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I wanted to find an example for my response to this article, and I can't. I was looking for the sites like GitHub, Go Docs, Cloudflare, Hashicorp, and others wh

by lykr0n 6y ago

I wanted to find an example for my response to this article, and I can't. I was looking for the sites like GitHub, Go Docs, Cloudflare, Hashicorp, and others what splashed a "#BlackLivesMatter" header on across all their sites. I remember a lot of places slapping banners or changing their headers black in support of the movement, and now I can't find any examples of that happening. They all seem to have been removed by this point. So- what was accomplished? I don't remember which companies supported "the cause." All I know is that the companies that I thought I did no longer do- or at least don't show support any more. Which stands out to me more then their support. Tells me that two things happened. 1. The companies wasted time figuring out how they should show their support, implementing those features, and all the associated work with making major changes to frontends. Spend hours figuring it out, most likely had meetings to discuses how to do it and what they should say. 2. The stopped showing supporting it after a point in time, which tells me they don't actually care. They just want to show they do. I'm guessing they showed support for two reasons. First is some sort of genuine support for the cause, but the 2nd is a fear of internal backlash for not showing support. Good on Coinbase for removing the elements inside their company that would get pissed if their company didn't take an active stand on flavor of the month political issues. When I go to work, I'm there to do my job and get paid. I don't want to have to deal with people fighting over what political stand the company should take a position on this month. I don't care that my programming language's maintainers voiced support or not. I don't care that program X or Y slapped a banner on their products for the month. The fact that there was visible support for for Black Lives Matter that was removed a month later is a lot more telling then their support. You want to be apart of the movement without actually doing anything to fix the issues. If you want to be political as a company, quietly donate money to the causes you support. Provide resources such as technical help or free/discounted services to the causes you support. That's infinitely more productive and helpful then letting your employees fight over what token gesture they want the company to show.

redis_mlc 6y ago
For non-US HN readers, or those not current on BLM: - to unpack your superficial post would take a 200-page book because it touches on multiple overlapping and non-overlapping issues - but the short story is that the US public, and peaceful protesters, agree with the concept of improving black legal system rights, but the organizers and rioters behind the arson attacks are Marxist fronts, apparently funded by the CCP. Their goal is anarchy, not BLM reform - literally they want to make the US ungovernable so they can field their own political structure built upon the rubble they created. - the original problem was police unions and captive DAs, which has been lost in the noise, and would take an extreme focus to fix even in the best of times. I don't think peaceful protests can solve a problem that entrenched at all, but neither can foreign-incluenced Marxists We know now that the National Guard should have been called out in downtown areas, and arsonists should have been shot. Many moved from city-to-city, burning as they went. Regarding your comment about web site banners, it's likely that when the Marxists started to burn downtowns, companies wondered what exactly they were supporting. They got a clue well ahead of the Democrats - it took Pelosi 2 months to denounce the riots, which really meant the party supported it. You can learn more about the CCP involvement by watching recent Youtube NTD/Epoch Times channel videos. They have experienced China-watch reporters on staff researching CCP inroads into the US.
hnracer 6y ago
It was largely a fashion trend among executives as well as a fear of being singled out as being not onboard with BLM. It's better to be with the crowd, at least you are immune to specific criticism. We saw a similar fashion trend in company cancellations of Facebook ads, multiple companies cancelled their ads for a short duration at the same time (each cancellation catalyzing the next) and we've heard nothing about that since. I find it quite interesting honestly.
- jiuahweruihawi 6y ago
  It's Havel's Greengrocer all over again: https://pathtothepossible.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/havels-greengrocer/ https://pathtothepossible.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/havels-gr... If a corporation posted a black square on its Instagram earlier this year, that doesn't tell you anything about whether the corporation cares about racism. It only tells you that the corporation cares about its own self-preservation.
easton 6y ago
For what it’s worth, the Kubernetes project still has their banner up on every page of the site, front and center. They are serious about it even if the rest of the CNCF and Google aren’t. https://kubernetes.io/ https://kubernetes.io/
- throwaway98777 6y ago
  As if I needed more reasons to not use k8s.
deleted 6y ago
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by lykr0n 6y ago

redis_mlc 6y ago

For non-US HN readers, or those not current on BLM: - to unpack your superficial post would take a 200-page book because it touches on multiple overlapping and non-overlapping issues - but the short story is that the US public, and peaceful protesters, agree with the concept of improving black legal system rights, but the organizers and rioters behind the arson attacks are Marxist fronts, apparently funded by the CCP. Their goal is anarchy, not BLM reform - literally they want to make the US ungovernable so they can field their own political structure built upon the rubble they created. - the original problem was police unions and captive DAs, which has been lost in the noise, and would take an extreme focus to fix even in the best of times. I don't think peaceful protests can solve a problem that entrenched at all, but neither can foreign-incluenced Marxists We know now that the National Guard should have been called out in downtown areas, and arsonists should have been shot. Many moved from city-to-city, burning as they went. Regarding your comment about web site banners, it's likely that when the Marxists started to burn downtowns, companies wondered what exactly they were supporting. They got a clue well ahead of the Democrats - it took Pelosi 2 months to denounce the riots, which really meant the party supported it. You can learn more about the CCP involvement by watching recent Youtube NTD/Epoch Times channel videos. They have experienced China-watch reporters on staff researching CCP inroads into the US.

hnracer 6y ago

It was largely a fashion trend among executives as well as a fear of being singled out as being not onboard with BLM. It's better to be with the crowd, at least you are immune to specific criticism. We saw a similar fashion trend in company cancellations of Facebook ads, multiple companies cancelled their ads for a short duration at the same time (each cancellation catalyzing the next) and we've heard nothing about that since. I find it quite interesting honestly.

jiuahweruihawi 6y ago
It's Havel's Greengrocer all over again: https://pathtothepossible.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/havels-greengrocer/ https://pathtothepossible.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/havels-gr... If a corporation posted a black square on its Instagram earlier this year, that doesn't tell you anything about whether the corporation cares about racism. It only tells you that the corporation cares about its own self-preservation.

easton 6y ago

For what it’s worth, the Kubernetes project still has their banner up on every page of the site, front and center. They are serious about it even if the rest of the CNCF and Google aren’t. https://kubernetes.io/ https://kubernetes.io/

throwaway98777 6y ago
As if I needed more reasons to not use k8s.

deleted 6y ago

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