There was a similar small bruhaha in the Rust community severals weeks ago. They hired a community manager who has leanings (nothing wrong with that), but had made tweets like "kill all men".

Believe no actual ill will was intended, but you could see why it may trigger people. In the thread announcing this person's new role, a few people brought up issues like this (that wasn't an isolated sentiment, it was a pattern of behavior) and the mods for a while simply deleted any criticism, then they made a hard rule that nobody could talk about it (because that was related to personal issues). This rule was in the interest of preventing harassment (which yeah, legit reason), but it was completely tone deaf. You can't appoint a community manager who has made pointed statements about people in your community and then shut down discussion in the interest of tolerance.

Check out the thread, it looks like a warzone. It turned me off Rust a little bit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/7nx3cm/announcement_a...

I wish we could talk about these things openly, the way we are handling these discussions only isolates us.

If someone thinks "kill all X" is okay, depending on the value of X, then there's something really weird going on! What if X is any of these? Women, Black people, Jews, Lesbians, Asians, Gay people, Republicans, or Rich People? Back in the good old days, "prejudice" meant judging people on their surface characteristics as opposed to on their merits, and such a statement would have been seen as highly suspect. Now, it's seen as the kind of stuff "Social Justice Advocates" say? People who are "community managers" have such a distorted sense of fairness that they can't parse what they're doing?

I guess even supposedly intelligent tech people believe this "X-ism == Prejudice + Power" crap? Sorry, but racism is judging people by only their race, and sexism is judging people only by their sex. The direction of the arrow does not matter. Anyone who believes something like that hasn't learned skeptical thought, and anyone who promulgates that is supporting a supremacist position of one group dominating another.

Power is contextual. This is clearly true, as demonstrated by history. Anyone who promulgates "X-ism == Prejudice + Power" as if Power is a global, unchanging vector is either dishonest, disconnected from reality, or ignorant of history.

But if the individual stands by those same public comments calling for violence against a particular race or ethnicity then cause for concern is justified. By silencing that concern they are not doing themselves or anyone else a favor.

But if you are objective about it you would probably come to the conclusion that conservative political viewpoints or support will hurt you in the SF area, but even radical liberal viewpoints will not.

The prop was, by any measure, mainstream at the time. It may have been on the wrong side of history, but remember that even Obama expressed a lack of support for gay marriage in the past.

Any political issue seems like the most important thing in the world if you look closely enough and lose perspective. Let's move on. Any political position even close to the mainstream should not cost you your job unless you are a politician. But political stuff, for the most part, should not take over the workplace either.

Here, here! Many people seem to need to learn how be able to create some distance between themselves and their ideas, so they can put those ideas away when its appropriate and interact with others on different levels.

Even those viewpoints radical to the level of inciting violence.

When someone peacefully, nonviolently supports the wrong cause, it should be appreciated. It's the very fact that places like the US can settle political debates and get on with life without resorting to violence which makes the USA such a great place to live. There's a reason why the ability to transfer power and make policy peacefully is measured in development indexes.

If you want to gauge the justice of a side, then look for their benevolence and intellectual honesty. If you want to speak truth to power, then look to the side that's hounding people out of their jobs and trying to intimidate their enemies into silence. Nelson Mandela called his commissions, "Truth and Reconciliation" commissions, not "let's look back and see who was on the wrong side and dismantle their lives" commissions.

https://www.removeddit.com/r/rust/comments/7nx3cm/announceme...

https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_v...

> no actual ill will was intended

Pick one.

That's why the standard for orientation discrimination doesn't apply to straight people. It's why the standard for race discrimination doesn't apply to white people. And it's why the standard for sex discrimination doesn't apply to cis men. The history is just very different.

Last I heard, it was best to treat people equally.

Not at all! I'm saying that the history of women in the US is different than the history of men in the US, and that the experience of women in the US is different than the history of men in the US. For example, women are far, far more likely to be physically assaulted by a man than a man is by a woman. And we're not just talking about a dozen or so cases: violence against women is epidemic in the US (and most of the world).

So rather than using "ancestors", we can use "people currently alive". And rather than "superficial characteristics like skin color and sex" we can use "ascribed statuses" like race and sex.

Or we can leave sex out of it. Let's say there was a group of men who have, for centuries, been victimized by the rest of men. They've been abducted, sold, tortured, murdered, humiliated and exploited for centuries. That's the story of Black men (and women, of course) in America.

We can't make some simple rules about "fairness" and leave it at that. We have to understand the history of people, the history of our culture, and the current ways our culture oppresses people before we can even begin to talk about fairness. If we want to be fair towards Black people we have to take into account the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, discrimination, and institutional racism. If we want to be fair towards women we have to take into account chattel, disenfranchisement, sexism, and rape culture.

Not doing this is essentially breaking someone's leg before a sprint, and when they lose and they say "Wow, that was super unfair!" we say "Wow you had the same rules! What are you upset about? That whole leg breaking thing happened a _long time ago_"

Your excuse is "history."

I know of some other groups who have engaged in that sort of ideology. One is the KKK. The other is the Nazis. Also, the Soviets all throughout the USSR, particularly in Ukraine.

Not doing this is essentially breaking someone's leg before a sprint, and when they lose and they say "Wow, that was super unfair!" we say "Wow you had the same rules! What are you upset about? That whole leg breaking thing happened a _long time ago_"

You are super ignorant of history, because you are buying into a far-left propaganda version of history used to justify inter-group conflict. If slavery is leg breaking, then also note that Koreans have been doing it to Koreans, Europeans have been doing it to Europeans, Africans have been doing it to fellow Africans. If there has been a lot of leg breaking going on, the solution is to stop the leg breaking, not engage in recriminations about it.

Since when have recriminations been the solution to peace in history?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w0X71d9Z08

No I'm not using skin color (can we just say race?) and sex, and I don't think you can just dismiss history as an excuse. For example, there are a lot of people in Africa who look like Black people, but when they come to the US they haven't labored under the same kind of racism that Blacks have, so their history and culture are different, and they don't have the same disadvantages (they still have many). However, if they have kids here that difference pretty much goes away for them.

> I know of some other groups who have engaged in that sort of ideology. One is the KKK. The other is the Nazis. Also, the Soviets all throughout the USSR, particularly in Ukraine.

I earnestly hope you're not comparing me to the KKK, Nazis, and the Soviets, so let's proceed as though you aren't.

> You are super ignorant of history, because you are buying into a far-left propaganda version of history used to justify inter-group conflict.

I really don't know what this means. Slavery in the US was horrible and its effects reverberate today. We're continuing to have a national debate about how to view the Confederacy (which I personally think is ridiculous -- it was a monstrous pro-slavery rebellion resulting in the deaths of millions of Americans) and historic Americans who were also slave owners. Slavery, along with Jim Crow and segregation, really did happen and institutional racism persists to this day.

Also maybe be a little nicer.

> Koreans have been doing it to Koreans

Nobi made up around 10% of the Korean population and wasn't based on race. Black slaves in the US made up about 50% of the population in the South and... are Black. There was no Korean Jim Crow and no Korean segregation, probably both because of WW2 and because, again, slavery in Korea wasn't racial.

> Europeans have been doing it to Europeans

The most recent example of this is Barbary slavery, but again there are significant differences: slavery wasn't inherited and it wasn't race-based. Also no Jim Crow or segregation.

> Africans have been doing it to fellow Africans.

I'm guessing this list is your argument that slavery shouldn't be an excuse today, but Wikipedia has a whole section on effects in Slavery in Africa [1]. It's also in many ways intertwined with the Atlantic slave trade. Africa is a big place so this topic is just too big, but suffice it to say this too was super bad and continues to cause problems today.

> If there has been a lot of leg breaking going on, the solution is to stop the leg breaking, not engage in recriminations about it. Since when have recriminations been the solution to peace in history?

I don't know what you mean by "recriminations" here. If anyone's making recriminations ("an accusation in response to one from someone else") it's the people saying "What are you upset about?" -- their accusation came second...?

Maybe what you mean is "bringing the whole slavery/segregation thing up all the time". But like it or not, we can't escape the actions of people we have no relation to, because those actions had long-lasting effects we continue to deal with. We don't get to disclaim responsibility for the current state of our society, because it's our society now.

I agree we should stop leg breaking -- or really what I mean here is we should address our racist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic culture. Something like 30% of the US is cis, straight, white, and male. That means 70% of the US deals with some form of discrimination constantly, every day, all the time. This discrimination has significant effects on health, crime, the economy, really everything for all of us. Men face discrimination as well: look at the prison population for example.

This is an urgent, national issue rooted in our culture from before we were even a country. In order to even start talking about it, we need to understand its history. It's not merely an "excuse".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa#Effects

The CoC complaint is amazing and has me really worried about Rust and I wonder where the adults are. Usually Meta Language people are meritocracy driven so I'm surprised to see a feminist infiltration. GoLang I could understand...

https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_v...

Personally, I have no problem with people saying things like this, especially in their personal lives. I like banter. But part of banter is that both sides are allowed to play. If someone can express extreme ideas like "kill all men" I should be able to make equally extreme jokes, but in different ideological directions.

What bothers me is not the language, but the unfairness. I can understand not permitting banter at work or in organizations. It makes some people uncomfortable. But what I can't understand is just allowing banter of some ideological bent.

I can. The point of "[only] allowing banter of [a particular] ideological bent" is to enforce conformity to that ideology. When that happens fairness isn't a priority.

> What bothers me is not the language, but the unfairness.

Me too.

I would support a blanket ban on all things like that _in the workplace_.

"Kill all men" though... I'm sure the guys on her team would get a fair shake, right?

Please start thinking more deeply about these issues and please do some research. Racism, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, and homophobia are all far more complicated than a few language rules.

Even if this is actually true! Even if it is actually true that "kill all men" expands into this reasonable position. Because I have no access to what goes on inside someone else's head. All I have access to is what I see.

And when I, a man, see a person with management authority over me, wearing a pin that says 'kill all men', I get scared. This is not appropriate for a workplace, no moreso than any white supremacist garbage is.

That's the constructive thing to do, if you're interested.

edit --

Hey I wrote a little screenplay to demonstrate how a conversation like this might go, in order to placate some of the totally earnest replies below:

A: kill all men

B: huh, A, what's that about?

A: Peter Thiel blames the 19th Amendment for the collapse of our society; the patriarchy is everywhere

B: <googles patriarchy, suddenly starts buying Shirley Chisholm gear>

All of which is to say that if you ask, "huh, A, what's that about?" instead of, "you genocidal maniac feminism is the worst and you're the worst" you can have a discussion.

Edit: To respond to your edit, I'm saying through the initial phrasing of the statement, a good portion of people will be alienated and likely not get to the point where they ask "huh, what's that about?". I don't know if that's intentional or not but given how pervasive these problems are framed, I would think attracting as large of an audience as possible would be beneficial.

> in order to placate some of the totally earnest replies below

This is not conducive to any productive discussion. I've responded with questions because I'm curious about the intent and goals behind these tactics. If you don't think I'm being earnest then why bother responding?

There are plenty of people out there teaching us about feminism. Trolling Twitter to find straw men to burn is not constructive. It's not every woman's responsibility to teach us about feminism. They get to be angry and frustrated; they don't have to be perfect ambassadors at all times.

> I'm curious about the intent and goals behind these tactics.

These aren't tactics. These are just people fed up with the patriarchy.

> If you don't think I'm being earnest then why bother responding?

Mostly because I find it hard to believe anyone's actually worried about male genocide, and false outrage is like the #1 tactic in discussions like this. You can see it in other responses like "well well well, who's SEXIST now?!"

>There are plenty of people out there teaching us about feminism. Trolling Twitter to find straw men to burn is not constructive. It's not every woman's responsibility to teach us about feminism. They get to be angry and frustrated; they don't have to be perfect ambassadors at all times.

I was not referencing Twitter, I was quoting what was in your post. I did not say anyone was responsible for teaching anyone about feminism or how they should function as ambassadors. I do not feel like I need to be educated on this matter and do not care about how ambassadors conduct themselves. However, if you put yourself out there as an ambassador, it's natural that people scrutinize things you say a bit closer than others. When people are able to say that you represent something or are a spokesperson for a cause, they are going to attach your words to it. This ties into the next quote.

> These aren't tactics. These are just people fed up with the patriarchy.

Tactics, messaging, whatever you want to call it, I'm just trying to understand the intent. If people are fed up and this is just venting, then sure, do you I guess? I personally just think it hurts the cause more than it helps it and am wondering if that's a concern or if there's something else going on.

>Mostly because I find it hard to believe anyone's actually worried about male genocide, and false outrage is like the #1 tactic in discussions like this. You can see it in other responses like "well well well, who's SEXIST now?!"

I have not expressed any concern about male genocide. I have been upfront about asking about the intended efficacy behind the type of language used in this. That's all. Assuming ill intent when it's presented upfront is a really good way to lose people who might have been otherwise agreeable to a cause.

It's not. It's meant signal membership in a group and piss other people off (and show you don't care you did it).

> In fact, I’d say there’s nothing constructive about saying that even if you know the context.

The "context" is just an attempt to delegitimize the people who find the statement objectionable.

You seem to infer immunity on the part of those you deem oppressed from having their statement being taken at face value but don't extend this same courtesy to those you deem oppressors.

You believe that someone should read "kill all men" and respond in a curious manner, because you think you are in the right, regardless of whether they are a parent of small male children. We exist in a nation of free speech but if you say something, it is not the responsibility of the listener to do the research to figure out if there is some deeper meaning to what you are saying. Even if there is a deeper meaning, calling for the eradication of a gender or race is not going to initiate the productive conversation between the speaker and those being targeted that you think it is. I have young boys and once someone says to me "kill all men" anything else they say is pretty much meaningless. There are better way to initiate a free exchange of ideas.

Many would not extend this courtesy of looking for deeper meaning to those whose view points you are trying to change. Would you be happy to initiate a calm thoughtful conversation with someone who tweets out that "Women are ruining this great nation" or would you call for their firing and censorship?

Individuals have different ideas on life and that's ok but the workplace is not the right place to discuss controversial topics unless the freedom of expression is extended to all view points, and there has to be an understanding that feelings may be hurt on both sides.

Finally, words have specific meaning, especially the written word. Words also carry consequences. If someone says "Kill all men", I will believe that what they mean is "kill all men".

What do you think someone means when they say "I'm gonna kill the person who wrote this"? Do you call the cops?

> You seem to infer immunity on the part of those you deem oppressed from having their statement being taken at face value but don't extend this same courtesy to those you deem oppressors.

There's a long history of men oppressing women. There is no history of women oppressing men. So when someone says "kill all men" they can't be referencing a history of oppression. On the other hand when someone says "biologically, women are worse engineers than men", they're referencing a school of thought that has denied women basic human rights and still has modern adherents.

My point is we're not on the verge of a male genocide (it feels ridiculous to even type this). We are always on the verge of taking away freedoms from women and people of color. So I think we need a more nuanced rule than "face value", or whatever.

> Would you be happy to initiate a calm thoughtful conversation with someone who tweets out that "Women are ruining this great nation" or would you call for their firing and censorship?

Censorship? Nah. Firing? If they have an important position then certainly. The same way I would advocate that if they said "Slavery was a good idea" or "Nazism has a lot going for it". We know slavery is wrong. We know Nazism and fascism are wrong. We know misogyny and sexism are wrong. Protesting the patriarchy or being angry about it isn't the same thing.

I'd also be willing to have a conversation with them though, so "both" is the answer to your question I think.

> Individuals have different ideas on life and that's ok but the workplace is not the right place to discuss controversial topics unless the freedom of expression is extended to all view points, and there has to be an understanding that feelings may be hurt on both sides.

Global warming is "controversial" despite being obviously the truth, but we can't move forward on addressing it because we continue to pay lip service to people who just don't believe in it. The same is true of feminism, economics, the criminal justice system, gay rights, immigration, and so many other things. I do care what people think and I want to treat them with respect and consideration, but that doesn't trump our right to things like equal pay, clean air and water, due process, etc.

Or to put it another way, at some point I don't care what bigots think and I don't think they should dictate policy. I don't have to agree to listen to the KKK at work if I want to be able to say that women deserve equal pay. That's nonsense.

Do you honestly believe this? Do you think that tomorrow, most people will wake up and decide women shouldn't be allowed to vote? Is that an active thing that you fear?

Would a policy like that ever pass? Again, Indiana's doesn't have the "office" stuff but it's pretty close. Would it prevent all women from voting? No. But you don't need to do that really, you just need to pull their turnout down. Same thing with gerrymandering, voter intimidation, etc. You just need to give yourself an solid advantage. And putting Vote Centers in secure offices where the majority of people are male, and then cutting precincts where the makeup is balanced, increases voting access for men and decreases it for everyone else (well OK, middle class and higher men, but you get my point).

Or if limiting voting access is too abstract, look at equal pay. Look at women's health clinics being forced to shut down because they provide abortion services (a crucial component of women's health). Look at women not being allowed in active combat until very, very recently (military promotions are hard to get w/o active combat -- wonder why only 7% of the US' generals are women...).

So no, I don't think we'll repeal the 19th Amendment tomorrow. I think people who are racists, anti-feminists, homophobes, etc. have other tools they use that are actually pretty effective.

Like requiring them to register on some list making them volunteer for war before they can vote?

But you're right, gender roles harm everyone. You can look at the effects of our idea of "masculinity" on male health, they're pretty devastating. One of the main goals of feminism is to eradicate gender roles so people are free to live how they like without laboring under some ancient, outdated ideas on how they should act based on their sex -- which they had no part in choosing.

That might be your intent, but that is not how it is interpreted. It sounds bigoted, thus, that language should be avoided if the speaker cares about stopping bigotry.

2. What if the speaker cares about expressing frustration about bigotry? Do they have to get your sign off on how to express it?

3. It's a little wicked to oppress people for centuries, and then tell them they have to choose between expressing anger about it or participating in a constructive dialogue about ending it -- especially when a lot of us don't even recognize the problem.

I am accounting for the fact that people of different backgrounds interpret statements differently.

>What if the speaker cares about expressing frustration about bigotry?

It is simple to express frustration about bigotry without using bigoted language.

>Do they have to get your sign off on how to express it?

They can do whatever they like, but if they act like a bigot, don't be surprised when they get labeled as one.

>they have to choose between expressing anger about it or participating in a constructive dialogue about ending it

Stop putting words in my mouth so that you can defend bigotry.

They are free to express their anger any way they wish. However, if they way they choose is to be a bigot, then they will be called a bigot.

In short, it's the social justice idea that:

1) people with the correct identities (LGBT, POC, women, etc) should be able to express themselves as rudely, angrily, or abusively as they like; and that

2) people with other, disfavored, identities (such as white men) cannot object to that rude, angry, or abusive manner of expression. If they do, it's an objectionable form of "oppression." Instead they must take the incivility, be supportive of it, and desperately and submissively search for some kind of positive meaning in the nasty statements. You see this all of the twisting around "kill all men."

However, IMHO, all of that is really just a tactic pushed by a bunch of assholes who want to be jerks to others and get away with it.

> 1) people with the correct identities (LGBT, POC, women, etc) should be able to express themselves as rudely, angrily, or abusively as they like;

It's not about correct or disfavored identities. It's about people who have been oppressed by society. If I chopped off 20% of your paycheck, you'd probably be angry about it. If I then were like, "whoa, there's no need to be angry", that's super dismissive. You can't do something bad to someone, and then come down on them for reacting angrily.

It's also not "as they like". It's really only specifically about social issues.

> Instead they must take the incivility, be supportive of it, and desperately and submissively search for some kind of positive meaning in the nasty statements.

Basically none of this is right. "submissively"? Really just understand that our culture makes things harder for people who aren't cis straight white men, and don't give them grief when they get frustrated about it.

There is no correlating behavior here. If feminists win out, women will pay the same for health care as men do, we'll have as many women working in STEM as we have men, women will be paid the same money for the same work. You can't equate that with sexism. You can't say that if we want to advocate for equal rights for women in the workplace that we have to tolerate people advocating against equal rights for women in the workplace. It's deeply and clearly wrong. It's like if I want to say "vaccines don't cause autism" we have to give equal air time to people who think they do. No, we don't. They're wrong.

That's why these things aren't the same. I would guess you'll probably just say (again), "people who say 'kill all men' are expressing hate against men, that's misandry and it's bigoted", but please at least consider what I've written now to... idk 8 people in this thread. The worst thing that happens is you come to the conclusion I'm just spending a lot of time ineffectively trolling and burning my karma. But I'm hoping you'll start to consider that the issue is much more complicated.

Words matter.

Bigotry isn't just words, but words matter. A lot. Instead of dumping a ton of words defending bigotry, maybe just use a few well chosen ones to denounce it.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/16/us/hate-crime...

[2]: https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpsee_e16.htm

[3]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race....

[4]: https://ncadv.org/statistics

I'm really tired of having to explain to people that claim to have studied this exact thing why it's not as simple as white people vs everyone else. When you boil it down like that you don't get solutions.

Isn't it though? Look at the race numbers for prison, school quality, poverty, profession, representation in media, etc. Even when you control for everything else (especially socioeconomic status; people love to argue that being poor and white is just as hard but hey, racism is still something that poor Black people have to deal with that poor white people don't) race is a huge, dominating factor.

Wow. How can employees believe that this type of language is acceptable in the work place? Is this common in other tech companies on their internal communication channels (like slack)?

Fortunately, this comment made them stop (or move to a private channel, who knows). But the fact that they were making these comments for a week was rather shocking to me. Nobody involved seemed to think there was anything wrong with saying that you would, quote, "beat in the face of the nearest Trump voter" in a work chat room with ~1000 members

Edit: I guess I'm assuming the bigot is behaving as a bigot, and I think that's a safe assumption.

Race agnostically, it is an obvious statement and should be part of company guidelines : "bigotry will get you fired". Simple.

Similarly, how can anyone believe that saying something like "violent black men should be fired" is okay? Just address violence in the workplace race agnostically in your company guidelines and don't tolerate it.

Is this really complicated?

> If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men.

I would put the above statement at about the same level as

> If you want to increase productivity at Google fire all the lazy black people.

I assume you would agree that the 2nd statement is not appropriate. If so, can you explain why the 1st is acceptable and the 2nd is not?

One of the typical examples of a micro aggression is the unnecessary inclusion of a description "I went to the women doctor today," "That was a very fine dressed black man," "That old cashier was really slow."

In the same way I see the inclusion of race in both sentences promoting discrimination based on race. I would go so far as to say that the inclusion of race in both statements makes the statement racist (in the sense that racism is the discrimination of a person or persons based on their race).

[0] a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. source: https://www.google.com/search?q=bigot

Highlighting race and gender when making such a statement is completely unnecessary, e.g. imagine the outcry if someone had said "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted black women".

It really can't.

However, the following concerns apply

1) I as a (non-bigoted) white man do not trust the good faith of the person speaking (in context, at Google)

2) I have seen analogous comments about eg. black people be auto-interpreted as bad faith when context made it clear that it was not bad-faith.

3) The inclusion of "white" and "man" in that statement are unnecessary, so them being included in spite of that is a signal of bad faith.

I would like to work in a place where everyone is intelligent and good-faith enough to interpret this sentence in its reasonable sense. But the reality is that such a place doesn't exist. At best I can get a place where statements against white men as a group get this treatment, but statements against other groups will always be interpreted as bad-faith, regardless of context.

I would like for all ambiguous statements like this to be interpreted on the same standard, but as long as they will not be, the next best step is to err on the side of caution and have a blanket ban of things like this

That said I don't think there was a need to call out white men specifically in the sentence.

This is Alon Altman's (@epsalon) current Twitter bio. How would you read the original intent?

If both statement seems fine fine to you than okay.

>Damore didn't say women are inferior

>> Quotes Damore "I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership." >> See he clearly called them inferior.

>>> No he didn't he just said they were different.

Two people see the same sentence and draw very different conclusions. We can either adopt a norm of honoring what the writer intended or a norm of honoring what the reader observed. I think a lot of people who are most vocally pro-diversity use the later norm when determining if something is or isn't ????ist. If this is the norm I think it should be universally the norm. Thus if we are being charitable to the writer I agree with you that the interpretation should be "We should fire all of the bigots (who happen to be white men)" and not "We should fire all the white men (who are bigots)."

This is a really hard principle to apply consistently which is why I tried to highlight the same kind of statement that was racist instead of sexist. In hopes that people could understand why white men might take offense to the original comment.

Hope the explanation helps.

Absolutely.

> We can either adopt a norm of honoring what the writer intended or a norm of honoring what the reader observed. I think a lot of people who are most vocally pro-diversity use the later norm when determining if something is or isn't ????ist. If this is the norm I think it should be universally the norm.

Gods, I hope this does not become the norm. "Everything can mean anything!"

As a conservative it kind of feels like that is the case. The second named party in the Google suit got fired for an interpretation of his comments he didn't mean.

IIRC, there's bit social justice ideology that essentially says that only white people can be bigots. I believe the typical formulation is "racism = power + prejudice." "Power" in this context is a function of your race and other identities, for instance white people axiomatically have "power" but black people don't. This assignment of "power" doesn't change based on context, so if your boss is black and you are white, you're still the one with "power." Therefore, by this "logic," a black person can't be racist because he lacks "power." An identical procedure is applied men an women with sexism.

There is another related social justice idea that you should "never punch down, always punch up." In this context "up" are those with "power" (again, assigned by fixed formula based on race, etc.). The act of "punching up," by the people who think this way, has connotations of "fighting for good," and "punching down" with "oppression."

Combining these ideas, "white men" are the most "powerful" and therefore can and should be "punched" in the name of social justice. This is one source of the gratuitous negative references to "white men," and associated hostility to them, that you see in social justice circles.

IMHO, these are pretty screwed up ideas, and they're a recipe for polarization (and bullying) and not progress. Unfortunately people do believe them and think this way.

Worse, "racism" is defined cyclically. If you ask "Who has power?", the answer is "whites/men because they aren't victims of racism/sexism".

This means no matter how much actual power non-whites get, they'll never be guilty of "racism", and racism is effectively defined as a sin of which only whites can be guilty.

In that lens, the statement makes sense if you feel that white men get away with bigotry more than their non white male counterparts. In other words, the subtext is "fire all the bigoted white men too".

Like I said, I'm not sure if I endorse that view it not. It makes more sense in the context of lifting up than putting down, but I can at least see it.

However, in normal discourse context is not generally understood to be that of a logical proof. Things are implied and inferred by what's included or excluded from what's said.

So, for example suppose I were to say simply "white male high-performing employees should be promoted". Logically this doesn't contradict the statement "all high-performing employees should be promoted". But I didn't say that. I made a much more qualified statement regarding white males. Why did I qualify it so. It's natural to ask such a question. I would expect people to think I'm implying something about non-white non-males. Again - It's natural, and in fact part of normal discourse, to infer things from what people chose to include and omit from their statements (please let me know if you disagree with this).

Similarly, original statement was about white male bigots specifically, not just all bigots. It's natural, outside the context of a logical proof, to infer some meaning from that.

If we propose a raceless society, why are we mentioning a race? That's the weird part.

It's not an unclear sentence.

And you're probably quite sane.

Not only that, but they said as much after the fact. I believe them. Why don't more here believe them?

They would have to be a complete idiot radical for those quoted interpretations to be what they meant.

It doesn't say anything about firing other bigots. If you assumed it did, you inserted that meaning.

This statement implies to me that you think white bigotry != bigotry. This is one of those statements that make me think "no rational caring individual could believe that" because it sounds racist against white people to begin with. Yet I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Can you explain your mindset? Hopefully also how this mindset does not lead to treating people of different races differently or a justification for why it is okay to treat them different?

Starting with the assumption that all people should be treated equally than all bigotry is morally objectionable and we should treat all bigotry as such. The only issue that comes in is that since white people have the power and numbers white bigotry happens more than other bigotry and thus we by chance we object to it more.

I don't see any way that this allows bigotry against whites to get a pass, it just gets called out less because it happens less.

Am I missing something? I feel like I am because I still don't feel like I grok your responses.

Yes.

> Starting with the assumption that all people should be treated equally than all bigotry is morally objectionable and we should treat all bigotry as such.

Good assumption. I agree.

> The only issue that comes in is that since white people have the power and numbers white bigotry happens more than other bigotry and thus we by chance we object to it more.

I don't really understand this part, but I'll add that not only does it happen more, it is more damaging. A white bigot can get shit done.

> I don't see any way that this allows bigotry against whites to get a pass, it just gets called out less because it happens less.

I don't think it does allow bigotry against whites. I'm not worried much about bigotry against whites. Maybe I will be after white bigotry is reigned in a bit, but for now eyes on the ball.

> Am I missing something? I feel like I am because I still don't feel like I grok your responses.

I don't really know whether we disagree about something, everything, or nothing.

Ahh, this I think is where I find issue. You say that you think all people should be treated equally and I see the statement I quoted as clashing with that ideal. Specifically saying "I'm not worried much about bigotry against whites." I am trying to be charitable but as a white person I would get roasted if I said "I'm not worried much about bigotry against blacks."

This mismatch is what causes me to make me question your commitment to the ideal that all people should be treated equally. Because to me, if you really were committed to ending bigotry and promoting inclusion and diversity you would be equally enraged by bigotry by whites and bigotry against whites. Yet, that isn't the case.

This puts me in a really hard spot because I want to believe you mean well but now I have to decide, are you lieing about your commitment to equality or do you have a valid reason to disregard bigotry against whites? I have yet to see a good argument for disregarding bigotry against whites so I am stuck with you are lieing. But I don't think you are...

>Because harassment against men is a sideshow, a minor issue. It is a joke to elevate it to same problem level as harassment by men. Now, to your point, any SPECIFIC incident may be treated equally and should be, but taken on the whole, it's ridiculous to treat them equally and to expect people to use language that treats them equally.

It seems like doublespeak, bigotry against whites cannot be both treated equally individually but not treated equally on a whole. That might work in the ideal but it will for sure not work in practice because you will end up creating resentment among whites who have been mistreated and are told "Your problems are not as important." This resentment will fester and end up radicalizing some and on a whole result in a net increase of racists.

It also causes a problem when in the future you have accomplished what you are aiming for, say in 2050 there is no longer any bigotry by whites. Yet, there will still be bigotry against whites. Does it the become a major issue? Will we then elevate it to the same importance as the current issue?

Do you see where I am coming from? How I can see this attitude is not the right one to take if the end goal is equality for all? You don't have to agree with me, I just want to know if you see what I am seeing.

But we diverge here: my view is putting a bunch of energy into bigotry on whites takes away from the energy needed fight bigotry by whites. It muddles the issue to always have to add, "some black people are bigots too". But, as you alluded, I think that's temporary. I also don't go so far as to say bigotry on whites is ok right now. The original quote didn't say that, and I wouldn't endorse that.

Then why all the resistance to addressing it? If it's such a small problem, it should be a simple and harmless thing to tackle it along with all the other kinds of bigotry. Carefully policing what kinds of bigotry are to be addressed or not sends the implicit message that some kinds of bigotry are OK. It also makes the overall anti-bigotry project harder because it turns what could be a universal moral appeal into a targeted condemnation that elicits defensiveness and justified accusations of hypocrisy.

Does anyone else think that "goading them into" is basically transferring responsibility to others for saying stupid, inappropriate things at work?

If the HR department doesn't operate that way, or the company guidelines suggest that some statements demand reprimand regardless of context, then I would suggest the issue would be surrounding the way the HR department operates rather than the people making complaints to HR.

(I note that Linus seems to manage at least one "people who do X should be fired"-equivalent email every week)

> If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men.

I would put the above statement at about the same as

> If you want to increase productivity at Google fire all the lazy black people.

I will let the reader decide if the two statements should be treated the same by HR.

That is, the first statement does not require the assumption that all, or even many, white men are bigoted in order to make sense, and the mention of race and gender is directly relevant. (It would also be true that firing white men at random would accomplish the same goal; the meme author is trying to say, why don't we fire the bigoted subset of this group, because we want to fire bigots anyway.)

I think it's a defensible position to believe that the statement isn't acceptable anyway - but I don't think the two statements are analogous by any means.

If someone in my choir kept going on about how the basses are too loud no matter what they objectively do, I would tell them to cut it out, and I would hope that the choir director would get rid of them if they persisted; it's pretty demotivating to be told that you're doing something wrong no matter what you do. But if we actually have a problem with auditioning too many basses and it's hurting the sound of the choir, and some of them are just not good at singing quietly, getting rid of them is the right thing to do (unless this is a school choir or something where participation is a more important goal than sounding good).

Fired for poor programming practices. The two situations are in no way comparable.

There's a distinction between saying unflattering things about people who do unflattering things (like submit broken or low quality code) and making hostile statements about people who simply have some physical attribute.

This can also cause strife between well meaning people who wouldn't otherwise be at each others throats. Like you have someone complaining about bad <X> people, an <X> person gets triggered and lashes out, the original complainer now believes the triggered person is a bad <X> person.

I think a sizable portion of the diversity arguments are brouhaha caused by people who don't speak specifically and clearly.

I'm not always good at it myself. But when "say what you mean, and mean what you say" isn't at least someones goal for their choice of phrasing, then they're probably just going to make things worse.

Also, people don't have an obligation to instantly re-cast everything they hear into the best possible argument for a poorly made point. You can make a good point poorly. We should stop blaming the reader for not bending over backwards to take it the way the writer wanted. Or, maybe, at least stop calling them autistic.

Conservative Americans openly advocate for white supremacists but somehow want to escape the label of 'racist'. Since the trouble is having discussions openly, the first step would be to first fully embrace our own positions. It would be far more helpful for the discussion if all these 'what about white men?' types just get the courage of their convictions.

And one thing we certainly don't need is more people expressing the "courage of their convictions" with remarks like "kill all men" or "acts of courage" like the shootings at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park.

Not all conservatives are advocating this, not all of those who do want to escape that label, and not all of those who are both talk about what about white men.

If you are all of those things, you are an extreme minority, one that I doubt is present in this discussion.