The first is a (totally legitimate) dig at DEI policies, has nothing to do with racism; the other two need to be put in context, as he was reacting to a poll according to which a sizeable proportion of black people disagreed with the statement "it's ok to be white".

Now, someone who disagrees with the statement "it's ok to belong to <ethnic group>" is usually called a racist. That's if we stick to the default meaning of words, without second and third guessing what people really mean to say when they deny it's ok to belong to an ethnic group. I think it's legitimate to be upset in this context and at the normalisation of such a thought, even to the point of reacting offensively.

He combined those who disagree with those who were unsure to get up to 47%, and then declared that that meant that Black people were a hate group.

I provided the link to the full episode for anyone who would like more context.

I'm curious how you would rate the statement: "I'm unsure it's ok to be Black".

I think the equivalent statement, as in one that is preexisting and has political connotations[1], would be "Black lives matter", for which I would not be surprised to see a decent number of "unsure" responses among white poll respondents asked to agree or disagree, especially a few years ago.

I don't think either response is great, but I don't think a single poll of 130 people is a good justification to make such statements about an entire race of people. And follow up polls conducted by others after the referenced Rasmussen poll got much more nuanced results[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white [2] https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/its-ok-to-be-wh...

"Black lives matter" is an excellent example. I think the reactionary phrase "White lives matter" might be even better, as while almost everyone would (and should) agree with it without context, in the context of people complaining about "Black lives matter", lots of people would disagree with it or be unsure about it.

I mean, I'd count myself among them. If you asked me if I agree that white lives matter, yes, of course we do. If you asked me about it in a political poll about other reactionary phrases, I might have to think long and hard about what it's really saying in that context.

> he was reacting to a poll according to which a sizeable proportion of black people disagreed with the statement "it's ok to be white".

The context of that poll was an alt-right uplifting of the phrase "it's OK to be white", as though they were being oppressed and were finally removing the yoke of hatred they'd endured. A similar poll might ask about the phrases "not all men" or "me too". In isolation, who could possibly have a problem with either of those?, but these things aren't taken in isolation.

I'd be curious about a followup question like "is it acceptable for someone to be white", which is asking the exact same question, on the surface, but in context is asking something completely different.

For it to be a legitimate dig at DEI, there would need to be some evidence of significant black advancement in corporate world for reasons unrelated to their qualifications. Have there been any?

Why just in the corporate world? Is Kamala Harris not an example? Or do we think being an unimpressive DA in San Francisco who dropped out before Iowa, merited the vice presidency AND the presidential nomination that she also got handed to her?

Having had any political experience is more merit for the position than the current president had in 2016.

What are your minimum acceptable qualifications for the presidency, and why?

Winning a primary would be nice.

Absolutely. I consider that to be primarily Biden's fault for not announcing in advance that he would not seek a second term. After that point, I think each decision made was the best that could be done at the time to minimize the damage.

There have absolutely been cases of VPs becoming President without ever winning their own primary though, and I doubt most would describe those cases as DEI despite demographics often playing a large part in VP picks.

You're right that Biden screwed the party.

Though Harris was an unserious VP pick in the first place (2020). Given that Biden was 183 years old at the time, he should have picked a VP that Americans or at least Democratic voters had demonstrated at least moderate acceptance as a President in the primary, instead of picking essentially the least popular Democrat in the race (just to pander? Why else?). I guess the DEI dogma told him that it's better to have a Black woman on the ticket even if she was the worst choice by any measure: ability to get votes, relatability, or political experience. The funniest part is that Harris was most unpopular in the primary with the 'wokest' Democratic voters -- they hated her for being a decent D.A. and charging criminals with crimes, even ones who were 'disadvantaged minorities.' DEI forced her selection anyway because she checked two identity boxes.

the CATO Institute, of all orgs, did a good piece on this

https://www.cato.org/commentary/dilbert-cartoonist-scott-ada...

> It’s worth noting that Adams, once a moderate libertarian/ Republican but more recently a purveyor of far-right paranoia, has long reveled in provocative statements (for instance, that a Joe Biden victory in the 2020 election would lead to Republicans being hunted down). In this case, he was responding to a Rasmussen poll asking whether people agreed with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.” Among Black respondents, 26% said they disagreed either strongly or somewhat, while 21% weren’t sure. From this, Adams deduced that nearly half of all Black Americans don’t think it’s okay to be white and presumably hate white people.

> In fact, in addition to doubts about Rasmussen’s sampling methods, the question itself is misleading. “It’s okay to be white” is a slogan long used as a seemingly innocuous “code” by white supremacists and popularized by internet trolls a few years ago. Most likely, many Black people in the survey had some vague knowledge of this background or realized they were being asked a trick question of sorts. More than one in four white respondents (27%) also declined to endorse the statement.

> Adams could have acknowledged his error. Instead, he dug in his heels, improbably claimed that he was using “hyperbole” to illustrate that it’s wrong to generalize about people by race, and seemed to take pride in his “cancellation” (which he can afford financially). He has also found a troubling number of more or less mainstream conservative defenders, including Twitter owner Elon Musk and highly popular commentator Ben Shapiro. On Twitter, Shapiro acknowledged that Adams’ rant was racist — only to add that “if you substituted the word ‘white’ for ‘black’ ” in it, you would get “a top editorial post at the New York Times.”

To call the whole "it's ok to be white" thing "code" is a reach. The whole point of it was to call out the hypocrisy and, potentially, racism of anyone who was offended by such a benign statement. That's not code, and it was extremely obvious at the time the intent.

It started as a trolling campaign in 2017 from 4chan's /pol/. It spread outside of 4chan mostly due to David Duke and The Daily Stormer. It might have some history even longer than that because in 2001 it was used as a title track by a white power music group called Aggressive Force and was also found in 2005 fliers by United Klans of America

Wow, as someone who has always heard he's a raging racist, that (with context in other comment) is just.... not super racist? It's much less bad than I expected.

I am Korean-American. If 47% of any group of people were unsure if it's "okay to be Asian" I would sure as hell avoid that group of people.

Advising members of your race to avoid contact with another race including moving to neighborhoods with a low proportion of that race is not super racist?

the context was black people hating and attacking white people so he’s like “ok then I’ll stay out of your way” and somehow that was racist, I think if you’re not aware that some culture pockets and mindsets like this do exist it might seem more racist because it would seem like he’s talking about everyone on earth just for being black but that’s clearly absurd and he was always a smart analytical guy so there’s no way that’s what he meant

The context was one poll of 130 black Americans in which 26% responded “disagree” to the question, and in response he told all white people to stay away from all black people.

There's a lot of context around stuff he said. It seems to me that people are very eager to tag people with labels from others. I don't get the impression that others have seen many of his YouTube videos.

It's valuable to maybe watch the episodes and make your own mind up.

It was a pro-segregation stance. Heinously racist.

To be fair (RIP my fake internet points) - we spent the better part of the last 15 years hearing about how we needed special “safe spaces” for all the minorities. So if they are asking for self-segregation what are we to conclude? The sword cuts both ways…

There's a place for oppressed groups to get together to discuss things, but for the most part, various forms of segregation, even when well intended, are a very bad idea. Sometimes people innovate segregation for "good" reasons. This could be regarded as a conservative turn within a minority group. Strictly following that logic leads us to the same place.

He was also a holocaust denier bro. Ponder that for a while.

That we see someone on Hacker News (of all places) repeating this smear validates Adams' repeated statements on his video podcast that he had a valid defamation claim against the hate group that pushed this smear.

The man just died and random people are repeating smear campaigns against him that are directly contrary to what his actual beliefs were.

This is horrible and pretty fucked up.