zlacker

>>ericza+(OP)
Americans have some weird identity hangups.

I have what is now called "invisible disability". I wonder how I'd feel if my kind had some visible mark in their face. Would I feel awkward being the only QWERTY in the room? Would I feel especially succesful?

As it stands now I kind of feel the latter. It's a little secret, I have this disadvantage at the starting point of the race where the referee shoots his little gun at the sky, and yet here I am in the peloton with all the non-disadvantaged guys.

Of course, maybe if everyone knew I'd be hyper-aware of the stereotypes that will inevitably play a part in the mental models of people with the best intentions. But are wealthy Americans really going for stereotypes when they see a fellow wealthy black person?

I know that the world of "invisible disability" activism is a self-defeating whirlpool of victimization.

>>thanat+s5
I appreciate that you're sharing your own experience, but you can do that without nationalistic and racial flamebait, which your comments in this subthread unfortunately contain. I'm sure that was unintentional, but those are the things that people are going to react to, and when that happens, we won't end up anywhere interesting or good.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>>dang+qq
Hi.

I'm willing to edit my comment (or outright delete it on my own initiative). I can remove the "Americans...", but much of the rest of it is a comment on the posted link, which is very much about race.

I like the way this place is run, which is to say, I trust the guidance of the moderator team. I'm just not sure how to proceed right now. Also because there's a downthread discussion that could be left without a referent.

Please advise.

>>thanat+Qt
I think it's ok to leave it. The primary thing is to be more careful in the future. When a topic is divisive, it's important to edit out provocations, including unintentional ones, because otherwise people will react to the provocation rather than to the substantive part of the comment, and that's how we end up with flamewars instead of curious conversations. But I'm repeating myself now.

>>dang+mv
Rather than repeating yourself, I think you need to dial down your threshold for paternalistically stepping in to chide commenters for benign statements. I am American, and I took no offense to the commenter's criticism of American culture. I saw nothing nationalistic in the comment, nor was there anything that looked remotely flamebait.

Unless I missed the initial edit that was full of swastika emojis and telling people to "go back to their countries," or something, I'm pretty sure you just pushed someone who was posting in good faith off this site over nothing. While I didn't see the second or any subsequent comments, I found the initial comment worth upvoting. I'm pretty sure you also just marginalized someone in a vulnerable group (those with invisible disabilities) to which I also belong, and, to which you probably do not.

As I have stated in the past, IMO, this site was far, far better when there was little to no active moderation beyond downvoting and flagging by the community.