FEAR OF A BROWN PLANET
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2013–2016
2:49 · 3.4M views · Nov 28, 2013
Aamer Rahman of Fear of a Brown Planet delivers a stand-up routine on so-called reverse racism, arguing about power imbalance and why criticism of a dominant group is not equivalent to racism.
Pointed to as a comedic but clear explanation of power dynamics in discussions of race and diversity in tech.
4 comments from Hacker News
There are a lot of ways to explain that power imbalances are critical context to racist statements. Yes, when black people say racist things in America, it's racist, but when white people do it, it's racism. But the very best explanation is long-form stand-up comedy. If you don't understand, you really should watch this. this video
First, I downvoted your comment for the excessive negativity/abuse in it. You could have made your point just as clear without them. Second, I'm going to take your comment to point out something I've noticed when talking about sexism/racism. I'm going to call this theory of mine "Calibration". When I hear people say stuff like "What about letting [underrepresented group] choose what they want to do with their lives?" , I've come to believe that most are not trolls and they're probably not actually actively racist[1]. It's a difference in calibration. Perhaps you believe by default these kids are at a neutral(zero) level and have the full power of choice right now. But, what I see is that society actually puts them at like a negative 5. You see these efforts as forcing them to go into tech, a +5 if you will. I see it as just bring them up to 0 from the -5 society put them at so they have the same sense of free choice you & I do. This vid I think is also based on the calibration idea when it comes to "Reverse racism" this video . Basically, it talks about the underlying assumption that the current state of things is neutral for everyone so any effort to improve standings for a group is unfair to the groups not getting help. It's like how every year on Google+, when the LifeAtGoogle account posts something like Black Appreciation day during Black history month, someone always asks "When is White appreciation day?" . Or when people talk about BlackGirlsCode.com, someone says "I bet
That people are reading this subthread and finding common cause with this right here... Do you realize how ridiculous you are? If you would like to know what racism is and why criticism of a dominant group on the basis of race isn't in, here's one take: this video But you'd have to listen to get it, and you'd definitely have to give up your bullshit self-serving circular "logic".
It is far from being a level playing field. The message varies greatly depending on the sender, receiver and context, right? I think it's quite OK to call out your fellow stereotype when they're being dicks. And while we're at it, since this thread is going down into "this is reverse racism": this video