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.
With color, that's simply not an option unless you go the Michael Jackson route.
(I was advised by the moderator team -- I think -- that the rest of this comment had racially inflammatory flavors. I'm not at all in agreement -- I think people are minimizing the experience of mental illness and assuming by transitivity that I minimize the black experience. But I trust in HN's crack team of moderators. There's an... inflamed, that's probably the best word, political climate in the USA right now, and while we get American news, I don't have the lived experience to know when "being right on the internet" gets folks who are living it enraged.
I want to say "either way I don't care" without sounding dismissive and arrogantly aloof. But in a calm, detached, Alan Watts kind of way, I don't. Stay cool, folks.)
What? Is that what you chalk all this up to? Black folks being "absorbed" into identity?
As a white transwoman, I experience different micro/macroagressions from black people, and they suffer indignities that I can only understand second-hand. But lemme tell you, I've seen some shit.
I personally face a lot of harrassment from the general public, on the basis of the "identity" that you accuse me of getting absorbed in. But it's not me who chooses the verbal assaults, the clearly obvious avoidance behavior, the implicit assumption that I don't know anything relevant (hiiii, math doctorate with decades of high performance computing experience, here...), et cetera. It's our society, that gets stuck on our identities. And it's not just "general public" -- it's too many coworkers; it's any time I go to a conference; it's every time I apply for a job.
Unlike a black person, I didn't grow up with this. That gave me a significant advantage early in life, but I didn't develop the emotional skill to be resilient in the face of endless bullshit from people who are absorbed with my identity. I have decades of experience of privilege, and I know exactly what I've lost there.
And you and me have something in common: I experience depression and anxiety. Did before I came out as trans, too. Social isolation due to people deliberately or unconsciously avoiding went way up -- and with it, depression. Verbal assaults and sexual harrassment in public went way up, and with it, anxiety. Combine an invisible disability with a visible minority, and it ratchets up the bullshit.
Yeah, the author of this article has financial privilege I'll never attain... but the problem isn't that he's stuck on his identity, the problem is that everybody he meets is stuck on his identity.
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.
This is a pseudonymous account, but not in a tight way; it's not hard to suss me out either from the content of my comments (how many people have worked on symplectic geometry and in business consulting in the city that I've already mentioned I live in) or following a pattern of usernames. So... I need to be wary that something that gets perceived as off flavor might follow me to real life.
It should be cool to be yourself, but very hard when stonewalled every moment due to prejudice. Some, or even most wins, need to be for others first.
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.