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This will sound outrageous to US technology workers in 2020, but some people are able to separate their professional lives from the religious and political beli
by tenpies 7y ago
This will sound outrageous to US technology workers in 2020, but some people are able to separate their professional lives from the religious and political beliefs of their co-workers.
About 15 years ago it was perfectly normal for this exchange to take place: Your view of marriage is a faith-based promise to your deity based on millennia of tradition and completely different from my view of it as a legalistic civil affair that is even less serious than renewing a recreational boating licence? Not a problem, let's go back to work now.
- monoideism 7y agoThere are still tech companies like this. I have no detailed idea about my boss and coworkers' political beliefs, but I suspect they're different from mine. No problem, we keep things professional and respectful.
- eschaton 7y agoAnd then the person who views it as faith-based starts talking about how his views need to be encoded into law, and those who are affected are sinners who will suffer for it. You can’t “agree to disagree” about bigotry. It fundamentally denies others’ humanity which is the very definition of making a hostile environment. How in the hell is this something people even consider should still be litigated? What’s next, opposing firing of open white supremacists because you think everyone should agree to disagree and get back to work, never mind that they think some of their coworkers are “inferior?”
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoIs the white supremacist living according to the law? Do they abide by work regulations and treat everyone equally/equitably (as the org requires)? I may hate their view point, and want them not to exist, but they feel the same about me I expect.
- foldr 7y ago>Do they abide by work regulations and treat everyone equally/equitably (as the org requires)? Probably not. But in any case, why should non-white coworkers be expected to work with a racist just because the person in question (hypothetically) puts on a token display of being tolerant? It's insulting and demeaning to ask them to put up with that. You seem more interested in defending some implausibly courteous hypothetical white supremacist than in ensuring that real work environments are minimally tolerable for people who aren't white.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoIf a person is a white supremacist, black supremacist, Indian supremacist, whatever, perhaps through working side-by-side towards common goals they can learn not only to fake non-discrimination but to adopt it as an ideology. If they're functionally equivalent to everyone else in their work I can't see a _reason_ to exclude them other than bigotry. They're wrong, outside work I'm happy to address that head on; peace doesn't come through uncompromising segregation off people based on ideology. Presumably you find Muslims, whose religious book demands they murder those who won't convert, to be anathema in your workplace? Rather than it being demeaning to accommodate people with ideological differences it is essentially human and calls us to the highest standards of non-discrimination, IMO.
- foldr 7y ago>If a person is a white supremacist, black supremacist, Indian supremacist, whatever, perhaps through working side-by-side towards common goals they can learn not only to fake non-discrimination but to adopt it as an ideology. That's a nice thought, but it's unfair to put the burden of rehabilitation of white supremacists on your colleagues. >If they're functionally equivalent to everyone else in their work I can't see a _reason_ to exclude them other than bigotry. The idea of them being "functionally equivalent" is a philosophical hypothetical, not a realistic possibility. (Do you think someone who thinks black people are inferior to white people is going to make fair decisions about e.g. who gets promoted?) But apart from this, it's dehumanising and humiliating to make people work with others who regard them as inferior on the basis of their race. >Presumably you find Muslims, whose religious book demands they murder those who won't convert, to be anathema in your workplace? I find Muslims who want to murder non-Muslisms anathema in my workplace, yes. I work with a few Muslims, but curiously, none of them want to do this. But come on, your comment here is borderline trolling, and makes me question whether you're really being serious about white supremacists either.
- foldr 7y agoAnd 15 years ago, it was also impossible for gay people to get married. I'll take today.