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There's something about writing like this that gets at me. It's angry, for a good reason, it has lots of good points, but in trying to get across its main point

There's something about writing like this that gets at me. It's angry, for a good reason, it has lots of good points, but in trying to get across its main point, which is signaling dissatisfaction with the tech industry, attacks lots of groups, hits lots of unrelated points, and when it gets into historical tidbits overrates single events in order to build a narrative. For example, please stop using terms like cishet. I know what that means. I know it is important to marginalized communities, but know your audience. There is nobody, nobody in today's environment that could get away with saying "a bunch of (blacks|indians|mexicans|asians|gays|women)" but you say cishet white guys and you can group up a whole lot of people without thinking much about them as individuals. Do you believe this is constructive language that bridges the divide that's part of these issues? Do you know where my abuelita was from just because you can see the color of my skin? Second, I don't think the Slack example is really about inclusion. We all can be stalked and spammed, of course marginalized people more than others. However, Slack's slowness about this isn't nefarious, it's almost certainly they were making so much money recreating IRC that they didn't have time to worry about "minor" issues like that, the same way Hulu can ship a UI that works correctly on a phone but can't be bothered to fix bugs in the TV version that ships to 10 million people. It's not hatred or marginalization, it's just laziness and apathy, it's how our corporations work because they turn into these battlegrounds. > Steve Jobs wasn’t some kind of genius visionary who independently thought that thing up. Jobs was infamous about taking credit, but he never would have made claims like this. That product like all of his products at the time was built by a small team, guided by Steve, that bought up and used lots of existing ideas. There's a reason we like to quote "great artists steal". Hell, the Newton existed 10 years earlier and they had Tony Faddell from an even earlier time that tried similar tech. (Steve Jobs, Becoming Steve Jobs, General Magic) Some of us are sympathetic to many of your points but outsiders don't only come in races or genders and the only way we get out of this collective stagnation is to stop tearing each other down with various narratives about what's wrong with them.

legerdemain 5y ago
Cishet white male shaming is one of the most pernicious festering culture sores in the world today. We exist, we are real people, we want respect and representation, and our voices matter.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wintermutestwin 5y ago
>you say cishet white guys and you can group up a whole lot of people without thinking much about them as individuals. I can empathize with the "turnabout is fair play" logic of it... >Do you believe this is constructive language that bridges the divide that's part of these issues? ...but, like you, I question its effectiveness in bringing us all together. My guess is that it generally triggers a sense of awareness in those who are already somewhere on the "allied" spectrum and that it triggers defensiveness and entrenchment in those that are on the fence or further away. There is clear benefit in the former and detriment in the latter. As you said: "know your audience."
- smolder 5y ago
  There's no "turnabout" happening in being prejudiced against a group full of unique people, many of whom aren't so prejudiced.
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    I can't imagine that you are arguing that non-white, non-cis, and non-hetro people haven't been prejudiced against by whitecishetromales. That's where the "turnabout" comes into play. If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. The point I was making is that when it is misapplied, it's potentially helpful (in creating additional awareness in those who are on some spectrum of "allied") and when it is accurately applied, it's detrimental (as it is likely to lead to "defensiveness and entrenchment"). In this way, it may also serve as a way to measure our own position. Also, I don't think anyone knows whether "many" is accurate. The same point is made by saying "some."
    - majormajor 5y ago
      Labeling, as used in this article, is hardly even turnabout. The dominant group may not explicitly create a term to label themselves, but the act of exclusion requires separating out the "other," and so labeling the non-other isn't so much an act of "turnabout" as just putting a word to an already-created group. The people originally assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together are the ones who have and continue to try to restrict jobs, property, and liberty from being given to people outside that group. People will go a very long rhetorical way to try to refute the idea that if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected white racists. That problem won't magically fix itself because the people who desire racism to continue actively pursue it. We can't even get rid of the confederate flag, for goodness sake.
majormajor 5y ago
I find it a reach that you're complaining about grouping when used in this context: > For example, I once worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: they made an inclusion skills rubric, placed ads in “diverse” tech spaces, et cetera. Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cishet white guys. This is a paragraph directly talking about an initiative to increase diversity that ultimately had little lasting impact, but is making no judgments about either the group of "diverse people" that didn't stick around nor the group of hires that followed. There's no thinking about either group there as individuals, nor positive or negative overall descriptions of them, just an anecdote about an HR initiative at a particular company that didn't really meet its objectives. What's there to be offended by, asks this person who hadn't even encountered the term "cishet" before this article but falls in the group?
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  You're right it does seem like a small thing to pick on in this context. I think it stood out to me because like you said it's not a common term. It gets used in specific communities and areas (academia) but it's a term that the group it is describing doesn't actually use, it's an outgroup indicator, and it's more negative than similar terms like poc, bipoc. It's a culture war signal, even when not intended. Do I care about it? Not really, but it is a really small thing that would go a long ways towards inclusion as weird as that sounds.
- akiselev 5y ago
  The statement as a whole is equally effective with just "white guys" since most people can draw their connotations from the context and those that can't wouldn't know the word anyway (and researching it throws them into the deep end). Reading between the lines (fairly or not), adding that descriptor implies a value judgement beyond the baseline lack of diversity. It draws attention to the individuals as the problem rather than systemic or emergent issues.
dummy_physicist 5y ago
About the cishet thing, I think that's fair use in this context. When discussing diversity, it is normal to name the groups discussed. As the cishet is usually seem as the default, I'd say it is important to address it properly, as not to assume that as universal. Is this divisive language? In some way, yes, but that's the point: we use it to discuss the divisions we observe in society.

legerdemain 5y ago

Cishet white male shaming is one of the most pernicious festering culture sores in the world today. We exist, we are real people, we want respect and representation, and our voices matter.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

wintermutestwin 5y ago

>you say cishet white guys and you can group up a whole lot of people without thinking much about them as individuals. I can empathize with the "turnabout is fair play" logic of it... >Do you believe this is constructive language that bridges the divide that's part of these issues? ...but, like you, I question its effectiveness in bringing us all together. My guess is that it generally triggers a sense of awareness in those who are already somewhere on the "allied" spectrum and that it triggers defensiveness and entrenchment in those that are on the fence or further away. There is clear benefit in the former and detriment in the latter. As you said: "know your audience."

smolder 5y ago
There's no "turnabout" happening in being prejudiced against a group full of unique people, many of whom aren't so prejudiced.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I can't imagine that you are arguing that non-white, non-cis, and non-hetro people haven't been prejudiced against by whitecishetromales. That's where the "turnabout" comes into play. If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. The point I was making is that when it is misapplied, it's potentially helpful (in creating additional awareness in those who are on some spectrum of "allied") and when it is accurately applied, it's detrimental (as it is likely to lead to "defensiveness and entrenchment"). In this way, it may also serve as a way to measure our own position. Also, I don't think anyone knows whether "many" is accurate. The same point is made by saying "some."
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Labeling, as used in this article, is hardly even turnabout. The dominant group may not explicitly create a term to label themselves, but the act of exclusion requires separating out the "other," and so labeling the non-other isn't so much an act of "turnabout" as just putting a word to an already-created group. The people originally assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together are the ones who have and continue to try to restrict jobs, property, and liberty from being given to people outside that group. People will go a very long rhetorical way to try to refute the idea that if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected white racists. That problem won't magically fix itself because the people who desire racism to continue actively pursue it. We can't even get rid of the confederate flag, for goodness sake.

majormajor 5y ago

I find it a reach that you're complaining about grouping when used in this context: > For example, I once worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: they made an inclusion skills rubric, placed ads in “diverse” tech spaces, et cetera. Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cishet white guys. This is a paragraph directly talking about an initiative to increase diversity that ultimately had little lasting impact, but is making no judgments about either the group of "diverse people" that didn't stick around nor the group of hires that followed. There's no thinking about either group there as individuals, nor positive or negative overall descriptions of them, just an anecdote about an HR initiative at a particular company that didn't really meet its objectives. What's there to be offended by, asks this person who hadn't even encountered the term "cishet" before this article but falls in the group?

crazy_horse 5y ago
You're right it does seem like a small thing to pick on in this context. I think it stood out to me because like you said it's not a common term. It gets used in specific communities and areas (academia) but it's a term that the group it is describing doesn't actually use, it's an outgroup indicator, and it's more negative than similar terms like poc, bipoc. It's a culture war signal, even when not intended. Do I care about it? Not really, but it is a really small thing that would go a long ways towards inclusion as weird as that sounds.
akiselev 5y ago
The statement as a whole is equally effective with just "white guys" since most people can draw their connotations from the context and those that can't wouldn't know the word anyway (and researching it throws them into the deep end). Reading between the lines (fairly or not), adding that descriptor implies a value judgement beyond the baseline lack of diversity. It draws attention to the individuals as the problem rather than systemic or emergent issues.

dummy_physicist 5y ago

About the cishet thing, I think that's fair use in this context. When discussing diversity, it is normal to name the groups discussed. As the cishet is usually seem as the default, I'd say it is important to address it properly, as not to assume that as universal. Is this divisive language? In some way, yes, but that's the point: we use it to discuss the divisions we observe in society.