4 ms·

>He was not "over-dressed". He was well dressed. Well-dressed is "over-dressed" if everyone else is wearing t-shirts.

wpietri 8y ago
Not at all. First, I didn't say everyone else was wearing t-shirts; I only talked about the average developer. Second, I clearly said it was a large tech company, where you will get a range of styles. Third, "well-dressed" is a term relative to the context.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Sorry, it's probably cultural? The parent's interpretation was mine too. If everyone is in t-shirts and skirt/slacks and I'm "well dressed" in a suit and tie, I'd say I'm overdressed in the context of that situation. To be fair though you brought focus on how he was dressed when it sounds like you should have said "he was dressed normally for our office". It really came across as if he stood out because of his choice of clothes.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I cannot take responsibility for every misreading. I explicitly said what he was wearing and described it as well dressed. The point is that he was not being stopped because he looked scruffy, which would have been a whole other white derailment of a discussion of race. Which is of course the pattern of these discussions. In exactly the same way my intern got cross-examined for being black in a white space, any mention of racial bias gets cross-examined because white people are very eager to defend the honor of white people. How was he dressed? Was it too rough? Well then it must be that he dressed too well! Never mind that all of the other people dressing well don't get stopped. And this cross-examination happens despite the fact that the sort of racial bias described here is in no way rare and is demonstrated in all sorts of formal research and oceans of personal anecdote. It was his judgment, my judgement, and my boss's judgment, that this was an unconscious racial bias incident. Neither HR nor the black employee group thought otherwise, and they deal with this stuff all the time. Is it possible we're all wrong? Sure. Is it possible that the anonymous white person was actually a space alien beamed down and probing our defenses? Sure. But based on the preponderance of the evidence, we decided what we decided. If that's not good enough for an anonymous rando, that's fine by me. If you'd like to learn more, read any one of the books I've mentioned in this thread. Preferably DiAngelo's, as it goes into detail examining exactly the type of reaction you and others display here.

Not at all. First, I didn't say everyone else was wearing t-shirts; I only talked about the average developer. Second, I clearly said it was a large tech company, where you will get a range of styles. Third, "well-dressed" is a term relative to the context.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Sorry, it's probably cultural? The parent's interpretation was mine too. If everyone is in t-shirts and skirt/slacks and I'm "well dressed" in a suit and tie, I'd say I'm overdressed in the context of that situation. To be fair though you brought focus on how he was dressed when it sounds like you should have said "he was dressed normally for our office". It really came across as if he stood out because of his choice of clothes.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I cannot take responsibility for every misreading. I explicitly said what he was wearing and described it as well dressed. The point is that he was not being stopped because he looked scruffy, which would have been a whole other white derailment of a discussion of race. Which is of course the pattern of these discussions. In exactly the same way my intern got cross-examined for being black in a white space, any mention of racial bias gets cross-examined because white people are very eager to defend the honor of white people. How was he dressed? Was it too rough? Well then it must be that he dressed too well! Never mind that all of the other people dressing well don't get stopped. And this cross-examination happens despite the fact that the sort of racial bias described here is in no way rare and is demonstrated in all sorts of formal research and oceans of personal anecdote. It was his judgment, my judgement, and my boss's judgment, that this was an unconscious racial bias incident. Neither HR nor the black employee group thought otherwise, and they deal with this stuff all the time. Is it possible we're all wrong? Sure. Is it possible that the anonymous white person was actually a space alien beamed down and probing our defenses? Sure. But based on the preponderance of the evidence, we decided what we decided. If that's not good enough for an anonymous rando, that's fine by me. If you'd like to learn more, read any one of the books I've mentioned in this thread. Preferably DiAngelo's, as it goes into detail examining exactly the type of reaction you and others display here.