Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#111

Post by cplanas » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

imacerealkiller wrote: post #16

reacharavindh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why Education should not be treated as a business. If Education was free for every citizen, it does a lot to bring equality of opportunity (it does not fix all of the damages from discrimination, but aids significantly in recovery). So is healthcare. Having experienced education and healthcare in USA and Denmark, I cannot believe such extremes exist in the same world. It blows my mind that the wealt…

Even if education is free, having time to study is also a luxury we take for granted. Going to university means a few more years of them not being able to work full-time and contribute to the household income. But for sure, if education was free it would improve access to education and restore some balance.

In some European countries, like Denmark, students get a salary.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#112

Post by Finnucane » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #7

A whole generation of blacks could not get decent jobs for reasons like that. This generation gave birth to a new generation with less opportunities than they could have had because of the opportunities their parents got denied. It takes long time do undo the damage such profound discrimination causes, and it requires the heroic effort of many individuals like this reporter.

A whole generation? More like every generation.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#113

Post by AzzieElbab » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #90

AzzieElbab wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think a paywalled article from 2018 is supposed convince me that I am a racist? Or that the guy who called me a racist done so because he read that article? Or that national media is not supposed to be covering mass shootings from yesterday because that would make them racists?

Given that the sum total of your own words in the comment I responded to is "you just made that up, didnt you?", that is what I was responding to. If @hairofadog did in fact just make up this claim, I'd be tremendously interested in hearing what access they have to time travel devices to plant a story from over three years ago in a major national paper of record. As a protip, paywalled articles are often available th…

Why would you assume I didn’t read that article? Experienced infonauts know better than posting paywalls links on hn. Look, I know about Chicago because a good portion of my multiracial family lives there, and I argue against mainstream narratives because watching collapse of institutions that push these narratives is the most terrifying and fascinating thing I have seen. Trust me, I lived through perestroika and the collapse of the anti fascist wall.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#114

Post by watwut » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #75

InitialLastName wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of them said, 'We don't cover black murders because those are cheap deaths,' If anyone ever wondered what attitude triggered the slogan "Black Lives Matter"...

Your comment hides a lot of depth and comes off as a bit flippant to me. BLM was largely triggered by cop-on-black killings. Civilian black-on-black killings (like those referred to in the quote) continue to get fairly little attention, even from the BLM organizations themselves. Indeed, this is a fairly common conservative criticism of BLM - that it's an anti-police movement, not an anti-black murder movement. (This…

Majority of murders are among people of same race and demographic. People kill those that are nearby and those they know.

So you have white on white killings too, despite that term being literally never used. Majority of murders are male on male killing, males both being same race. Then you have domestic murders and those are also people living close to each other.

Black on black murders don't get little attention. They are the kind of murder mentioned fairly often, most often when someone argue that cop violence is not issue.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#115

Post by blueflow » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #109

blueflow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you google for the exact phrase "google Chicago shootings", including the word "google" This thread is the first result for me. Not kidding. Could it be that you made it up that its a dog whistle? I'm doubting your good faith here.

There's a whole pile of twitterese phrases like this that are used to fly under moderation radar. Some refer to specific standard sections of Wikipedia's biographical articles in order to highlight that a person's Jewish, some are like this (that's why the "google" is important to triggering one's "this might be one of those things" alarms—a common pattern for these is directing people to look at another resource, us…

I still think you guys are bullshitting me. What prevents me from looking up phrases from your post on the internet, pick out some social groups that also use that phrase and claim you are associated with it? There isn't even a way for you to falsify it.

> There's a whole pile of twitterese phrases like this that are used to fly under moderation radar.

What rule is it breaking to tell people to "google chicago shootings"?

And my question

> How does the second statement relate to racism?

is still not answered. Is just knowing the information about the Chicago gun violence putting some folks at disadvantage? Where is the implied link here?

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#116

Post by xenophonf » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #87

hairofadog wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see why criticizing BLM automatically makes something racist. It doesn't! Any social movement, no matter how just their cause, should be willing to accept valid criticism. However, when Person A says "look at this instance of systemic racism" and someone else replies "But MLK cheated on his wife!!", that's not arguing in good faith; that's commonly known as "whataboutism". [^1] > I searched about the Chicag…

> If you google for the exact phrase "google Chicago shootings", including the word "google" This thread is the first result for me. Not kidding. Could it be that you made it up that its a dog whistle? I'm doubting your good faith here.

My DDG search for "google Chicago shootings" is the same as thewakalix's:

https://imgur.com/a/EAQeubu

Here are my Google search results:

https://imgur.com/a/D8XLt29

As another data point, I've been hearing variations of that phrase online or in person for ages from my racist family and (former) friends.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#117

Post by rfrey » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #77

rfrey wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the law enforcement institutions are a demonstrable enemy of your community, and seen as a threat rather than a resource, lawlessness will naturally result. The intra-community violence is a symptom (a serious symptom, but a symptom nonetheless) of the systemic problem. One sees the same thing in refugee camps, which I think are directly analogous. The only alternative explanation is "these types of people are v…

> The only alternative explanation No it isn't. In addition to seeing law enforcement as a threat, there are other forces that couple explain disparate murder rates - such as the rate of drug use, the rate of single parent households, the level of lead in water. Your comment reads perilously close to "Either you believe or , no alternatives, so I choose ." There are a hundred other explanations.

I wrote poorly: my intended meaning was "the only alternative to a systemic root problem". Lead in water is a good counterpoint because although it's "systemic" as in "the water system", it's not what most people mean by systemic in this context.

Drug use and single parenthood, though, are in line with my intended (not what I wrote) meaning, though. One has to ask why there is higher drug use and single parenthood, and it seems to me that the end result of asking why will be "systemic issues" or "nature of the people".

Of course, which systemic issues will remain a difficult question, and the answer will probably be a bit of a bunch of things. But overall, my comment was attempting to answer why I think BLM supporter focus on law enforcement violence, and "are silent" on black-on-black violence - it's because the latter is seen as a symptom, the former a cause.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#118

Post by DFHippie » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

literallyaduck wrote: post #103

Doing birthday stories for the rich shows and being told to use the servants entrance seems likely a classist discrimination not a race problem at first glance. Race seems to be the major factor for much of the rest of the article, which I'm not discounting. Whether maid or journalist count as tradespeople or guests is another discussion and the bigger question is why should it matter if the person is a maid or repor…

> Doing birthday stories for the rich shows and being told to use the servants entrance seems likely a classist discrimination not a race problem at first glance.

Here's a thought experiment: imagine the Post sent a white female reporter to cover the same event. Do you suppose the butler would assume this reporter was a maid? It is just a thought experiment. We can't know the outcome. But Ms. Gilliam lumped this in with everything else because she assumed the butler inferred her class and role from her race. She might have been wrong, of course, but her inferences should count for more than ours. She was there. She lived that life in that time. It seems pretty likely that people in that time assumed black women with business at houses of the wealthy were maids and improbable that they assumed women in the kit of a reporter in general were maids.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#119

Post by handrous » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #115

handrous wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole pile of twitterese phrases like this that are used to fly under moderation radar. Some refer to specific standard sections of Wikipedia's biographical articles in order to highlight that a person's Jewish, some are like this (that's why the "google" is important to triggering one's "this might be one of those things" alarms—a common pattern for these is directing people to look at another resource, us…

I still think you guys are bullshitting me. What prevents me from looking up phrases from your post on the internet, pick out some social groups that also use that phrase and claim you are associated with it? There isn't even a way for you to falsify it. > There's a whole pile of twitterese phrases like this that are used to fly under moderation radar. What rule is it breaking to tell people to "google chicago shooti…

> I still think you guys are bullshitting me. What prevents me from looking up phrases from your post on the internet, pick out some social groups that also use that phrase and claim you are associated with it? There isn't even a way for you to falsify it.

I understand. If you don't keep an eye on the right parts of the right sites (including, in particular, Twitter, but also others) you've probably never seen this kind of thing actually done with the intent to slyly express racist or white supremacist junk. In the right places, though, it's commonplace and only barely veiled (questions from newbies who don't "get it" draw winky-emoji, or more veiled pointers so the newbie can triangulate the real intended meaning, that kind of thing).

> What rule is it breaking to tell people to "google chicago shootings"?

It's not, that's the point. They're dodges/stand-ins for other things, including prior whistles that are recognized as breaking the rules and do get moderated. The more deniable, the better.

In some cases, there's some unfortunate overlap between actual concerns about a real issue (black-on-black violence) which one might innocently express interest in, and precisely the same issue (and, specifically, Chicago, for this issue) as a common short-hand for rejecting the importance of other issues of violence against black people (you see how useful it would be for shifting blame or implying even worse things, if one wanted to do that, right?), or a kind of conversation starter for what amounts to a recruitment script.

[EDIT] to be clear, I'm not claiming you had ill intent. I'm explaining why that phrasing and topic set off some alarm bells for some people.

Re: Dorothy Butler Gilliam: ‘I am not a maid, I am a reporter’

#120

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

AzzieElbab wrote: post #113

dredmorbius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the sum total of your own words in the comment I responded to is "you just made that up, didnt you?", that is what I was responding to. If @hairofadog did in fact just make up this claim, I'd be tremendously interested in hearing what access they have to time travel devices to plant a story from over three years ago in a major national paper of record. As a protip, paywalled articles are often available th…

Why would you assume I didn’t read that article? Experienced infonauts know better than posting paywalls links on hn. Look, I know about Chicago because a good portion of my multiracial family lives there, and I argue against mainstream narratives because watching collapse of institutions that push these narratives is the most terrifying and fascinating thing I have seen. Trust me, I lived through perestroika and the…

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k