Live data from Hacker News

Why People Feel Like Victims

nautil.us

351–360 of 510 posts

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#351
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. When I was young, victimhood was mostly scorned. "Don't be a crybaby." "Shake it off." "Toughen up." "Words can't hurt you." These were the messages I got from parents and teachers when I was feeling sorry for myself.

That seems to be an orthogonal issue. Namely, the expectation that whatever wrong you have suffered should be righted. The message is to shut up because nobody is going to help you. Certainly effective to getting the victim to stop complaining. But that's not the same as actually coping with the issue, or better yet, solving it.

[deleted]

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I don't see how you can possibly deny the existence of systemic racism in a country where all the top educational institutions actively discriminate against asians.

What do you think about Affirmative Action? Is it systemic racism or systemic antiracism?

Let's make a ranking system for incoming students. There will be an academic score for things like test scores and grades, and there will be a "personality score" for, well, god knows what. Turns out that Asian applicants score higher on the academic score, so what we'll do then is rank them lower on personality (though in person interviews have ranked then the same as students of other races). This is what we call the "holistic" admissions system, and it was designed in the 1920's to keep out the Jews.

Hmm, is this racism or anti-racism? Because it's literally what Harvard does.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#353
post #30

> So victimhood is a learned behavior after a certain age. As a brown guy with kids in the school system, that's why recent trends in education alarm me. I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about. It's dangerous experimentation with kids' psychology. Growing up as one…

TLDR, you were lucky, virginia has a lot of racial segregation, and we all need to do more to fight childhood hunger.

Seriously, go give money to https://www.feedingamerica.org/ or https://www.savethechildren.org/ or give to a local food bank. Five bucks even.

I think that the idea that discussions of systemic racism or white supremacy are teaching kids to be victims isn't a fair assessment of how such education is structured.

It's just like how kids are taught about climate change, as best I can tell. It's a problem, and they all need to be aware and do their part. Teaching kids about climate change hasn't lead them to all give up since the planet is likely going to be in bad shape from global warming, it's empowered them, at least some of them, to fight for a future in which we change things and make things better.

The thing is, racism doesn't go away if you pretend it doesn't exist. Maybe you didn't experience it, but per the 2000 census, about 1 in five Virginians are Black.

You being one of the few brown kids means you likely grew up very differently from many Black and Brown students in Virginia, and I expect that is likely the result of decades of white Virginians working to end school bussing and other integration efforts, creating new school districts and private schools, shifting school attendance boundaries within districts.

I think you have to remember that racism is not natural, that it's effects and results, which have been normalized, need not exist, and consider how much our country fails to do right by kids who are BIPOC.

That's what systemic racism is. It's structures and institutions and systems which perpetuate unequal outcomes. We know that integration helps Black students (and their kids) succeed, and that studies generally fail to demonstrate any significant negative effect on white students. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/7/1/21121022/did-busing-for-s...

There doesn't have to even be any outright in your face animosity against Black and Brown people, it's just that, places with higher levels of Black and Brown people in Virgnia are more likely to undertake school district or school attendance rezoning, and rezoned areas are more likely to concentrate people who are poor and Black or Brown, or who are middle to upper class and white.

https://cecr.ed.psu.edu/sites/default/files/School_Segregati...

And that's just how it's failing kids with school segregation, do you want to know the stats on childhood hunger? as of March 2020, about 1 in five families surveyed said they didn't have enough food. Just the lack of subsidized school lunch during Covid in many places means kids are going without necessary nutrition. And, surprise, Black and Hispanic kids are twice as likely as non Hispanic white kids to face hunger in America. That is, again, systemic racism.

I imagine that probably doesn't help their personal or professional success, not to mention their mental health.

I linked two places people could donate to help feed hungry kids above, you can ignore me or disagree with what I said, but seriously, if you are doing well, you can spare a few bucks at least.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean really. Do you really think that if someone who's unsuccessful because of laziness that if only they hadn't heard about systemic racism they would have a better work ethic? The laziness comes first. The excuse is crafted after the fact. If it wasnt that they'd claim to have some other disadvantage or problem.

A lot of psychotherapy is convincing individuals that they are in control of their actions and can decide how they react to and influence their environment. A lot of what we're teaching now is the opposite. It's like anti-CBT. Teach everyone they are helpless against the nefarious powers that be.

Remind me of a South Park episode about alcoholism / AA ...

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue there's a lot more nuances to system racism than the general narrative that is currently being perpettuated. Looking into those nuances would be frowned upon because certain groups differ from other groups for reasons that are not truly understood but would cause us to ask questions we're not comfortable with. Though anecdotal, I know several adults who have fallen into the "it's because systemic racism tha…

I mean really. Do you really think that if someone who's unsuccessful because of laziness that if only they hadn't heard about systemic racism they would have a better work ethic? The laziness comes first. The excuse is crafted after the fact. If it wasnt that they'd claim to have some other disadvantage or problem.

Sounds like plenty of people with ADHD I know who don't have their meds. I wouldn't say they are lazy, I would say they have poor executive function when not taking medication to compensate.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean really. Do you really think that if someone who's unsuccessful because of laziness that if only they hadn't heard about systemic racism they would have a better work ethic? The laziness comes first. The excuse is crafted after the fact. If it wasnt that they'd claim to have some other disadvantage or problem.

A lot of psychotherapy is convincing individuals that they are in control of their actions and can decide how they react to and influence their environment. A lot of what we're teaching now is the opposite. It's like anti-CBT. Teach everyone they are helpless against the nefarious powers that be.

Yeah, but nobody is teaching that. Nobody is going in and telling kids that they are helpless victims. That's just fox news nonsense.

Which environment is easier to influence, one in which you are more aware of underlying factors, or one in which you are less aware?

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#357
post #231

WTF is this shit? Blame the victim hood ? If you’re living in an unjust world, the solution might not actually come from within; perhaps we could modify it somehow? Don’t bet the farm on findings from psychology.

Telling someone they are a victim and there is nothing they can possibly do to better their situation is not a helpful or productive action. You end up with entire generations who believe there is no point trying because its all pointless since they are a victim to something that happened generations ago.

> Telling someone they are a victim and there is nothing they can possibly do to better their situation is not a helpful or productive action.

Who is telling people that they are victims? Who thinks that being a victim means that it's 100% outside of that person's control?

These are the straw-men that so many dumb comments here are based on. There are real victims in the world and most of the time they're just trying to tell their stories, only to get constant derision from idiots in cesspools like Hacker News.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of just saying systemic racism exists, why not point out examples? Then people can judge for themselves what effect it may have on them instead of feeling like there's this oppressive "other" which is the cause of anything they don't like about their life and there's no point struggling against it because it'll just crush them anyway.

This list is more tailored to highlight systemic racism in criminal justice, but the economic side is just as important. There are much higher levels of poverty in black communities and that can be directly tied to the fact that in many ways black people were systematically prevented from building wealth for most of US history while white people were provided trillions of dollars in government subsidized economic opp…

"Black people get 20% longer prison sentences for the same crimes even when you control for criminal history"

Why "Even" ? It does not say anything about racism if you do not control for other factors, like criminal history and society inclusion. It's phrased as if it would still hold without control variable, and the author is doing a favor to potential nitpicker. It may be true, but the "Even" does not make me confident of the scientific value of the publication and the absence of confirmation bias of the author.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#359
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. The current narrative of systemic racism and the victimhood culture it creates isnt helping, it's exacerbating the issues and reinforcing itself. By conditioning people into believing that an outside force is the primary, if not only factor impacting their lack of success, you demotivate them from trying to adjust other factors that could improve their situation. The issue isn't that we addr…

You seem to be missing my point. There ARE systemic disadvantages to being black. I get that you're of the opinion that telling people about racial inequality can demotivate them and make them feel fatalistic about their futures, but I don't necessarily agree with your assessment to the degree this is the case and you seem to think there is no room for nuance here. We must stop talking about this immediately. People…

The issue is that it's not framed that way. It's framed as all or nothing, that blacks fail only because of racism. That's my lk entire issue. The message isn'tthat they're disadvantaged, the message is that there is 0 chance.

One encourages them to hold out as it gets better, the other for them to give up till it gets better.

I'm not calling it the root of all problems either, so please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying it's not even a solution, it's the opposite, worsening the situation and feeding itself.

And to be specific here, I'm referring to the narrative around racism being the sole and primary cause of failure.

Post reply on HN