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Social justice isn't a bad thing. Social justice instead of actually fulfilling your primary goal is. If all the bugs are closed, the product is beautiful and t

Social justice isn't a bad thing. Social justice instead of actually fulfilling your primary goal is. If all the bugs are closed, the product is beautiful and there's still money sloshing about, then fill your boots. Also, make sure that your donors know their donation is going to go to racial education of Arab journalists (grantee #1), and not to paying developers and server bills. The begging banners on Wikimedia sites fail to mention that there's already 9 figure surplus, and yet the engineering teams will not see any of it no matter what you give, and their money isn't going to actually end up helping a wiki at all. If I wanted to donate to racial justice in media, I can send the money to the Media Foundation for West Africa (grantee #5), the Borealis Racial Equity in Journalism Fund (#2) or any of the others myself.

ALittleLight 5y ago
I think it's a bad thing by itself. With the wikipedia example - anyone can edit, editors can by anonymous or psuedonomous, and there is no preference, implicit or explicit, for race and gender. Over the years wikipedia has been built up, by volunteers, into an amazing and valuable resource. Now, the organization controlling their work and this global good, decides that aggregate race and gender statistics are a problem. Wikipedia is a little too white, and a little too male, and that's a bad thing! Imagine applying this reason to any other organization and any other race and gender combination. Here's a crazy idea - if you want to reduce race and gender based prejudice, start by not having clear race and gender prejudices yourself.
paulcole 5y ago
Instead of treating it as a nice-to-have when everything else is perfect, maybe consider that pursuing social justice will help you fulfill your primary goal?
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I think you're both right. Social justice INSTEAD of one's primary mission is a terrible idea. This happens when social justice initiatives are put in place to help the careers of people running them instead of the organization. That's when you get issues like the displeasure when I tried asking how many poor white people went to our graduate school in a racism discussion. My interest was in knowing whether it was first-order/direct racism resulting in an underrepresentation of POC or second-order/indirect racism (via classism and POC being more likely to be in poverty). Different causes would mean different solutions, but examining the issue wasn't the actual point. The POINT was so we could all stand up and declare ourselves good people + put it on our CVs. Social justice in addition to a primary mission is very useful, because getting different people in the room means you think of way more things and identify new ways to carry out your mission.

ALittleLight 5y ago

I think it's a bad thing by itself. With the wikipedia example - anyone can edit, editors can by anonymous or psuedonomous, and there is no preference, implicit or explicit, for race and gender. Over the years wikipedia has been built up, by volunteers, into an amazing and valuable resource. Now, the organization controlling their work and this global good, decides that aggregate race and gender statistics are a problem. Wikipedia is a little too white, and a little too male, and that's a bad thing! Imagine applying this reason to any other organization and any other race and gender combination. Here's a crazy idea - if you want to reduce race and gender based prejudice, start by not having clear race and gender prejudices yourself.

paulcole 5y ago

Instead of treating it as a nice-to-have when everything else is perfect, maybe consider that pursuing social justice will help you fulfill your primary goal?

Mezzie 5y ago
I think you're both right. Social justice INSTEAD of one's primary mission is a terrible idea. This happens when social justice initiatives are put in place to help the careers of people running them instead of the organization. That's when you get issues like the displeasure when I tried asking how many poor white people went to our graduate school in a racism discussion. My interest was in knowing whether it was first-order/direct racism resulting in an underrepresentation of POC or second-order/indirect racism (via classism and POC being more likely to be in poverty). Different causes would mean different solutions, but examining the issue wasn't the actual point. The POINT was so we could all stand up and declare ourselves good people + put it on our CVs. Social justice in addition to a primary mission is very useful, because getting different people in the room means you think of way more things and identify new ways to carry out your mission.