> For instance, in Belarus right now a lot of engineers seek to get out the country due to dictatorship regime. Poland and neighbourhood countries offer emergency visa plans for people in trouble (business harbour visa).

Would this apply to a typical Belarusian engineer in Belarus, though? They'd be White, European, and (correct me if I'm wrong) violence there seems mainly directed at protesters and protest leaders. It seems to me like this tailored for the kinds of racial and sexual minorities the US likes to obsess about.

> Tenure of less than 1 year at GitLab may be possibly waived as a requirement if:

> - You are a member of a(n [underrepresented](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/#definiti...)) group that is unsafe or in any way mistreated in your country.

> - Violence in your country does not provide a safe environment.

>> - You are a member of a(n [underrepresented](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/#definiti...)) group that is unsafe or in any way mistreated in your country.

The racial classification found in this document seems surreal for me (I'm from SW Europe). Seen from here, the US racial categories often seem absurd.

Makes me wonder if you can have both: constantly bringing the race up and eliminating racism.

Speaking as a citizen of the french colonial empire which has pretended since at least WWII that being blind to race would erase racism, it definitely has not. Moreover, ignoring racial issues only reinforces racism by making it harder to denounce.

Under Sarkozy's very authoritarian and racist presidency (though in retrospect Hollande and Macron have pushed those same tendencies even further), there were public debates on national television about removing racial equality from human rights declaration (or was it constitution?) because "race does not exist so mentioning it is reinforcing racism".

Putting problems under the carpet does not make them go away. It's important that race does not become the central factor in explaining things (because there's many other factors) because that would be an essentialist reduction that reinforces racism... there needs to be place for class, gender, ability and other components in social studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism

EDIT: It's common here in France to hear someone say "How can you talk about racism when there's no such thing as human races! It's scientifically proven, so your claims of racism are ridiculous!"

> Speaking as a citizen of the french colonial empire which has pretended since at least WWII that being blind to race would erase racism, it definitely has not. Moreover, ignoring racial issues only reinforces racism by making it harder to denounce.

I think this is probably one of those cases where there's a spectrum, and the extremes are both bad. It's bad to be race-blind at a policy level, since that prevents dealing with unjust race-based disparities. However, it is also bad to encourage people to be hyper-aware of race and racial categories; because that perpetuates those categories, gets in the way of forming natural connections between members of different races, and even can fuel a more explicit discriminatory racism in some people. IMHO US cultural trends are pushing for the latter bad situation (amongst other more positive reevaluations), and those trends are being exported.

It's probably not practical, but I've thought that the most effective way to ultimately solve racism would be to setup schools such that it would be difficult to impossible to have an opposite-sex romantic relationship with a classmate that was not in some respect interracial. In the short term the amount of contact that would force would blunt stereotypes, and in the medium/long term is it would hopefully lead to muddling the racial categories until they're meaningless in a contemporary context.

I should also make it clear that despite having an official policy of "no racial hierarchies" and convincing inhabitants of the colonial world (who were NOT "citizens" of the french Republic, but "Indigènes" and were governed by a different civil/criminal law called "Indegenous Code") to fight against nazism during WWII for freedom and equality for all and against racial hierarchies (that the French colonial empire had themselves setup and supported), and despite many such people being sent a cheap blood on the frontlines instead of white soldiers, the French republic has of course not recognized their sacrifice.

For example, historical celebrations and references to the resistance movement often credit American intervention for the liberation of France, which for sure played a part, but downplays the millions of indigènes involved in the armed insurrection, as well as the Spanish antifascist bridages who have been erased from history despite liberating most of Paris 24h before the Americans even set foot in it.

On the other hand, colonial and racial oppression throughout the french colonized territories has not ceased after WWII. In some cases, it dramatically increased at least compared to the past decades, with the horrors of the "war" (read: genocide) in Algeria and Indochine for example. In fact, that France promised freedom and equality for all in the struggle against nazism while not holding such promise at all is precisely one of the major fire-starters for the anti-colonial independence movements of the 50-60s.

If you'd like a fictional take on what the French occupation in Algeria looked like, the Battle of Algiers is a good introduction. The movie was banned until the 90s in France because it revealed the horrors of colonization, while even today the government and national education insist that colonization was a disinterested act of kindness to help civilize lesser people... which is of course completely false as Africa and Asia had great civilizations long before Rome was born. The writings of Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who worked in Algeria (and took part in the armed struggle against colonization), open a lot of perspective on practical details of everyday occupation and resistance.

> Moreover, ignoring racial issues only reinforces racism by making it harder to denounce.

This is interesting. Shouldn't it be as easy as "this guy here thinks races exist and that some are somehow better/worse"?

> "this guy here thinks races exist and that some are somehow better/worse"

This only covers conscious and deliberate racial discrimination, but does not cover cultural racism and other aspects of racism which are broadly studied in social sciences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Aspects

TLDR: works against white supremacists and nazis, doesn't work against everyday racism we've all been forcefed (through media and schools) since childhood.

Hailing from a country whose entire idea of Sub-Saharan Africa comes from a single work of fiction from the XIXth century and which has been nevertheless seeing a gradual, but visible shift in perspective in recent years(basically the colonial attitude is finally dying), I don't agree.

I think it's still possible to fight racism without resorting to putting people into these tight cubbyholes.

Especially given that people with parents from different backgrounds defy such classification.

Then again my country doesn't have much of a colonial past - we weren't even an independent state back then, so perhaps there are details that are specific to former empires, which elude me.

I think that the "tight cubbyholes" is a bit of a strawman (in general, not that you're using it as such. Its absolutely how these ideas are often presented in the mainstream).

I know a lot of feminist/anti-racist/queer activists. None of them are trying to put people into tight cubbyholes. They are actually all pushing for greater awareness of how people don't fit into these cubbyholes. The whole idea of intersectionality* (which is foundational in modern "woke" politics) is based on this.

The tight cubbyholes aspect is often either a strawman presented by people who are against making changes (at the softest end, or actively hateful at the hardest).

Or is something that the powers that be (managers, politicians, whatever) insist on when they implement any changes. Often these are either against what activists are calling for or a begrudged concession to bureaucracy and data collection.

The data analysis aspect is unfortunately important. In an ideal world it wouldn't be, but thats not where we are. It doesn't just highlight outright bigotry, but inadvertant discrimination (eg only holding interviews at times which inadvertantly don't work for people (often women) with child care responsibilities), or even problems beyond an organisation (eg the pipeline issue).

*Intersectionality is about recognising all the different aspects of a person's identity and the different ways that they priviledge/disadvantage them in different circumstances. It was explicitly developed by black women who were being let down by both black support systems which all targeted at black men, and women's support networks which targeted white women. They recognised that just adding a "black women" box only addressed the immediate issue so built a framework to analyse the Intersection of identities more generally.

That’s just bananas.

> The racial classification found in this document seems surreal for me (I'm from SW Europe). Seen from here, the US racial categories often seem absurd.

They are absurd. Hispanic is not a racial category, it's an ethnic category, like being German or German-American.

Yes. And putting Arabs and European whites in the same basket seems ridiculous, as there is anti-arab racism among white people (in the US) and, probably, the reverse is somewhat true too in some cases (there is a large diversity of situations among Arabs, it is not the same a poor Algerian immigrant and a rich Arabian prince). In any case, when you start using rigid classifications, you make the problem worse. Racism is there, but it is subtle and harsh at the same time.

First off, there's hardly anyone other than europeans in East European countries. And I don't see why Gitlab engineers wouldn't be involved in the protests. They're probably well-educated and therefore statistically more likely to care about the political situation.

If caring about the political situation translated into action then the US would have no issues at all. Engineers are very much less likely to take part of protests anywhere because they're busy and think they're well off.

No need to generalise based on your limited experience if you are unfamiliar with situation in Belarus

yeah.... a good friend of mine (dual citizen) who manages a large engineering team there for US startup was picked up randomly not at the protest shortly after they started, thrown in jail, denied access to consular services, his very good lawyers got his jail term taken down from 15 days to 12 days despite the guys who picked him up not showing for the hearing or testifying that he was in fact not at the protest when they picked him up. a couple weeks after they started rubber stamping everyone picked up for protests with 2 years regardless of actual involvement. this isn't even including the extreme random violence some people are subjected to and horrible general conditions. fuck everything about this attitude - belarus is just around the corner from civil war it's not cool at all.

In Belarus we’ve had employees arrested for literally being outside at the wrong time, even if it’s just to look at what’s going on from the front of their building. Things have calmed down somewhat since then, but they’ve also put in border controls so people can’t leave the country. You literally need to get smuggled over the border. Thankfully I hear that is not too difficult. The visa situation once you get to wherever you go isn’t awesome tho, since you’re still at the mercy of a large bureaucracy.

Belarus is currently considered one of the least safe places in Europe to be LGBTQ+. I'm not sure if they enacted the Russian-style "anti gay propaganda" law they spitballed a few years ago, but even without it, it's safe to say LGBTQ+ people in Belarus are "being mistreated".

In my experience tech workers in Eastern Europe are not significantly more progressive than other residents, but if Gitlab's company culture is at least somewhat progressive, it's likely that it attracts people in those countries who tend towards the progressive end of their respective countries' political spectrum. Given that Belarus has a very low bar for what the government considers a "political activist", it's reasonable to assume that some of these people might find themselves in trouble without having to go as far as donning black masks and tossing rocks at police officers.

It's also worth keeping in mind that software development is one of the professions easiest to get into as a marginalized person because you can teach yourself enough to get started and especially when freelancing it's possible to work without ever meeting the other person face-to-face. You'd be surprised how many programmers are queer, disabled or neurodivergent.

EDIT: QED?

I note that in that case they may agree to waive the 1 year tenure requirement but not the requirement not to be on a PIP.

Like any company they are willing to help the good employees that they want to keep.

I think having your life depend on your performance improvement either gives you strong motivation or ptsd. (probably both)

> For instance, in Belarus right now a lot of engineers seek to get out the country due to dictatorship regime.

It’s funny cause I heard the same in 2014 in Ukraine. Why exactly is it funny? Because it seemed like a made-up problem. Engineers weren’t hunted down. Instead, they were driving new cars from their new homes to their new offices while drinking artisan coffee. But for some reason they wanted to be a victim. I guess goes in the same bucket as “I’ll leave the US if Trump gets elected!”

I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, as engineers are often very privileged positions in society and the people who suffer the most from dictatorship and civil wars are definitely not engineers, because any regime needs the engineers to collaborate with the powers that be and so treats them rather well (compared to the global population).

However, likening Trump's election with the civil war in Ukraine or dictatorship in Belarus is definitely disconnected from reality. Under Trump like before, and as in most pretend-democracies of the global north, cops have been a force of occupation of popular districts and have murdered a certain number of citizens. But in Ukraine, we're talking about an actual civil war with barricades in the city centers, with militias fighting off each other with kalashnikovs. In Belarus, we're talking about state police and intelligence services physically torturing activists to force confessions (whether true or not, who knows?).

Once again, i'm not saying such things don't exist in the global north or are perfect around here... Far from it. The power structures are very similar, but the level of repression is considerably higher. The dangers we face here are no match for what happens in BUR (Belarus-Ukraine-Russia).

See also: https://abc-belarus.org/?lang=en for information about anti-anarchist repression in Belarus, or https://pramen.io/en/ for wider political analysis

What happened in Ukraine in mid-2014 was not a civil war at all. One side poorly pretended to be a militia, while the other side were regular military forces of Ukraine. It's not a civil war when one country attacks another country.

You had civil militias fighting on both sides, although both regular Ukrainian and Russian armies were involved. Of course, the Russian army always claimed it was not involved but that is another topic.

I agree there's a non-negligible dimension of foreign military invasion in the ukrainian conflict, but it's not exactly as clearcut as that. Now is a good time to mention i'm neither ukrainian nor an expert on the topic; this analysis is based on my readings and first-hand accounts from ukrainian refugees.

I get your point. But this is exactly what Russian information sources are trying to make everyone believe (that "it's not exactly as clearcut as that", almost a literal translation of the phrase they like to repeat so much). I can presume that your information sources got most of their information from Russia-influenced media, and this pretty much expected if they were in the East at the time everything started. But the truth is that, once you peel back the informational disguise, it actually is very clear-cut.

I have first-hand accounts from ukrainian refugees/comrades telling me about how it was on the streets, and how the far-right movement in Ukraine was strongly divided between those siding for Ukraine as part of a nationalist stance, and those siding for Russia because it was seen as the strong authoritarian hand they wanted.

They have even explained in length how Ukraine's government has since the civil war incorporated Azov and other nazi militias into a kind of national guard / para-military organization which now greatly threatens social/political activities on the streets.

That sounds plausible to me, unless of course these acquaintances have lied to me about their actual experiences of a civil war, but i somehow trust them more than imperialist media whether from EU side or Russia side. Disclaimer: these acquaintances of mine were on the pro-Ukraine/EU side, some of them fought as part of civil militias before becoming refugees.

A prolonged conflict is only clear-cut if you’re pushing a narrative. https://youtu.be/4pfYeDAKiyA It’s obvious that the majority of DNR and LNR military are locals. We can speculate all we want how they joined the forces, but it is what it is.

It’s the most peculiar war ever, though. Imagine being at war with someone and importing electricity from your foe [1]. Either there’s no war or someone is demented.

1. https://iz.ru/1119009/2021-02-01/ukraina-vozobnovila-import-...

I've sometimes heard the expression "non-linear war", although i haven't dug into that concept much. On a sidenote of specifically Russian government propaganda, Adam Curtis had a short video called "Oh Dearism 2" which briefly touches on Vladislav Surkov's approach to public relations.

Also worth pointing out, being at war with someone you are materially dependent on is the essence of most (all?) colonial wars. The colonizing powers depend on the colonies' resources, and further arrange to destroy local material autonomy so the colonies depend on colonial supplies (whether for electricity, operating fuel extraction sites, food, etc). This dependence on the colonizers, created by the colonizers themselves, is part of the reason why colonizing nations get away with neocolonial settings despite formal independence (see for example Françafrique or Franc CFA on wikipedia or your encyclopedia of choice).