Yup, I'm a little disturbed that people jump to defending him to a degree that borders on reinterpreting history.
Eg:
> Someone who wrote a racist or anti-Semitic comment in 2007 could have evolved to deeper understanding
Ok. Is there any evidence this specific person did? Did he apologize? Did his public writing change substantially since then?
It's not like this is an embarrassing photo taken during a party the guy had forgotten about. I have trouble imagining how someone could be hired as head of diversity for Google and forget that they published a screed about how jews should confront their appetite for war or whatever.
If the only information you have about this person is this, your first reaction should not be to find excuses to dismiss the information; or if it is, you should at least look for additional information, instead of speculating about how maybe the person totally changed their mind and is totally being treated unfairly.
The issue isn’t that this person didn’t make a mistake - we all agree on that. The issue is that in our culture, we don’t make room for a person to make mistakes and grow (often the only way to grow) by forgiving them and believing that they are a better person now and can contribute to society more effectively going forward.
I understand this is a tricky balance to maintain. But I sincerely believe the internet junta is unforgiving and judgemental beyond the point of any utility except making oneself feel better by “other-ising” people they don’t know, and claiming that they wouldn’t ever be like that person.
The reality is that we are all remarkably similar. We’ve just been in radically different circumstances and who knows how we would have behaved had we been in a similar situation?
I don’t mean to pick a battle with you. I understand where you are coming from. I would love to have a civil discussion with you. Have a wonderful day.
More details here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/w...
People do change and also understand when they do «downright stupid things», but we have to give them a chance to arrive at that point.
If the post is still online, like the videos and photos of Tom Petty's 1985 tour, that could also be interpreted as a sign of honesty, it's also possible that the author forgot that he wrote it.
I write a lot of things that I don't remember soon after.
It happens to code as well, sometimes I ask myself «who's the genius that wrote this beautiful code» and I'm shocked when I find out it was me years ago, but most of the times I regret writing it.
Some people spend hours writing a single tweet to get the message exactly right.
Not all writing is equal. There is a difference between let's say a tweet that was sent in during a flamewar versus a personal blog post that has been penned in the past and stayed published until today. The function of the latter is closer to a book, in that it explicitly aims to persist and communicate thoughts through time. If one changes, they could have taken the post down. If there was regret about the contents, one could have published an update/apology etc with the post.
And the post wasn't picked from a web archive; it had stayed up until it the pushback reached career threatening levels. Yet there is still no evidence or apology in any medium that the person has actually changed their viewpoint. All we have is other people apologizing on their behalf with speculative redemption.