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by Born_Again 1633 days ago
Hi anigbrowl, I really enjoy this community. I don't think anyone likes to read things like:

> The sad reality is you tried to

> While you're moaning about

Let's follow the guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

I spent about 15 minutes looking over that paper you linked and it looks like the researchers are discussing systemic problems and biases in the American legal system. Race is one of the variables they studied in their model. Their results show that Non-Black candidates are treated more favorably than Black candidates in the legal system. Am I understanding the part you wanted to highlight? The paper and results makes sense to me but I don't understand how that directly relates to Barrin92's original point.

I understand that someone could see Black people being discriminated against and connect that to the word "dark" being used to describe a negative trait. I get that using the same word to describe someone's race and describe something as negative can be bad. Is that what's happening here though? How do we determine which of the following examples from marriam-webster.com [0] are OK to use?

- They walked into the dark room, it was devoid of light.

- They are wearing dark clothing.

- They prefer/dislike dark rum.

- There were dark powers that lead to war.

- They have a dark view of the future.

- They had a dark period of history.

- They enjoy dark humor.

- Most of their dealings were done in the dark.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dark

1 comments

Perhaps you could address your reminder about guidelines to the person who replied to a tactful comment with 'What on earth is happening at American universities [...]'. The only original point of that comment was to generate an emotional reaction.

I replied by pointing out that said trope doesn't apply to me and citing my preference for a data driven approach, a polite rejoinder which was rudely rebuffed.

Let's follow another guideline [0]:

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

Barrin92 brought up American universities where it wasn't necessary. I get it. Let's not dismiss their comment because they brought that up. I looked past that and I am trying to keep this on topic by discussing the point they made.

Does the paper you linked say anything about using the words "light" and "dark"?

How do we determine which definitions of "dark" we should use in a professional context?

I think this topic is important to discuss and I am genuinely curious how you and others would address the points in my previous comment.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please take it up with them.