They do not accept non-racist environments, only anti-racist ones. They do not accept that businesses be politically neutral. Businesses must take political stances internally and publicly. To do anything less, or to remain silent, is to be complicit in what they see as white supremacy and systemic racism. And if you disagree with those people, you will be accused of being racist, as Singer was.
The irony, of course, is that Hansson and Fried built a reputation around righteousness and wokeness, and then it came for them, because they were two white guys with power.
And when they realized what was happening, they executed their cultural pivot very poorly. They came out with a hard ban on a bunch of people who have the talent to work elsewhere.
Coinbase, at least, had the good sense to focus on the positive, their orientation as a mission-focused company. At the same time, Coinbase was making its employees rich with options and headed for an IPO.
The two companies will be paired case studies at HBS someday about how to screw it up and how to do it right.
It seems that there was at the very least one instance of behavior that employees perceived as outwardly racist (the names list) and were seeking to address issues surrounding that behavior.
On the outside, it’s hard to know much more about the details, but it also would appear that employees took issue with other somewhat minor slights that may have amounted to a pattern of behavior, in particular relating to someone with a lot of authority at base camp, who was then given a pass under the guise of political differences.
The names list hasn't been clearly established as racist. If you have 10 times the European names as you have Asian names, is it racist against Asians, or were there "funny" names in all groups?
The perception of racism is not necessarily racism. That is precisely the point that is being argued. The claim of white supremacy does not mean that an organization is white supremacist. Big claims need big evidence. I haven't seen it.
Minor slights happen. They are inevitable in daily life no matter what your race, gender, sexual orientation or other identity. If you use minor slights to create an uproar in the context of your job, you are a bad employee who should be fired. Tying minor slights to genocide is one way of creating an uproar.
Singer had power and seniority at Basecamp. He once linked to a Breitbart page. While I differ with Breitbart on most issues, I do not see that as prima facie evidence that Singer is white supremacist or racist.
Just because Singer is a white male with authority does not make him, by definition, a white supremacist or a racist.
And if the only cure for that kind of "white supremacy" is replacing all the white males with any power or authority with people of other identities, then I'm opposed to that "cure," because it is a racist and discriminatory cure based on false generalizations about genders and racial groups.
With that framing, the perception of whether the list was racist does matter as it explains their motivation. Because they did perceive the list to be racist, it’s just not the case that they were taking issue with the idea of being race neutral.
Second, you are jumping to wild conclusions about what they were asking for. At no point did anyone say that “all white males with any power or authority” must be replaced. If that were true, it would stand to reason that they’d aim their ire at the entire leadership structure itself rather than on the one individual. Your blanket assertion may have some grounding in your personal experiences, but it is overly broad in this instance.
Finally, while the equivalence between minor slights and genocide has been made, that was not the reason why I brought it up. The reason why I mention minor slights is that, while they may be minor in isolation, when taken in context together they can reveal a pattern of behavior that is hard to explain to those on the outside, and thus is difficult to perceive to us as observers. In this instance it seemed that employees wanted to shave a forum to address this and were shut down.
I don't think we know their true motivation. Anyone can claim to perceive something as racist. We cannot control their sense of offense. The act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist.
But what advocates of critical race theory have found is that, by claiming that something is racist, they can bring pressure on their employers.
That is precisely what happened here. Basecamp is now under tremendous pressure. Plenty of ire has been focused on the co-founders as well as Singer. Singer has quit, though we don't know the facts of the case. Accusations of racism are fatal to one's career, whether or not they have a basis in fact.
Another word for "revealed pattern" is "narrative." Many narratives can be told about the same set of facts. And many of those narratives are deeply subjective, or driven by ideology.
I could take many minor actions by Jane Yang and others at Basecamp and interpret them as a power grab.
To be clear, I know that some people and companies do act in racist ways. Such behavior is illegal and should be punished. But the evidentiary bar to establish that is high. That bar has not yet been met here.
In this case, we have very serious accusations and very little evidence, evidence that can be interpreted in several ways. But Basecamp and Singer have already suffered serious consequences, and the claims have been aired publicly.
So they were able to create a scandal without going through the effort of proving anything.
And this is the crux of the issue. Ones entire interpretation of these issues relies on whether or not one believes racism exists as a structural problem or not. Opponents reduce this down to a simple difference of opinion, but if you see that the world treats certain groups differently than others, it is not mere difference of opinion, there are real, tangible consequences that go along with that disagreement.
The thing that you get wrong, that so many people get wrong on all sides of this, is that the issue at hand here isn’t about whether Singer is himself a racist person. When people speak of “white supremacy” refers to a structural system within society that treats people differently on the basis of their race, in a hierarchy that places white people at the top. It’s not a matter of individual intent, but the culmination of ways that people act differently towards each other that nets out to place people in different positions within society.
I think it’s reasonable to disagree on how you go about remedying that situation, but the assertion that “people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race” shouldn’t be that controversial of a statement.
The person(s) that attacked Singer used social justice activist techniques, claim of and demand for denouncing "white supremacy" in order to reduce a viewpoint opponents moral authority, where "white supremacy" uses the social justice unstated redefinition of the colloquial term to mean "policy or habitual behavior that could perpetrate outcomes not in alignment with social justice dogma".
This activist technique is a kafka trap with no good answer. Keeping that in mind its pretty clear where the accuser comes from.
As a side-note: a discussion/debate between viewpoint opponent break down if serious accusation are made without evidence, and a healthy discussion and work environment need to exclude such bad actors. Kudos to basecamp and coinbase for adopting policies that discourage such behavior.
If you agree with both of those statements, do you believe white peoples are still given a higher place in society? Do you believe that to no longer be the case?
I’ll limit this to the United States.
You are asking a question positioned using very low-fidelity and poorly scoped social justice dogma.
With Nigerians topping educaction and income stats clearly low-fidelity race characteristics is not a sufficient predictor of outcome. Likewise, asian americans have the highest median income so being majority does not predict the best outcome.
In addition to this, official identity based government and company policies create asymmetry in official hiring as well as promotion policies that favor BIPOC and women.
What does seem like a great predictor is being born into a family-focused culture where kids education is extremely important. This is a commonality between sub-cultures that do well, and skin color is no great predictor for culture. Some of the sub-cultures that does the worst have high rates of single parenting, including sub-cultures of white culture, and single parenting is also a great predictor of lower household income.
Call that social justice dogma if you want, but I’d consider it an objective fact.
Edit: because it seems to be unclear. The word “was” was in reference to the past. It’s an objective fact that there _was_ an explicit system of racial hierarchy in the United States.
When you think it's explicit instead of implicit you are in a minority even amongst social justice adherents. Social justice started focusing on "implicit" bias and racism because the instances of explicit racism in the 2000s were not numerous enough to support its activist objective of tearing down the system and replacing it.
The whole concept of "systemic oppression" is based around this realization, where social justice argue that capitalism fool people into being happy and content so that they don't oppose an implicitly oppressive system that traps them in a false reality.
> Call that social justice dogma if you want, but I’d consider it an objective fact.
The examples in my previous message show that it's neither descriptive nor factual.
Social justice prescribe a totalizing worldview that use an every-increasing set of politically motivated identity groups to further an activist objective. The objective is to tear down the system and the promise is a utopia once everyone agrees with the utopic vision.
Given the history of the United States, wherein there existed both legal and extralegal forms of racial discrimination, the primary assertion is that while the obvious forms of racial discrimination have been abolished, there continue be forms of systematic racial discrimination. These people assert that this is a bad thing and it should be corrected. This is not about bringing about a utopia, but about righting a wrong.
None of this is “totalizing”. Indeed, even in the past, during slavery and Jim Crow, you had examples of successful black people and other POC (Web Debois, Fredrick Douglass). The argument is simply that POC face barriers that white people simply don’t face, not that those barriers are impossible to overcome.
In social justice activism "racism" is redefined to mean "inequitable outcomes". So of cause with this change of definition you can say the "group" experience racism when you really just mean that one group does better than another. DEI is the prescribed social justice solution, ignoring how the equity doctrine has destroyed every society it touched.
If you use the colloqial definition of racism then affirmative action, diversity quotas, DEI preferential hiring&promotion are all widespread policies that discriminate against white people based upon their race. DEI programs also use negative racial profiling and stereotyping. The claim that white people do not experience racism is therefore objectively wrong.
So social justice is arguing for explicit racist policies to fix "implicit racism", which really means "equitable outcomes"
The notion that DEI advocates have redefined racism to mean “inequitable outcomes” is a framing that has been constructed by conservatives and IDW types, but it is _not_ what DEI is about.
DEI is about what _explains_ the inequitable outcomes.
Given the history of western societies and the United States in particular, it is reasonable to assert that there should be a burden of proof to show that there are no longer racial privileges rather than the converse. Especially when the same hierarchy is displayed when looking at patterns of racial inequalities today. Further, there is significant scholarship that draws direct lines between things like redlining, housing convenants, and sentencing disparities and those same racial inequalities.
There are really only two classes of descriptions that can explain such disparities.
1. All people are inherently equally capable regardless of racial categorization, the disparities we observe at due to barriers placed in front of disadvantaged groups.
Or
2. Some groups are more capable of others, either due to biological or cultural factors.
2 has played out throughout the history of European colonization in different forms, both as a “scientific” practice and through cultural chauvinism. Both are general regarded as white supremacy, because that’s a fairly appropriate label.
One place I do agree with you however is here: “The claim that white people don’t experience racism is objectively wrong”
The social justice side actually agrees with you and has just started an unhelpful fight over semantics. Whether you want to call is “racism” or “prejudice” it’s not like there is anything special about white people that makes it impossible to discrimination against them. That does differ, though, from structural level discrimination.
The second term of the social justice prescribed D(iversity)E(quity)I(nclusion) solution, equity, literally means redistribution of outcomes.
> The social justice side actually agrees with you and has just started an unhelpful fight over semantics. Whether you want to call is “racism” or “prejudice” it’s not like there is anything special about white people that makes it impossible to discrimination against them. That does differ, though, from structural level discrimination.
How are DEI programs, affirmative action and diversity quotas for hiring&promotion not structural level discrimination? These are policies and laws pushed by the government and corporations.
> The notion that DEI advocates have redefined racism to mean “inequitable outcomes” is a framing that has been constructed by conservatives and IDW types, but it is _not_ what DEI is about.
> DEI is about what _explains_ the inequitable outcomes.
There are more than 3 possible explanations. The most likely one is that your categories, race, are not well fitted to what you are trying to explain. For instance, Nigerians do incredibly well and are considered black and most of them came here not rich.
You are also comparing over timeframes that don't make sense. The america of today is not even comprised of the same populations, and the people that lived these injustices died a looong time ago. As recent as in 1950 89.3% were white with most of the remainder black. Today 60% white, 18.5% hispanic, 12.5% black, 5.8% Asian, 2.3% multirace, and 0.9% other.
Most wealth and status is also currently not gained through inheritance. Most get high status through education and wealth through work. This shows how bad it is that social justice activists push racial discrimination where status and wealth is currently gained through individual merit.
The children that integrated schools in the south are still very much alive, and aren’t even that old [1].
“Hispanic” wasn’t even a category in the census until 1970 (they were here, they just weren’t counted). [2] While there has been significant Asian and Latin American immigration in the interim, the stats you cite aren’t comparable due to differences in collection criteria.
> How are DEI programs, affirmative action and diversity quotas for hiring&promotion not structural level discrimination? These are policies and laws pushed by the government and corporations.
The government isn’t allowed to have racial quotas [3]. But I would cede that you make an important point here, that the proposed remedy mirrors the problem that is being brought up. I am not here to argue the virtues of such programs. There is a difference between identifying that a problem exists and agreeing with a proposed solution. My understanding is that you don’t agree that there is a problem, and that is the extent of my concern.
> Most wealth and status is also currently not gained through inheritance. Most get high status through education and wealth through work. This shows how bad it is that social justice activists push racial discrimination where status and wealth is currently gained.
This is a red herring, no one is arguing against education and work. Conservatives just want people to focus on those things in lieu of addressing racial discrimination. Also, treating inheritance as though it’s insignificant is a bit odd… 35 to 45 percent[4] may not be a majority, but it’s hugely significant.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges?wprov=sfti1
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/03/03/census-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v...
[4] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01... "Inheritance Matters. An estimated 35 to 45 percent of wealth is inherited rather than self-made"
The supreme court ruling that ended school segregation in public education was in 1954. On the other hand the people classified as white as well as asian experience racial discrimination by DEI education and company initiatives right here right now.
> “Hispanic” wasn’t even a category in the census until 1970 (they were here, they just weren’t counted). [2] While there has been significant Asian and Latin American immigration in the interim, the stats you cite aren’t comparable due to differences in collection criteria.
This is as far as I can tell an admittance that you are making comparisons over timescales that does not make any sense.
> This is a red herring, no one is arguing against education and work. Conservatives just want people to focus on those things in lieu of addressing racial discrimination. Also, treating inheritance as though it’s insignificant is a bit odd… 35 to 45 percent[4] may not be a majority, but it’s hugely significant.
The social justice prescribed DEI solution argues for racial discrimination in access to education and promition&hiring. So the outcome-focused thinking of activists are pushing racial discrimination which is objectively not a way to reduce racism.
For the majority that get wealth through educational and work merit being racially discriminated against in those spheres cause harm. Even for people with inherited wealth, how many would still have any wealth if they weren't also successful at education and work?
As long as they have basic financial literacy around how to invest, education and work would both be unnecessary. It would be extremely easy to maintain their wealth.
> This is as far as I can tell an admittance that you are making comparisons over timescales that does not make any sense.
“Census data on race isn’t comparable over long time scale because of major methodological updates to data collection” => your statement is a huge logical leap.
> The supreme court ruling that ended school segregation in public education was in 1954. On the other hand the people classified as white as well as asian experience racial discrimination by DEI education and company initiatives right here right now.
And you are aware that school segregation did not, in fact, end in 1954, as I’m sure you read the article I posted on ruby bridges. It took decades to integrate schools, and in many ways they never were because of the way school district boundaries align with segregated housing.
DEI initiatives rarely advance strict racial quotas or thumb on the scale affirmative action policies. Indeed, the whole impetus for this discussion, basecamp, was an instance where people were bothered by specific behaviors they felt were discriminatory. As I’ve stated multiple times, I take no issue with you disagreeing with a specific set of policies pushed by DEI initiatives, but that is different from denying the existence of racial discrimination against BIPOC. The existence of policies that discriminate against one group does not preclude the existence of discrimination against another.
You are arguing that somehow implicit racism is stronger than explicit racism the social justice DEI solution furthers.
You also argue that on whole systemic racism through policy and habitual behavior benefit the whites that experience explicit systemic discrimination furthered by widespread DEI policies.
This is just not a very strong claim.
> As long as they have basic financial literacy around how to invest, education and work would both be unnecessary. It would be extremely easy to maintain their wealth.
The median pre-tax median inheritance is according to Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) $69,000 [1] (the average was $707,291, indicating a small percentage get a much higher inheritance). So 50% of people that inherit get $69k or less, which is not amount that sets you up to live off that asset.
Any anticipated inheritance is also commonly reduced by estate taxes, attorney’s fees, funeral expenses, probate costs, and paying off the deceased’s debts. Having to share the remaining money with siblings, grandchildren, charities, and any other individuals or organizations in a parent’s will could further reduce a child’s take. And a parent who has remarried might leave assets to a new spouse, diminishing or eliminating what children expected to receive.
> DEI initiatives rarely advance strict racial quotas or thumb on the scale affirmative action policies.
This is not accurate. DEI initiatives seeks to increase diversity in hiring by changing the hiring criteria to hire more of favored identities (inclusion) while promoting favored identities to achieve equal outcome (equity).
But DEI does not apply positively to black viewpoint opponents of social justice such as libertarians and conservatives. They are by social justice seen as not exhibiting an "authentic black lived experience". This activism is a terrible denial of individuality based upon race.
[1] https://www.newretirement.com/retirement/average-inheritance...
You are arguing that somehow implicit racism is stronger than explicit racism the social justice DEI solution furthers.”
An honest rewriting of my quoted text using your terminology would be something more like this: “It would be reasonable to say that the explicitly racist policies advocated by DEI as a remedy are not a proper solution to the problem, but that is different than claiming that implicit racism doesn’t exist”
And yet you’re here claiming that I argue the opposite. At this point you are just arguing in bad faith.
To restate, As clearly as is possible. If you want to assert “while structural racism exists, the policies prescriptions advanced by overzealous and self aggrandizing DEI groups cross the line” I’m happy to cede the debate.
> But DEI does not apply positively to black viewpoint opponents of social justice such as libertarians and conservatives. They are by social justice seen as not exhibiting an "authentic black lived experience". This activism is a terrible denial of individuality based upon race.
You can easily accept that they have a viewpoint while also noting that the vast majority of black people don't identify as libertarian nor as conservatives. Why do you think that a minority should be able to invalidate the majority’s opinion? Because it agrees with your viewpoint?
> The median pre-tax median inheritance is according to Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) $69,000 [1] (the average was $707,291, indicating a small percentage get a much higher inheritance). So 50% of people that inherit get $69k or less, which is not amount that sets you up to live off that asset.
The median inheritor doesn’t become wealthy through inheritance, sure, but they also don’t become wealthy through work & education either. Wealth is a heavily skewed distribution, so it makes little sense to talk about the median when 10% of the country owns something like 3/4th of the wealth. Assuming we are talking about someone who receives a non trivial amount of wealth through inheritance (ie enough for them to be actually wealthy, not 67k) then it is easy to maintain that wealth without work.
Systemic racism just means inequitable outcomes, implicit racism is an "invisible" enemy invented to justify an equity agenda not supported by explicit racism, so I do not see how one can embrace this without embracing DEI as a solution. If social justice used the colloquial definition of racism, which it doesn't, it would be ridiculous to claim that someone is inevitably and exclusively racist because they are white.
I am not saying we shouldn't iterate using the liberal system where corruption happens. However, a committee prescribing outcomes based upon an every-expanding set of politically motivated identity categories is way more prone to corruption because the power is unchecked. A core principle of the liberal system is to check power as it assumed people are and will be imperfect.
> You can easily accept that they have a viewpoint while also noting that the vast majority of black people don't identify as libertarian nor as conservatives. Why do you think that a minority should be able to invalidate the majority’s opinion? Because it agrees with your viewpoint?
Because telling someone that they don't have "an authentic black lived experience" if it doesn't fit an activist mold is both racist and harmful to people listening to each other to find better solutions. It is simply bad process to prescribe a solution while denying any negative feedback, but that is exactly what social justice and DEI does.
> The median inheritor doesn’t become wealthy through inheritance, sure, but they also don’t become wealthy through work & education either. Wealth is a heavily skewed distribution, so it makes little sense to talk about the median when 10% of the country owns something like 3/4th of the wealth. Assuming we are talking about someone who receives a non trivial amount of wealth through inheritance (ie enough for them to be actually wealthy, not 67k) then it is easy to maintain that wealth without work.
I do agree that concentration of wealth is an issue, covid in particular has transferred almost 4 trillion from the middle class to the oligarchs. That said, historically countries that adopted the equity agenda have not fared any better.
However, if only a percentage around 10% rely on inheritance for status&wealth while the rest rely on education and work then forcing equal outcomes through racist policies in education as well as hiring&promotion are gross miscarriages of justice.
I think you are right that that belief shapes how we interpret these issues. By racism as a structural problem, I assume you mean this:
> “people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”
Society is not an actor. It is a collection of people, and the people are actors. Some of them are racist, and some are not.
I do not believe that every situation is permeated with structural racism that must be corrected, but I suspect that people who believe in structural racism tend to find it everywhere and use it to justify the changes they propose.
I don't assume that they had malicious intent. But I do think that they perceive situations through a distorted lens, which often leads to behavior that is harmful to the organizations where they work.
I think that Basecamp and Singer and most organizations and individuals deserve an assumption of innocence.
Racism has to be proven. Accusations must be backed up with evidence. And the burden of evidence is on the accusers. I think critical race theorists start with the assumption that racism is shaping the interaction.
It is not enough to say that structural racism exists and therefore we should believe that it shaped the behavior of people at Basecamp. You have to prove it case by case. Simply claiming structural racism does not justify enormous change.
Statistically, people of different races experience different outcomes in the US on average. But there is a huge standard deviation in those outcomes by race or gender; that is, any given individual may be doing relatively well or poorly relative to the average.
And I think that applying assertions about society and societal ills to individuals, their actions and specific situations is often misguided, because they may deviate wildly from the average.
But that is exactly what critical race theorists tend to do. They treat individuals as representatives of a larger social trend. A male represents the patriarchy. A Caucasian represents white supremacy.
But attacking an individual to remedy a larger statistical discrepancy is in itself a form of injustice. Especially when we diagnose the supposed cause of that discrepancy with vagueness, as a culmination of ways that society acts.
That is not enough to convince me of the claims being made against Singer and Basecamp, or of the rightness of the Basecamp employees in rebellion.
It would appear then, that we are at an impasse.
I think that is possible and that one could prove it statistically.
I do not think that, just because such behavior can be shown to exist on average, that is necessarily exists in specific situations. If you want to apply an anti-racist remedy in a specific situation, you should have to prove racism in that situation.
And I think that the remedies to specific situations will differ a great deal, depending on unique variables. That is, if a person proposes a remedy, they should show how it will fix the specific problem.
I do not agree with one-size-fits-all remedies that try to fix a social ill by turning a specific company on its head without factual evidence of racism in that company.
I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone was calling for singers job before nor during the meeting. All that happened was that a bunch of employees formed a committee that brought a bunch of issues to the fore. They took issue with singers behavior, and the company responded with “cease all of this discussion or take a buyout” and so they took the buyout.
All this amounted to the company backing up a senior employees behavior reflexively at the expense of lower level employees objections.
Maybe. Or maybe the company was already turned on its head due to the internal conversation. Such a radical reaction from the founders suggests to me that this was the case.
> I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone was calling for singers job before nor during the meeting.
Accusing someone of racism or white supremacy is effectively calling for them to resign or be fired.
> All that happened was that a bunch of employees formed a committee that brought a bunch of issues to the fore.
Right, but again, we don't know if those issues were valid or not. The "funny names" list is not nearly as damning as they seem to think. Given how much information has leaked to the media, I would assume that the strongest evidence they have of racism would already be public. And I have not seen strong evidence.
> All this amounted to the company backing up a senior employees behavior reflexively at the expense of lower level employees objections.
If "backing up a senior employee's behavior" means allowing him to disagree with others about whether his behavior is racist, especially in the absence of evidence that it is racist, then I think they were right to back him up.
Singer's resignation resulted from the show trial of accusations and media leaks, which is a well known playbook for advocates of social change.
That's extremely predictable at this point.
Sounds like they talked the talk, but when it came to walking the walk, they walked back and told everyone to be quiet.
I would love to talk sometime, if you’re open to it. Send me an email: krschacht at gmail
Perhaps they are the ones working toward a politically neutral, non-racist environment, and it is you who won't accept it.
In truth, I don't believe either they or you could properly identify what a politically neutral environment really looks like, and you're probably all unreliable and serving your own ends.
At my company that I was formally employed at before moving on to my current startup, we had a minority of employees very aggressively and vocally demanding that the CEO issue an anti-racism statement after the George Floyd murder. A statement was issue condemning what happened and racism. They were not satisfied with this and demanded that the exact words black lives matter be used and also that a donation to the BLM organization be made.
The company sold data analysis software targeted at Excel power users. It didn't have any offices in Minnesota. The idea that the company needed to make these statements was insane. They don't control police forces in Minneapolis they don't control police forces anywhere.
It is literally not their business to comment on these matters.
And something I have repeatedly stated and noticed is that the employees making these demands are mediocre at best. I rarely see talented developers doing this because they're too busy working.
I love the privilege on display here. You can ignore racial inequality issues because "they are too distracting," meanwhile I have to wake up each morning, read yet another one of my brothers and sisters has been killed by police, and I still have to run my business. Your mediocrity exist in your complacently to the status-quo. On a daily basis we innovate, build, ship, and push tech more than you could ever hope -- and we don't need to ban "political discussions" at work.
If a business chooses to condemn something without backing up that solidarity with meaningful resources and capital, they should be criticized.
Unless they have the same parents, they are not your brothers and sisters more than OP is. Imagine an us-vs-then based on skin color is extremely racist and should be criticized.
You act as if the only people who are killed by police are "one of my brothers and sisters".
Let's unpack that, shall we?
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
Roughly 3/4 of people killed by police in the US are not one of your "brothers and sisters" if by "brothers and sisters" you are referring to humans who share your melanin content and location of ancestral origin (of course all humans are descended from African humans, but to suit the purposes of demagogues, we can ignore that and just stop at the arbitrary point in lineage where we can maximize division to reap power).
As you read this, it is extremely likely that you cant name a single one of the non-black people killed by police last year, can you? Of course not. Or even in the last 5 years, can you? There are 3 times as many of these people as the group you are ethnocentrically focused on.
Let's also talk about the "sisters" aspect. Statistically, women killed by police are minimal. The referenced website, run by activists, removed the filter for women, but you can download the data yourself to see that it's a minimal amount.
Based on the logic of this movement created by people who don't understand basic stats, the discrepancy between men and women must mean that police are systemically sexist against men, right? Because only the outcome matters, and all explanations except bigotry must be ignored.
A big difference these days is that when a non-black person is wrongfully shot by police, the complete lack of national media coverage allows the police to get off scot free.
See Daniel Shaver, who was recorded on camera being executed, unarmed in his underwear, begging for his life, by a psycho cop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv_eyGw4s3w
Unlike Chauvin, said psycho cop was exonerated and dismissed with a full pension, as if he honorable retired. Where were you and BLM? Nowhere, because it's a bigoted, ethnocentric movement designed to divide rather than unite.
You should ask yourself why you used the phrase "brothers and sisters" about people who share your ethnnicity, and why you don't use it for all humans, like I do. Ask yourself if you've been sucked into the precursor to pure racism, ethnocentrism. Ask yourself if you've allowed yourself to be misinformed by media designed to monetize your confirmation bias, rather than inform you.
https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/mesa-rally-...
Please don't lie and spread hateful rhetoric like the idea that BLM is "bigoted" (against whom, the police?). BLM activists actually were involved in a lot of the Daniel Shaver activism. It is a travesty that the cop that killed him wasn't held accountable, but trying to blame the BLM movement for that when then, and now, they're actively trying to make changes to that system, in ways that are helpful to people of all races, makes me think you're being driven by an irrational hate and fear of the BLM movement.
> ethnocentrism
This word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. "Ethnocentrism" is an antonym of cultural relativism, which I guess could be seen as a sort of supremacy ideology, but not in the way you seem to be using it.
> Based on the logic of this movement created by people who don't understand basic stats, the discrepancy between men and women must mean that police are systemically sexist against men, right? Because only the outcome matters, and all explanations except bigotry must be ignored.
Certainly there are ways that society fails men, yes. It frames them as more violent and dangerous, and because of this I would indeed expect that (and the stats back up) that men are killed, by police disproportionately compared to women, basically no matter how you measure.
Literally the only substantial voice that stood up and went to bat for Daniel Shaver was BLM. You're right, police violence is far from isolated to Black people. Most BLM activists would agree that stopping police violence has multi-racial benefits!
I don't believe this is true. Can you like anything on BlackLivesMatter.com that touches on Daniel Shaver's death?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/09/black-lives-mat...
https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForDaniel/photos/i-just-want...
| BlackLivesMatter.com
The movement is so much more than that website. There's also a big difference between black lives matter and Black Lives Matter.
The website is not the movement.
Second, both of those "opinion pieces" have references to high profile black lives matter activists (deray, shaun king, etc) speaking out about Daniel Shaver, so that's about as official as you're going to get.
Third, that "facebook post" documents an actual event organized by the family of Daniel Shaver, thanking the local blm chapter for their support.
If you have a more substantial voice that has done more than blm in bringing attention to this issue in a productive way, feel free to bring that forward.
>Black people were 28% of those killed by police in 2020 despite being only 13% of the population.
You basically just proved the point you were replying to, that racial inequality exists in policing.
I'm asking in good faith, because I think you have insightful comments and I'm curious, even if I disagree with you on a few things.
Just knowing the percentage of men owning guns is way higher than women owning guns would change your perceived threat level based on sex.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/29/how-male-an...
Also feels safe to assume men murder at a higher rate, are cereal killers, and generally a more dangerous type of human than a female.
Enjoy your sad, weird life https://andrew.im/
What "real views"? He laid out a fairly neutral and convincing case for apolitical workspaces.
I can't tell if your posts are parody or not.
Taught himself how to code at the library.
He was a recipient of the Thiel Fellowship. You get $100,000 for 2 years of living expenses and you get to work on whatever.
Unfortunately he doesn't seem to blog about that and instead focuses on the time a cop forced his head into a steering wheel because he reached in his pocket.
The human mind gravitates towards the negative, probably due to evolutionary pressures.
The US is such a racist place that a white dude who is a well-known Republican gave him $100,000 to do whatever for 2 years but he ignores that and focuses on the negative experiences in his life with the minority of whites who are bigots, ignoring the kindness he clearly must have come across.
I can relate because I had a similar background to him in the sense where I had a very poor and also drug addicted mother who was in and out of homeless shelters. Eventually when my father was able to locate me I got to have a somewhat normal life compared to that, although we were technically below poverty line income wise.
I don't think he ever got that lucky and I can't imagine what he's been through. He seems to have done great things already. I wish him well, and hope he learns to recognize how fortunate he has been in other ways. If being given 100 grand to do whatever for 2 years isn't privilege, then I don't know what is.
Edit:
Importantly, I forgot to add that he CLEARLY capitalized on that fellowship. He's created a pretty badass startup that leverage video/data streaming to allow playing of console/pc games on iOS/Android/etc. Personally of note for me, his startup created a grpc-like serialization format (bebop) that I looked at months ago for a project I was working on. The lesson/reminder for me is that behind every post on the internet is a human being who I probably have a ton in common with. Plus, anyone who buys an old Camaro and fixes it up themselves is automatically relegated to a higher status in my embarrassingly country boy worldview, lol.
Really, this whole write-up about him is a thinly veiled backhanded compliment. Extremely petty and childish.
No, it's what you wrote that means you're passive aggressive.
>Unfortunately he doesn't seem to blog about that and instead focuses on the time a cop forced his head into a steering wheel because he reached in his pocket.
>The human mind gravitates towards the negative, probably due to evolutionary pressures.
>The US is such a racist place that a white dude who is a well-known Republican gave him $100,000 to do whatever for 2 years but he ignores that and focuses on the negative experiences in his life
>I wish him well, and hope he learns to recognize how fortunate he has been in other ways. If being given 100 grand to do whatever for 2 years isn't privilege, then I don't know what is.
This is the most condescending thing I've read in a while, and clearly a backhanded compliment.
I read Mr. Sampson's blog, and I literally got tears in my eyes. I regretted engaging with him in the way I did, but HN doesn't let me delete posts. It was also too late to edit them.
He and I had something in common, and it's just extremely rare to encounter fellow coders who spent some part of their childhood in "the system" (shelters, foster care, etc) like I did. I've also seen hardcore racists who disown their children for dating a person of color. I even tried to dissuade a man (he was a boss on a construction site i worked at) one time from doing this to his daughter. The hatred in his heart was so deep that it was like talking to a wall.
I saw a commenter continuing to engage, and I wanted to express my emotions I felt after reading his blog. I understand the anger too. I remembered, especially in my mid to late 20s, having the suppressed memories/emotions come back and fuck up my head, and often consume me. It was an attempt to relate and process, and yes, a reminder that these negative memories cause us to forget about being grateful for the good things and good people we encounter on a daily basis. The dehumanization of people who disagree with us, is bad, and I'm not pretending I'm not part of the problem, including some asshole things I said in this thread, which I regret.
Based on your outright hostility and strong political beliefs (you clearly have politics incorporated into your identity), I doubt you'll believe my explanation, but I'm writing this in the off-chance that Mr. Sampson sees this. He's embarked on a difficult path with his startup, and I sincerely wish him well. That's it.
Have a nice day.
What about climate change? Should they also commit meaningful capital and resources to that?
How should they balance those with other priorities, like their fiduciary duty to their shareholders?
It's weird that hold this case up as an example of unreasonable behavior on the employees part when in actuality their requests are extremely normal and reasonable.
In the absence of any specific connection to your business, there are plenty of worthy causes (race inequalities, but also gender inequalities, world hunger, ...) and you can't demand that your company (or any company) actively contribute to all of them lest they be called out for being anti-X.
It's basic, morally right, and easily completed during a single lunch break. There's absolutely no reason to overthink this.
BLM and their cohorts were never elected to be representatives of black Americans. The default assumption of upper middle class whites who grew up in segregated suburbs is that they must be representative and most black Americans share their very radical views. I can assure you they do not and opinion polls show this.
I spent a few years in foster care and the best family I was in was a black family in Virginia where the head of household was a police officer and his wife was a public defender in a neighboring county. They and most of their church congregation absolutely despise black lives matter the organization, not the message obviously.
The organization gave itself that name to deliberately overload a moral message with their off-putting, alien, and radical ideology.
Your comment is proof that this strategy worked because if I disagree with any single element of the organization and therefore don't donate, according to your comment I am no longer morally correct and must not think that black lives matter. It's a simplistic and moralistic take evidence by your absolute moral certainty.
It happened randomly and completely out of the blue: one software engineer mentioned he didn't believe in the gender gap and he was promptly replied 1000 words essays by other leaders in the company shutting him down, to show that "we don't tolerate certain behaviour".
Guidelines were created to avoid future political discussions in the workplace. No-one left because of it (immediately) and we sadly didn't become famous. The engineer who brought that up quit a few months after.
After that, half of the employees hated thinking there were people thinking something different from them in the company, the other half was afraid to talk in public.
Again, I don't think there was a particular situation in the company: just a naive person who likes to talk frankly and people who get offended and are quick to attack in order to defend the "safe space" for the people who share their beliefs.
(Or maybe it also shows that being a fully-remote company can have downsides, such as coworkers not socialising enough and therefore not trusting each other? Who knows. DHH certainly has championed the "remote work for everyone" approach countless times.)
I’d bet remote work was a strong contributor. People don’t form the same humanizing attachments remotely as they do in person, in my experience.
Did you read that comment about Basecamp employees "crying and screaming at their screens" after the Zoom meeting? That just sounds so much like people who are both venting their spleens and at the same time have no connection to their workplace.
At the risk of armchair quarterbacking, the whole thing looks like a broken culture, and I get the impression nobody knew just how broken it was until now. Nor do I think any one person or action is to blame. I’d bet that it’s been festering for years.
It’s a fascinating case study, though, and I’m glad we have a view into it.
edit: "here" is okta, not basecamp
Yup. Pro tip: If you're at a SV-influenced company and you find yourself talking about your personal life, don't say "husband," "wife," "boyfriend," or "girlfriend;" say "partner." That signals that you're an Ally rather than an Enemy.
You'll notice other weird speech patterns too. Pay attention to them; they're meaningful.
This isn't any woke thing - its just a "don't reveal information that isn't necessary."
You earn the details of my life by being my friend, not through a contractual relationship.
"More inclusive: Spouses/partners <> Less inclusive: Wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends"
What if my wife would prefer if I referred to her as my "wife" instead of as a generic, faceless "partner"? By insisting that I refer to her as a genderless "partner", you are failing to respect her chosen pronoun.
Because I have no clue who your partner is (or really if you have one) so I shouldn't assume until I have that information. Note that the words in the example are all plural, presumably referring to multiple other peoples' partners.
"Co-founder + CEO of @okta, proud husband + father, addicted to exercise."
Similar verbiage on their company site as well haha
> 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
How am I supposed to talk about my husband doing the housekeeping?
"My Man Spouse is doing the domestic science"
Are all gendered words banned?
What the hell happened to us?!
wtf
I think there's a very fine balance to strike where you want programs to reach the people who benefit -- and certainly leaders and co-workers who need to be more inclusive -- without making those you're trying to help feel uncomfortable by having it so front and center that those who'd like to sit out can't. It's a tough balance, and I've seen companies both go too far and not far enough.
All this is to say I can imagine a situation where OP's environment really is making them more uncomfortable than what many (most?) URM's experience in the work place. Can't say for sure without knowing specifics, of course. It just isn't always a case of "more is better."
It might be forgivable if the studies showed that this hyper focus on race at work actually reduced racism, but it doesn’t. It’s just pure evil.
The situation the person is in isn't great and leaving sounds worth doing but I didn't think that was what the response was about though I can see how the implication to not run away could be interpreted in a different way
That’s the society you’re trying to build.
ETA: people are logging their disagreement in downvotes but I haven’t seen a counter argument to this at any point in this thread, I’m ok with the dv, just interested in hearing the opposing view.
2021: Uh...guys...?
Comparing "you are now in a situation where you may have an opportunity to empathise with difficulties others have had" to "you are trying to build a society where more fortunate people are harmed in the name of sameness" doesn't resonate at all.
Somehow it only comes out when the person preaching it feels extreme pity for the person in need of "empathy" and most importantly the preacher is the only one who really understands how to give that empathy, no one else is able to reach their level of enlightenment. Of course this creates a problem when two such preachers are in the same room...
Additionally, most of the time the pitied person doesn't want your pity or empathy they just want to live their life and are usually pretty happy until you come along and start telling them they need empathy and how bad their life really is.
ETA: I’ve looked over your comments, aside from one that appears to be sarcastic everything you say has a response to it. I added my own comment to one of them as well. I think resigning ourselves to Twitter-like flame wars without actually talking things out isn’t very hn like at all.
Edit: I read your edit. It appears that in your mind, comments that disagree with you resemble a Twitter flame war, and comments agreeing with you are well articulated and thoughtful. In reality, your comments are just as negative and one-sided as the others you disparage.
Just the opposite, I welcome disagreement. I just don’t like being attacked without knowing why.
I kid but obviously a downvote is a negative response to something I wrote, but without the responsibility of actually backing up why they’re having that negative response. I’m kinda lost as to why we’re even having this discussion, you appear upset that I wanted to hear why people were downvoting me. Why does that upset you?
Yes, it absolutely is the climate here. it’s awful. tribalism, division, distrust and eagerness to demonize anyone who doesn’t tow your line.
we’re doomed
If I were at a company of ~58 people, and ~20 of them were forming a DE&I committee to evaluate the company's vendor relationships, speakers, etc., I'd be tempted to join just to get the potential target off of my back. They're not going to fire 1/3 of the workforce, after all.
You don't have to leave it anonymous; I think most people know what Google is.
/s
You have a list of customer names that you mock? What kind of amateur, disrespectful operation are you running? Are you building a product or pledging a fraternity?
And how does any of that lead to talking about "White Supremacy". And how does voicing an opinion about such a subject seem like a good idea for the workplace regardless of if you think it exists or not?
For a company that has written a lot of books about how to build companies and cultures, this is...laughable.
Perhaps one step at a time, over the course of repeated conversations that keep dredging up more and more deep-seated resentments that have probably been festering for years and years, because of a longstanding social convention that we're not supposed to openly talk about these sorts of things at the workplace.
Or perhaps, if it's the kind of company where a list like that could continue to exist for so long, there was enough pressure built up that it was more like a levee breaking.
I agree for the most part there. Less so the founders, I think there sin runs more along the lines of being extremely naive (but in a way a lot of people might be, especially when the alternative might be to accept you're screwed).
> something must have gone fundamentally wrong much earlier. These levels of tension and distrust don't just arise out of nowhere.
Well, the tensions exist because they're being pushed for by large influences societally for political gain. The problem is they promoted a workplace environment where it was considered okay to bring it in, as well as to poke fun at clients (which is what kicked it all off).
I see this as an example of the cost of free doughnuts.[1] It's well known that we value the loss of something as more than the gain of something, and we value free things for far more than they're worth. Employees were given free reign for a long time in ways that weren't all that conducive to a diverse work environment or to respecting clients. Now they are being told not to do things that most work places already expect you to know enough not to do, either by explicitly telling you or by culture, such as don't blast your political views out to everyone, and don't be disrespectful to the clients, as that's where your paycheck comes from. My guess is the majority of people that leave if honestly reflecting on this in a few years would acknowledge that maybe announcing and focusing on your differences with those you need to spend time with is not as good a strategy for a happy and productive workplace as focusing on your similarities.
1: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-...
which would be maybe more excusable if it didn't come from the guys who wrote several books about how awesomely they run their company. I guess that's why my sympathy for their situation is somewhat limited.
I mean, it's easy to think you're doing well because you got lucky in personnel and timing for how things went, but maybe have a bit more introspection before writing a book about it and how good your ideas were (there's a lot of non-fiction that could be said about...).
If I have sympathy for them, I think it would be because I could see myself making the exact same mistakes: writing confidently as my business road a wave of great timing, thinking that emboldened and involved employees were great for company culture, and then deciding that maybe it was a risky distraction.
Fried and DHH are a lot of things, but naive isn’t one of them.
How anyone can look at this debacle and think of the employees as anything but victims, and the founders as anything but reactionary blowhards, is absolutely incoherent to me.
The founders are obviously the ones in the wrong here, and obviously come out with shattered reputations.
Relevant excerpt from It doesn't have to be Crazy at Work.
Social justice activism divides individuals by unchosen group identities into "oppressors" and "oppressed" which is in direct opposition to acknowledging a persons feelings as well as listening to their viewpoints. Social justice activism has due to this predictably lead to resentment and unnecessary conflict in the workplace.
Yowchhh. Really really good find.
You may be underestimating the power of modern day PC.
I also think partly this is because being a remote company, these discussions, even with a Web Cam just dont convey the message much. Some of these message could have been in private with different colleague during coffee break or in pantry. So I felt it is also a failure or remote work. Remote doesn't work ALL the time, which is something DHH dont get. And VC are required for many businesses, which is something DHH dont get as well.
Another problem was that most of his political message, I guess you could also argue are glorified ads for Basecamp, attract the same people with similar political views. And many of them were sold into the vision, cult of whatever that might be as Basecamp. And the new policy was felt more like a betrayal of their belief. Hence the huge reaction and backlash that happened.
I don't know about "child" but there is a similar vibe here. This also comes through in blog posts and Twitter threads I've seen from some of the people involved. A certain assumption that their own account or opinion should automatically be accepted as default. Arrogance? Petulance? Entitlement? Somewhere in that space.
It shouldn't even be a surprise, really. Even if they were able to overlook political differences, DHH and JF were overwhelmingly likely to hire people who were like themselves in some ways. It's what founders and CEOs have always done, and has often been remarked upon since before they were born. "A fish rots from the head" is one of the less charitable forms. People's high self-image and approach to disagreement or confrontation seems to have been one of the (quite likely unconscious) selection criteria here. After that, a blowup of some sort was only a matter of time.
but it is anyway, usually
Remember, the proximate cause here was something that directly related to what happened at work.
It's not the case that forming a committee that's over 1/3 the size of the company to do unprompted evaluation of vendor relationships for DE&I and approval of guest speakers follows logically from, "there used to be a list of funny sounding names and management didn't handle it well."
Yeah that seems to have been the trigger but I'm not sure that such a list should lead to everything described in the article.
How that lead to demanding someone denounce white supremacy at a meeting seems like things have long since disconnected from the funny names list.
Also, I guess this is personal, but a little humility is good for everyone, IMHO, and doesn't necessarily contradict a healthy dose of self-confidence either. DHH seems to have little of it — at least judging from his books and also from his Twitter.
(With no small amount of irony, I find that many "normal" people have a very hard time truly empathising with the ways in which people on the spectrum are different.)
But it doesn't even have to be something as categorisable as the spectrum. Just as people don't choose their genetics or initial brain chemistry, it's equally true to say that nobody chose their genetic parents or their upbringing. People are the product of their environment; we would do well to keep this in mind even when we (rightly) castigate people for their misdeeds.
The autism spectrum is a continuum that fades into normality, with no clear boundary. Part of that continuum is individuals with broad autism phenotype (BAP), who have significantly more autistic traits than the average person does, but not enough to reach the diagnostic cutoff for ASD. That cutoff varies from clinician to clinician, and is moving over time, which renders the boundary between BAP and ASD particularly fuzzy.
> (With no small amount of irony, I find that many "normal" people have a very hard time truly empathising with the ways in which people on the spectrum are different.)
Damian Milton speaks of the "double empathy problem" – it is claimed that a defining trait of autism is deficits in empathy, and yet very many non-autistic people are at least as deficient in empathy for autistic people.
Based on my own experiences (which are very limited) I don't see a deficit of empathy in people on the spectrum. What I do see is someone who sees the world differently (has a different kind of "filter" to distinguish signal from noise) which causes the response to stimulus to be different. If you see the world differently, your internal model of what another person is is different, and therefore the way one expresses their empathy is different.
Arguably this isn't so different to how concepts of honour and respect can vary greatly between cultures.
I think there's a lot of cross-purpose arguing about it all. It's likely that they're a bit painful to work for AND that as founders they'd have concerns about their paid staff getting distracted from their mission at work.
It's not about being successful. It's about not having an ego and acting like you're better than everyone else just because you are successful. Americans are much more willing to tolerate this behaviour than Australians.
If you want to attract and keep talent you need to listen to their views and involve in them defining the values of the company.
As a personal example, I work in a shared office space. If a vocal tenant talks loudly about politics, even if it's something I agree with, I cringe and worry that it creates a less welcoming space for anyone in the room that doesn't agree with the points. Seems reasonable that they should expect an office where they can work without feeling on edge.
A lot of the complaints or commentary I've seen across a few issues, leaving aside this more acute issue was that DHH and JF were entirely comfortable espousing _their_ opinions and feelings on things, but a lot less interested in hearing other people's.
If I'd founded something 20+ years ago (well, I have), and at some point a third of the business was putting work time into deciding HR policy that was alienating other staff, I'd be looking at resolving it too. I've worked for myself for 20+ years so can't be sure, but I haven't heard of anything like that equality-council from any friends working here in Australia. This situation might be more unique to current USA?
They're also within their rights to say all employees will only make minimum wage, and that their products will now be marked up 1000%, but that doesn't mean employees or customers have to accept that.
If it was purely about talking about politics at work then everyone wouldn't have resigned.
I read the first third-party piece about this and nothing sounded outrageous. Read Jason and DHH's pieces, and then DHH's follow-up entry. I read Jane Yang's bit. And I read some Twitter threads from employees.
Obviously employees are well within their rights to want a workplace where they form HR policy and the founders can want another scenario if they think it's to the detriment of their product. Former can move on to another workplace. Founders can wear the blowback of their decision.
eg. if Basecamp got bulk gym memberships at 20$/employee but each employee would have to sign up at 40$ per person, Basecamp paying each employee 20$ would not be the same as giving each employee a gym membership.
Fair enough that it might not work so well in subsequent years due to taxes.
If you came across a list that contained names that were being laughed at because of their ethnicity, and you shared that ethnicity, would you feel comfortable working with the people making those jokes?
Assuming that it wasn't malicious or targeted, I'd expect the managerial response to be "Hey - this list is not really showing respect to our customers on a couple of fronts, so please wipe it ASAP. I understand that you weren't aware of why it's truly problematic, but you're aware now and I don't expect to see something like this again."
As I've said elsewhere though, I don't live in a place that feels as politically polarised, so I'm sure that's a serious factor.
Do you have sources for this, or anonymous blogs? Because I'd be concerned what "like" means here. It's obviously not literally this, otherwise it'd the word 'literal'. But to me, the ambiguity can be read (in bad faith) as "I think LGBTQ identities, broadly, are bullshit, and I shouldn't respect a direct report who identifies as bisexual, it's as ridiculous as someone who is believes they're a wolf sexually".
A little bit of disambiguity would do a long way here, as I genuinely can't tell if this is someone who thinks asexuals, bisexuals, etc. are bullshit not worth respecting (aka, a place of ignorance of the speaker), or if Google is literally saying that unheard-of sexual identities are part of its HR policies (which I've never heard of and would love to know to avoid working at Google in the future.)
Although I'm also just some random stranger on the internet, so take this post as you will.
I would maybe be more sympathetic to DHH if it wasn't the guy who was so opinionated he pushed through Rails features that everyone else disliked or co-wrote several books on company culture that are glorified ads for basecamp (although "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" is still a thought-provoking read, at least in part). I can only imagine that he might be similarly self-righteous in workplace situations.
I think that, no matter your political views, if a situation gets out of hand that bad over matters that aren't even really directly related to workplace concerns, something must have gone fundamentally wrong much earlier. These levels of tension and distrust don't just arise out of nowhere.