HN Explorer

Ask HN: A VC was racist. I called him out and he blocked me. Is this OK?

12 points by OthmanA ↗ HN
I wonder if this will ever end. I enjoy following Andrew Wilkinson (of MetaLab) on Twitter, and I admire his work and tech advice. The incident happened after he insulted Saudis, specifically calling us people cutters, after a tweet from Trump. I sent him a private DM, respectfully telling him that these hateful statements are not fair at all. He deleted the tweet, and simply blocked me. This incident is bothering me since that day. Is he supposed to insult people, and we should just let him be?

5 comments

[ 1.2 ms ] story [ 25.1 ms ] thread
uberman
Is "cutters" a terror reference, an oil reference, a crime and punishment reference, something else? I have never heard this term used as a slight before and there is nothing in google or twitter that currently provides context.
AnimalMuppet
You may have a parsing issue. I don't think it was "calling (us people) (cutters)". Instead, I think it parses as "calling (us) (people cutters)". I presume it refers to the murder (and cutting into pieces) of a journalist inside a Saudi embassy, presumably with very high level approval from the Saudi government.
AnimalMuppet
I think it's a bit unfair to blame a people for every sin of their government, especially when the government is not a democracy.

To me, it seems that there are people that you know are racist, but that's a smaller and smaller fraction of people as time goes on. When someone adds themselves to the list, then you can be disappointed, sure, especially if they were someone you respected. But you should then go on to deal with people who are not on the list.

And as for "just let him be"... you exposed him on HN, which might matter rather a lot to a VC.

[dead] sacks2k
It was a bad comment. Ignore them and move on. I'm not sure why someone that makes a bad comment on Twitter deserves eternal punishment.
stretchyIdiot
It’s his Twitter. He can say whatever he wants to on Twitter. Now, that you’ve called him out on here you should be careful he doesn’t ruin your life.