[personjerry]

From the FAQ:

>I AM A STRAIGHT WHITE MAN AND I FEEL EXCLUDED BY THIS. CAN YOU MAKE YOUR SITE A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT ME, ME, ME?

> I'm sorry that your feelings are hurt. I have listened to your feedback and, in response, am currently working on rentamajority.com. Stay tuned. In the meantime, thank you for your interest in maintaining the status quo. I mean, 'equality', it's overrated, right?

This part seems uncool to me. It's posturing straight white men as very self-absorbed, and precluding any concerns or opinions they might have about this, dismissing them merely for being a straight white man. Which seems quite hypocritical, right?

[Mz]

My read on it is that is it anticipating this kind of response or reaction in advance and telling you up front "Yeah, no." It is actually pretty common for white men to come in and derail conversations in a really terrible way and make it all about their feelings. (Not all white men do this, but it is a thing and it causes a lot of problems in internet discussions.)

Though I think the way women and POC typically respond is part of the problem. They often fully cooperate with the derail by all piling on to reply to him rather than sending the message that "the entire world does not revolve around you" by refusing to let the entire discussion revolve around that one guy.

[livingparadox]

I disagree. Its referring to a very specific kind of white man who tends to flock to these things like moths to a flame and very much does try to reframe things to make white men look like the real victims.

I say this as a white man who calls out racism regardless of whether its directed at minorities or the cis white man.

[rharris]

I think I understand where you're coming from: feels a bit ironic that a site devoted to equality is marginalizing a group of people.

At the same time, I think you've hit on the crux of the point the site is making. You might find it interesting to explore the idea at one level deeper.

I don't know if you identify as a straight, white male, but if you do, you can see how frustrating it feels to be categorized in this way.

Now imagine the majority of panel discussions you attend, board members you see, politicians, etc. all in minor ways, perpetuate that same level of marginalization.

A panelist always seems to be making jokes about how brogrammers are unconsciously racist, the boards of companies are all wearing Muslim garb (with a token white guy thrown in every once in a while), and the number of "people in power" who are supposed to represent you never seem to have the same skin color you do.

If we (I'm a straight, white male) are able to tap into the frustrating that FAQ generates in us, it may help us understand the perspectives of others better; which I personally believe, is the key to doing something about it.

Trying to pretend we're all equal hasn't worked, because we're not all equal - the ecosystems we live in are never a level playing field. Trying to pretend they are exacerbates the problem.

If instead we try to empathize, and understand the experiences of others though, maybe we can be open to making the changes in ourselves necessary to making the playing field a bit more level.

Which is why I appreciate your comment - it represents your true perspective, which makes intuitive sense. I think if you're willing to take the author's argument the next logical step, you might find her/his perspective some makes sense as well.

[vacri]

You're totally misrepresenting the point of that item. It's referring to the knee-jerk yellers. We have them here on HN as well. Look at any article regarding women's experiences, for example, and you'll find a few comments trying to shift the topic to how hard men have it.

I'm a straight, white man and the FAQ item makes total sense to me. I don't do that, but enough of my 'brothers in arms' do. It's derailing and annoying.