[justin66]

Wow, I'm glad you explained that. You've defended your point splendidly. Superficially, the continent that had a genocide against one of its ethnic minorities would appear to be more racist and xenophobic. But if it's complicated, well, that changes everything.

[richardjordan]

Ah yes because Hacker News is the place for a thesis on modern history.

I was being polite: let me be clearer - you are wrong and your comment shows an ignorance of the facts and I suggest you actually read up on said conflicts before spouting nonsense. Better?

[justin66]

Well, no, your comment is equally information-free as the two that proceeded it. "Things are the way I say they are because I say so" remains unpersuasive.

Look, the whole notion of assigning moral value to places based on an arbitrary measure of "racism and xenophobia" is annoying, and if you think that's what's going here maybe you're understandably annoyed. But it feels like you're not even trying to understand what we're actually talking about, and more importantly, it actually IS important that we have measures for social progress if we are to continue to improve. I hope you'd agree.

So, the thing is: it'd be interesting to know what measure you're using such that a place with "institutionalized racism and the undercurrent of subtle racism" (undeniably true! of the US or, one suspects, anywhere else!) is somehow to be regarded as more "racist and xenophobic" than a place where a genocide occurred in one nation against an ethnic minority while its neighbor nations looked on uselessly. If you regard "subtle racism," income inequality, criminal justice problems, social rudeness and so on as a greater problem than that, well... okay, say so. It's obviously ridiculous.