Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Does everything have to be racist nowadays?

I'm an "old white guy". I wasn't offended.



That's great, I'm happy for you. However, implying that people of the same race look alike as to be indistinguishable from one another is offensive to a lot of people.


A lot of old white men do look alike. It's not racist, it's an observation.


I suggest @jlgaddis's responses highlight an important distinction between "offensive" (the word used by @sjtgraham) and "racist". While it is always a good rule of thumb to seek not to offend, often we might waive that to aid humour or to bring out a point. In this case I suspect the OP (OC?) was trying to mock (in turn to highlight the uniformity of the Apple leadership team), by clever reversal, the common occurrence of some white people's inability to differentiate between people of other colours (I am brown, my sons at school are frequently referred to by names of other Indian kids, some who have graduated and left the school 3-4 years ago; that's hardly racist, or even offensive, especially in comparison to the lack of women and minority in positions of leadership and power).




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: