Sure, agreed, and this is explicitly recognized by the US legal system (i.e. involuntary manslaughter vs. voluntary manslaughter/murder). That said, good intentions don't lessen impact on victims. Intention sometimes plays a role is determining what punishment is appropriate for the person who did the offensive/criminal act, but that's little consolation to those who are routinely targets of said acts. You're dead, whether the person that killed you meant to kill you or not. Something important to keep in mind in the context of harassment and conduct in the workplace.

I fundamentally disagree with you on this, but I've noticed that people seem very divided on this issue.

Personally, if I'm offended by something and I learn that it was a fundamental misunderstanding and no harm was intended, then the anger/hurt/whatever emotion just goes away naturally, without me having to even consciously think about it or calm myself down.

My ex-wife was the opposite—once the anger happened it didn't go away no matter how much of a misunderstanding it was that triggered it.

I've come to think of it in terms of "Humpty Dumpty" from Alice In Wonderland[1]: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

IE, if you are taking more from my words than I put in them (including offense), then that is on you and is not my problem, especially after I've explained myself.

I've since learned to just remove the other type of people from my life as much as possible—they just aren't worth the trouble.

[1] Technically "Through the Looking Glass": http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm#link2HCH0006

Even if I'm no longer angry per se some hard feelings may remain. I have dealt with men & women from very conservative backgrounds who honestly and with great love believe I should not do what I do for a living, because it involves public speaking and evaluation of some men, which they believe violates 1 Timothy 2:12. I disagree and I need to remain steeled against the unpleasantness this brings up, even if we are friendly -- it's in this sense that I mean "hard" feelings.

And then I do agree entirely that good intentions don't lessen impacts on victims. The folks who don't want me to teach have good intentions, measured one way, and that's not really relevant. The folks who tell girls not to take AP calc because it's too hard and they won't need it have ~good intentions, but that's irrelevant. The folks who think I'll naturally be nurturing and try to give me some cuddly job with young children have good intentions but they're scarring me and the kids for life. The folks who pass over a woman for a promotion because they think she should focus on her family have good intentions, but she's out the cash and the accrued interest and career advancement for the rest of her life.

You're thinking about how we deal emotionally with good intentions, while the above poster is thinking about the money that's gone, the job that disappeared, the promotion that didn't happen, the mortgage whose interest rate was 2 percentage points higher.

Every time I think I have a handle on how crazy people are, boom, a trap door opens. I'm sorry that you have to deal with nonsense like that. But I appreciate you mentioning it.

Sometimes people are actively looking to be offended. Take this one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc

That reminds me of a conversation I had nearly a decade ago with a black (African immigrant) friend. I don't remember the details, but basically he said that he was annoyed that the words "dark" and "black" had negative connotations. I knew him well enough to know that he wasn't trolling, and that this was something that had seriously taken an emotional toll on him.

Ever since then I've been thinking about this -- maybe it does bother a lot of black folks? And, think of very little whose conception of words is primitive, and how they might associate the words together.

I don't really know what I'm getting it. It's very hard to make any sort of conclusion here. I mean, what's the cure -- we make a prescriptive linguistic change that color-based words can't be used anymore? That's not happening.

The concept of dark/black being scary I'm confident pre-dates any racism towards african americans.

Also, there are a few things where black is used as positive.

- Finance; If you're "in the black", you're flushed with cash. There's some kinda dark irony here. ;)

- Rich people tend to wear expensive black clothes, expensive black cars... etc. Black is always in fashion and a symbol of wealth... which somehow, again, is ironic. ;)

The black finance thing is rather simple - in bookkeeping, a positive total is written in normal ink, which is (usually) black. A negative total is written in red ink, to make it stand out. Being in the black just means you're not making a loss, though when used colloquially, as you say, it means you are flush with cash.

Red is the color of life, of hearty blush in skin.

The verse starts: "Black cat is bad luck, bad guys wear black. Musta been a white guy who started all that."

Interestingly, the MC in question here is white-skinned. I think he's Jewish, but I might be wrong.

From the perspective of an African immigrant, I would imagine that it is easy to see discrimination everywhere. I think your friend is annoyed that the idea of "blackness being inferior" is omnipresent (from his perspective). It's even built in to the very way we speak.

I think that what your immigrant friend really wants is just to feel like he has the same shot a person with white skin does. He's kvetching about words because racism is on his mind a lot, but he's not expecting you or anyone to rewrite the English language. He probably just gets treated poorly on a regular basis because of his race, and he wants that to stop.

You (We) could likely cure his annoyances while stopping short of major linguistic changes.

Actions are generally equal regardless intent, but IMO words depend immensely on intent.

If someone pushes me hard because I might have been hit by a falling item, that has less impact on me than if someone pushes me hard because they want to start a fight or get the better of me in some way.

Most human actions don't result in the finality of death.

So I'm going to try harder to avoid triggering those associations. And when I do, I'm going to try to be bolder in apologizing for it and learning from it. My good intentions may explain a fuckup, but they sure don't justify it, and they don't excuse me from taking full responsibility.

I think the expectation of a moral adult is to seek mutual understanding to continually improve yourself to be a positive and constructive element in others' lives.

If you unintentionally offended someone, it's an opportunity to learn more about their world.

Conversely, it's also an opportunity for them to learn about your world. Maybe not everyone they meet is that total asshole, and there are in fact good people in this world. Just be that good person.

It's a ridiculous world, and it's nobody's fault. But somebody has to take responsibility for making it better. I'm going to try. You can help if you want.

Put another way: women's "jerkiness" does not make it harder for men in the tech industry, but men's "jerkiness" does make it harder for women in the tech industry.

This is mostly not about rights. It’s also about proper and polite behaviour.

When somebody says something offensive, context is everything. If you're in a meeting with a group of adult men that are culturally similar to you and there's nothing pressing on the table, sure, a dick joke might be fine.

But in the case of the article, I think the author even let off lightly situations like the "dick in the hand" anecdote. It's one thing to make an off-color joke to ease the mood when the context is appropriate, but if you're sitting in a room with a woman, and you make a comment like that, you know for a fact you're crossing a boundary, no matter how small it may be.

For some reason, it reminds me of a former (male) roommate of mine who would always make comments containing indirect sexual references in the presence of our (only) female roommate. He would never say something sexually related pertaining to her, but things like "I watch too many TV shows? Nonsense. Are you calling me a whore??" Shit that would be subtle enough that he could easily shrug off an accusation that he was being offensive, yet he very much knew he was trying to spin the conversation toward sex as a means of flirting.

I don't think there are many excuses to be made in these contexts. If you've ever known your mother, or had a sister or a girlfriend who was attractive (and the recipient of suggestive comments), you know exactly what's acceptable and what's not. Picture it's your girlfriend getting harassed.

I'm hardly the whiteknight, social-justice type whatsoever, but for fuck sake, keep business as business and play bullshit kiddie flirt games at the bar.

Your argument is incomplete. I doubt most people have an attractive women in their lives, having either the role of mother, sister, or girlfriend, since such a minority of women are attractive, even if they might be the only women you notice every day.

The big takeaway is that straight white men's privilege gives them an advantage over everybody else since they face fewer obstacles such as having their hands forced onto a penis while closing a business deal.

The article didn't actually include the man's race.

When you equate power and privilege with my appearance and gender, not only do you dehumanize me and treat me like a caricature, but you seem to assume that I hold some sort of power that makes me immune to your hate -- or you just don't care.

Well, I'm not immune, and I'm sick of it, and if anything, I'd like you and people like you to take your message of prejudice somewhere else.

I never graduated high-school, much less from Stanford with a MBA, and as far as I'm aware, I've never even had a meeting with a VC. I guess we all just "look the same" to you.

"I agree that we should be judged as individuals, but if you are white and male, then you should also be aware that you are perceived differently and generally more positively in many situations than minorities and women. If you apply for a job or a loan, you [MAY] have an advantage. Even without a Stanford MBA, you [MIGHT] have an easier time getting VC funding than [MANY SIMILARLY QUALIFIED] women and minorities."

In your statement, you ascribed stereotyped attributes to me, and to every situation I might find myself. In doing so, you ask me to accept the core premise that I always have an advantage over others, in every situation, because of my appearance and gender.

Yet, Heidi Roizen, in many ways (but clearly not all ways, as evidenced by her experiences) started from a position of much greater privilege than me. I hope you can see how these things are nuanced, and that sexist/racist stereotypes are convenient but inaccurate, and in aggregate, those stereotypes become very wearing on those of us who, as is often stated by those with your point of view, "do not inhabit positions of power" relative to you.

The "white man" stereotype used to roll off me, because I only saw it on the fringes of impolite society. Now, I see it said regularly and publicly, in popular if not polite company, often in contexts where I don't have "power" and I do find it both demeaning and threatening.

Anyway, your appearance has power and privileges whether you (or I) choose to acknowledge it or not.

Yes, I think your position is essentially rooted in hate.

"yea, but it did say she was dealing with [community organizers] 10 years ago, so an educated person can make a pretty confident guess."

"yea, but it did say she was dealing with [an H1B immigrant] 10 years ago, so an educated person can make a pretty confident guess."

Some definitions consider that any assumption that a person's behavior would be influenced by their racial categorization is inherently racist, regardless of whether the action is intentionally harmful or pejorative, because stereotyping necessarily subordinates individual identity to group identity.

Some people disagree with you.

Subsets of academia focused on "critical race theory" might try to redefine "racism" to suite their specific agenda, but I'm content with the dictionary definition:

"the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."

If you're interested in arguing against that, do so. Posting definitions of words from dictionaries is the height of pedantic laziness in non sequitur form (unless the argument is actually about what the dictionary definition of a word is, of course).

It is objectively much harder being male than being female.

It's not good business sense to make a bad business deal just to get someone to touch your junk. If you're working for a large company with lots of money, you either find women yourself or find a way pay for them on the company card.

Not that they promise sex or anything remotely that overt, only that a lot of men think with the wrong head and will go out of their way to please an attractive woman. That includes signing a deal they may not sign otherwise.

I don't fault women for this state of affairs.

A man who treats women poorly isn't ignorant, he's habitual, and the habit was developed and persists because he's been let off the hook or as is the case with the VC's in the story because of a disparity of power.

It's bullying and part and parcel of bullying is a lack of contrition.

I'm REALLY really REALLY hoping.

Maybe I'm just too European, I don't know.

Not trolling, genuinely curious.

Edit: I can't reply to the children (might be my karma game) and so I'll reply here. The linked article is about specifically about power and privilege, and how being a woman in the tech business puts you at a severe disadvantage in your job, in your community of choice. The reason why I ask is justification "I'm European so..." seems dangerously close to "lighten up" or "get a sense of humor". It's fine to put yourself out there on a joke, humor is hard, but rewarding. But when someone takes offense, I find it problematic when all of a sudden it's their problem for not getting your style or sense of humor.

When a privileged person is forced to check their privilege and they respond with "oh, my bad, I didn't realize, etc." I accept maybe they don't have the experience or perspective that comes with being disenfranchised in that particular regard. When they respond with "lighten up" I find there is no attempt to internalize why someone could feel sadness, or discomfort, or frustration about the offensive topic at hand.

Sometimes it takes a few minutes for the relevant 'reply' links to show up. It tends to happen on busy threads; I understand it's a mechanism to slow down flamewars.

Does it matter?

Basically, if you make a joke about a group you aren't a member of, don't expect to be able to tell someone who is a member that it's 'just a joke', and that goes double if you're a member of the dominant group (whichever that happens to be in context).

Personally, I hit almost all of the privilege checkboxes with the (very mild) exception of religion/ethnicity. Guess what? If you aren't Jewish, and you tell me a Jewish joke, and I take offense (and I might even if it is a joke I have used myself), and I then call you out on it, 'lighten up' just isn't an appropriate response, regardless of the fact that you may not have privilege in some other area.

Privilege goes in both directions: It's now become standard to diminish any white male's opinions on matter of diversity or gender or race, because of their identity, and give explicit power to anyone who is not a white male to criticize that group. Some say it's "leveling the playing ground" but it often just turns into a straight-on attack. It is now highly possible for someone in the "most privileged" group to be accused of X -ism and then be publicly attacked by outraged people, often with real job consequences.

By the way, I'm not white, but I don't think that should give my argument any more or less power. The post-modernist focus on identity politics and who is making the argument gives another channel for an ad hominem attack merely phrased in other words.

Edit: I can't reply anymore, but there seems to be a spectrum of offensiveness - and "lighten up" means moving the bar of acceptability in one direction, when people disagree about crass or potentially offensive humor - though of course the bar is different in a professional setting. In general I try to be respectful and conscious of potentially offensive things in a work-place. But among my friends (or among co-workers who have become friends), or at a comedy club, I'd imagine we develop a different threshold of offensiveness and be more open to crass humor. That's the "breaking the ice" effect Roizen mentions in her last example

If I were to say "lighten up", it would basically be asserting that I am a better judge of the impact of a comment than the person who's upset. But as relatively privileged person, I am much less often on the receiving end of offensive comments, and I have more resources to deal with situations like that.

If I were to say something racially tinged to a black person and they thought it offensive, I would be strongly inclined to credit them because they've had a lot more opportunity and a lot more incentive to think about the nature of racism.

I agree it's not a perfect rule, but it's certainly the way to bet.

Another big reason to do so is power. Things like "lighten up" are used by privileged groups to suppress criticism because that helps maintains the power imbalance. Not consciously, mind you, but as apes we're hardwired for status.

Obviously every situation is different but in general white, straight males have historically set the bar for "offensiveness" and everyone else just had to deal with it. When people speak up and say they're offended by something, maybe dirty jokes in the office, they're told to lighten up.

And it's not a straight white male that is always saying it.

Here is why:

"Why did the chicken cross the road? BECAUSE NEGROES CAN'T READ. HAR HAR HAR HAR!!!!!!! Pretty funny, huh? Oh, come on, lighten up."

^Typical context in which "lighten up" is used . You don't want to sound like that guy, do you? So don't say "lighten up', no matter what race or orientation you are.

If someone finds your joke uncomfortable (like I'm hoping we all found the joke above uncomfortable) trying to cajole them into comfort with it is wasted effort at best, continuation of harassment at worst, and a simple dick move most likely.

It's almost impossible for me, as person advantaged by society, to fathom the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts feeling that people who are less advantaged experience. I've tried a lot, for years, and I regularly fail. Just today, I read a great piece titled, "Calling the White Man's Police": http://tressiemc.com/2014/05/02/calling-the-white-mans-polic...

And another little bit fell into place for me. Yes, around here, they are effectively they white man's police. There are a number of factors around calling the police that I never thought about because I never had to. Because I'm white and educated and articulate and I've been well off for long enough that I have a lawyer who I can afford to pay.

It would be easy for me to think trolling is an awesome way of bonding with everyone because my life is pretty swell. I can hear offensive things and not sweat it because I'm safe. But for people whose regular experience is a lack of safety, hearing offensive things is entirely different. Then, an offensive comment isn't necessarily an endearing reminder of cameraderie, it's often a glaring reminder of inequality.

That's not to say I won't engage in clever banter. But I am very careful when it crosses lines of privilege or trauma. As John Scalzi says, "The failure mode of clever is asshole." http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-of-c...

People are more than just their race and sex and sexual orientation. People can be discriminated against due to their disability (mental and physical), weight, appearance, intelligence, background, etc., etc., etc.

Consider Louis' example (paraphrasing): "'cracker' [...] bringing me back to owning land and people".

If we're to discuss this as something that might be offensive rather than just a joke (which we obviously are at this point), this could easily offend someone. Is it inoffensive to refer to people as slave owners, really? Or to refer to white people as guilty of that kind of thing by association (assuming that they're ancestors owned slaves; but it still isn't okay to project these "sins of the father")?

I find that people give you plenty of opportunities to poke fun at them without being lazy about it.

edit: The general idea is to only make fun of things people are completely secure and confident about, otherwise you're not being funny, you're being mean.

How do you know that's the case though?

I remember a conversation from a while ago when young me called a gf of mine the "prettiest black girl ever."

When she asked me, "why not just prettiest girl ever?" I was completely dumbfounded because while that's what I had meant, I realized that I no idea what a simple qualifier could do to the meaning of the phrase for someone.

I learned a valuable lesson that day that I won't ever forget. I don't considered myself 'censored' since then, just significantly more tactful in social situations.

I think that sort of thing is fine and generally accepted, provided you don't become hurtful or vicious with it.