi government by the American Coca-Cola managers in Germany and then handed over the parent company when the war was over.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coca-cola-invented-fanta...

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody uses the term identity politics to mean white supremacism. Even the left don't use the term that way. Marxism is not the right label to describe the post-1950s left wing politics in most countries. Yes, there were fringe wings that were openly Marxist but most left wing politics was committed to incremental change through the ballot box, not total revolution. They aren't “very close”, they are exact synonyms.…

> Nobody uses the term identity politics to mean white supremacism. Plenty of people use it for a phenomenon which includes, but is broader than, White supremacy. https://books.google.com/books/about/White_Identity_Politics... https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18306125/white-identity-politi... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/who-does-t... https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-disturbing-surpri... h…

Hmm, that's an impressive list of links. I picked one at random - the Vox link - and it starts with this paragraph:

"When people talk about identity politics it’s often assumed they’re referring to the politics of marginalized groups like African Americans, LGBTQ people, or any group that is organizing on the basis of a shared experience of injustice — and that’s a perfectly reasonable assumption."

Eh, call it a draw? I'm not wedded to the list of terms people use.

If you mean to restrict things to the developed West, then “Socialism" is fairly accurate if somewhat broad, but then Western Cold War era leftism was itself pretty broad.

Yes, I suppose I could have explicitly stated I was writing from a European/American political context. That's usually the default assumption here on HN though.

Corbyn and Sanders are barely left-wing.

According to them they are very much left wing, more left than anyone else in modern politics! Using a strict dictionary definition that would count the Soviet dictatorship as a left wing political party, yes you're right, but people (in the west) use the word communism to describe that, not left-wing or leftism. And my post is about how language is used today, and how it's changing.

Blair, like Clinton, was no kind of left-wing politician, and certainly not typical of the post-1950s left wing in his country.

He was left wing of a sort. For example he pretty massively expanded the state, but in obfuscated ways that even today are causing problems and haven't really been tackled, e.g. the growth of "quangos", the level of state funding of the charity sector, the large increase in student and academic funding.

To me the acid test is this: if a politician calls themselves left wing, and hardly anyone disagrees, not their opponents and nor their allies, then that's what the word means. Blair is the most ambiguous case because the hard left of his party did sometimes claim he was in reality not left wing at all, but that was never true of Corbyn or Sanders. Not even the rump communist movement would have been so bold as to claim that Corbyn wasn't genuinely left wing.

However, Corbyn and Sanders did not (to my knowledge) ever advocate for suppression of their political opposition. Thus I wouldn't describe them as engaging in "leftism".

This whole discussion is a giant rabbit hole though. Perhaps the terms "left wing" and "woke" are sufficient to distinguish between what I'm calling "classical post 1950 left wing politics" and "the ideology of leftism".

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#208

Coca cola was invented/founded by a Confederate Lieutenant Colonel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stith_Pemberton They supported Nazi Germany against US embargo rules, inventing Fanta to keep business in the Nazi economy https://timeline.com/fanta-coca-cola-nazi-845ee7e513af… Theyve had Columbian union organizers murdered by right wing militias https://prospect.org/api/amp/features/coca-cola-killings/?__... The…

All the profits from Fanta were kept away from the Nazi government by the American Coca-Cola managers in Germany and then handed over the parent company when the war was over. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coca-cola-invented-fanta ...

they still contributed to the Nazi economy. They employed Germans against the US embargo and made profits from a people exterminating a number of populations at once.

Not quite IBM's level of evil, but still scummy.

Hiding profits to avoid taxes is what they do now in every country. They're going to hide behind "hurr tax shelters, me no support nazis"? How about you just don't setup shop in Nazi Germany as US law demanded of US companies.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the culture war the U.S will come out on top like they always have. They are the kings of soft power and they fund academics to spread their ideology all over Europe. You can see it taking root in our universities. Unless our politicians wake up in a massive way we'll follow wherever America goes and it's not a trip I'm looking forward to.

Past tense right here. Right now the US is a bankrupt, imploding, dying empire full of angry people and crumbling infrastructure. And the advance of remote work, internet media and crypto will mean that the US will have a hard time keeping itself together for a single more decade.

I don’t believe the US economy is struggling any more than the European economy but as it does become a less desirable or respectable place it’s influence on the world will decline. It’s anecdotal, but for instance my Mexican colleagues believe Mexico could earn them a better living and more freedoms them now than living in America.
Post reply on HN