Bigots, mostly. And a lot of really naive people. But especially bigots.
After the 2008 election, I saw an article called something like "Racism is Dead." The author was saying that, with a black man in America's highest office, it's clear that black people are now fully equal and unimpeded in America.
So at this point I'm thinking he's just a naive, blinkered idiot. But he goes on, in a rambling and insinuative way, to basically say "Therefore, any black person who claims discrimination either has a persecution complex or is maliciously lying."
Open racism/sexism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) is very much out of fashion now, but there's still a major audience for people willing to vaguely imply (but never out-and-out say) that minorities are trying to snatch power from straight white people and need to be slapped down. It's very popular among people who want to enforce their bigotry while being too cowardly to say so outright.
The soft bigotry of "I don't see a problem from here, therefore there isn't a problem and don't you dare imply otherwise, because I don't think of myself a bigot and that's all that matters."
Bigots, mostly. And a lot of really naive people. But especially bigots.
After the 2008 election, I saw an article called something like "Racism is Dead." The author was saying that, with a black man in America's highest office, it's clear that black people are now fully equal and unimpeded in America.
So at this point I'm thinking he's just a naive, blinkered idiot. But he goes on, in a rambling and insinuative way, to basically say "Therefore, any black person who claims discrimination either has a persecution complex or is maliciously lying."
Open racism/sexism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) is very much out of fashion now, but there's still a major audience for people willing to vaguely imply (but never out-and-out say) that minorities are trying to snatch power from straight white people and need to be slapped down. It's very popular among people who want to enforce their bigotry while being too cowardly to say so outright.
Also see my response to Vertex-Four below. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13248096