I'll happily call this out as obvious concern trolling. While you are technically correct (as most concern trolling is designed to be), it's obvious to any reasonable person that referring to an "island of cannibals" to an English-speaking primarily Western audience will call up a specific cultural trope that involves people of color. And now I've spent my order of magnitude more effort pointing out your bullshit than you spent creating it, so I suppose the joke's on me.
Since you just made an accusation of casual racism, by your own reasoning, you must be casually racist.
> although it hinges on the assumption that HackerNews is mainly of interest to Westerners who are primarily English-speakers.
This is almost definitely true. I would bet money that the majority of HN readers speak English as a first language. Not all, of course, but greater than 50%.
Paul's meaning was to say "a completely alien group of people" and made the assumption that nobody reading his blog was a cannibal. If he had said "Sam would even impress a group of people of color", that might be racist. Certainly equating cannibals with people of color is racist.
The racism at play is not found in Paul's original phrase, but rather is latent in the listener's mind. Don't blame the messenger.
Of course it may be that, today, 51% of this site's readers are white native English speakers. Do you believe we should therefore interpret every statement according to how it's likely to be understood by this particular group? Remember these posts will be archived for posterity.
To fight racism is to promote racism. To ignore racism is to destroy racism.
As for your subtle quote-fudging: a "casual assertion of racism" isn't an "accusation of casual racism", so I don't think I can address that assertion.
Yes, Pitcairn and Roanoke come immediately to mind. Notice also that Paul writes "an island full of cannibals", not "an island of cannibals", so you may want to avoid making subtle and potentially misleading distortions to the original text.
Edit: When you say "island of cannibals" it implies an indigenous, or at least long-established, population, but "island full of cannibals" could easily mean a group of recent settlers who shipwrecked or marooned and then turned to cannibalism, as was likely the case in Pitcairn and Roanoke.
Not to mention - do you really think cannibalism was historically unknown on white European islands like the one on which Paul currently resides?
You are the one distorting the meaning. The joke clearly implies an existing culture of cannibals, a society entirely hostile and dangerous to outsiders and yet somehow brought to heel by Sam's super amazing charisma or work ethic or whatever else is the criteria by which cannibals choose their leaders. If a shipwreck situation were intended he would have stated it that way.
> an existing culture of cannibals, a society entirely hostile and dangerous to outsiders and yet somehow brought to heel by Sam's super amazing charisma or work ethic or whatever else is the criteria by which cannibals choose their leaders
All that may be true, but it took a racist to add the dimension of skin color.
You assume if they practice cannibalism, they must be "people of color"?
Edit: context: parent states that PG's use of the phrase "an island full of cannibals" is "a commonly recognized form of racism"