3 ms·

a specific point of view to talk about it while delegitimizing all other perspectives as inherently beneath consideration it's not gonna go well Why do we owe

by causi 4y ago

a specific point of view to talk about it while delegitimizing all other perspectives as inherently beneath consideration it's not gonna go well Why do we owe this degree of sensitivity to some types of bigot but not others? Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? The realpolitik answer is that Google isn't dependent on the work of klansmen and gaybashers but they are dependent on the work of casteists, and throwing them out the door would hurt their bottom line.

x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
This is a very sober and real world answer. And that's not a good thing.
nemothekid 4y ago
>Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? Who says there’s no need to be careful? Almost every discussion about “big tech censorship” has been people crying that they are no longer allowed to be bigots on the timeline.
- causi 4y ago
  Who says there’s no need to be careful? Almost every discussion about “big tech censorship” has been people crying that they are no longer allowed to be bigots on the timeline Sure, but that's coming from the bigots, not the company executives.
naravara 4y ago
> Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? This is imposing the cultural dynamics of American racial politics onto an issue with a completely different historical and cultural context. I wasn't talking about people who are expressing a belief of castes being inferior, I was talking about activists who depict a religious group and other castes in a specific light based on a factually inaccurate and outdated reading of history. Hence why I used the world "perspectives" and not "beliefs." I've been to about 3 of these Equality Labs workshops and just gave up on them because in each one they were throwing around "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" level disinformation about Hinduism, and specific Brahmin groups particularly, while basically shouting down anyone saying things that disagree with their framings of historical events or philosophical references.
- causi 4y ago
  I've been to about 3 of these Equality Labs workshops and just gave up on them because in each one they were throwing around "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" level disinformation Ah, I see how it could cause problems with that type of "equality lab". The equality, discrimination, etc training I've had was very different, and boiled down to "here is a list of behaviors; if you do any of them or anything like any of them your ass is fired."
  - naravara 4y ago
    > I've had was very different, and boiled down to "here is a list of behaviors; if you do any of them or anything like any of them your ass is fired." Yeah this is good in general but needs tempering through a bit of conflict resolution/appeal process built in. Discrimination issues can often just be the result of misinterpretations and blind spots people have, especially when bridging cultural divides. There's some stuff that crosses a clear red line, but most behaviors are subtle and often unintentional and the approach to dealing with them productively should more closely resemble relationship/marriage counseling or the sorts of reconciliation processes they do in post-conflict zones. The ones I went to involved being told I needed to make "anti-casteism" part of my identity and pick arguments with my aunts and uncles when they make 'problematic' statements. And it then came with a side of misquotes of The Bhagavad Gita and selective quotations out of the Manusmriti to argue that simply identifying yourself as a Hindu is inherently discriminatory and violent towards lower castes. As a history major and religious studies minor in college I took issue with just about every historical and theological "fact" they brought up but didn't think it was worth arguing. But there was nothing particular to the organization we were in and no specific instances of issues reported internally by anyone so I had a hard time understanding why this was happening. There's a particular historical narrative among certain political movements in India that depict Brahmins as basically collaborating to institute a conspiracy to to impose a caste hierarchy across all of Indian society for millennia. It's a very simplistic and one-sided reading of Indian history and Hindu philosophy, but it has gained a lot of traction within social justice/DEI spaces and particularly with groups that are more focused on pushing an ideological project. It would be analogous to having a Louis Farrakhan disciple on to talk about being Muslim in the workplace. There are many better people to raise those issues who will bring them without the side of eliminationist rhetoric. It's one thing to meme about people with privilege or be dismissive in a casual context, but at the workplace (or really any public venue) that sort of talk is just mean. It's especially frustrating because this discrimination actually is a blight on Indian society (though most of the issues in the US are in the realm of microaggressions rather than structural or overt discrimination). But that doesn't excuse just peddling nonsense in response.
vorpalhex 4y ago
In the same way that in the 90s you could not have immediately started having every major company start celebrating gay pride. Cultural change takes time. When you still have a practice occurring among over a billion people you can't simply throw it out and declare everyone doing it a bigot. You have to transition in steps and get buy in. Put another way, you wouldn't march single handedly into Saudi Arabia and tell them Islamic law is dumb and they are dumb for following it.

by causi 4y ago

x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago

This is a very sober and real world answer. And that's not a good thing.

nemothekid 4y ago

>Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? Who says there’s no need to be careful? Almost every discussion about “big tech censorship” has been people crying that they are no longer allowed to be bigots on the timeline.

causi 4y ago
Who says there’s no need to be careful? Almost every discussion about “big tech censorship” has been people crying that they are no longer allowed to be bigots on the timeline Sure, but that's coming from the bigots, not the company executives.

naravara 4y ago

> Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? This is imposing the cultural dynamics of American racial politics onto an issue with a completely different historical and cultural context. I wasn't talking about people who are expressing a belief of castes being inferior, I was talking about activists who depict a religious group and other castes in a specific light based on a factually inaccurate and outdated reading of history. Hence why I used the world "perspectives" and not "beliefs." I've been to about 3 of these Equality Labs workshops and just gave up on them because in each one they were throwing around "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" level disinformation about Hinduism, and specific Brahmin groups particularly, while basically shouting down anyone saying things that disagree with their framings of historical events or philosophical references.

causi 4y ago
I've been to about 3 of these Equality Labs workshops and just gave up on them because in each one they were throwing around "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" level disinformation Ah, I see how it could cause problems with that type of "equality lab". The equality, discrimination, etc training I've had was very different, and boiled down to "here is a list of behaviors; if you do any of them or anything like any of them your ass is fired."
- naravara 4y ago
  > I've had was very different, and boiled down to "here is a list of behaviors; if you do any of them or anything like any of them your ass is fired." Yeah this is good in general but needs tempering through a bit of conflict resolution/appeal process built in. Discrimination issues can often just be the result of misinterpretations and blind spots people have, especially when bridging cultural divides. There's some stuff that crosses a clear red line, but most behaviors are subtle and often unintentional and the approach to dealing with them productively should more closely resemble relationship/marriage counseling or the sorts of reconciliation processes they do in post-conflict zones. The ones I went to involved being told I needed to make "anti-casteism" part of my identity and pick arguments with my aunts and uncles when they make 'problematic' statements. And it then came with a side of misquotes of The Bhagavad Gita and selective quotations out of the Manusmriti to argue that simply identifying yourself as a Hindu is inherently discriminatory and violent towards lower castes. As a history major and religious studies minor in college I took issue with just about every historical and theological "fact" they brought up but didn't think it was worth arguing. But there was nothing particular to the organization we were in and no specific instances of issues reported internally by anyone so I had a hard time understanding why this was happening. There's a particular historical narrative among certain political movements in India that depict Brahmins as basically collaborating to institute a conspiracy to to impose a caste hierarchy across all of Indian society for millennia. It's a very simplistic and one-sided reading of Indian history and Hindu philosophy, but it has gained a lot of traction within social justice/DEI spaces and particularly with groups that are more focused on pushing an ideological project. It would be analogous to having a Louis Farrakhan disciple on to talk about being Muslim in the workplace. There are many better people to raise those issues who will bring them without the side of eliminationist rhetoric. It's one thing to meme about people with privilege or be dismissive in a casual context, but at the workplace (or really any public venue) that sort of talk is just mean. It's especially frustrating because this discrimination actually is a blight on Indian society (though most of the issues in the US are in the realm of microaggressions rather than structural or overt discrimination). But that doesn't excuse just peddling nonsense in response.

vorpalhex 4y ago

In the same way that in the 90s you could not have immediately started having every major company start celebrating gay pride. Cultural change takes time. When you still have a practice occurring among over a billion people you can't simply throw it out and declare everyone doing it a bigot. You have to transition in steps and get buy in. Put another way, you wouldn't march single handedly into Saudi Arabia and tell them Islamic law is dumb and they are dumb for following it.