Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 841 posts

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#661

Post by austincheney »

jobeirne wrote: post #48
rattray wrote: post #14

What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it. I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies). But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a pri…

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service o…

> (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?)

In most casts that results in discriminatory civil suits. Imagine a restaurant, who has even greater leverage to test the for whatever reason mentality, asking a black family to leave without stating a reason. In most places in the US restaurants have the legal right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#662

Post by sukilot »

kelnos wrote: post #624
no-s wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't know. Freedom of speech is also a principle. Public accommodation and non-discrimination are also principled. We don't need laws to see these as a public good. We shouldn't parse these ideas into orthogonal pretzels just because wokeness.

> We don't need laws to see [freedom of speech] as a public good. I think it's very easy to refute this statement by looking at any country where freedom of speech isn't guaranteed by law. The most populous country in the world is a glaring example.

You got it backwards. The fact that unfree nations are seen as human rights violations shows that free speech is a public good even when illegal.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#663

Post by madeofpalk »

rattray wrote: post #14

What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it. I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies). But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a pri…

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy.

Are you saying that private entities should be forced to provide services to federal agencies?

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#664

Post by cpeterso »

rattray wrote: post #513
takeda wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm happy that people are allowed to protest, but I don't think they should protest for causes that I don't agree with" "I think ICE needs reforms, but I don't believe a pressure should be put on them to impose changes" Makes me wonder if you truly support people protesting or even agree that ICE is doing anything wrong.

This just seems like a weird, ineffective way to put pressure on ICE to stop detaining people excessively, inhumanely, or lethally. Anger and outrage are valuable, and it's important that we channel them in the right directions.

These GitHub employees' demands are keeping ICE in headlines in newspapers like the LA Times. That's one effective channel for pressuring ICE.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#665

Post by someonehere »

Honest question and not taking sides on either aisle.

The incarceration and family separation started with the last administration. It’s well documented so don’t ask me to cite sources. Google is your friend.

Let’s say November comes and we have blue in the White House, do those calling for their employer to stop working with ICE/Pentagon/FBI/etc, go quiet and things go back to normal in the news for them?

I think that’s something that needs an answer because a lot of these companies have been working with the government prior to 2016.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#666

Post by filleduchaos »

toasterlovin wrote: post #610
filleduchaos wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very roundabout way to say "Americans have a comfortably whitewashed, frankly ignorant version of reality and everybody else should walk on eggshells to help them maintain it". Concentration camps were not solely the purview of the Nazis, and already had quite the history before they even came on the scene. In fact, while we're on the topic of World War II, the US government held people of Japanese decent in…

FWIW, I think you're being needlessly antagonistic. I'm trying to help the misunderstanding between Europeans and Americans on this issue (and leveling criticism against people using the term in a certain way in the American context —ICE is an American government agency, after all). Different cultures use words to mean different things. And I can tell you that, in the American context, concentration camp = Nazis kill…

And I'm trying to explain to you that it's not a "misunderstanding" - the US is hardly unique in using euphemisms and indirect language to downplay/distance itself from its actions. The "internment camps" Japanese Americans were held in were concentration camps, and frankly it's absurd to expect anybody else to pander to one's euphemisms for human rights abuses - the right thing to do is to consistently call it out no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, "American context" be damned. After all, we don't (for example) have much concern for the "Turkish context" when talking about the Armenian genocide either.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#667

Post by tehwebguy »

austincheney wrote: post #661
jobeirne wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service o…

> (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) In most casts that results in discriminatory civil suits. Imagine a restaurant, who has even greater leverage to test the for whatever reason mentality, asking a black family to leave without stating a reason. In most places in the US restaurants have the legal right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

OP should have said "for whatever lawful reason"

Race is a protected class, occupation is not.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#668

Post by cweagans »

someonehere wrote: post #665

Honest question and not taking sides on either aisle. The incarceration and family separation started with the last administration. It’s well documented so don’t ask me to cite sources. Google is your friend. Let’s say November comes and we have blue in the White House, do those calling for their employer to stop working with ICE/Pentagon/FBI/etc, go quiet and things go back to normal in the news for them? I think th…

It was wrong then and it's wrong now.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#669

Post by bananabreakfast »

austincheney wrote: post #661
jobeirne wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service o…

> (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) In most casts that results in discriminatory civil suits. Imagine a restaurant, who has even greater leverage to test the for whatever reason mentality, asking a black family to leave without stating a reason. In most places in the US restaurants have the legal right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

This is a wholly invalid comparison. Ethnicity is a protected class of citizen and is illegal to refuse service based on it.

Federal agencies are not protected classes of citizens. In fact it is quite literally illegal to force a company to do business with the government if it doesn't want to.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#670

Post by cweagans »

koheripbal wrote: post #473

Our medium sized company created a simple policy in early 2016 - No religion - no politics in the office. I never dreamed that policy would pay dividends so profoundly. The distraction of having activists within your company trying to actively pressure the company via public channels - I mean it's almost unbelievable that this is the new norm. ...an I am so very thankful we seemed to have sidestepped it.

An explicit decision to be apolitical is itself a political decision.
Post reply on HN