Why even discuss this? How can you expect good intentions from your white coworkers if these are the types of discussions going on publically in the company?

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?

Asusme Altman authored the meme on page 120 of the lawsuit the text of reads

> 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?

Well, first, we have to decide for each whether the sentence is meant to mean all in that category have that characteristic. I think that's nonsensical, so let's say it's clear she wants white men who are bigoted fired and black people who are lazy fired. So then the difference in the sentences is whether you expect to find many bigoted whites or lazy blacks. Lazy black people probably isn't a real problem at Google, but white bigots are probably easy to find.

Doesn't the inclusion of race in both sentences cause problems?

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).

I'll agree it was unwise. But the person literally clarified the point. Look, it makes me uncomfortable too, but I understand it as a style of speaking and that people get carried away and that non-offensive language sometimes feels ineffectual. Eyes on the ball: fire bigots not people who are a little loose with their language.

Okay, so what if the "bigots[0]" are not intolerant just a little loose with their language? How do we differentiate the two?

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

Just look for tangible damage vs. mere words being exchanged. If I'm intolerant and have a pattern of keeping black people off my team, then I'm in for consequences.

But that isn't how tech currently operates. If I have a gay coworker on my team, we get along fine, I have never said an ill word or done an ill deed to them I can still get labeled homophobic for speaking in favor of traditional marriage. I can still be disciplined just for words.

Bigot is now used to mean a generalized term for "someone who stereotypes or discriminates against others"

Right. Make an ill advised flame comment, get a warning. How is that disproportionate response?

Conservatives want political correctness to die but not if you are referring to white supremacists.

How about saying "fire all the bigots" and trust the audience to fill in the blanks (that this would have a disparate impact that counteracts underrepresentation)?

I believe the original text was "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as either all the white men at Google are bigots, or that Google should only fire bigots if they are a white male.

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".

> "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as all the white men at Google are bigots.

It really can't.

I agree with you that this statement, on its own, does not imply all men are like that.

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

Sure it can, if a vegetarian friend of yours said "If you want to increase your health remove all the disgusting meat from your diet", would you read that as them saying that all meat is disgusting or just the occasional piece?

English isn't a strict language. The context here depends on the frequency that you would consume disgusting meat and that will change the common meaning. I suppose there are people who literally think all white men are bigoted and could mean it to apply that way, but I find it unlikely that was the original intent.

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

> Social Justice Unicorn. Genderqueer. Intersectional feminist. Work for @Google but opinions are my own. Pronouns: they/them/their

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

Well, if that bio triggered me, I'd probably assume bad intent. But it doesn't trigger me, so it makes me glad to see people fighting for inclusion.

I strongly suspect that you would find the statement "If you want to increase productivity at Google fire all the lazy black people." racist because it implies that all black people are lazy.

If both statement seems fine fine to you than okay.

OK, I kind of agree with you. Logically, it doesn't entail that, but it would be insane to treat natural language as pure logic. Pragmatically, taking context into account, I think the original statement is more likely meant to imply that "All (or a vast majority of) bigots at Google are white men" than "All white men at Google are bigots."

It is kind of like the thread I have seen a few times that does something like

>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.

> 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!"

>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.

Actually, that's the most likely interpretation. To say otherwise seems disingenuous.

Exactly. You have to willfully look for an uncharitable interpretation for either of those interpretations.

Why didn't they say "Bigots should be fired?". By inserting race or gender into the statement, you're singling out a group as being the only offenders.

> Why didn't they say "Bigots should be fired?". By inserting race or gender into the statement, you're singling out a group as being the only offenders.

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.

> 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."

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.

While I'm not sure of the extent to which I agree in this context, this is basically a rehashing of the black lives/all lives matter argument.

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.

Because there's bigotry in the statement itself. It's like saying "Shoot all gun owners" or "I hate the intolerant" or "Silence all censors." It's a statement that simultaneously says opposite things. It implicitly endorses that which it ostensibly opposes. It is literally doublethink. The person saying it is deeply confused.

Maybe if she also went on to say, “...and leave black bigots be.” But she didn’t say that, and it’s weird to add that part on in one’s imagination.

If she were writing a mathematical proof then I would agree with you. From a logical standpoint stating "white male bigots should be fired" doesn't say anything about non-white non-male bigots.

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 I have on my shopping list "yams," do I fill the rest of the sheet with explicit exclusions like "not pudding?" No, they are all excluded by simply not having been included.

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

If I declare we need to eradicate all biting dogs in my town, does it make sense for me to also include biting rabbits on the list? To be arguing this deep into the problems of a unclear sentence is INSANE!

No, but it doesn't imply that you also want to remove biting rabbits.

If you want to eradicate biting dogs, does it make sense to add an extra word to specifically limit the scope of the effort to just white dogs?

It's not an unclear sentence.

And you're probably quite sane.

Who's proposing a raceless society?

Referencing irrelevancies invites the assumption that you have an ulterior message. The race of an undesirable employee is not relevant unless you intend to imply causation.

Wow, this is incredible. So many interpret their statement as either "all white men are bigoted and should be fired" or "all the white bigots must be fired but the other bigots can stay". That literally never occurred to me. Why is that? Occam's razor. Benefit of the doubt. Common sense.

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.

The statement literally says white male bigots must be fired.

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

What's the third interpretation? Do you understand language?

Because it lets bigoted women and bigoted black men off the hook.

No, it only fails to recognize a small side issue.

What small side issue is that?

S/bigoted/unfair racial stereotype/ s/white man/another race or gender/

I interpreted it to mean that the only bigots who should be fired are the white, male bigots.

Ok, based on the replies I understand that many in this thread think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal. That's probably a mistake, but I can see why "fire bigoted white men" is triggering so those who think that way.

>Ok, based on the replies I understand that many in this thread think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal.

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?

You don't think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal? Absent power, why do you hold that view?

To answer both replies, I’m saying white bigotry stands out because white people have the power and numbers. Absent that, then you have a different story, but we’re not absent that.

I am sincerely trying to understand this line of thought. Is it that since white people have more power and more numbers we should focus extra hard on white bigotry?

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.

> Is it that since white people have more power and more numbers we should focus extra hard on white bigotry?

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.

>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.

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 bigotry against whites is a sideshow, a minor issue. It is a joke to elevate it to same problem level as bigotry by whites. 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.

To draw what I see as a parallel in my mind. What you are saying is equivalent to saying that the point of the #MeToo movement is something like

>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.

I do see what you're saying, and I understand. And we have the same goal.

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.

> Because bigotry against whites is a sideshow, a minor issue.

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.

If there's a hierarchy of power involved, why not focus on protecting those with the least power instead of policing the most powerful? That would allow for flexibility in dealing with inter and intra-racial/cultural/gender bigotry and decrease the most harm the fastest, wouldn't it?