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>Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't do

by bArray 9y ago

>Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't do that. >He did say that "the negative impact of my tweets was amplified" by his social position, including being a white, western, male. I guess you disagree that this amplified the negative impact of those tweets? And this disagreement about assessment of negative impact bothers you for some reason? Being white, Western and male is an attribute, not a social position. There's not a single social thing Dale can do that changes those attributes, unlike being rich and a CEO. Saying those seems to imply (from my perspective) that those attributes are in some way connected to his behaviour or his power. Put another way, there wouldn't be a scenario where if Dale was a black and female I would be saying "well, this could have been a whole lot worse if she was white and male". The reason this bothers me is because the next time something bad happens in Silicon Valley and they happen to be white and male (which is likely given the overall demographic), they get grouped together and raise this general feeling that white men are an evil group of people. >Except you did write "fair point" about unconscious bias going on here. Everybody has unconscious bias, or at least everybody with a functioning brain. If I say "banana", almost guaranteed you think of something yellow, because we make assumptions to reduce the amount of information that needs to be interpreted about an idea. It's often difficult to work against. It's also not a property of just white, Western males either. It's shared throughout the world as an evolutionary advantage. >I'm not quite sure what is irritating you so. I know it's only a small thing, but it adds up over time towards this negativity that's building up in various media channels for or against different demographics.

jrochkind1 9y ago
Being white, Western, and male are totally social positions. That's why they matter, in a way an 'attribute' like your shirt size doesn't. Because our society is literally structured around them. Still not something you can do individually to change them, not something to apologize for being, not something to feel guilty about it. But something to be aware of? For sure. Disagreeing that being white, western (when talking to/about China) and male amplified the negative impact of the tweets is to pretend society is different than it is. It's not one's _fault_ one is in that social position, but it _is_ a social position, and it matters. This may be a stretch, but being an SF reader, it's helpful to imagine an SF story about, say, aliens that take over the earth and set things up so they're in charge. Remember the 80s show 'V'? That's pretty much what's really going on, except not with aliens. Doesn't mean the aliens in V had to feel guilty for being aliens, and they couldn't change being aliens. But some of the acted against the other aliens plans to steal all the earths water and eat the humans, others for them, and others just went along with it. But pretending things weren't set up to give aliens power over humans wouldn't have helped anyone (well, except power-hungry aliens).

by bArray 9y ago

jrochkind1 9y ago

Being white, Western, and male are totally social positions. That's why they matter, in a way an 'attribute' like your shirt size doesn't. Because our society is literally structured around them. Still not something you can do individually to change them, not something to apologize for being, not something to feel guilty about it. But something to be aware of? For sure. Disagreeing that being white, western (when talking to/about China) and male amplified the negative impact of the tweets is to pretend society is different than it is. It's not one's _fault_ one is in that social position, but it _is_ a social position, and it matters. This may be a stretch, but being an SF reader, it's helpful to imagine an SF story about, say, aliens that take over the earth and set things up so they're in charge. Remember the 80s show 'V'? That's pretty much what's really going on, except not with aliens. Doesn't mean the aliens in V had to feel guilty for being aliens, and they couldn't change being aliens. But some of the acted against the other aliens plans to steal all the earths water and eat the humans, others for them, and others just went along with it. But pretending things weren't set up to give aliens power over humans wouldn't have helped anyone (well, except power-hungry aliens).