Comment by triceratops
16 hours ago
I didn't flag your reply https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50198992 and I thought you made some good points.
> I have these arguments with people I love who are right in spirit and still dig in the moment the word “racism” lands, because to them it names a thing they’re sure they aren’t
Like I said, it's because of how emotionally charged the word is. People think if they label unfairly discriminatory or prejudiced behavior as something other than racism, it's somehow not as bad as racist behavior.
They are wrong.
I spent some time crafting that response. Unfortunate for me. Thank you for the follow up, I do agree with this.
Forgot one more thing.
> Everyone in this sub-thread could easily agree it was out of line (and no one directly says otherwise).
I don't think everyone agreed it was out of line. There were only 2 comments calling zoobab's original comment racism. One of them spawned this thread about which words to use, rather than agreement with the condemnation.
The other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50196949 that called it racist still looks gray and downvoted to me.
That's why I fight about stuff like this. It's all too easy to brush it under the "not racism, totally cool" carpet otherwise.