I know this is hacker news but I think an article/review like this is the perfect opportunity to point out the continued injustices being committed against the people native to the land that is now the USA.
After a genocide and several centuries of discrimination, the American government continues to enact and enforce policies that lead to abject poverty on native reservations[1]. The relationship between the US government and native tribes is a disgusting example of how our elected officials have leveraged their power systemically against a minority group and abuses continue to this day[2]. These aren't just people in folk lore stories, they are living tribes condemned to poverty in barren swaths of land by our government.
In Colorado there is still a monument at the capitol in Denver and a prominent mountain named after one of the men that orchestrated the Sand Creek Massacre, an undeniably disgusting and heinous moment in our history.
Maybe if folks would ignore the symbolic distractions (statues and holidays) and actually put effort into fixing IHS then things would actually get better. The statue isn't killing anyone, but poor health care is. How about put some effort into housing so large family units aren't cramped in a house when a plague hits, and maybe when picking colleges to partner with, you pick a Tribal Community College (TCU). Maybe actually report how many enrolled developers or executives work for your company instead of putting them in other. Maybe shame people with no enrollment who steal scholarships or positions that are set aside. Maybe understand that a lot of Native Americans start college late and stop holding that against them.
I would argue that symbols are important too, for purely pragmatic reasons. Memorials are one way we transmit community norms and values. So removing a shameful symbol can be part of the process of building consensus around the historical events and policies that it symbolizes. It serves as a visible focal point for issues that would otherwise be invisible to many people. But I definitely agree that in terms of making real, concrete impact in peoples lives, taking down a statue is pretty much irrelevant.
Removing the symbols before doing the real work simply removes the problem from sight and gives people a false sense of accomplishment. The statue isn't the problem, the crappy conditions that are nowhere near the statue are.
These activities visibly focus people on the wrong thing.
It serves to unite people around a clear and visceral goal. The anger that brought many of us together to remove the enslaver statues left behind networks that brought the son of sharecroppers to the senate in my state. And the networks are still around building more concrete day to day stuff -- money for families facing eviction, stripping of the budgets of some of the more egregious local police, bail bonds. You have to start somewhere. We have a long journey ahead.
Those who make change and those who make a lot of noise are both arguably necessary, usually separate groups of people. The latter unfortunately have perverse incentives, mostly gaining virtue points on social media. They get their little boost of self fulfilling ideology. Boots on the ground folks need to be celebrated and usually don’t need the virtue signaling masses - they’re stern men and women driven by righteousness.
Nope, those who make a lot of noise take up all the oxygen and brag they did something when they did nothing and often leave a worse situation since they scare off the people who could help. Changing your Twitter picture doesn't fix the problem, and awareness is only useful if followed by action.
The two groups are in much less dichotomy then you make it to be. Neither group takes away from the other and besides, people can walk and chew at the same time.
They themselves complain about each other significantly less then people who dont engage with neither of those issues (But who like to use the other group to criticize the first one without engaging with history)
In my experience, the symbol-focused people get pretty upset when people start trying to shift the conversation to understand the underlying causes of problems and questioning assumptions. Imagine walking into a funeral for someone who has died from the Therac-25 and you start talking about poor UI design, cultures where people don't stop to fix problems, and hardware interlocks. It would be pretty poor timing and people would get upset at you making excuses for incompetent doctors and greedy hospitals.
Now imagine that the entire sphere of public discourse is that funeral.
Symbol-focused people see risk assessment and systems-thinking as signs that someone is disloyal to the cause of dismantling systemic racism.
But isn't broad ignorance and complacency of the injustices committed the real issue here?
I feel GP is right to question what drives this, because the few that tangentially "take up the cause" are likely lacking a more useful outlet as well as driving further complacency.
I really dont see honest question of "what drives this" nor attempt to drive people toward the other cause. It is just disdain toward one of those groups and that is all.
Saying that there is a false dichotomy between taking down a statue and passing an appropriations bill is like saying there is a false dichotomy between commenting on hackernews and writing a pull request.
No, one does not block another...but there are only 24 hours in a day.
No, one does not block another...but there are only 24 hours in a day.
Well, the symbol folks actually do block change. As you say, there are only 24 hours in a day, but it gets worse when dealing with politicians and their schedules. If they can be seen as doing something by doing a low-cost thing, it is do and move on to the next thing. When actual action is demanded, it is a time consuming thing. Bills are hard work even with a staff.
The path to change is attention of politicians to writing bills to address the root problem. PR looks exactly like change but is much cheaper and often removes the problem from sight.
Most people on hacker news do actually both, write on hacker news when they take break and do pull requests when they work. By the exact same logic, any activity you have, you could have spend that time by advocacy for good cause. Whoever works on own side project or plays board games afternoon could have instead be activist for better healthcare and is now starwing oxygen to those causes.
Plus, quite honestly, if I would seen advocates for better healthcare or better affordable school system complaining about the other issues being distracting to them, then it would sound like a good faith argument.
But, I have seen this opportunity cost argument being done by those who oppose one advocacy and don't practically care about the other. I mean, I am not doing anything activisty/charitable either, but I am not claiming it is because another cause starwed the oxygen or what not.
"Founded in 1980 by a handful of outdoor-oriented economists in Bozeman, Montana, PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center—is a conservation and research institute dedicated to free market environmentalism."
Free market environmentalism does not describe the position of most tribes in the US and I'm fairly sure that the vast majority consider allotment one of the major injustices and not something to repeat. Many tribes have been working to repurchase land that was lost due to allotment.
You undermine your own case by calling out federal injustices, but only citing as concrete instances of discriminatory policies the presence of symbolic monuments and names.
After a genocide and several centuries of discrimination, the American government continues to enact and enforce policies that lead to abject poverty on native reservations[1]. The relationship between the US government and native tribes is a disgusting example of how our elected officials have leveraged their power systemically against a minority group and abuses continue to this day[2]. These aren't just people in folk lore stories, they are living tribes condemned to poverty in barren swaths of land by our government.
In Colorado there is still a monument at the capitol in Denver and a prominent mountain named after one of the men that orchestrated the Sand Creek Massacre, an undeniably disgusting and heinous moment in our history.
[1]https://www.indigenouspeoples-sdg.org/index.php/english/ttt/... [2]https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/9/23/20872713/native-a...