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Netflix fires organizer of trans employee walkout

82 points by pcbro141 5y ago

mkr-hn 5y ago
They (maybe) leaked data that showed these shows don't even make much money, so it's not about money. Between this and the long string of stand-up shows with transphobic and homophobic bits, I get the strong impression someone with influence within Netflix wants to keep funding these kinds of acts. Is it true? Maybe not. But the way the company is behaving sure does give that impression. They must have some PR person guiding them here who I'm sure warned them firing the black pregnant trans organizer of an employee walkout wasn't a great look days after firing and rehiring another trans employee who criticized the company. They did it anyway.
- brnt 5y ago
  Did you see the show? Transphobic is just about the last word I'd use to describe it, or Chapelle's message.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it and had a wide range of takes on it from "it's not transphobic, don't be a dumbass" to "it wasn't exactly transphobic, but it wasn't good and I understand why people consider the bad jokes transphobic" without subjecting myself to it. Netflix's reaction is really the main subject of my comment. The way to interpret the show is just not relevant anymore. Netflix made it about Netflix.
    - e40 5y ago
      More importantly than any of your associates, I have two important data points: I watched it and it was definitely not transphobic. Dave's trans female friend that committed suicide, her family supports Dave and says they believe it's not transphobic. Every single criticism I've seen has been general. None of them, except the ones which take stuff out of context, have specific gripes. That's how you know this is about shutting down debate they don't want to hear.
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said.
        CarelessExpert 5y ago
        You really gotta wonder how Dave would feel if a white person tried to explain to him how a joke he saw as racist wasn't actually racist, and besides, my black friend said it's fine... There must be some analog to "mansplaining" that fits, here. "Transplaining"? Hmm...
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        I've seen cissplaining used to good effect.
        e40 5y ago
        Before she died she supported Dave, as well. My main point stands: criticism of his special is too vague. It's almost as if many of the critics never watched the whole thing, having formed an opinion about it early on and stopped watching. I watched the entire thing and it is a single piece. There are no standalone jokes in that special. Every single word is in support of the last words he speaks. I even watched the special a second time to be sure I hadn't been bamboozled by Dave's wit and charm. I felt even more sure after the 2nd viewing that it's not transphobic.
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        I am not discussing or interested in this hypothetical person who hasn't watched it but is still commenting as though they did. To reiterate: >> "You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said."
        5y ago
    - donatj 5y ago
      > I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it Never trust other people's opinions on matters like this. Other people trust other people trust other people and you get mountains of wrong. Forming an opinion-based purely on other people's opinions is just a form of prejudice.
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        My trust is based on cancelling Netflix long ago after a string of stand-up shows full of bigoted jokes. I don't need another data point.
        pbak 5y ago
        Seeing that the last third of the show was a homage by Dave Chappelle to a comedian trans friend of his which committed suicide, maybe you should.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    I can't bring myself to watch it. All I know is a quote from it where Chapelle describes himself as being on "Team TERF". Having spent months subjecting myself to abuse from TERFs in an attempt to empathize with them, I'm too scarred to expose myself to more of that. So you might be right. Maybe Chapelle was taken out of context. I doubt it, given what I've read, but I can't say for sure since I haven't watched it. But suppose it is homophobic, or transphobic. I'm actually okay with Netflix hosting it if so, but I don't want there to be double standards. Would Netflix host a racist stand-up routine? Perhaps one where the comedian says they're on "Team White Power" instead of "Team TERF?" Of course not! That's what grinds my gears - transphobia is edgy, apparently, not hateful like racism. And if Netflix is really committed to diversity of perspectives, why did they no-platform the Saudi Arabia documentary?
    - robbiep 5y ago
      I haven’t watched it either (yet). I found this an interesting perspective however - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/dave-chappelle-the-closer/620364/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/dave-chapp...
- psyc 5y ago
  Do you believe Netflix ought to reject popular comedians, if they tell jokes that some people could interpret as racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic, ableist, or misogynistic? Do you have any favorite comedians yourself who wouldn’t be affected? Would you mind if I scan their body of work just to make sure they aren’t harming any vulnerable communities?
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    They wouldn't be my favorite comedian if they dumped on critics, doubled down on the subject of the criticism, and didn't speak out on the firing of people who took issue with it after complaining about "cancel culture."
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I don't understand why some people think it's okay to offend some groups and not others. Religious people may be deeply and sincerely offended by bad language, jokes about promiscuity, or jokes about religion. Should comedians be banned from discussing those topics because they might offend the religious? Trump supporters might be offended by jokes about Trump, Biden supporters, Biden. Are those beyond the pale? It seems to me like some people have decided that the various 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks must not ever be offended but it's perfectly fine to offend some other groups. That doesn't make sense to me. If causing offense is wrong it should be equally wrong to offend anyone. Or, if it's okay to be offensive then it should be okay to offend anyone.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    In this case the irony lies in one of Chappelle's jokes from his special...murder a man and no one cares (Jaylin Craig), but have a joke that offends a gay person and you will be a target for cancellation.
  - matthewmcg 5y ago
    I understand the sentiment, but I think additional sensitivity may be merited where the group being offended is disadvantaged or subject to persecution. To put it another way, it's been said that comedians should punch "up" (i.e. make fun of those in power) and not punch "down."
    - why_is_it_good 5y ago
      To praise weakness and call it merit.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      A good angle I read (but can't cite, unfortunately) is that some comedians punch up until the only people left to punch are the ones paying their salary, so they punch down at whoever it's still socially acceptable to make fun of. And then they keep doing it until it's no longer acceptable and start making their critics the whole focus of their routine. We used to call comedians who attacked critics hacks. Now they get Netflix specials.
- xdennis 5y ago
  25 million for 10 million views in first few days. Is that too little? I have nothing to compare it to but it seems like this controversy is only going to lead to more views.
literallyaduck 5y ago
If you run a fast food joint and someone leaves during a shift without clearing it first, they are likely to be fired. If they distract the cashier, fry cook and grill and they end up leaving it is likely all of them will be put on "no rehire". It is your right to freely protest, but your company isn't obligated to keep you. Customers have more power than employees. If you don't like what Netflix is doing, stop paying them.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  This is more like someone being fired because they leaked that one of their coworkers was farting on every burger for laughs.
  - staysafeanon 5y ago
    Except in reality their coworkers weren't farting on every burger, they were just giggling over non-PC jokes, and the camera system confirmed that there was no farting. Sadly, the employee that leaked/whistleblew is suffering from a mental illness, and they delusionally thought their coworkers were farting on the burgers.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    I think a more apt analogy would be a fast food employee believing that the burger patties were harmful, and in response deciding to leak the purchase order for burger patties and buns. The employee may unaware that a rival burger chain could use that information to renegotiate with the supplier. This would potentially hurt the relationship between the employer and the supplier.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    The leak involved information on the calculated ROI of Chapelle's last special. This is more akin to a vegan employee leaking how much McDonalds pays for beef, revealing that it is a loss leader. That jeopardizes the relationship and puts the beef company in a difficult position when negotiating with other companies. The vegan feels justified because meat is murder and causes unnecessary suffering. It's interesting that Netflix may be putting subjective artistic quality ahead of profit. How will investors interpret that?
AJRF 5y ago
I just watched it. I don’t feel like I live in a real world anymore. This whole outrage is manufactured and there are so many resellers. Dave spends the last 15 minutes of the show telling a heartbreaking story of how he made friends with a transgender woman, and invited her to open his show for him, she sucked but then when she was being herself during the show and afterwards backstage she had everyone howling with laughter because she was so naturally funny but she needed to work on her show to get that side out. She defended Chapelle on Twitter and got dogpiled for it and killed herself (not 100% if there was a correlation but sure it didn’t help). Dave got to the point that he didn’t like her or find her funny because she was transgender but because she was a person. She was another human. Not someone who hid behind a label or an identity, but someone who was a human going through the same shit we all go through. That’s what identity politics and extreme politicalisation denies people, humanity. How people watched that show and got that he’s a transphobe from it just blows my mind.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  He said that he's on "team TERF" and compared being trans to wearing black face. It's not "manufactured", there are a lot of people upset that he's punching down against a vulnerable community.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    This is, I think, the key detail. Everything else is subjective enough that it's easy for people inclined to dismiss the whole thing to make a reason up. There's really no way to misunderstand those things. He's declared an allegiance with people who spend all their time on Twitter and forums dehumanizing trans people, often using the same insinuation that being a woman is the same as doing blackface. Maybe he's ignorant of what he's really saying, but that's not an excuse.
    - da39a3ee 5y ago
      Does "being a TERF" mean that you side with women like J.K. Rowling defending traditional positions on gender debates rather than siding with a minority of vocal pro-trans activists who are deliberately causing trouble and don't represent all trans people? If so then I'm a TERF, my mom's a TERF, in fact all mom's I know over the age of 50 are TERFs. Furthermore pretty much everybody in every non-western country is a TERF. So I don't think it's surprising that Dave Chapelle might be a TERF and I don't see why you're talking about TERFs as if they are somehow to be looked down upon or despised.
khalilravanna 5y ago
It feels disingenuous to use this as the headline as it implies they were fired for organizing the walkout instead of for leaking internal data: A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the employees’ dismissal. “We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” they said.
- lsiebert 5y ago
  Yes, tech companies always fire people for the publicly stated reasons.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  At the same time, if they wanted to get rid of this person they would come up with an alternative justification like this. It's similar to how Terra Field (Netflix engineer) was suspended after her viral tweet about the Chapelle special, on the justification that she joined (without disrupting at all) a QBR zoom meeting, despite being invited to it by a higher up.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
torben-friis 5y ago
As a non American, I must say that I found Chappelle's special to be way too much in the defensive, as if he was preparing for a cancellation that was sure as hell not going to happen. Why would trans people be mad, when he was basically dealing with his duel process on stage about the loss of a trans friend? Then I saw Twitter. Wow. I just don't understand how people can be that mad about something that _they've clearly not watched_. It's beyond me. Perhaps I lack some fundamental cultural context.
- psyc 5y ago
  The context is there is a playground game being played at scale. In order to be accepted in certain circles, one needs to discern who the thought leaders are, display the proper deference to them, and above all adhere to approved talking points. Chappelle is experiencing backlash for writing his own talking points.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  It goes something like this: - someone gets offended from clips, or watches the whole thing but dislikes bits they feel can taken out of context - they say it is hateful - everyone who listens to them takes the judgement and runs with it. No need to subject yourself to hateful content when you already know it is - the judgement spreads, and people wanting to feel important add their own (uninformed) thoughts, which are just exaggerations of the original - enough people say it that it becomes a foregone conclusion, and anyone who speaks up in opposition obviously only does so because they are anti-X, bigoted and hateful themselves, and so their opinions dont matter It is basically how all stereotypes spread, with an added hint of malice thrown on top to be extra divisive. In a world of things like "anti-racism" where you must parrot the orthodoxy loudly and often, this is the natural course of things. Culturally, I think "celebrification" is to blame for the intensity. We have spent so long worshipping celebrities, and celebrity status, that social media gave us the added shot of each of us being our own mini-celebrities. Being liked and mentioned has become a form of self fulfillment for some people, and the easiest way to do that is parrot every bandwagon you can find.
  - throwoutway 5y ago
undoware 5y ago
I'm not going to explain this to you all, but yeah, the language used by Chappelle has specific and very serious consequences for people like me. Yes, it's transphobic. That you cannot smell this out -- or do, but pretend you don't -- says a heartbreaking amount about HN culture. We're here, right beside you, in your workplaces, in your forums, hearing what you say. And then we have to do our damn jobs. Do you know what that's like?
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  I seem to be in net positive point territory being critical of Netflix in numerous comments. I used to get flag killed and rate limited for that kind of thing! A too small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    Fun fact: The parent's comment was briefly flag killed. No idea how it came back, but... just goes to show, things haven't changed as much as you might think.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      I have but one vouch to give for harmless comments unfairly obliterated.
- undoware 5y ago
  Well, that comment didn't take long to lose its +1. For some reason. C'est charmant, l'HN!
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  I wrote up a whole reply but yours was flagged and then unflagged and my comment was lost... Anyway, just be aware you have allies. I've just given up participating on HN when these topics come up since it's gotten so utterly polarized and hyperbolic. I typically just flag the article and move on. I assume there's a pretty large silent audience of folks like myself who are simply exhausted by the whole thing and are done being exposed to the negativity and borderline conspiracy theories floating around here. I come to HN for cool tech stories, not to be exposed to even more American political food fights. Of course, despite that, here I am... but, hey, I never said I had self-control...
deleted 5y ago
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fleddr 5y ago
This is how art, comedy and free speech dies. You take the hyper-sensitive, outrage-addicted Twitter culture as measuring stick for what is appropriate. Whilst Netflix did resist a full take-down, they still took a knee. Don't bow to the unreasonables, just publish and don't explain anything. And indeed, fire the anti-employees, whom sabotage your business. You're offended? So what? Grow up. Meanwhile hit show "Squid Games" depicts hundreds of people executed, and there's nothing but love and praise.
- krapp 5y ago
  >Meanwhile hit show "Squid Games" depicts hundreds of people executed, and there's nothing but love and praise. You do realize that's fiction, right?
  - fleddr 5y ago
    No, really? And comedy isn't?
    - krapp 5y ago
      No. Comedy and fiction are separate concepts. For instance, what we're discussing in this thread is comedy being used in a non-fictional context, which makes your implication that we should be more concerned about violence against fictional characters seem like a comparison between apples and a picture of an orange. The reason no one is up in arms about people getting killed in Squid Game is that it isn't real. The trans community, meanwhile, does actually exist.
      - fleddr 5y ago
        No harm was inflicted in the comedy. It was a joke. Jokes can offend. Some people are extremely easily offended, some laugh at the harshest joke at their expense. Get over yourself.
        falcolas 5y ago
bigwavedave 5y ago
I feel like the title is a bit misleading. The article doesn't much talk about the planned walk out, instead it focuses on the aforementioned employee being fired on suspicion of leaking internal metrics about a show that is apparently controversial (which I have never seen so I don't have any opinion or reference) and about other employees. I'll confess I don't know anything about anything- I certainly don't have any insight into what evidence Netflix has to support the assertion that this employee was the leak; I doubt we'll ever see it. I guess I'm just grousing about the title implying the employee was fired for organizing the walkout, yet the article doesn't expound upon the employee referenced by the title, the titular planned walkout, or the evidence for or against the title's implication. Instead, it mentions a show, some private metrics that were leaked to Bloomberg, 3 employees (at least one of whom is a trans software engineer) who were suspended for attending a high-level meeting they weren't allowed to listen in on and then reinstated after public pressure. So why imply that Netflix would fire an employee (who happens to be both black and pregnant) for organizing a walkout in the name of activism that hasn't even taken place yet in order to protest the show referenced by the leaked metrics if the only time they're going to bother even asserting the title's implication is when quoting an employee about discrimination? Is discrimination the reason she was fired? Is it retaliation for a walkout that has yet to take place? Is there a smoking gun indicating that she was the one leaking private company data? I honestly don't have a clue and we probably won't ever know for sure. But for once I'd like to read an article where the experience at least begins in good faith instead of implying a conclusion without ever actually going into detail about it. [/rant]

82 points by pcbro141 5y ago

They (maybe) leaked data that showed these shows don't even make much money, so it's not about money. Between this and the long string of stand-up shows with transphobic and homophobic bits, I get the strong impression someone with influence within Netflix wants to keep funding these kinds of acts. Is it true? Maybe not. But the way the company is behaving sure does give that impression. They must have some PR person guiding them here who I'm sure warned them firing the black pregnant trans organizer of an employee walkout wasn't a great look days after firing and rehiring another trans employee who criticized the company. They did it anyway.

brnt 5y ago
Did you see the show? Transphobic is just about the last word I'd use to describe it, or Chapelle's message.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it and had a wide range of takes on it from "it's not transphobic, don't be a dumbass" to "it wasn't exactly transphobic, but it wasn't good and I understand why people consider the bad jokes transphobic" without subjecting myself to it. Netflix's reaction is really the main subject of my comment. The way to interpret the show is just not relevant anymore. Netflix made it about Netflix.
  - e40 5y ago
    More importantly than any of your associates, I have two important data points: I watched it and it was definitely not transphobic. Dave's trans female friend that committed suicide, her family supports Dave and says they believe it's not transphobic. Every single criticism I've seen has been general. None of them, except the ones which take stuff out of context, have specific gripes. That's how you know this is about shutting down debate they don't want to hear.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said.
      - CarelessExpert 5y ago
        You really gotta wonder how Dave would feel if a white person tried to explain to him how a joke he saw as racist wasn't actually racist, and besides, my black friend said it's fine... There must be some analog to "mansplaining" that fits, here. "Transplaining"? Hmm...
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        I've seen cissplaining used to good effect.
      - e40 5y ago
        Before she died she supported Dave, as well. My main point stands: criticism of his special is too vague. It's almost as if many of the critics never watched the whole thing, having formed an opinion about it early on and stopped watching. I watched the entire thing and it is a single piece. There are no standalone jokes in that special. Every single word is in support of the last words he speaks. I even watched the special a second time to be sure I hadn't been bamboozled by Dave's wit and charm. I felt even more sure after the 2nd viewing that it's not transphobic.
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        I am not discussing or interested in this hypothetical person who hasn't watched it but is still commenting as though they did. To reiterate: >> "You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said."
        5y ago
  - donatj 5y ago
    > I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it Never trust other people's opinions on matters like this. Other people trust other people trust other people and you get mountains of wrong. Forming an opinion-based purely on other people's opinions is just a form of prejudice.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      My trust is based on cancelling Netflix long ago after a string of stand-up shows full of bigoted jokes. I don't need another data point.
      - pbak 5y ago
        Seeing that the last third of the show was a homage by Dave Chappelle to a comedian trans friend of his which committed suicide, maybe you should.
- sterlind 5y ago
  I can't bring myself to watch it. All I know is a quote from it where Chapelle describes himself as being on "Team TERF". Having spent months subjecting myself to abuse from TERFs in an attempt to empathize with them, I'm too scarred to expose myself to more of that. So you might be right. Maybe Chapelle was taken out of context. I doubt it, given what I've read, but I can't say for sure since I haven't watched it. But suppose it is homophobic, or transphobic. I'm actually okay with Netflix hosting it if so, but I don't want there to be double standards. Would Netflix host a racist stand-up routine? Perhaps one where the comedian says they're on "Team White Power" instead of "Team TERF?" Of course not! That's what grinds my gears - transphobia is edgy, apparently, not hateful like racism. And if Netflix is really committed to diversity of perspectives, why did they no-platform the Saudi Arabia documentary?
  - robbiep 5y ago
    I haven’t watched it either (yet). I found this an interesting perspective however - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/dave-chappelle-the-closer/620364/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/dave-chapp...
psyc 5y ago
Do you believe Netflix ought to reject popular comedians, if they tell jokes that some people could interpret as racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic, ableist, or misogynistic? Do you have any favorite comedians yourself who wouldn’t be affected? Would you mind if I scan their body of work just to make sure they aren’t harming any vulnerable communities?
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  They wouldn't be my favorite comedian if they dumped on critics, doubled down on the subject of the criticism, and didn't speak out on the firing of people who took issue with it after complaining about "cancel culture."
ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't understand why some people think it's okay to offend some groups and not others. Religious people may be deeply and sincerely offended by bad language, jokes about promiscuity, or jokes about religion. Should comedians be banned from discussing those topics because they might offend the religious? Trump supporters might be offended by jokes about Trump, Biden supporters, Biden. Are those beyond the pale? It seems to me like some people have decided that the various 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks must not ever be offended but it's perfectly fine to offend some other groups. That doesn't make sense to me. If causing offense is wrong it should be equally wrong to offend anyone. Or, if it's okay to be offensive then it should be okay to offend anyone.
- j_walter 5y ago
  In this case the irony lies in one of Chappelle's jokes from his special...murder a man and no one cares (Jaylin Craig), but have a joke that offends a gay person and you will be a target for cancellation.
- matthewmcg 5y ago
  I understand the sentiment, but I think additional sensitivity may be merited where the group being offended is disadvantaged or subject to persecution. To put it another way, it's been said that comedians should punch "up" (i.e. make fun of those in power) and not punch "down."
  - why_is_it_good 5y ago
    To praise weakness and call it merit.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    A good angle I read (but can't cite, unfortunately) is that some comedians punch up until the only people left to punch are the ones paying their salary, so they punch down at whoever it's still socially acceptable to make fun of. And then they keep doing it until it's no longer acceptable and start making their critics the whole focus of their routine. We used to call comedians who attacked critics hacks. Now they get Netflix specials.
xdennis 5y ago
25 million for 10 million views in first few days. Is that too little? I have nothing to compare it to but it seems like this controversy is only going to lead to more views.

literallyaduck 5y ago

If you run a fast food joint and someone leaves during a shift without clearing it first, they are likely to be fired. If they distract the cashier, fry cook and grill and they end up leaving it is likely all of them will be put on "no rehire". It is your right to freely protest, but your company isn't obligated to keep you. Customers have more power than employees. If you don't like what Netflix is doing, stop paying them.

mkr-hn 5y ago
This is more like someone being fired because they leaked that one of their coworkers was farting on every burger for laughs.
- staysafeanon 5y ago
  Except in reality their coworkers weren't farting on every burger, they were just giggling over non-PC jokes, and the camera system confirmed that there was no farting. Sadly, the employee that leaked/whistleblew is suffering from a mental illness, and they delusionally thought their coworkers were farting on the burgers.
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  I think a more apt analogy would be a fast food employee believing that the burger patties were harmful, and in response deciding to leak the purchase order for burger patties and buns. The employee may unaware that a rival burger chain could use that information to renegotiate with the supplier. This would potentially hurt the relationship between the employer and the supplier.
- nefitty 5y ago
  The leak involved information on the calculated ROI of Chapelle's last special. This is more akin to a vegan employee leaking how much McDonalds pays for beef, revealing that it is a loss leader. That jeopardizes the relationship and puts the beef company in a difficult position when negotiating with other companies. The vegan feels justified because meat is murder and causes unnecessary suffering. It's interesting that Netflix may be putting subjective artistic quality ahead of profit. How will investors interpret that?

AJRF 5y ago

I just watched it. I don’t feel like I live in a real world anymore. This whole outrage is manufactured and there are so many resellers. Dave spends the last 15 minutes of the show telling a heartbreaking story of how he made friends with a transgender woman, and invited her to open his show for him, she sucked but then when she was being herself during the show and afterwards backstage she had everyone howling with laughter because she was so naturally funny but she needed to work on her show to get that side out. She defended Chapelle on Twitter and got dogpiled for it and killed herself (not 100% if there was a correlation but sure it didn’t help). Dave got to the point that he didn’t like her or find her funny because she was transgender but because she was a person. She was another human. Not someone who hid behind a label or an identity, but someone who was a human going through the same shit we all go through. That’s what identity politics and extreme politicalisation denies people, humanity. How people watched that show and got that he’s a transphobe from it just blows my mind.

jmcgough 5y ago
He said that he's on "team TERF" and compared being trans to wearing black face. It's not "manufactured", there are a lot of people upset that he's punching down against a vulnerable community.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  This is, I think, the key detail. Everything else is subjective enough that it's easy for people inclined to dismiss the whole thing to make a reason up. There's really no way to misunderstand those things. He's declared an allegiance with people who spend all their time on Twitter and forums dehumanizing trans people, often using the same insinuation that being a woman is the same as doing blackface. Maybe he's ignorant of what he's really saying, but that's not an excuse.
  - da39a3ee 5y ago
    Does "being a TERF" mean that you side with women like J.K. Rowling defending traditional positions on gender debates rather than siding with a minority of vocal pro-trans activists who are deliberately causing trouble and don't represent all trans people? If so then I'm a TERF, my mom's a TERF, in fact all mom's I know over the age of 50 are TERFs. Furthermore pretty much everybody in every non-western country is a TERF. So I don't think it's surprising that Dave Chapelle might be a TERF and I don't see why you're talking about TERFs as if they are somehow to be looked down upon or despised.

khalilravanna 5y ago

It feels disingenuous to use this as the headline as it implies they were fired for organizing the walkout instead of for leaking internal data: A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the employees’ dismissal. “We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” they said.

lsiebert 5y ago
Yes, tech companies always fire people for the publicly stated reasons.
jmcgough 5y ago
At the same time, if they wanted to get rid of this person they would come up with an alternative justification like this. It's similar to how Terra Field (Netflix engineer) was suspended after her viral tweet about the Chapelle special, on the justification that she joined (without disrupting at all) a QBR zoom meeting, despite being invited to it by a higher up.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

torben-friis 5y ago

As a non American, I must say that I found Chappelle's special to be way too much in the defensive, as if he was preparing for a cancellation that was sure as hell not going to happen. Why would trans people be mad, when he was basically dealing with his duel process on stage about the loss of a trans friend? Then I saw Twitter. Wow. I just don't understand how people can be that mad about something that _they've clearly not watched_. It's beyond me. Perhaps I lack some fundamental cultural context.

psyc 5y ago
The context is there is a playground game being played at scale. In order to be accepted in certain circles, one needs to discern who the thought leaders are, display the proper deference to them, and above all adhere to approved talking points. Chappelle is experiencing backlash for writing his own talking points.
zdragnar 5y ago
It goes something like this: - someone gets offended from clips, or watches the whole thing but dislikes bits they feel can taken out of context - they say it is hateful - everyone who listens to them takes the judgement and runs with it. No need to subject yourself to hateful content when you already know it is - the judgement spreads, and people wanting to feel important add their own (uninformed) thoughts, which are just exaggerations of the original - enough people say it that it becomes a foregone conclusion, and anyone who speaks up in opposition obviously only does so because they are anti-X, bigoted and hateful themselves, and so their opinions dont matter It is basically how all stereotypes spread, with an added hint of malice thrown on top to be extra divisive. In a world of things like "anti-racism" where you must parrot the orthodoxy loudly and often, this is the natural course of things. Culturally, I think "celebrification" is to blame for the intensity. We have spent so long worshipping celebrities, and celebrity status, that social media gave us the added shot of each of us being our own mini-celebrities. Being liked and mentioned has become a form of self fulfillment for some people, and the easiest way to do that is parrot every bandwagon you can find.
- throwoutway 5y ago

undoware 5y ago

I'm not going to explain this to you all, but yeah, the language used by Chappelle has specific and very serious consequences for people like me. Yes, it's transphobic. That you cannot smell this out -- or do, but pretend you don't -- says a heartbreaking amount about HN culture. We're here, right beside you, in your workplaces, in your forums, hearing what you say. And then we have to do our damn jobs. Do you know what that's like?

mkr-hn 5y ago
I seem to be in net positive point territory being critical of Netflix in numerous comments. I used to get flag killed and rate limited for that kind of thing! A too small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  Fun fact: The parent's comment was briefly flag killed. No idea how it came back, but... just goes to show, things haven't changed as much as you might think.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    I have but one vouch to give for harmless comments unfairly obliterated.
undoware 5y ago
Well, that comment didn't take long to lose its +1. For some reason. C'est charmant, l'HN!
CarelessExpert 5y ago
I wrote up a whole reply but yours was flagged and then unflagged and my comment was lost... Anyway, just be aware you have allies. I've just given up participating on HN when these topics come up since it's gotten so utterly polarized and hyperbolic. I typically just flag the article and move on. I assume there's a pretty large silent audience of folks like myself who are simply exhausted by the whole thing and are done being exposed to the negativity and borderline conspiracy theories floating around here. I come to HN for cool tech stories, not to be exposed to even more American political food fights. Of course, despite that, here I am... but, hey, I never said I had self-control...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fleddr 5y ago

This is how art, comedy and free speech dies. You take the hyper-sensitive, outrage-addicted Twitter culture as measuring stick for what is appropriate. Whilst Netflix did resist a full take-down, they still took a knee. Don't bow to the unreasonables, just publish and don't explain anything. And indeed, fire the anti-employees, whom sabotage your business. You're offended? So what? Grow up. Meanwhile hit show "Squid Games" depicts hundreds of people executed, and there's nothing but love and praise.

krapp 5y ago
>Meanwhile hit show "Squid Games" depicts hundreds of people executed, and there's nothing but love and praise. You do realize that's fiction, right?
- fleddr 5y ago
  No, really? And comedy isn't?
  - krapp 5y ago
    No. Comedy and fiction are separate concepts. For instance, what we're discussing in this thread is comedy being used in a non-fictional context, which makes your implication that we should be more concerned about violence against fictional characters seem like a comparison between apples and a picture of an orange. The reason no one is up in arms about people getting killed in Squid Game is that it isn't real. The trans community, meanwhile, does actually exist.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      No harm was inflicted in the comedy. It was a joke. Jokes can offend. Some people are extremely easily offended, some laugh at the harshest joke at their expense. Get over yourself.
      - falcolas 5y ago

bigwavedave 5y ago

I feel like the title is a bit misleading. The article doesn't much talk about the planned walk out, instead it focuses on the aforementioned employee being fired on suspicion of leaking internal metrics about a show that is apparently controversial (which I have never seen so I don't have any opinion or reference) and about other employees. I'll confess I don't know anything about anything- I certainly don't have any insight into what evidence Netflix has to support the assertion that this employee was the leak; I doubt we'll ever see it. I guess I'm just grousing about the title implying the employee was fired for organizing the walkout, yet the article doesn't expound upon the employee referenced by the title, the titular planned walkout, or the evidence for or against the title's implication. Instead, it mentions a show, some private metrics that were leaked to Bloomberg, 3 employees (at least one of whom is a trans software engineer) who were suspended for attending a high-level meeting they weren't allowed to listen in on and then reinstated after public pressure. So why imply that Netflix would fire an employee (who happens to be both black and pregnant) for organizing a walkout in the name of activism that hasn't even taken place yet in order to protest the show referenced by the leaked metrics if the only time they're going to bother even asserting the title's implication is when quoting an employee about discrimination? Is discrimination the reason she was fired? Is it retaliation for a walkout that has yet to take place? Is there a smoking gun indicating that she was the one leaking private company data? I honestly don't have a clue and we probably won't ever know for sure. But for once I'd like to read an article where the experience at least begins in good faith instead of implying a conclusion without ever actually going into detail about it. [/rant]