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A Difficult Situation

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Re: A Difficult Situation

#411

Post by dinkumthinkum »

thejosh wrote: post #395
danielweber wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, because it demonstrates the extent to which a company can be brought to its knees by a group of hostile people organized online I agree. This is frightening. Any concept of a DDOS being a "digital sit-in" are dumb. PlayHaven may also have been trying to avoid the mob, too. Second because hundreds and hundreds of men here and elsewhere seem quite happy to align themselves with an overtly sexist, violently threa…

DDOS is about the same level as fire bombing a business. People like Richard Stallman who disagree (Richard Stallman is stuck in the past) really haven't got a clue that's going on.

No, I can't make that leap. Firebombing? I don't condone DDOS, but that's just crazy. The moment people can die (without citing some kind of really strange examples) from DDOS, I will reconsider but come on.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#412

Post by mc32 »

ForrestN wrote: post #327
powertower wrote: post #98

They need to update that statement with the fact that the joke was not about her, nor directed at her. Their statement leaves that very important part out, making the reader think otherwise - that she was the victim. At the same time (or around that time) this was happening, here is a conversation she was having - http://i.imgur.com/nRC5J7f.png Another gem from years ago - http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c I'd imagine she was…

This whole situation makes me deeply uncomfortable. First, because it demonstrates the extent to which a company can be brought to its knees by a group of hostile people organized online. Second because hundreds and hundreds of men here and elsewhere seem quite happy to align themselves with an overtly sexist, violently threatening campaign against an individual whose views they disagree with. I am not in a position…

Nitpick...

>Taking a photograph of someone in a public place and reporting what they said within earshot, without any expectation of privacy, does not warrant vitriol.

It's not actually a public place. It's a private venue. The venue can set the policy as it sees fit the same way concerts can ban recording devices, etc.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#413

Post by dinkumthinkum »

katbyte wrote: post #345
sophacles wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what would have been a great freaking story? 1) Guys make inappropriate jokes 2) Adria feels offended. Doesn't matter if she "should" or "shouldn't". It happened. OK so far, different people have different opinions on acceptable behavior. This particular one is explicitly unacceptable in the rules of the conference. 3) Adria texts PyCon staff, and they act exactly as they did in this sitution. 4) Adria write…

> 5) There would still be much internet hate. i honestly don't think there would have been much hate. Allot of the anger was as how drastically she reacted by posting their photos online.

If she had kept her comments without the photos and without putting any identifying information, this would have never have been news. She chose to be passive, aggressive and throw a tantrum. She could have just confronted the two and educated them about all her crazy thoughts about racism and everything else, she chose to make it a spectacle.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#414

Post by shantanubala »

powertower wrote: post #382
ForrestN wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole situation makes me deeply uncomfortable. First, because it demonstrates the extent to which a company can be brought to its knees by a group of hostile people organized online. Second because hundreds and hundreds of men here and elsewhere seem quite happy to align themselves with an overtly sexist, violently threatening campaign against an individual whose views they disagree with. I am not in a position…

> Why are so many really so angry? I promise it has nothing to do with this woman. One guy (while looking at the presentation), turned his head to his buddy, and said - look at the size of that dongle, would you fork it? Do you know what that is? It's Funny (and crude). And if you don't find it to be so, that's just too bad. You're not owed anything. You (nor anyone else) have been violated. We are simply getting fed…

> Redefining established words to fit your narrative (as someone said on here) is a crime against understanding and is not acceptable.

This is hardly a redefinition as much as a clarification of intent and context. Saying that it's a "crime against understanding" is a bit of an exaggeration.

I mean, saying that racism is "prejudice" is what Dictionary.com says, and saying racism is "prejudice with power" is what a sociologist says, then can't you figure it out with context? Dictionary.com says gravity is, "the force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall toward the center of the earth." but a physicist would probably have a different definition they think is more accurate.

I definitely wouldn't say that Adria was right in this whole incident, but picking apart the rest of her Twitter history like it's some sort of way to establish how much you should dislike her is the wrong approach to making things better.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#415

Post by dinkumthinkum »

pukka_my wrote: post #330
base698 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened was bad taste to be sure, but it isn't sexism. If they made a comment asking why all the women in the audience aren't bringing them beer that would be sexist. Using sexual language is not by itself sufficient for sexism. It is bad taste and an argument could be made it should be rooted out in a professional environment, but it shouldn't be confused with actual sexism. Sexism: Belief one of the sexes can…

Actually, it is sexist to believe that it's ok to make comments of a sexual nature if they are likely to lead to members of the audience feeling uncomfortable or offended. Sexism is not just skill-related, it's the attitude that the opinions, feelings or actions of one gender are somehow inherently inferior or less important than those of another and expressing that attitude through your own actions or words. Intenti…

Intentionality has nothing to do with it? The problem is if we played your game everything we do or say could be sexist. You could argue the act of programming is some sort "performance" of male dominion over women or some such sociological jibber jabber. If you combine that with the well known law that there's always someone in the world that think just about any crazy thing could name, you're always in danger of offending someone.

I stopped in a local donut shop a couple weeks ago and there was a patron with his child that was horribly offended that the shop had a TV in the store and it was turned on (to some benign news channel) without even the volume on. I could tell it was one of those crazy people that don't even want their children to even know TV exists, he kept going on and on about "I can't believe they would have a TV." Long story short, the fact that you're alive will offend someone.

In this case, I don't believe Adria was offended. She is inauthentic to me.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#416

Post by xshoppyx »

powertower wrote: post #215
shantanubala wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c This is an excellent example of why you should never use Twitter to have a nuanced discussion. It depends on your definition of racism, and most scholarly definitions are "power and prejudice." In other words, a white person who is in the majority has more power than a black person (think Silicon Valley[1]), so the actual impact of the prejudice has a greater magnitude that turns it into "r…

> It depends on your definition of racism racism - dictionary 1.The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. 2.Prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief. This is the original definition of the word - 1 year ago, 10 years ago, 100 y…

I was drinking with an Asian co-worker at work today and something somewhat relevant came up. A 3rd coworker asked my Asian coworker "Are you ok? Your face is red and puffy". And then he stated that Asians (saying all Asians is probably a generalization, but for this example let's assume it is true) lack an enzyme to process alcohol and that Asians are essentially allergic to alcohol. Under this definition, would it be racist to say that all other races except for Asians are inferior at processing alcohol? Even if the following is true: alcohol was less prevalent in Asian cultures and that is probably why they never evolved to possess the same enzyme, which was stated by the other coworker.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#417

Post by dinkumthinkum »

shantanubala wrote: post #414
powertower wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are so many really so angry? I promise it has nothing to do with this woman. One guy (while looking at the presentation), turned his head to his buddy, and said - look at the size of that dongle, would you fork it? Do you know what that is? It's Funny (and crude). And if you don't find it to be so, that's just too bad. You're not owed anything. You (nor anyone else) have been violated. We are simply getting fed…

> Redefining established words to fit your narrative (as someone said on here) is a crime against understanding and is not acceptable. This is hardly a redefinition as much as a clarification of intent and context. Saying that it's a "crime against understanding" is a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, saying that racism is "prejudice" is what Dictionary.com says, and saying racism is "prejudice with power" is what a so…

Nonsense. She wrote in all caps that a class of people "CANNOT" be racist in all caps like a loony bird. She wasn't making some deep intellectual point. Come on. It was stupidity. It's not the same as a layperson describing gravity in terms of some basic understanding of Newtonian physics and a physicist describing it in terms of general relativity. It was just dumb.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#418

Post by base698 »

ScottBurson wrote: post #385
base698 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened was bad taste to be sure, but it isn't sexism. If they made a comment asking why all the women in the audience aren't bringing them beer that would be sexist. Using sexual language is not by itself sufficient for sexism. It is bad taste and an argument could be made it should be rooted out in a professional environment, but it shouldn't be confused with actual sexism. Sexism: Belief one of the sexes can…

That's a tempting argument, but I agree with pukka_my. Sexual jokes or innuendo make some people, especially women, uncomfortable. Among friends, in private, you might know that everyone present is fine with that kind of banter. In a public place, you can't know that. So giving yourself permission to make such cracks anyway is at best insensitive and, if repeated, betrays an attitude that says "because I'm a man and…

It's entirely dependent on context and who's doing the delivery. If someone makes an unwanted comment towards you, gay or straight, you can laugh it off and make a joke back that it isn't going to happen. If they continue even after you've made it clear you aren't receptive, that's harassment. And finally, if there's a systematic coverup of the unwanted advance that would be sexism.

Trying to accuse two guys of making an inappropriate joke of sexism is serious embellishment. She was merely trying to get hits on Twitter because sexism witch hunts are en vogue and it backfired. Witch hunts do nothing to cure the world of witches.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#419

Post by drhayes9 »

powertower wrote: post #313
drhayes9 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argh, Jesus, I'm sick of people misrepresenting this tweet! She's not saying that black people can't make racist statements and that they get a completely free pass when it comes to being racists. She's not. Stop saying that she is. She's defining racism with a particularly sociological bent. She's saying that racism is an act by an oppressor towards the oppressed. When an oppressed person insults an oppressor they a…

> When she says "black people can't be racist towards white people" she is saying "the oppressed cannot, themselves, oppress their oppressors" . That's why they're called "the oppressed". Then why didn't she just say it like that? Because that re-definition is always used to attempt to silence or de-rail whoever points out that racism is not exclusive to the white race. The word racism is already clearly defined. The…

Why didn't she just say it like that? She did! What do you think "racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power" meant?

No one said that racism is exclusive to any race. Of course not. That'd be stupid. But it also seems deliberately bull-headed of you to say that "racism" is clearly defined when there are entire academic fields devoted to sussing out what it is. Whole journals. Lotsa books. So, no, let's proceed as though "racism" is not well-defined.

There is a difference between racism and prejudice. When someone says "Mexicans are lazy" they are exhibiting both. When a white person is surprised that a Mexican would work so hard - that's racism. When a Mexican woman bleaches her hair and wears light-colored contacts - that's another form of racism, called "internalizing the oppressor". If you've never heard of that, yet the definition of racism encompasses it, then maybe the definition of racism isn't so clear cut?

When a woman thinks other women should stay home and raise children - that's sexism, of course it it is. Just like if the woman said that the man shouldn't stay home to raise his kids because that's her job. Yes, that's sexism. Of course it is. It's sexism because she's applying the logic of the oppressor, the traditional male.

So, really, I'm not sure where you're coming from here. Have you ever read anything about racism? Ever had long talks with people who hold opposing viewpoints on race? When you say "use another word" -- which word would that be besides the one we already have whose definition you don't know?

Re: A Difficult Situation

#420

Post by shantanubala »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #417
shantanubala wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Redefining established words to fit your narrative (as someone said on here) is a crime against understanding and is not acceptable. This is hardly a redefinition as much as a clarification of intent and context. Saying that it's a "crime against understanding" is a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, saying that racism is "prejudice" is what Dictionary.com says, and saying racism is "prejudice with power" is what a so…

Nonsense. She wrote in all caps that a class of people "CANNOT" be racist in all caps like a loony bird. She wasn't making some deep intellectual point. Come on. It was stupidity. It's not the same as a layperson describing gravity in terms of some basic understanding of Newtonian physics and a physicist describing it in terms of general relativity. It was just dumb.

> It's not the same as a layperson describing gravity in terms of some basic understanding of Newtonian physics and a physicist describing it in terms of general relativity. It was just dumb.

You're mixing up what I said: a sociologist describing a social phenomenon is analogous to a physicist describing a physical phenomenon.

In the tweet, Adria colloquially used the word "racism" in a way that's different from colloquial usage (she used the sociologist's definition and not the Dictionary.com definition), but that doesn't make her stupid or a "loony bird."

Do a couple tweets, screwups, or overreactions deserve this kind of outrage?

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