Not just that, GitHub's new Code of Conduct is pretty sketchy (e.g. racism is against the CoC but "reverse" racism isn't). The exact quote is:

"We will not act on complaints regarding ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’" which is stupid and not really a thing. It's not reverse racism, its just racism.

Also, GitHub has been removing other projects, like some Gamergate ones (like this markdown only repo: http://imgur.com/a/CMRVq). Regardless of your opinion on Gamergate, the repos weren't violating the ToS and shouldn't have been removed.

Phrases like "there's no such thing as reverse racism" seem inherently ambiguous and prone to causing argument, mainly because two very opposed sides can both say the same statement:

- "There's no such thing as reverse racism (because any kind of discrimination based on race is racism and we shouldn't be diminishing some kinds of discrimination)"

- "There's no such thing as reverse racism (because it's impossible to be racist against people who are in the Oppressive Group category)"

It's a namespace collision that can inadvertently give "support to the other side."

Though, it's the same thing with words like "racist." There's a generally universal desire in our society to not want to be "racist" in the sense of "common-usage-racism," discriminating against others based on group identities. Thrown into this mix is a new "academic-racism" definition of "racist," which requires "privilege+power" and demotes anything that doesn't fit into mere "discrimination" (which apparently isn't a bad thing anymore by itself?).

The reason why this new concept (which, let's be honest, is different than the common-usage meaning of racism) has the same name is because there is an ideological/political strength in namespace collisions or identifier overloading. By using the same taboo word for two different concepts, the new meaning can insert itself as the dominant meaning.

This is a little off-topic, but discrimination has never been a bad thing by itself. Discrimination means using judgment to differentiate two things or people. There are many ways in which we can discriminate that are useful and entirely valid (e.g. "this guy has a long history of scamming people and no sign he's really changed, so I'm not going to invest my money with him").

> Thrown into this mix is a new "academic-racism" definition of "racist," which requires "privilege+power" and demotes anything that doesn't fit into mere "discrimination"

Is this "academic-racism" an American thing or is it universally accepted in academia?

Seems clear to me. "Reverse racism" isn't a thing. It's simply racism to view a person as inferior or superior based on their race. Reverse racism would be, I guess, saying your own race is inferior?

Except "Reverse Racism" has a specific meaning, which is racism against a majority group (e.g. white people). There are people who believe that you can't be racist against a majority group, that it's called "reverse racism", and isn't a legitimate issue.

Racism is racism, whether the group being stereotyped is a minority or a majority. It minimizes the detrimental effect of a racist behavior to say it's "reverse racism". It's euphemistic language that serves no purpose in its colloquial usage other than for a member of a majority group to claim victimization, usually when they themselves have exhibited a prejudice against the "reverse racist".

EDIT: to be clear, people who believe that reverse racism isn't a thing are semantically correct, it's just racism. And whether it's against a minority or majority group - terms which, themselves, are prime to define a disparity between two groups - it's unjustifiable.

What you just described is still called racism, no need to prepend the word 'reverse'. But, I doubt many people are going to take fears/claims of discrimination against white people in western countries seriously, because it's either a cover for actual racism or paranoia.

Presumably, since up further in the CoC you're expected to be welcoming to people of all races/sexes, you can't treat white people like crap. This technically wouldn't be "reverse racism", but should still be prohibited. I have very low expectation that this framing would be recognized though, based on how these things have played out before.

It is also not clear to me if the CoC applies to behavior outside the community, or re. nonmembers.

There's no such thing as a majority group. "Minority group" is a sociological term, not a mathematical one.

"You cannot do / say X because you're skin color / gender / sexual orientation Y" is racism / sexism, end of. "Affirmative Action" (which is doublespeak for "we prefer minorities") is racist/sexist too (and often referred to as being reverse racism).

If it's "not a thing", why do they need to list it? Wouldn't their existing prohibition of racism be sufficient?

Reverse racism is used (in my experience) to define racist behaviors taken as a response to "original" racism. Examples include quota systems at universities, or otherwise discriminating against whites/majorities in the name of social justice.

It's racism, but with a modifier to make it clear what's being talked about. I don't know why you're trying so hard to make it "not a thing".

I would guess it means the same as positive discrimination? At least, it would make sense if they did nothing against that.

Racism according to its academic description has to be systematic. i.e. A white person can be discriminated against because they are white but because its not systematic, i.e. within our social system infectiosly, its not racism.

I think it's a good thing that safe spaces at reddit and Github are evaporating for toxic angry people forcing them into seedier, more isolated silos. Having said that GitHub has been turning into a bit of a joke with extremes from both ends of the spectrum turning GitHub into a personal soap box.

I consider GitHub to be a an employment related website and treat it as such. It's like my resume. I'm not going to write my opinions about politics and social issues across my resume so I don't comment on this stuff there or get involved in any shape or form and you shouldn't either. It's not the place.

Oddly enough the people who advocate for "safe spaces" often seem to be the "toxic angry people" themselves. That's at least what I've seen when these fallouts happen.

Indeed. Who you consider "toxic" and "angry" depends mostly on what side you take. It's best to keep all politics out of work-related places like Github. Unfortunately, their new Code of Conduct seems to encourage such stances.

So, first of all, I'm 100% against harassment and discrimination like racism/sexism.

But "safe spaces" are taking things way too far. If you have to constantly self censor yourself because the person on the other side may get upset and get you or your project banned, it hinders discussion, critique, feedback, reviews, etc.

It's not just "toxic angry people" who are being forced out. With policies like this, we see time and time again that people holding certain viewpoints or disagreeing with other people are affected too. Even if they are politely doing so.

For someone who lives outside the USA, what's the standard meaning of 'reverse racism'? I think I understand, as in: if the standard meaning of racism is a majority (Caucasian in this case) oppressing a minority (black, Mexican, asian, etc) then is reverse racism when said minority oppresses or acts against said majority?

I hope not, that seems wrong.

Prejudice (against a ethnicity, culture, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc) is wrong no matter the percentage of the majority/minority doing it involved

So, reading into this some more.

The CoC is terrible, but fortunately it only applies to the projects GitHub maintains themselves, and it's not a site-wide thing.