> Everybody needs to stop with this "white-male" nonsense, which is inherently racist. There is much cultural diversity among what is considered "white" and that is painfully obvious. The "black" American guy and "white" American gal might have more in common with each other than the "white" Italian working in the cubicle next door. This also applies to the vast spectrum of "Asians" whose cultures differ significantly.
Talking about white people or even generalizing about white people is not racist. There is no institutional and systemic power backing discrimination against white people based on their skin color. On the basis of being white, you do not suffer increased chances of incarceration, lack of access to education, worse job opportunities, and so on.
White identity is not the same as Asian identity and the issues facing Asian people do relate to racism. It is a false equivalence to compare whiteness to being Asian.
> Completely unnecessary and I think it would be healthier if people stop this self persecution. (Using the same logic, maybe I can say this with authority because I am an indigenous Australian =D)
There is nothing wrong with a little self awareness of being a member of the dominant social group in tech.
I was just adding a point that is left out of these discussions more often than not. The point is that "white" people aren't unified because of their skin pigment. Europe is a major example and of course the never ending protestant and catholic wars around the globe.
> Talking about white people or even generalizing about white people is not racist. There is no institutional and systemic power backing discrimination against white people based on their skin color.
Unfortunately generalizing about white people is racist. And saying that it isn't, is a "systemic power backing discrimination" based on their skin color.
> On the basis of being white, you do not suffer increased chances of incarceration, lack of access to education, worse job opportunities, and so on.
This supports my original post, I think we should move away from skin pigment based judgements. Also I don't have any references at hand but I recall these statistics being heavily influenced by your socio-economic status. You could replace "white" with "middle to upper class".
> White identity is not the same as Asian identity and the issues facing Asian people do relate to racism. It is a false equivalence to compare whiteness to being Asian
I'm not sure what you meant by this point. But what I meant is that Italian's, Greek's, Irish, American' and Australian's don't fit neatly under the "white" banner and nor do Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian's and Korean's fit neatly under the "asian" banner.
> There is nothing wrong with a little self awareness of being a member of the dominant social group in tech.
"white" is not the master social group of tech nor do people walk around consciously identifying with the "white" group. The Tabs vs Spaces debate does not give a shit if your black or white, extend this to TDD debates, functional vs OOP etc.
I want to start by prefacing I'm from the US, so my knowledge is mostly based what racism is like in the US.
> I was just adding a point that is left out of these discussions more often than not. The point is that "white" people aren't unified because of their skin pigment. Europe is a major example and of course the never ending protestant and catholic wars around the globe.
The point here isn't that there are different kinds of people who are white, but rather there is a continuum of treatment, both from individuals and institutions, that white people share. In the US it doesn't matter if I'm from one part of the country or another, having white skin still benefits me in all the ways it would anywhere else. This esp. applies to institutional and systemic things: rates of incarceration, job opportunity, access to education, rates of poverty, etc. are all correlated in my favor. Not only that, but compared to other groups of people I am far less likely to be affected directly by violence based on skin color.
> Unfortunately generalizing about white people is racist. And saying that it isn't, is a "systemic power backing discrimination" based on their skin color.
You'll have to explain a little more, why would a single person's opinion create systemic and institutional difficulties for white people when they currently don't experience that?
Generalizing is not necessarily racist. There is a difference between stereotypes and something like talking about shared experience as a member of a group.
> This supports my original post, I think we should move away from skin pigment based judgements.
People of different races have problems that affect them uniquely compared to races, to not talk about that is to ignore the effect of existing racism on those people. That is not a judgement, that is fact. We have evidence, first hand and statistical, that shows this is true and we should not discard that.
> Also I don't have any references at hand but I recall these statistics being heavily influenced by your socio-economic status. You could replace "white" with "middle to upper class".
Race and socio-economic status are heavily correlated and racism and class are indeed related. However, racism confers benefits and damage that goes beyond class boundaries. Being of a high class may not, for example, protect you from racism at the hands of the police. Being of a low class, for example, doesn't mean you still don't have some kind of privilege or benefit. Moreover, there are many cases in which being white and low class still confers benefits over being not white.
> But what I meant is that Italian's, Greek's, Irish, American' and Australian's don't fit neatly under the "white" banner and nor do Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian's and Korean's fit neatly under the "asian" banner.
Obviously each of these cultures and ethnicities are different. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't shared experiences for both white and asian people and racism plays into that: white people experience less discrimination than asian people as a whole, regardless of ethnicity within those categories. Indeed, for asian people ethnicity erasure and representation is a big deal as their ethnicity is often erased via stereotyping.
> "white" is not the master social group of tech nor do people walk around consciously identifying with the "white" group.
White people are absolutely the dominant race in tech in the US today. Also, people do both consciously and subconsciously identify with and look for white culture signifier in others. Indeed, one of the biggest deals about interviews and hiring in tech today in the US is about culture fit being used as an excuse to look for traits that are most commonly associated with white middle class men. Model View Culture had a whole issue related to mythology in US tech that I highly recommend for more about this. [1]
It's extremely sad that this very well reasoned response stating widely accepted theories about racism has been down-voted. Now they're not widely as in UNIVERSALLY accepted, but the race-studies community at the very least would agree with the concepts behind this post, and that at the very least merits its inclusion in the discussion.
Talking about white people or even generalizing about white people is not racist. There is no institutional and systemic power backing discrimination against white people based on their skin color. On the basis of being white, you do not suffer increased chances of incarceration, lack of access to education, worse job opportunities, and so on.
White identity is not the same as Asian identity and the issues facing Asian people do relate to racism. It is a false equivalence to compare whiteness to being Asian.
> Completely unnecessary and I think it would be healthier if people stop this self persecution. (Using the same logic, maybe I can say this with authority because I am an indigenous Australian =D)
There is nothing wrong with a little self awareness of being a member of the dominant social group in tech.