CoCs themselves, and the wider identity politics culture war, are also extremely Ameri-centric.

> the implication that harrasment is somehow ok against people who are not members of the protected class?

There is a subset (I like to think that they're the fringe, but have no numbers to back that up) of those who engage in identity politics who do believe that bigotry does not apply when the target is the dominant demographic.

> CoCs themselves, and the wider identity politics culture war, are also extremely Ameri-centric.

An idea can be both a good one and political. And indeed a good idea while Ameri-centric.

The risk is that this might be a status play by authoritarians, who very rarely have good ideas and typically do a lot of damage once they get in to power. I suspect actual minorities & protected classes are more worried about authoritarians than racist jokes. If they aren't they should be.

> who do believe that bigotry does not apply when the target is the dominant demographic

I said something similar about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28664520

Then I literally had a troll stalk me for it, claiming I was racist.

When I asked why: "There’s no arguing with racist pieces of shit such as yourself"

so, while what you say is true, careful pointing that out.

it is the depiction of in-group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups

Modern tribalism at it's finest

I've never seen anybody suggest that you can't be bigoted against a dominant group.

I have seen it suggested that specific terms like racism and sexism are not generic terms that apply to any sort of discrimination along racial, ethnic or in the case of sexism along gender lines, but apply specifically to actions that maintain or reinforce the power of dominant groups and existing privileges and positions that advantage them, and that trying to expand those terms to describe all discrimination serves to obfuscate and minimize the existing structural and institutional power disparities.

Or to analogize, if my boss hates me, that's probably a big problem for me and my work. If alternatively hate my boss, that's not really a problem in the same way for my boss. I can't fire them, or decide what projects they can work on. They aren't the reverse of each other, because the power dynamic isn't the same.

It is part of the basic definitions of the Critical Theory worldview, and the underlying Marxist ideas behind it. (Yes, I know invoking those will cause people to presume I'm just parroting talking points, but I am being very precise.)

The gist of the idea is that the oppressed ('minority group') do not need to be bound by the laws that shackle them, created by the oppressors ('dominant group') solely to preserve their own power. Defying the oppressors and violating existing institutions and laws is a baseline understanding of those who fully adopt this worldview. It may be largely a fringe for now, but in America, it's being pushed steadily along the axes of both race and gender first, and other secondary traits following behind.

Wow are you barking up the wrong tree in describing me. This is some strange strawman version of what some left wing people believe, not a description of my philosophy.

Did you read this on Brietbart, or in The National Review, or what?

I was not attempting to describe you, and I apologize if that's what I communicated. My response was intended to be to your opening comment:

  I've never seen anybody suggest that you can't be bigoted against a dominant group.

I am pointing out that that /is/ a current and growing worldview among many, even if you have not yet seen it yourself. Your views are your own, and I have relatively little insight into it from your post.

I would point out that it is the logical extension of what you stated in the first post in this subthread, carried to its extremes. If you don't believe those extremes should hold, I would ask you to consider: what is the limiting factor for you? Where is the line drawn? How far is too far?

I appreciate the clarification.

I don't however agree with you that that's the logical extension of what I stated. Can you explain? I don't feel it particularly relevant to take an idea and carry it to an extreme to judge it's usefulness either.

Perhaps you might instead address what I said initially on it's own terms.

The argument you'd heard basically boils down to turning all power dynamics into moral categories: those who have power reinforce their own power by building systems that make sure there's no repercussions for their own actions if they harm someone under their power. The extension comes when people make it universal instead of specific: defining all human relationships in terms of power and its abuse. Those in power are inherently immoral, and thus under power are inherently moral.

There is certainly truth to this: normally, we would call such a relationship 'corruption of power', and as the adage goes, power and corruption tend to go hand-in-hand. The argument then goes that if you are not in power, the only way to return the relationship to a morally right state is to break the rules the corrupt powerful have put in place to purportedly retain their own power. If you grant the premise of the powerful making /all laws/ and /all institutions/ solely to preserve themselves and oppress others, the conclusion must follow.

The issue in my opinion is one of 'divined intent' - there is an implicit premise, that there is either direct intent built-in to those oppressive structures, or that there is indirect intent that carries the same amount of guilt for the powerful group. But that paints with far too broad a brush, and is really unfalsifiable, since we cannot fully know the mind of those creating and participating in those structures. Yet all too often, the argument boils down to an assignment of malign intent that vindicates any and all action in response. This is usually done with a motte-and-bailey: make the sweeping case that all powerful people think something, then tip-toe around individual examples when confronted, unless it's a cherry-picked target.

There is also the issue of the universal: this holds true of many systems, but not all systems, and not all people within those systems. The argument works by making the claim apply to /any/ relationship involving power.

Lastly, there is the issue of vocabulary. It's a cute trick to redefine words to apply only to a subset of what the words originally refer to, but the goal is confusion of language. You create new words to describe subsets of phenomena, but that's not what's been done in that argument: it hijacks the original meaning to generate confusion, often with the goal of saying, for example, 'if you are against racism [original definition], you will overturn all existing systems [modified definition].' There's equivocation going on in there.

0. There's no singular leftist philosophy in a world where anarchists and socialists and moderates and centrists are all ostensibly on the same side, but there are points of agreement (nazis are bad, every human being deserves equal dignity, people should have agency over their own bodies except where that agency meaningfully harms others, etc). When I refer to leftist thought I'm trying to refer to my understanding of that overlap. Also I'll number by paragraph I'm responding to.

1. To your first paragraph I'd say that's not the usual argument that I've heard from people on the left. I mean there are kooky people out there, but I think most people would say having privilege doesn't make you inherently immoral, nor is lacking power inherently moral. Morality is based on choices, with the understanding that choosing not to act is still seen as a choice.

Having systemic power gives you a greater capacity to affect change. I do think some people will see refusing to act appropriately to change things for the better when it's easier because you have power as more immoral than if you refuse to act when you lack systemic power, so in that sense you are right, but that's only true if you don't act.

Further I just don't think guilt is really the focus for most people on the left, except to understand how we got to the current status quo; What's more important is people taking responsibility and acting, and attempting to share power so that others can also act.

2. There are certainly people who intentionally work to maintain and expand their power; wealthy people who push for lower tax rates on the wealthy come to mind. Still, a large part of feminist and anti-racist theory seems to be about creating knowledge of privilege in people who take it for granted, and then pointing out the responsibility that suggests. There are conspiracy minded folks to be sure, but I don't know that that jibes with the idea of invisible privilege. I suppose you could argue it doesn't and suggest leftist philosophy isn't perfectly coherent or in agreement though. I'll have to think about this.

3. There's a whole thing in leftist philosophy about how intent is not the same thing as impact. It doesn't matter if systems that perpetuate injustice were built for the best of intentions or the worst or are just weird historical artifacts like the electoral college, what matters is the harm done, and how it falls disproportionately on members of marginalized groups. Thus the whole emphasis on anti-racism instead of not being racist, since merely not acting to further racism doesn't mitigate the harm that exists currently, and is thus also immoral. If that's confusing, look up Good Germans.

4. I'm not sure I understood why you were saying this, but to the extent that I understood I think I agree with you that not every relationship with power is affected. I see a meaningful difference in situations where a person has significant institutional or structural power vs situations where the power comes with the approval of those over whom power is wielded directly.

5.A cute trick? So does that mean you are suggesting that racism was not historically a term mainly used to describe the Nazis and other white supremacists, and sexism a term mainly used to describe the gender inequality that women faced?

I would argue that your original definition is in fact a conservative redefinition, one that treats an unequal status quo as an entitlement of those with power by pretending they are the true victims because people are attempting to redress social injustices.

I guess in the post modern sense any viewpoint can be correct because everything is subjective and based on one's viewpoint, but I'm not a post modernist and to me that seems like BS. I think terms are regularly redefined by people on the right in order to muddy the water and generate fear.

I guess I can say, at least we agree the water is muddy?

This has been fun, not sure I'll respond more or not in this thread but you've given me some food for thought.

Certainly agreed the water is muddy, and that only the kooky fringe hold to all these, but that fringe is growing. The widely-hailed current sources for this kind of thinking are Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo; the latter, specifically, is being hired by companies nationwide to run seminars for employees to train them with this kind of worldview.

It's also pushed strongly in academia, and is quite common to hear about among young progressives as compared to older ones. For concrete examples, look into the Mike Nayna documentary on the Evergreen State College's 'Equity Council'; it's an extreme example, but you can hear the same process happening to lesser degrees elsewhere.

I've read Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist and Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and while I didn't agree with everything they said, a lot of it was thoughtful, made me think, and ultimately made sense. I do have a lot of privileges that others don't, and I feel obliged to make things better if I can, using the imperfect guides that exist.

I expect in 20 years some of what Kendi and DiAngelo will have held up, and some of it won't have. That's how doing anything new usually works.

I don't expect corporations to solve racism and sexism, or politicians or even people who run seminars.

I've actually given up any hope that my lifetime will see meaningful end of racism or sexism or even childhood hunger in America. Maybe some low hanging fruit or common cases will be better addressed.

When there is a real attempt to do something that actually makes a difference in the world, I expect it to be a bit clumsy, because they are so often trying to solve for the common case or the most costly case, not for every case. That's not illogical, I do the same thing when I code.

Sometimes they will certainly screw up or go to far; nobody said changing the status quo was easy.

Perhaps that's why conservatism has as much support as it does even when it's based on unscientific BS, or even outright lies.It's very easy to treat the status quo as the best of all possible worlds and try to defend it from the imagined horrors of change.

To me that seems such an empty hopeless way to live, and I hope more people in the world strive for something better, even if it's difficult and imperfect.

I assume the Evergreen State College doc is about Bret Weinstein, which I'm familiar with, but I'll watch the documentary. Have you heard or read about Harvard and Lorgia García Peña? https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/why-lorgi...

Protected characteristic in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

EU has the concept but doesn't name them in that way, countries implementing them may do in their respective language (someone else has already commented as such for German): https://ec.europa.eu/info/aid-development-cooperation-fundam...

Right, many countries have similar ideas. They all define them slightly differently.

The americentric part is using the american legal term of art in an international context and assuming everyone just understands it, and that its a reasonable definition in context.

The idea that minorities exist and should have some additional legal protection is not the aspect that is americentric.

My point is that I don't think it is using it as an American legal term, it's using it generically for the the broadly understood idea, a lot being common. At least that would be my assumption.

They could hardly go out of their way to find a synonym not in use by any country, and then keep checking in case some country started using it and people started interpreting the document as using it in the sense of that country's law specifically.

It's not an American legal document, so unless it explicitly defines the term as such, that's not what it means, it's just words. If it said 'murder' or 'jaywalking' we wouldn't pick a country that uses those terms to interpret them in its legal sense, we'd just understand the broad sense of what they are anywhere, even in countries where they are not used ('jaywalking' here in the UK).

> The idea that minorities exist and should have some additional legal protection

Again, that's not what it is. The legal protection is against discrimination based on your <something> such as race or ethnicity. No matter whether the particular value in your case is held by the majority or a minority of people.

Taken literally, its a referential term - "protected class" means a class protected by something (in usa typically a statute).

If they don't define the term, then surely they mean the american context - if not, who is protecting the class?

> If it said 'murder' or 'jaywalking' we wouldn't pick a country that uses those terms to interpret them in its legal sense, we'd just understand the broad sense of what they are anywhere

The difference is that these terms have widely agreed upon meanings. I know what jaywalking means regardless of country.

If i use the term protected class generically, who is included? Are we including the following groups:

- vetrens of us armed forces

- vetrens of non-usa armed forces

- political beliefs

- sexual orientation

- criminal conviction

If used generically, its impossible to know - some juridsictions say yes, some say no, in different contexts.

If the CoC was just using the term in an abstract way - to represent the abstract idea of a protected class, that would be fine. However they are not. They are using the term concretely. To understand the CoC you have to know the exact list of protected classes (or at least be able to identify if a specific trait creates membership or not).

Although i think this term is needlessly american, ultimately i'd be fine with it if they defined it. Not defining a term used almost exclusively in the usa kind of implies they mean it in its american sense.

> Again, that's not what it is. The legal protection is against discrimination based on your <something> such as race or ethnicity. No matter whether the particular value in your case is held by the majority or a minority of people.

I should of said marginalized instead of minority perhaps. Although it varries depending on context, and region, affirmative action is often not considered to be in violation of these policies. So its more complex than that.

What term should they use then?

They should just list out the classes they care about or say the criteria that determines if a class is protected.

After all, anyone reading the document would need to know that info, why not make it obvious?

You have what is unfortunately a common misunderstanding of the term protected class. Nobody is IN a protected class, because protected classes are not any particular group of people, like middle class or working class. In the civil rights act of 1964 protected classes are the classifications that the law refers to such as race, religion, etc. So it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their religion, but it does not protect any religion over any other. For race, race itself is the protected class. So it is illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race, not just black people or Asians, for example.

> Not to mention the implication that harrasment is somehow ok against people who are not members of the protected class?

The GNOME CoC gleefully states they will ignore complaints of racism against whites and sexism against cis men because "we prioritize the safety of marginalized groups over the comfort of privileged groups".

That's not what that line means at all. That line means that an argument like `let's stop using gender-neutral language in our documentation, it's easier to just say "he" instead of "the user"` won't fly: this type of argument prioritizes the comfort of a privileged group (males) over the safety/well-being of a marginalized group (women and non-binary people).

I'm all for being gender-neutral for the sake of neutrality, but the idea that the use of "he" somehow hurts people's safety or well-being sounds a bit absurd to me.

You are going to have to explain how using 'he' can harm the safety and well being of somebody else.

That is a complete misreading of the clear statement that text is making!

> Isn't protected class an american legal term?

Protected class ("geschützte Gruppe") is a commonly understood concept in Germany, too.

The abstracting concept of "protected group" is not commonly understood. I had never heard of it before this thread. Anti discrimination of course is, but not this specific term.

Neither in the German Wikipedia nor in the Duden (German dictionary) or on the website of the "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung" (Federal Agency for Civic Education) can I find any reference to "geschützte Gruppe".

The German constitution, explicitly states: "No person shall be favoured or disfavoured because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavoured because of disability.".

This is often emphasized in things like job postings, but never in abbreviated/conceptualized form.

The whole movement is American colonialism.

Like it or not, the ameri-centric views spill around the world causing tensions and misunderstandings. In countries with practically no colored people and no history of slavery certain things seem a bit ridiculous if imposed on the whole community.

Which countries do you think have no slavery in their history?

How many people in the OOS community or elsewhere did you meet that were in favor of enslaving people. Sometimes it is necessary to ask naive questions to determine if you dig yourself into something.

those re/formed within last 100 years.

(and those who actively deny its existence /s)

You are right. It also depends if you include serfdom in slavery. In any case, just to generalize, the countries that practiced slavery were mostly those that colonized the world the most. Many of those who didn't colonize the world used serfs, like most of Eastern Europe. For these people there is no cultural association between slavery and the present. Also the proportions are different: in most countries the non-serfs were a relatively small minority. So waking up one day and reading that, say, all references to slavery are banned seems somewhat strange in other cultures.