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> Altman got a verbal warning for writing on an internal board that certain employees should be fired. “I meant only bigoted white men should be fired. They int
by vowelless 9y ago
> Altman got a verbal warning for writing on an internal board that certain employees should be fired. “I meant only bigoted white men should be fired. They interpreted it as applying to all white men,” Altman says'
Wow. How can employees believe that this type of language is acceptable in the work place? Is this common in other tech companies on their internal communication channels (like slack)?
- xya3453 9y agoWelcome to SV. It's becoming increasingly common within tech, even more disheartening is the complete authoritarian shutdown of discourse around the issue. See your sibling post for a perfect example.
- aklemm 9y agoWait, what? Why is it not appropriate to say bigoted white men should be fired? That seems non-controversial to me. Edit: I guess I'm assuming the bigot is behaving as a bigot, and I think that's a safe assumption.
- msla 9y agoI interpreted it to mean that the only bigots who should be fired are the white, male bigots.
- vowelless 9y agoWhy even discuss this? How can you expect good intentions from your white coworkers if these are the types of discussions going on publically in the company? Race agnostically, it is an obvious statement and should be part of company guidelines : "bigotry will get you fired". Simple. Similarly, how can anyone believe that saying something like "violent black men should be fired" is okay? Just address violence in the workplace race agnostically in your company guidelines and don't tolerate it. Is this really complicated?
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- wrren 9y agoWhy didn't they say "Bigots should be fired?". By inserting race or gender into the statement, you're singling out a group as being the only offenders.
- joshuamorton 9y agoWhile I'm not sure of the extent to which I agree in this context, this is basically a rehashing of the black lives/all lives matter argument. In that lens, the statement makes sense if you feel that white men get away with bigotry more than their non white male counterparts. In other words, the subtext is "fire all the bigoted white men too". Like I said, I'm not sure if I endorse that view it not. It makes more sense in the context of lifting up than putting down, but I can at least see it.
- Chaebixi 9y ago> Why didn't they say "Bigots should be fired?". By inserting race or gender into the statement, you're singling out a group as being the only offenders. IIRC, there's bit social justice ideology that essentially says that only white people can be bigots. I believe the typical formulation is "racism = power + prejudice." "Power" in this context is a function of your race and other identities, for instance white people axiomatically have "power" but black people don't. This assignment of "power" doesn't change based on context, so if your boss is black and you are white, you're still the one with "power." Therefore, by this "logic," a black person can't be racist because he lacks "power." An identical procedure is applied men an women with sexism. There is another related social justice idea that you should "never punch down, always punch up." In this context "up" are those with "power" (again, assigned by fixed formula based on race, etc.). The act of "punching up," by the people who think this way, has connotations of "fighting for good," and "punching down" with "oppression." Combining these ideas, "white men" are the most "powerful" and therefore can and should be "punched" in the name of social justice. This is one source of the gratuitous negative references to "white men," and associated hostility to them, that you see in social justice circles. IMHO, these are pretty screwed up ideas, and they're a recipe for polarization (and bullying) and not progress. Unfortunately people do believe them and think this way.
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- Veelox 9y agoAsusme Altman authored the meme on page 120 of the lawsuit the text of reads > If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men. I would put the above statement at about the same level as > If you want to increase productivity at Google fire all the lazy black people. I assume you would agree that the 2nd statement is not appropriate. If so, can you explain why the 1st is acceptable and the 2nd is not?
- aklemm 9y agoWell, first, we have to decide for each whether the sentence is meant to mean all in that category have that characteristic. I think that's nonsensical, so let's say it's clear she wants white men who are bigoted fired and black people who are lazy fired. So then the difference in the sentences is whether you expect to find many bigoted whites or lazy blacks. Lazy black people probably isn't a real problem at Google, but white bigots are probably easy to find.
- Veelox 9y agoDoesn't the inclusion of race in both sentences cause problems? One of the typical examples of a micro aggression is the unnecessary inclusion of a description "I went to the women doctor today," "That was a very fine dressed black man," "That old cashier was really slow." In the same way I see the inclusion of race in both sentences promoting discrimination based on race. I would go so far as to say that the inclusion of race in both statements makes the statement racist (in the sense that racism is the discrimination of a person or persons based on their race).
- aklemm 9y agoI'll agree it was unwise. But the person literally clarified the point. Look, it makes me uncomfortable too, but I understand it as a style of speaking and that people get carried away and that non-offensive language sometimes feels ineffectual. Eyes on the ball: fire bigots not people who are a little loose with their language.
- xya3453 9y agoI believe the original text was "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as either all the white men at Google are bigots, or that Google should only fire bigots if they are a white male. Highlighting race and gender when making such a statement is completely unnecessary, e.g. imagine the outcry if someone had said "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted black women".
- iak8god 9y ago> "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as all the white men at Google are bigots. It really can't.
- xya3453 9y agoSure it can, if a vegetarian friend of yours said "If you want to increase your health remove all the disgusting meat from your diet", would you read that as them saying that all meat is disgusting or just the occasional piece?
- slededit 9y agoEnglish isn't a strict language. The context here depends on the frequency that you would consume disgusting meat and that will change the common meaning. I suppose there are people who literally think all white men are bigoted and could mean it to apply that way, but I find it unlikely that was the original intent. That said I don't think there was a need to call out white men specifically in the sentence.
- xya3453 9y ago> Social Justice Unicorn. Genderqueer. Intersectional feminist. Work for @Google but opinions are my own. Pronouns: they/them/their This is Alon Altman's (@epsalon) current Twitter bio. How would you read the original intent?
- rovek 9y agoReferencing irrelevancies invites the assumption that you have an ulterior message. The race of an undesirable employee is not relevant unless you intend to imply causation.
- lisper 9y agoBecause it lets bigoted women and bigoted black men off the hook.
- aklemm 9y agoOk, based on the replies I understand that many in this thread think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal. That's probably a mistake, but I can see why "fire bigoted white men" is triggering so those who think that way.
- ameister14 9y agoYou don't think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal? Absent power, why do you hold that view?
- Veelox 9y ago>Ok, based on the replies I understand that many in this thread think white bigotry and other bigotry are equal. This statement implies to me that you think white bigotry != bigotry. This is one of those statements that make me think "no rational caring individual could believe that" because it sounds racist against white people to begin with. Yet I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. Can you explain your mindset? Hopefully also how this mindset does not lead to treating people of different races differently or a justification for why it is okay to treat them different?
- aklemm 9y agoTo answer both replies, I’m saying white bigotry stands out because white people have the power and numbers. Absent that, then you have a different story, but we’re not absent that.
- Veelox 9y agoI am sincerely trying to understand this line of thought. Is it that since white people have more power and more numbers we should focus extra hard on white bigotry? Starting with the assumption that all people should be treated equally than all bigotry is morally objectionable and we should treat all bigotry as such. The only issue that comes in is that since white people have the power and numbers white bigotry happens more than other bigotry and thus we by chance we object to it more. I don't see any way that this allows bigotry against whites to get a pass, it just gets called out less because it happens less. Am I missing something? I feel like I am because I still don't feel like I grok your responses.
- pacala 9y agoS/bigoted/unfair racial stereotype/ s/white man/another race or gender/
- rdiddly 9y agoBecause there's bigotry in the statement itself. It's like saying "Shoot all gun owners" or "I hate the intolerant" or "Silence all censors." It's a statement that simultaneously says opposite things. It implicitly endorses that which it ostensibly opposes. It is literally doublethink. The person saying it is deeply confused.
- aklemm 9y agoMaybe if she also went on to say, “...and leave black bigots be.” But she didn’t say that, and it’s weird to add that part on in one’s imagination.
- rdiddly 9y agoIf I have on my shopping list "yams," do I fill the rest of the sheet with explicit exclusions like "not pudding?" No, they are all excluded by simply not having been included. If we propose a raceless society, why are we mentioning a race? That's the weird part.
- aklemm 9y agoIf I declare we need to eradicate all biting dogs in my town, does it make sense for me to also include biting rabbits on the list? To be arguing this deep into the problems of a unclear sentence is INSANE!
- ameister14 9y agoNo, but it doesn't imply that you also want to remove biting rabbits.
- rdiddly 9y agoIf you want to eradicate biting dogs, does it make sense to add an extra word to specifically limit the scope of the effort to just white dogs? It's not an unclear sentence. And you're probably quite sane.
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- aklemm 9y agoWow, this is incredible. So many interpret their statement as either "all white men are bigoted and should be fired" or "all the white bigots must be fired but the other bigots can stay". That literally never occurred to me. Why is that? Occam's razor. Benefit of the doubt. Common sense. Not only that, but they said as much after the fact. I believe them. Why don't more here believe them? They would have to be a complete idiot radical for those quoted interpretations to be what they meant.
- simonpenn 9y agoShortly after Trump was elected, there was a major problem in work Slack where people upset at the outcome would make undirected threats of physical violence in #general. After about a week of it, I was able to get it to stop by commenting on it something like: I don't think it's appropriate to make threats of physical violence in logged work chat. Tech companies get sued for things like bullshit patent infringements all the time, and it would be very damaging to the company for this to ever come out in discovery" Fortunately, this comment made them stop (or move to a private channel, who knows). But the fact that they were making these comments for a week was rather shocking to me. Nobody involved seemed to think there was anything wrong with saying that you would, quote, "beat in the face of the nearest Trump voter" in a work chat room with ~1000 members