Comment by kentonv
3 days ago
Are we... arguing about what happened in my head?
As the world's foremost expert about what happened in my head, do I get to, like, pick a winner here?
If so I pick tczMUFlmoNk, I think their description is accurate. (I think you might want to re-read it as it feels like you are responding to something else.)
If I don't get to pick, this is quite weird! "People on Hacker News tell me I'm wrong about my own thoughts." was not on my -- actually wait, that doesn't sound unexpected at all now that I write it out! OK, carry on.
You wrote what your thoughts were. I’m just weighing in on whether your thoughts are “racist.” To the extent you feel sensitive about the issue because someone has darker skin, where you probably wouldn’t have written that part of the post if the other guy were Polish, that’s racist. It’s racist to treat people differently based on skin color, even if you’re well intentioned about it.
You're conflating two different things:
1. The original choice: Kenton picked "Jeff Dean" because the name was more familiar/rhythmic in English. This wasn't about skin color, it was about name patterns. You're right that a Polish surname could have the same issue, and in that, you're demonstrating complete understanding of the issue at hand.
2. The reflection afterward: Recognizing that name-familiarity advantages systematically correlate with certain cultural backgrounds more than others isn't "differential treatment based on skin color", it is observing a statistical pattern in outcomes.
And here's the key point: given Kenton's explanation, they are indicating they would reflect the same way if Sanjay had been Polish with an unfamiliar surname. You're arguing with Kenton about what Kenton thinks and could think... while Kenton is right here. At some point you have to engage with what he's actually saying rather than insisting you understand his mind better than he does.
Yes, I actually do think if Sanjay Ghemawat were instead Wojciech Przemysław Kościuszko-Wiśniewski, white European but otherwise an equal engineer, and I chose to elevate Jeff Dean over him, I would later feel equally bad about it.
(Which again to be clear I'm am not riven with guilt here, I just think maybe given another chance I would have made it about both of them.)
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