I got a ton of appreciation for posting an archive link for the article about teen Luddites the other day. Any idea whether HN has a policy about this sort of thing?
While I am normally sympathetic with sticking it to the man[0], in this case I find myself leaning to the (re-)taggers. If these scofflaws wish to civilly disobey, they would do better to remove[1] their plates entirely.
Reading the article, this seems to mostly be a safety issue. One of the guys got punched by an angry car driver and then police couldn't do anything due to the missing license plate.
Similarly, one missing/obscured plates become common enough, it gets easy for criminals to use that as a cover for a getaway car.
Car rentals seem like the obvious place to do this. Blame it on the rent-a-car company or the previous driver, while avoiding both the toll and the egregious rent-a-car company admin fee.
Given that this is illegal and police cars come with ANPR shouldn't it be fairly easy to just drive around fining people? Probably pays for itself if it really is that common.
I think they don't because right now people would really throw a fit if thousands of people started getting tickets for expired tags on top of already bad relations with the police. Better to save the ALPRs for heftier crimes than expired tags and bad paper plates.
Consider that underpaid BIPOC and undocumented immigrants are less likely to be able to own a car and are thus, as pedestrians, more at risk of injury from reckless drivers. Also consider that a $200 fine, while still unfortunate, is a hell of a lot easier to recover from than being hit by 2 tons of SUV at high speed.
It isn't problematic, only a tiny percentage of people will take issue with it. I think POC is just more common and good enough for informal discussion on the internet.
It absolutely is problematic. It’s a term adopted primarily by white people to articulate a racial hierarchy that places certain groups as “first among equals.” Most people won’t take issue with it only because they don’t know what it is. (My entire family is “BIPOC” and I don’t think any of them are familiar with the term.)
“People of color” is only modestly better. It’s also a new term adopted primarily by white people. It lumps together groups that have little in common except from the perspective of white people. Virtually no minorities outside of white-dominated spaces (universities, etc.) identify as “people of color.”
> “People of color” is only modestly better. It’s also a new term adopted primarily by white people.
The History section of the Wikipedia link above seems to disagree. It sounds like "people of color" was heavily promoted and endorsed by black groups during and after the civil rights movement.
Most non-whites in the US today are not black and have no connection to the black civil rights movement. Applying black civil rights terminology to all non-whites is definitely a white people thing. I suspect my experience with the term “person of color” is typical: the first time that label was used on me was by the overwhelmingly white administration at Northwestern University. I had never encountered the term before.
It's mostly only the most progressive white people I've met that have all this "trouble" with descriptions like POC. Same people who like to push LatinX
French, PoC was originally a French term long ago, and was popularized again by MLK under a different context.
But beyond the history, which is interesting dont get me wrong, this is a moving goalpost. Once BIPOC becomes unacceptable, soon will its successor. All that matters is intent, I do not think _anyone_ here had the intent of disparaging any particular race, and to prejudicially think someone is using it that way counterproductive and regressive.
“BIPOC” labels people based on a hierarchy of perceived victimization by white people—with two specific groups given prominence as especially victimized. That’s a fucked way to come up with a label for people.
“BIPOC” people overwhelmingly don’t define their identity in terms of victimization by whites and don’t identify by that label. They identify instead with labels that reflect shared cultural, religious, national, or linguistic ties.
I think you are confusing the purpose and context of BIPOC. BIPOC is a broad and useful term used to discuss social topics that effect that group of people, that is also why it is an acronym, it's a broad classifier. I don't think anyone would ever identify as such directly.
For example, if we sat down and discussed my race, and you summarized it as just "Asian" that would be dismissive, there is much more detail to my identity. But using "Asian" to discuss issues regarding the larger
demographic, like health matters and employment is probably prefectly fine, and more efficient that listing each ethicity individualy. Doing so would be ineffective and exhausting.
If you really believe using general terms such as BIPOC is inappropriate, then stop using "whites" in your language. Who are these whites? Sweedes? British? Germans?...
> BIPOC is a broad and useful term used to discuss social topics that effect that group of people
It’s broad, but not useful. “BIPOC” encompasses everyone who isn’t white. Non-whites as a group don’t have much in common. For example, when it comes to “health” or “employment.” Asians live longer than whites and have better health outcomes in many respects. Asians are wealthier and poor Asians have far more income mobility than poor whites. Asians are half as likely to be shot by police and a third as likely to be incarcerated as whites. So when people talk about “BIPOC” with respect to economic inequality or criminal justice reform, it just doesn’t make sense as applied to Asians. Even with respect to Hispanics—they live longer than whites, and have equal income mobility and incarceration rates as whites. In terms of economics and health, Hispanics have much more in common with poor white immigrants (Italians, Irish) than other other “POC.”
I get the strong sense that “BIPOC” doesn’t arise out of a practical need for a label to discuss issues common to all non-whites, but instead the political desire to draw Hispanics and Asians into civil rights issues that uniquely effect black and indigenous people. That approach is not only insensitive to the actual interests of Hispanics and Asians, but contrary to those interests because, in reality, Hispanics and Asians have much more in common economically, etc., with other groups of immigrant origin (Italians, Irish, etc.) than they do with other “people of color.”
In 20 years some of us are going to be telling stories like this at the dinner table as our grandkids are turning pale and absolutely mortified that grandpa just referred to another human being as “a BIPOC”.
34 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 71.5 ms ] thread[0] cf https://www.tandfonline.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/t...
[1] instead of folding, spindling, or mutilating?
Similarly, one missing/obscured plates become common enough, it gets easy for criminals to use that as a cover for a getaway car.
Vigilante broken-windows policing cannot be the answer to lawless behavior.
“People of color” is only modestly better. It’s also a new term adopted primarily by white people. It lumps together groups that have little in common except from the perspective of white people. Virtually no minorities outside of white-dominated spaces (universities, etc.) identify as “people of color.”
The History section of the Wikipedia link above seems to disagree. It sounds like "people of color" was heavily promoted and endorsed by black groups during and after the civil rights movement.
But beyond the history, which is interesting dont get me wrong, this is a moving goalpost. Once BIPOC becomes unacceptable, soon will its successor. All that matters is intent, I do not think _anyone_ here had the intent of disparaging any particular race, and to prejudicially think someone is using it that way counterproductive and regressive.
This isn't your form to rule.
“BIPOC” people overwhelmingly don’t define their identity in terms of victimization by whites and don’t identify by that label. They identify instead with labels that reflect shared cultural, religious, national, or linguistic ties.
For example, if we sat down and discussed my race, and you summarized it as just "Asian" that would be dismissive, there is much more detail to my identity. But using "Asian" to discuss issues regarding the larger demographic, like health matters and employment is probably prefectly fine, and more efficient that listing each ethicity individualy. Doing so would be ineffective and exhausting.
If you really believe using general terms such as BIPOC is inappropriate, then stop using "whites" in your language. Who are these whites? Sweedes? British? Germans?...
It’s broad, but not useful. “BIPOC” encompasses everyone who isn’t white. Non-whites as a group don’t have much in common. For example, when it comes to “health” or “employment.” Asians live longer than whites and have better health outcomes in many respects. Asians are wealthier and poor Asians have far more income mobility than poor whites. Asians are half as likely to be shot by police and a third as likely to be incarcerated as whites. So when people talk about “BIPOC” with respect to economic inequality or criminal justice reform, it just doesn’t make sense as applied to Asians. Even with respect to Hispanics—they live longer than whites, and have equal income mobility and incarceration rates as whites. In terms of economics and health, Hispanics have much more in common with poor white immigrants (Italians, Irish) than other other “POC.”
I get the strong sense that “BIPOC” doesn’t arise out of a practical need for a label to discuss issues common to all non-whites, but instead the political desire to draw Hispanics and Asians into civil rights issues that uniquely effect black and indigenous people. That approach is not only insensitive to the actual interests of Hispanics and Asians, but contrary to those interests because, in reality, Hispanics and Asians have much more in common economically, etc., with other groups of immigrant origin (Italians, Irish, etc.) than they do with other “people of color.”
Just listen to yourself for a second, and imagine having to hear that horseshit all day.