[rayiner]

What you said was “in retrospect this feels a little racist.”

Obviously what’s in your head specifically is idiosyncratic to you. But the feeling you’re having certainly happens more generally, and is based on general social understandings. That’s what I’m commenting on.

If I say, “this feels a little rude,” isn’t it fair for people to chime in as to whether it’s actually rude by reference to general social standards?

[kentonv]

If I said I'd done something rude and people then argued with as much fervor about whether I'd actually been rude as they are arguing here, I would actually find it pretty weird.

[quadrifoliate]

I feel like most of us understand roughly what 'kentonv means. He unconsciously put Sanjay in an out-group and feels bad about it. I for one comment Kenton for owning up to it. It's a hard thing to do.

For what it's worth, I personally regard Sanjay in just as much awe as Jeff and understand that the meme is just an Internet meme and nothing more.

[kentonv]

That's the ironic thing too... honestly, while I couldn't say that one or the other is a better engineer... I would say I personally identified more with Sanjay's approach and style.

[rayiner]

> I feel like most of us understand roughly what 'kentonv means. He unconsciously put Sanjay in an out-group and feels bad about it.

But do you feel bad about it because he's brown and you wouldn't think twice about it if he were white? Frankly, the heightened sensitivity feels worse to me than actual racism.

[scott_w]

> Yes, I actually do think if Sanjay Ghemawat were instead Wojciech Przemysław Kościuszko-Wiśniewski, white European but otherwise an equal engineer, and I chose to elevate Jeff Dean over him, I would later feel equally bad about it.

You need to take a breath, read what people write, and stop trying to win the argument.

[ignoramous]

> stop trying to win the argument

Mr Rayiner is a lawyer by profession ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340543