Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men • Hacker News Board

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#41

Post by randomopining » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

antihero wrote: post #29

randomopining wrote: post #16

Why do people need to meld their ego with some nebulous "classification"? Like yo I'm black. Yo I'm white. Yo I'm asian. In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years. What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses? What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with…

Because membership of a group, especially for marginalised and oppressed peoples, is a way to have shared strength and be able to relate to others' experiences and protect each other. Which is an incredibly powerful and necessary until the world is significantly fairer. Also in the case of barbers, it is plainly obvious: Experience working with hair of a certain type.

What I'm saying is that the people in this "group" may have almost nothing in common at all, except for having a darker shade of skin color.

Aka get rid of the simple descriptors of "white" "black" etc since they mean very little or nothing at all.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#42

Post by minikites » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

chalst wrote: post #26

blueline wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

While I find the article and some of the comments interesting, I don't think it's a good fit for HN. Articles should provoke curious conversation; this one, judging from the number of dead posts, is provoking too much tribalism.

If it was tribalism, the dead posts would be extreme opinions from both sides. The dead posts here are only from one side.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#43

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #32

chickenpotpie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with a "black" person from the deserts in the northeast of Africa?” They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship

Contemporary African immigrants significantly outperform those descended from slaves. Moreover, they have higher educational attainment, household incomes, and professional success than American white populations. Nigerian immigrants even outperform Chinese and Indian immigrants.

[deleted]

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#44

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

chickenpotpie wrote: post #25

randomopining wrote: post #16

Why do people need to meld their ego with some nebulous "classification"? Like yo I'm black. Yo I'm white. Yo I'm asian. In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years. What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses? What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with…

“ What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with a "black" person from the deserts in the northeast of Africa?” They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship

[deleted]

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#45

Post by Spivak » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

randomopining wrote: post #16

Why do people need to meld their ego with some nebulous "classification"? Like yo I'm black. Yo I'm white. Yo I'm asian. In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years. What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses? What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with…

Because you're being willfully obtuse of the authors meaning to make a point about semantics.

Context and intersectionality (or PIE if you want a more nerdy less loaded term) matters here. White and black have specific meanings, a shared cultural history, and face similar issues and struggles in the US. And there's more to a person than just their "race" despite race being a particularly "loud" (i.e. strong predictor) part of a person's identity which is why you have to take into account its interactions and how it melds with all the other aspects of their identity to get a complete picture of a person.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#46

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #18

If HN can look past the usual tropes, there's something interesting here. Lewis is trying to solve a problem a lot of other people are trying to solve: how can you have a normal community in US culture? Let me list a few solutions and you will see why his is better than average. 1. Religion. Pros: Going to church has tied communities together for millennia, and if you could just find some better pastors, it could con…

One word about the cons of #3, you can absolutely go to a black barbershop with no intentions of ever getting your haircut. Older black men will sometimes hang out there, or stop by through the day on the weekend just to catch up with one another.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#47

Post by randomopining » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

sergiomattei wrote: post #39

randomopining wrote: post #16

Why do people need to meld their ego with some nebulous "classification"? Like yo I'm black. Yo I'm white. Yo I'm asian. In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years. What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses? What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with…

A shared set of experiences. I'm Latino, and when I visit the United States I get along well with other Latino folk because we share a set of experiences we can relate to. We probably grew up in different places but there's a background we have in common, like our language. It's called culture.

That's my point. You share language, el mundo espanol, etc.

That's true cultural linkage.

Whereas a "white" person from Ireland and a "white" person from Ukraine have very very little in common.

A "black" person from South Africa and a "black" person from Colombia have very very little in common.

And yet these are the main descriptors used in pop culture, Instagram, the media... and it's silly.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#48

Post by poopypoopington » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

andyxor wrote: post #36

no matter how cute the barber story is, you can't ignore the fact this is political propaganda from a primary propaganda source. it's what pg calls "submarine PR", in this case for Dems "systemic racism" agenda, the more people believe this bs the more votes they get.

Honestly what? How is what you're saying not a racist dogwhistle? It's political propaganda why? Because they're Black?

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#49

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #45

randomopining wrote: post #16

Why do people need to meld their ego with some nebulous "classification"? Like yo I'm black. Yo I'm white. Yo I'm asian. In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years. What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses? What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with…

Because you're being willfully obtuse of the authors meaning to make a point about semantics. Context and intersectionality (or PIE if you want a more nerdy less loaded term) matters here. White and black have specific meanings, a shared cultural history, and face similar issues and struggles in the US . And there's more to a person than just their "race" despite race being a particularly "loud" (i.e. strong predicto…

Such a comment like the one you are responding to comes around like clockwork on HN whenever "black" is mentioned.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#50

Post by micromacrofoot » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

andyxor wrote: post #36

no matter how cute the barber story is, you can't ignore the fact this is political propaganda from a primary propaganda source. it's what pg calls "submarine PR", in this case for Dems "systemic racism" agenda, the more people believe this bs the more votes they get.

yeah hear me out though, what if it's true and they're trying to get votes by making people's lives better