Opinion: Open-source should stay away from all kinds of politics

Consider how many companies were not politically neutral on the issue of worker's rights and unionization. Or neutral on employing members of the Communist party.

Or, quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_newspapers - "The Republican party was especially effective in building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast its statements and editorialize in its favor."

That certainly sounds like the newspaper companies of the early 1800s weren't politically neutral.

As such, your "what is important is the subject matter" is an incorrect analysis, as there are multiple matters.

> Systemic racism was a matter of fact in the first half of the previous century in the USA. This is not the case now in the largest part of the country, nor is it true in most parts of Europe.

Please present your evidence. The evidence I've seen from multiple sources, including personal observations, accounts of others, and scholarly research, says otherwise.

Your statement "matter of fact in the first half of the previous century in the USA" understates the legal racism until Civil Rights Act of 1964 - closer to 2/3rds of the 1900s than 1/2.

Part of the systemic racism we see now is a consequence of the laws then, such as redlining and lack of access to what was then "white suburbia", which meant that blacks could not build up anywhere near the same equity that current white Baby Boomers have - equity being one of the main forms of wealth in older people.

So even without specific laws, there's still the effects of legal racism.

> Wikipedia is not exactly the best place to start looking for absolute truth around politically contentious issues.

Shurg. Sure. There's is no single best place for anything. Perhaps you can recommend a better source for how smitty1e might better understand the objects to the term "All Lives Matter" rather than some inside-Wikipedia discussion which sounds more like derailing than something which is important is the subject matter?

For me, my comment should be interpreted as"I have checked this source, the information appears correct to me, and it explains the issues better than I can do in the time I care to write about this topic."

I strongly disagree with this premise. It's the claims that "systemic racism is dead" that are unfounded and easily refuted.

"African-Americans With College Degrees Are Twice As Likely to Be Unemployed as Other Graduates" [1] -- "Schmitt pointed to a series of studies that have in recent years found that when trained sets of black and white testers with identical resumes are sent on interviews, white men with recent criminal histories are far more likely to receive calls back than black men with no criminal record at all."

"DiTomaso says the study, like other research, challenges the assumption that opportunity is available to all Americans who equip themselves with the right skills. Private-sector labor data reported to the federal government shows little change in the share of management and executive-level jobs held by racial and ethnic minorities since the 1980s, she said. In fact, in industries that offer workers the best wages, the share of white men in these jobs has actually grown.

The researchers behind the center's study of black college graduate employment patterns emphasized the role that the recession has played in dampening every worker's employment prospects. But they concluded that the long-term unemployment crisis among black college graduates ultimately could not be explained without accounting for continuing discrimination against black applicants."

"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination" [2] -- " We perform a field experiment to measure racial discrimination in the labor market. We respond with fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perception of race, each resume is assigned either a very African American sounding name or a very White sounding name. The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer' in their ad discriminate as much as other employers. We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names. These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market."

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/21/through-goo...

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/african...

[2] https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

" New HUD Report Shows Continued Discrimination Against People of Color" [10] -- "People of color looking for homes are told about and shown fewer homes and apartments than their white counterparts."

"Police harassment affects half of black youth, one-third of whites, study says" [11] -- "Ever since a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year-old walking home from a convenience store, criticism of unfair treatment of people of color by police has been a near-constant headline.

But the issue is hardly new to young black Americans, over 50 percent of whom reported knowing a victim of police harassment or violence in 2009, well before Michael Brown or Freddy Gray were household names throughout the country."

"You really can get pulled over for driving while black, federal statistics show" [12] -- "The Justice Department statistics, based on the Police-Public Contact Survey, show that "relatively more black drivers (12.8%) than white (9.8%) and Hispanic (10.4%) drivers were pulled over in a traffic stop during their most recent contact with police." Or, to frame it another way: A black driver is about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than a white driver, or about 23 percent more likely than a Hispanic driver. "Driving while black" is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon."

"‘Walking while black’ can be dangerous too, study finds" [13] -- "Sadly, it seems, “walking while black” can have dangerous consequences.

That’s because a recent study suggests motorists are less likely to stop for an African American pedestrian in a crosswalk. A black pedestrian’s wait time at the curb was about 32 percent longer than a white person’s. Black pedestrians were about twice as likely as white pedestrians to be passed by multiple vehicles.

The small but provocative study — conducted by researchers at Portland State University in Oregon and the University of Arizona — suggests that biases just outside people’s conscious awareness can make them less likely to yield to minority pedestrians. And that could put those pedestrians at risk, said Kimberly B. Kahn, an assistant professor of social psychology at Portland State University."

If you'd like, we can discuss gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and other forms of disenfranchisement of minorities, which prevents any meaningful change to systemic racism.

[9] https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-d...

[10] https://www.demos.org/blog/new-hud-report-shows-continued-di...

[11] https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/1104/Police-ha...

[12] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/09/you-r...

[13] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/10/2...