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> I don’t compliment coworkers cars any longer.

It's unfortunate, but for you to feel guilty and to stop this seems unreasonable. There are myriad of traps I can imagine you'd be afraid of falling into. Like, "Oh I want lunch and I fancy some fried chicken. Oh wait if I invite [black colleague] will they be offended at the suggestion to go for that food?"

Communication goes through filters, as this cheap graphic shows, and I don't think it's something you can fix on your side:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...




To clarify, I don’t feel guilty over my actions and didn’t stop complimenting out of virtue. I stopped to not cause potential harm, or even worse, to be labeled a racist and all the time they would take.

I also never suggest friend chicken for lunch. I love fried chicken. I make a pretty good friend chicken. I’m just too timid and over leveraged to risk having it perceived incorrectly.




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