[DoreenMichele]

Once you get behind the eight ball for some reason, it can be impossible to get out. I don't know how to get out from behind the eight ball in my own life and I think I'm well educated, talented, virtuous and blah blah blah. It's never enough and I'm not some kind of criminal or something.

You don't know the story. Maybe it was self defense. We don't have all the details.

It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"

[dtwest]

You completely misquoted the parent.

This man is accused of several cases of assault, he may have seriously hurt somebody and they want to take it to court. I also do not see how your US race and gender comments below are relevant to this thread about a German man.

It would be terrible to be wrongly accused of assault. But it doesn't seem like something people should just ignore and give people the benefit of the doubt on.

[techsupporter]

> It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"

Wholeheartedly agree. Humans of all stripes seem to have this need to place blame on others' failings on the person being "at fault" yet somehow their own mishaps are "bad luck." It's like the comment threads underneath lapses in security or getting phished. "Oh well, IIiiiiii wouldn't have fallen for that," until they inevitably do.

If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.

[DoreenMichele]

If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.

Oh, it gets so much worse than that. If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.

So it's more like saying "You fool! You shouldn't have done X! And, also, if you had any sense, you would have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc"

[TheAdamAndChe]

> "You fool! ...you [should] have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc

Do you actually know someone in person who has said this in response to someone else's misfortune? Or are you just using the image of some random person saying this to fuel an anti-white man sentiment?

[DoreenMichele]

What I'm saying is that in many cases, telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.

This is why we have terms like "Mansplaining" or "Whitesplaining." That doesn't mean a man or a white person simply acting like you are stupid and need it explained like you are five and then everything will work. It means that in the context of someone who is completely oblivious to the reality that when women do things exactly like men, they get different results socially and when people of color do things exactly like whites, they also get different results.

When two black men were arrested in Starbucks in Philadelphia for sitting there without ordering and asking to be let into the bathroom because they were waiting for someone they were meeting, one of the reasons it was controversial is because of the white patrons who protested it on the basis of "I've sat in here before without ordering and used the bathroom and no one ever called the cops on me."

I have zero interest in fueling anti-white man sentiment. That's absolutely not my agenda. But racism, sexism, etc are very much alive and well. Pretending they aren't is being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[TheAdamAndChe]

> telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.

Race and gender may still play a role, but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much. People have agency over their lives, and can make choices to make their situations better. The fact that someone is white or male does not negate this. I live in rural Missouri, and there are plenty of white people who make bad decisions and hurt their prospects in the process.

Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.

[moises_silva]

> but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much

I did not read that at all. This is the key message IMHO:

> If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.

More eloquently explained here: https://www.quora.com/Is-life-easier-as-a-white-person/answe...

Keyword: "easier"

No one is saying they don't have agency, but sometimes, having a headstart is all it takes for a big difference in results over the years, not to mention if that advantage doesn't go away your whole life.

Perhaps beside the point, but also some people do not believe in 'agency' or 'free will' as such, myself included. I consider myself privileged, and I'm not white.

> Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.

That we agree on.

[DoreenMichele]

I generally don't use those terms. I was just saying they exist for a reason.

I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN. My gender continues to prove to be a barrier to effective networking here and I have been here nearly eleven years and between my old account and this one I have over 50k karma, which would put me fairly high on the leader board if it were under one account.

I'm not acting like race or gender are "the determining factor," but my experiences in the last decade or so make it painfully clear that a factor like gender can be stubbornly hard to overcome, no matter how hard you try and all that.

I made it my hobby to try to get articles to the front page of HN while I was homeless. I hit the leader board about a month after I got myself back into housing without going through some program and then I changed my handle. So for various reasons when I share my thoughts and observations on things like poverty or gender issues, some folks here are interested.

[techsupporter]

Truer words never written. It’s amazing to me how many ways we can dress up “oh, you’re poor? Well, uh, have you tried...not...being poor?”

[DoreenMichele]

"Why, no. That hadn't occurred to me! But if you will give me some money, I will be happy to test drive it and see how I like it!"

;)