Comment by eudamoniac
2 days ago
Wow, as someone who has always heard he's a raging racist, that (with context in other comment) is just.... not super racist? It's much less bad than I expected.
I am Korean-American. If 47% of any group of people were unsure if it's "okay to be Asian" I would sure as hell avoid that group of people.
Advising members of your race to avoid contact with another race including moving to neighborhoods with a low proportion of that race is not super racist?
the context was black people hating and attacking white people so he’s like “ok then I’ll stay out of your way” and somehow that was racist, I think if you’re not aware that some culture pockets and mindsets like this do exist it might seem more racist because it would seem like he’s talking about everyone on earth just for being black but that’s clearly absurd and he was always a smart analytical guy so there’s no way that’s what he meant
The context was one poll of 130 black Americans in which 26% responded “disagree” to the question, and in response he told all white people to stay away from all black people.
[flagged]
Placing outsized emphasis on individual data points that fit your existing narrative is a type of bias.
Such as this poll that had 130 black respondents.
> It becomes racist when the motivation is a prejudice toward the race inherently.
It becomes racist when you spread negative racial stereotypes. Which the statements were doing, unless the survey number was 100% and the sample size was the population size. And neither were.
Also, important context: The statement in question is a white supremacist slogan [0][1][2], much like "White Power!". Is anyone who doesn't agree with the phrase "White Power!" a racist, too, because that must mean that they seek to deny power to white people? Does not agreeing with the slogan "White Power!" mean you will kill all white people?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
1: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/its-okay-be-white
2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2025.2...
2 replies →
This is a pretty insane attempt to rationalize an incredibly racist remark and it's not going to work the way you think it will. It's not even worthwhile to try and address your arguments.
There's a lot of context around stuff he said. It seems to me that people are very eager to tag people with labels from others. I don't get the impression that others have seen many of his YouTube videos.
It's valuable to maybe watch the episodes and make your own mind up.
It was a pro-segregation stance. Heinously racist.
To be fair (RIP my fake internet points) - we spent the better part of the last 15 years hearing about how we needed special “safe spaces” for all the minorities. So if they are asking for self-segregation what are we to conclude? The sword cuts both ways…
There's a place for oppressed groups to get together to discuss things, but for the most part, various forms of segregation, even when well intended, are a very bad idea. Sometimes people innovate segregation for "good" reasons. This could be regarded as a conservative turn within a minority group. Strictly following that logic leads us to the same place.
He was also a holocaust denier bro. Ponder that for a while.
That we see someone on Hacker News (of all places) repeating this smear validates Adams' repeated statements on his video podcast that he had a valid defamation claim against the hate group that pushed this smear.
The man just died and random people are repeating smear campaigns against him that are directly contrary to what his actual beliefs were.
This is horrible and pretty fucked up.