One of those silly toxic grievance ideas, that you should only enjoy fiction when the protagonist looks like you, has the same gender and so on.
Do real world PoC even ever obsess over white female dolls with blue eyes? It was just a work of fiction, after all. Do white girls obsess over black dolls? We have a black doll, that my white wife grew up with. I don't think it disturbed her in any way.
Would you please stop taking HN threads further into ideological flamewar? It's tedious and off topic here, and amounts to vandalism. We've had to ask you this before.
Edit: actually, since you did this twice in as many days, I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.
If it doesn't matter, then why are fantasy characters (even today, even in Harry Potter which is extremely recent) overwhelmingly white? If people enjoyed protagonists regardless of their ethnicity or gender, then why isn't fiction more diverse? Why are almost all DC and Marvel superheroes white males? Etc.
> Do real world PoC even ever obsess over white female dolls with blue eyes?
> why are fantasy characters (even today, even in Harry Potter which is extremely recent) overwhelmingly white?
I can't speak to every single case, but Harry Potter is a British franchise by origin. England is over 92% white. It does stand to reason that a fantasy novel set in England would feature mostly white characters.
Why are many characters white? Because many writers are white. Should white authors write books with non-white heroes? Wouldn't that result in an outcry about cultural appropriation and things like that? Never mind that it would presumably be difficult to credibly describe the experience of people you have not experienced yourself?
Are there many non-white authors writing books with white heroes/heroines? Maybe they should just write more books about people who "look like them"?
A lot of popular children books actually have female heroines, like Pippa Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren being one of the most popular authors of children's books. I never had a problem enjoying them, strange enough. It never occurred to me as a kid that I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy reading those books, because the protagonists have the wrong gender. Good thing today's children have better education on such issues - god forbid they could enjoy a book of the wrong identification!!!
What about Lord of the Rings, should PoC be able to enjoy that book? Should it be considered a hate crime to recommend the book to a PoC? Should the government give out a grant for someone to write an alternative to Lotr with PoC heroines?
Female Superheroes exist, but it is also only one rather silly genre (and only two publishers). Plus, there are other reasons why action heroes tend to be male: because men are expendable and therefore supposed to do the dangerous work, as in real life. Superheroes are a lie, anyway, but to tell women they could simply be action heroes would be an even greater lie.
As for the experiment: "These findings exposed internalized racism in African-American children, self-hatred that was more acute among children attending segregated schools" - that is clearly an unwarranted interpretation of the result, fueled by ideology. And wanting to play with white dolls is not "obsessing" over white dolls.
In response to your second edit, I disagree with your claim that choosing to use the term “mother” vs “momma” is neutral or symmetric. When you choose to use the common term “mother,” it implies nothing in particular. Intentionally choosing to use the word “momma” on the other hand is not a neutral decision. You specifically chose to use it to refer to Black mothers. And your statement about “denying black identity” just reinforces the argument that you associate Black people with a certain manner of speech.
I have no bias against you. I’m just trying to explain to you why some people find your original statement offensive. Instead of defending it, just try to consider how it may make your audience feel in the future.
As I said, I am not a native speaker, so I don't really know how momma is typically used (if at all). It was more of a spontaneous use on a whim. But I also haven't found any indication yet that it is a derogatory term.
Sorry I still think the "offense taken" is overblown. I am also not concerned about not offending anybody at all. Frankly I think many people who feel offended about certain things perhaps should just get over themselves. I mean in this case, is momma used in the real world? If so, then I think it should be OK to use it. I don't believe in censoring statements about the real world.
"Momma" is used much more frequently in AAVE than General American English. Your use of it in this context comes across as being mocking of black Americans. (Perhaps the missing bit of cultural context is that racists often use exaggerated AAVE to mock black Americans.)
So if it is so commonly used, why on earth should it be offensive to refer to it? In what way would you consider my statement "mocking"? I don't think it is very relevant what racists commonly do. I don't feel obliged to obtain knowledge about the lifestyle of racists, and neither should anybody else.
Even more interesting in the context of the original complaint of there not being enough books with black heroes. So if a white writer would write such a book, they wouldn't be allowed to use the word "momma" or refer to anything that PoC might do that is different from white people? You are creating an impossible world.
> I don't think it is very relevant what racists commonly do.
In an English-based discussion entirely around issues of race the ways racists commonly use the English language is very relevant. Using the word "momma" by itself is not offensive however in this context it is slightly offensive because the way you used it is exactly how a racist would use it to mock a black person.
I don't think people here are even taking a lot of offense at your use of the word so much as your extreme defensiveness over your use of it. Please take this opportunity to reflect on why you chose to be so defensive instead of taking a mea culpa (and, if you are genuinely confused by why people are offended, asking for clarification).
> So if a white writer would write such a book, they wouldn't be allowed to use the word "momma" or refer to anything that PoC might do that is different from white people?
This is, in fact, a complicated question. Generally the way to avoid being offensive in that situation is to write your characters respectfully as human beings first and foremost, to study portrayals written by members of the group you are portraying to see how they portray themselves, and to ask members of the minority group you are portraying to review your work for any unintentional offensiveness before publication.
"the way you used it is exactly how a racist would use it to mock a black person."
I still don't see what exactly is so mocking about it. Yes, I was perhaps "conjuring up" a stereotypical scenario. So what? Clearly, the stereotype exists. Even if it doesn't reflect reality, imo it would still be valid to refer to the stereotype, as the stereotype exists and is part of reality. The much celebrated Toni Morrison book also conjures a stereotype, about a black girl obsessing to become white. Somehow that is good - why?
And again, no - nobody should be forced to spend time learning about the behavior of racists. Why should they? Life is too short to spend it studying nasty people. I reject this as an attempt to control other people's life, with the power of being a minority.
"Generally the way to avoid being offensive in that situation is to write your characters respectfully as human beings, and to ask members of the minority group you are portraying to review your work for any unintentional offensiveness before publication."
Nope, and that is also why I am so defensive. I value freedom of thought and freedom of art higher than people's choice of being offended.
Of course any writer is free to make the choice to try to offend as few people as possible. But writers should also be allowed to write what they think.
I banned that account earlier, but posting like this is also a bannable offense. It's not ok to break the site guidelines, regardless of how badly another commenter did so. That way is a spiral down to hell—therefore please don't.
There are entire industries built around helping people of color look and act more white. One of the early post-abolition black businesses sold hair straightening products. Toni Morrison's writing was based on real lived experiences.
You don't know what you don't know. Now you know there are things outside your knowledge and experience. Take this as an opportunity to look deeper.
Personally, I do enjoy finally seeing more queer characters on TV and in movies who aren't stereotypes and who aren't killed off to make cisgender and heterosexual people cry. I know a lot of people of color who are ecstatic over improving representation in the same way.
That's what the pregnant woman claims. The manager could have disliked her for other reasons or considered her unfit for leading people for other reasons.
It could have been a logical decision, something along the lines of "you said you're going to use maternity leave in a casual conversation, why don't you pass that report off now to so and so in case they need to ask you questions about it before you are gone for an extended period".
At my last job I was a contractor and took over a retired employee's desk/duties. She has apparently quit doing any actual real work months before and was just doing a small percentage of her work and not documenting what random bits she had actually been doing, I spent 2 months just trying to sort it out with the agency complaining to my employer that I wasn't doing anything, despite the fact I had literal boxes full of printouts and every surface in my cubicle covered, including most of the floor, with stacks of spreadsheets and records trying to figure out what she'd move from what account to which accounts going through highlighters like crazy highlighting stuff once i was confident a specific line for a specific office for a specific month for a specific bill had in fact been moved out of the field office account into the main GSA account for that type of entry, all while trying to keep up on the incoming stuff.
According to HR, there was a documented history of inappropiate remarks on part of the author's manager. On the basis of available evidence, it's reasonable that those remarks are genuine, too.
By this definition, any law destroys freedom. Every nation on the planet already operates on the premise that certain personal freedoms are regulated or restricted for the sake of societal harmony and progress. The "slippery slope" arguments either ignore the fact that we already make the same compromises all the time, or assumes all such compromise is wrong, which is a viewpoint that is so unrealistic or extreme that, at best, will never ever have support from more than a sliver of the population and will never be realized.
Well, we also don't have the freedom to murder or steal (and numerous others besides, like letting our dog crap all over the street, employ child labor, even if "consensual", and so on) So there's that.
I'm pretty sure people are already living in places that are too hot for survival without technical aids. For example African deserts. In that light, I am not convinced that this article is more than fearmongering.
It's also just one of countless doomsday scenarios out there.
It's the combination of heat and humidity that's deadly. The desert is hot but dry so you can rely on evaporative cooling but if it's too wet then there is nothing you can do to cool your body.
Having experienced the few last summers at 80% humidity and 32oC+, i can say from my experience that the extreme is becoming the norm now. In fact i am enjoying it right now, and it has just rained half an hour ago!
If your choice is unemployment and not being able to afford the basic necessities, what choice do you have?
I mean, sure, you could quit and give up those those things. But then by that line of thinking, slaves could technically stop being slaves if they wanted to.
In both cases, the individuals are worse off. But I don't think that's the bar we should be shooting for.
I guess the real question is: are you okay with conditions Amazon has for it's Fulfillment center employees? Or are you just wasting people's time whining about the word "slavery?"
The choice would be looking for another job. A choice that slaves didn't have. By your definition, everybody is a slave, who is not so rich that they can afford to stop working.
As for Amazon's Fulfillment centers, I'd like to read a statement by their operators before making a judgement. I suspect it is not as easy to make unskilled workers do useful work as many people think.
It is, but we need to stop using fossil fuels in the next twenty years. Homes usually last longer than that and retrofitting heat pumps is quite expensive.
Also, there are other vast large-scale man-made ongoing changes to the world's ecosystem. E.g. the Amazon rainforest continues to be under attack. Same in other countries like Indonesia.
One US city switching away from natural gas is totally insignificant compared to all that.
If you really want to reduce climate change, figure out how to stop the big big crazy things. Banning natural gas in new construction in Berkeley is simply symbolism over substance.
> One US city switching away from natural gas is totally insignificant compared to all that.
Everything starts with one.
If it turns out that Berkeley doesn't spontaneously erupt into rioting and general disorder because gas is being phased out, well perhaps others that were considering it will see that it's not such a crazy idea.
Some more specific dangers other than "the rich will get richer" would have been useful to mention.
As with most AI scares, people forget that AIs only replace the even more faulty human brain. Bias in AI can be debugged and worked around. Bias in human brains is much harder. You get no insights into why your bank doesn't give you a credit. Is it because of your skin color? Because they didn't like your nose?
The scary scenario of an AI judging people's attitudes and ruling them criminals only because they had a bad morning: the scenario of a human mob believing somebody to be guilty is much more scary, and it happens on a regular basis.
It would of course be bad to leave the judging to an AI alone. Of course the whole justice system would still be in place. That is unrelated to AI. The surveillance camera is not calling a killer squad on an unsuspecting grumpy person on public transport. It could merely draw the attention of a human to the scene, who could then judge on needed actions.
The example of the illegal immigrants also seems weird. Isn't it a good thing to be able to expose illegal behavior? I sympathize with the plight of immigrants, but rather than tolerating illegal behavior, it seems better to improve the laws to make good, desirable behavior legal.
Do real world PoC even ever obsess over white female dolls with blue eyes? It was just a work of fiction, after all. Do white girls obsess over black dolls? We have a black doll, that my white wife grew up with. I don't think it disturbed her in any way.