This probably won't be very popular: but isn't the notion of special treatment from YC partners on the basis of race inherently racist? I think anyone who is black or Hispanic would much rather associate with YC on the basis of their own individual merit only now everyone who has anything to do with YC will have to wonder if they are there because YC felt the need to help out the poor, underprivileged, black dude or because they actually know what they're doing.
I feel quite mixed about this. I can see that it's well-intentioned in nature but at the same time it also seem incredibly condescending. And what kind of message is this really sending: "minorities can succeed but they also need special treatment to do so?" I don't know about this ... I won't deny that in many ways these people struggle with issues that white people don't, but maybe this isn't the best way to go about levelling the playing field. After-all, I feel that black people and Hispanics are perfectly capable of making it through the front door of YC the normal way.
I'm not sure it serves HN very well to have exactly the same entirely generic debate come up every time there's a thread about anything like this.
Rehashing the same political divide over and over merely produces the identical hash over and over. That doesn't count as interesting in HN's sense—nothing predictable does. Meanwhile, interesting discussion about the specifics of the story at hand largely gets drowned out.
I'm not sure what if anything we can do about this, but it's seems lame and not in the spirit of gratifying intellectual curiosity.
Suppressing this conversation would just result in more people like the parent with well-intentioned but poorly thought-out and regressive views. Certainly, sometimes you'll get a post like Uptrenda's and it's just a concern troll fishing for a conflict, but that not need always be the case (and I suspect here it isn't, fwiw). Even then, the resulting discussion can change minds and is a positive thing - in spite of being perhaps monotonous to people who are already on board.
I think a mod kicking off a meta-topic about the quality of discussion on HN every time he sees a post that falls into one of a few buckets, lowers the signal-to-noise more than posts like Uptrenda's.
If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that it's a topic that requires more discussion. Waving it away is, then, just going to make it come up again the next time.
For what it's worth, I do agree with Uptrenda. I do also want to explicitly highlight that this certainly is racism - and that whether it is justifiable racism is a separate discussion entirely.
The front door application to YC is the same that it was before. YC is seeing that they aren't interacting with enough minority founders and are doing targeted outreach to groups so that they can speak to more of them. Adding more minority founders to the funnel, as they would if they wanted to see more hardware startups and talking to places that serve hardware startups.
I look at this dilemma and others like it [1] as friction on the boundary of micro/macro thinking. A black person can certainly make it though the front door of YC, since people who run YC aren't racist. However, black people as a group still face racism and so affirmative action and policies like that are totally justified.
Another way to look at it is that even if individual experiences are varied enough that they will drown out racial contribution when considered one at a time, racism can still hold back a group of people by 5-10% or whatever, and so that needs to be addressed.
It helps explain why a policy like this is not generally considered racist, but if YC were to single out one individual for YC on the basis of his race, it probably would be.
[1] cf "Poor people should skill up and improve themselves" as well.
If they were snubbing Whites or Asians to help underrepresented groups, then they'd be exercising an unjustifiable racism. Merely going the extra mile to help another group however is not that. YC should do it, and anyone should happily accept an advantage offered to them.
This may be controversial as well, but the black founders I know are rich Ivy leaguers (granted I only know a few). They don't need extra help. (I know there probably are other black founders who didn't grow up in privilege who do not fit into that category.) I don't personally know any hispanic founders, my anecdotally-based sense of things makes me feel like they are urgently underrepresented.
Inherently racist in the same vein as the word "tolerance". Not seeing race is the opposite of racism, not tolerance. What is there to "tolerate"? I'd much prefer YC announce their office hours as "everyone welcome including African American and Latinos" as targeted encouragement if that was indeed their intent.
It felt weird to me too. After being reminded that we are all not the same in somebody else's eyes, I looked down at my arm and thought to myself: "When are my Open Office Hours?"
I personally find this type of stuff uncomfortable since we are all just people in my book. Gender and race don't mean anything beyond where you might be from or what parts you're born with. This is until programs like this come out and remind us all how good intentions point out differences that none of us can do anything about. It almost comes off sounding like somebody is trying to "fix" skin color based on a weird notion that hue handicaps the brain.
I admit that I yearn for the days when we can all finally be treated equally in a colorblind and gender neutral society. For me, special treatment or lowering/hiring bars based on born attributes is an anti-pattern to achieving true equality. It simply divides us all up more.
Maybe I just wish this read: "YC Open Office Hours for Founders"
I feel quite mixed about this. I can see that it's well-intentioned in nature but at the same time it also seem incredibly condescending. And what kind of message is this really sending: "minorities can succeed but they also need special treatment to do so?" I don't know about this ... I won't deny that in many ways these people struggle with issues that white people don't, but maybe this isn't the best way to go about levelling the playing field. After-all, I feel that black people and Hispanics are perfectly capable of making it through the front door of YC the normal way.
I wonder if this is really necessary?