> Just flinging around wild accusations of racism at Google, this company, and finally society as a whole, without giving any action items on how one would discharge the accusation of racism is just being mean, hitting people with a very big stick without giving them any chance to dodge.
It should be dealt with rationally and clinically, with the idea that everyone is probably affected by it, and probably embodies some of it. Treating racism as something wrong is like treating lust as something wrong. It makes it impossible to talk about things that would be awkward to talk about even without such strong emotional reactions attached to them. Just as lust is simply a consequence of our biology, racism is an unfortunate consequence of our psychology and our history.
We are all creatures "of our time." Our only hope of transcending that is to admit of the possibility and freely question ourselves.
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> Just flinging around wild accusations of racism at Google, this company, and finally society as a whole, without giving any action items on how one would discharge the accusation of racism is just being mean, hitting people with a very big stick without giving them any chance to dodge.
Treating racism as a akin to a charge of wrongdoing is counter-productive. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5166776
It should be dealt with rationally and clinically, with the idea that everyone is probably affected by it, and probably embodies some of it. Treating racism as something wrong is like treating lust as something wrong. It makes it impossible to talk about things that would be awkward to talk about even without such strong emotional reactions attached to them. Just as lust is simply a consequence of our biology, racism is an unfortunate consequence of our psychology and our history.
We are all creatures "of our time." Our only hope of transcending that is to admit of the possibility and freely question ourselves.