You aren't making the point you think you are. All you are doing is showing that you lack empathy for how others feel. And that is the fundamental problem: it isn't about what you think you are doing, it is about what other people think you are doing, and the fact that what you think is funny is offensive to other people.

I have empathy for people who experience prejudice, but not for people who think "this name means something funny in English" is racist. Those people don't know what racism means, and they devalue claims of actual racism when they say that.

There can definitely be a racist undertone to jokes about "this name means something funny in English" - it is often rooted in the idea that "this person doesn't belong", "these people aren't like us" etc. Furthermore (and as a completely separate issue), people who are already racist always latch onto these kinds of jokes to strengthen and justify their beliefs, which should be in itself a reason not to make those kinds of jokes.

It's very small in comparison to more serious examples - perhaps it's even the smallest possible example of problematic behavior - but it is problematic nonetheless.

That's literally the point that the Basecamp employees were trying to make in a relatively benign way before their leadership overreacted.

Would you see a racist undertone in putting "Rod Johnson" or "Dick Fuller" on a list like this? Would you claim the humor comes from those people not belonging? Because I would bet anything that the list would have such names.

I would also bet anything that names like "Vinh Ng" or "Ravi Chakrabarti" aren't on that list. Because those names aren't funny in English. Because they don't mean anything in English. So there's no impedance mismatch.

I know it's popular these days to claim racism all the time, but there's no actual basis for it here.

The articles about the issue clearly state that the list in question contained examples that mocked Asian and African names, so your comment is moot in this context.

Sorry, I'll make it clearer for you: the metric for being on the list is "sounds funny in English", not cultural origin. Thus there will be names from all different cultures, but for any given culture, most names won't be on the list.

Edit: according to this article,

"Many of the names were of American or European origin. But others were Asian, or African, and eventually the list — titled “Best Names Ever” — began to make people uncomfortable."

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...

So really, the people practicing cultural discrimination were the ones who were ok with the list so long as only European names were in it.

You are Gish-galloping at this point. Yes, Anglo-Americans making fun of Anglo American names is not racist, nor is a group of people exclusively joking about names from their own culture. But that’s not the situation here.

Jokes that begin more innocently can turn racist; happens all the time. It’s best not to allow them to turn in that direction by including the types of jokes that racists always love to latch on due to an element of plausible deniability.

If people took all the mental energy they expended in being apologists for inappropriate behavior and simply applied it to finding ways to enjoy time with others that don’t have all these issues, none of this would ever be a problem.

A Gish gallop involves many points. Mine is singular: a list of names that sound funny in English is not racist.

If a racist enjoys the list, that does not make it racist. Racists also eat toast. That does not make toast racist.

If people took all the mental energy they expended in labeling things as racist, and simply applied it to finding ways to enjoy time with people who don’t have all these issues, none of this would ever be a problem.

Respectfully - if we become so afraid of one another, or of enabling racists, that we stop trying to enjoy humor, share our culture, or just be authentic humans together, then the racists win.

This argument reminds me of a similar one: students, who when caught plagiarizing, defend themselves by saying "well, there were no other combination of words that could express the idea in question." However, in analyzing the situation, you find that there are thousands or possibly millions of different sentences that express the same thought that would not be considered plagiarisms of each other. There is simply no excuse; you can always come up with a unique way to write ideas in your own words.

Similarly, we have unlimited methods to share culture and humor in ways that don't involve backhandedly belittling others and which don't include feeding racism as a side effect.

That's the thing though, it doesn't matter whether you think something is "actual racism". It matters whether the person on the receiving end thinks it is racist, or racism adjacent. And making fun of people's names is absolutely racism adjacent. It dehumanizes the person on the receiving end by treating one of their fundamental self identifiers as a joke. It may not dehumanize them to the same degree as a slur, an offensive stereotype, "blackface", or similar, but it is absolutely dehumanizing. I listened to people who have been on the receiving end, and I believe them when they say that this hurts them and offends them. Is it as bad as some other forms of racism? Arguably no. But is it on the spectrum of racism? Absolutely.

This is what empathy looks like: you listen to the one on the receiving end and you believe what they say about how they feel. At the end of the day you have the right to decide that this isn't "actual racism" in your own mind, but that doesn't change the reality that the one on the receiving end still feels bad.

> It [only] matters whether the person on the receiving end thinks it is racist, or racism adjacent.

That's where I can't agree. It's possible to do something that feels "racist" to someone but isn't actually racist. If I'm wrong, then there's no objective definition of racism and we can all go home and call it "lack of empathy". You can't have it both ways. Either racism is objectively definable or it isn't.

Categorically speaking, there is a big difference between offending someone's feelings or sensibilities and committing an act of racism, which is defined as discrimination on the basis of race and is objectively measurable using well-established tests.

Let me use an analogy:

Imagine that you are walking by someone and accidentally elbow them in the ribs. They double over in pain, and exclaim loudly that you hurt them really bad and you should apologize. Now you could get defensive and say "Well I didn't mean to elbow you in the ribs, it wasn't on purpose so I did nothing wrong" and "Also getting elbowed in the ribs isn't actually that painful, there's no reason to make a scene about it."

But what you don't realize is this person was in a car accident last week, and below their shirt their ribs are broken. Your elbow just hit them on a sensitive bruise and jostled a broken rib. Your unintentional action was actually extremely hurtful. By protesting that you didn't do anything to hurt them you are just looking like a jerk. All it would have taken was an "I'm sorry, I'll be more careful" and it probably would have been fine.

This is similar to what racism and the effects of racism are: there are people who have suffered trauma from heinous acts. As a result they are already in a wounded state, and something "not racist" in your mind can still hurt because it pokes in the same place as the "actual racism". Just like you can't accurately judge whether someone is actually in physical pain and how much physical pain they are in, you can't always tell how much your action hurts someone emotionally.

In both cases the empathetic and moral thing to do is to believe the person in pain who says that your actions are hurtful.

This is not at all similar.

The correct analogy would be if the person I accidentally elbowed claimed I was physically assaulting them, which I of course would deny.

Racism is a very extreme call-out and it is no wonder that people defend against it. It is no matter of believing that I hurt the person, I do. But I am defending myself from an attack I believe is unproportional,and actually leaves no choice but to defend myself. Call it insensitive instead of racist and people are far more likely to listen.

You're not "the person in pain" though. You are pretending to speak for them.

In fact, one could say it's racist that you're feeling entitled to appropriate their pain when you claim to speak for them. Your racism is hurting me, and will continue to hurt me until you acknowledge that racism necessarily involves discrimination based on race, and that it's wrong and problematic of you to appropriate the actual suffering of others.

And you are assuming that people who are hurt don't want allies to take up their hurts. Some people can only win with allies, and that means people who don't share the same hurts taking them up as burdens of their own anyway.

And you know, democracy is all about coalition building.

An ally should take up the hurts of others, but not make up the hurts of others.

Ever heard of narcissistic injury?

When it comes to hurt feelings, it's not always the fault of the speaker. Some emotional pain is completely fabricated for egoic or malicious reasons, or is simply mistaken.

If you hit me I cannot feel 'murdered'.

Murder has a definition, which is precisely why we can do something about it.

I'm not arguing against empathy for those who have been hurt by past acts of racism. We consider it normal and healthy to be careful and sensitive around those who have PTSD or the like from real offenses committed against them in the past. But to fail to be empathetic and thus re-open an emotional wound is not in the same category as the original offense, however bad such a lack of empathy may be.

You're making several categorical errors in your posts. We have to be careful to speak and think with precision. "The truth will set you free" and "the tongue of the wise brings healing"; but logical fallacies only muddy the water, and vague accusations stir up strife.