Out of curiosity, why are the complainers in this case not being called out for their own racism/discrimination? The fact that a panel consists of white males, straight males, or purple elephants is not in itself evidence of discrimination. It is entirely possible that these were the most qualified of all applicants to have submitted to this conference. Without knowing the details of the applicant pool, anyone screaming "racism! sexism! rape culture! etc!" is not fighting for a worthy cause, but being destructive and hysterical. I hope that historically status quo groups get over the guilt and act in the right going forward.
The goal of a technical presentation should not be to filter speakers via quota into race and sexuality; it should be to discuss technical things.
There are several definitions of racism, one is essentially "making references to someone's race and implying everyone in that group is the same (in some attribute)", or more simply "anything based on race". Lots of people like this definition because it's a nice, simple and objective defintion and it means black people in the UK can be racist to white people, or that affirmative action is racist. I think this is the definition you're using.
There's another definition, which is that racist actions are actions that's designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races. Right now, if modern UK life was a video game, "white male" would be an easier difficulty level than "black male". There are statistically less problems for the "white male" group. Racist actions is talk that re-enforced that imbalance, and attempts to undo the power imbalance is not racist. This definition is harder for some people to accept because it means that you need to look at yourself and think about what power imbalances you might be benefiting from, and it means that affirmative action is not racist, and attempts to stop is could be construed as racist (since stopping affirmative action can re-enforce power imbalances). This is the definition I use.
So no, complaining about the lack of non-white people is not racist.
I like the core thinking behind your definition of racism (that we should all self analyse and take affirmative action to fix problems), but I don't think it's necessarily helpful, or even logical to define racism in this way. If we all went around with highly specialised individual definitions for emotive terms then we're not communicating effectively, and probably needlessly annoying each other. I'm not sure I agree fully with any of your definitions of racism really. The sort of racism under discussion here is simply and obviously a) believing in racial inferiorities and then b) discriminating against them. Of course there exists a spectrum of racism here, and where observed actions appear on this spectrum is probably the most lucrative area to look at. Rational discussion can only occur once terms have been agreed and defined, and using your own definitions is not all that constructive.
That page includes a random sampling of definitions used by some sociologists. One of the definitions explicitly states that racism can only be committed by white people. When you get to the point where such a definition makes sense, you are outside of a reasonable discourse. Racism ceases to have any meaning as a term.
The other definitions are not redefinitions of racism, but appropriations of the more general definition to further the term. All depend on the notion that racism is dividing people into groups called races which contain people with identifiably similar traits.
As someone who has spent a significant portion of life in a humanities department, I'll say it's a stretch to say 'most' academic work goes by the vague definition posted above. Frankly that definition sounds like something I'd encounter in a first year paper rather than something a colleague would agree with, much less endorse. Further the academic world is much bigger than sociology, and even within the social sciences (e.g. economics) there is an insistence on using less fluffy and more logically consistent definitions.
> When you get to the point where such a definition makes sense, you are outside of a reasonable discourse. Racism ceases to have any meaning as a term.
A definition that makes sense and has no meaning. I don't know about racism, but you certainly seem to have lost sight of what "meaning" means.
I've never had any trouble understanding this definition of racism. When I was young and stupid, I thought myself extremely clever for seeing instances of reverse racism, but this was because I understood nothing about racism except that MLK Jr. gave this nice speech a long time ago and now bad things no longer happened. I thought it was this magical thing where there were black people and there were white people and I was yellow except not really so it was kinda weird and I didn't understand why the red people didn't seem very red.
Then I grew up and started understanding how power moves and manifests. It's very fuzzy. You don't see mathematical equations about how the election of the POTUS changes opinion in the Middle East, because we haven't figured out how to model that. Our understanding of power is extremely weak, compared to something like how many atoms of hydrogen are found in a molecule of water. To make this extremely stark, we don't understand power. We have a feel. An intuitive notion. That is all we have.
We do not have explicit forms of racial discrimination to any significant degree. But we do still have significant power imbalances that map suspiciously well to racial divides. These power imbalances are virtually impossible to quantify, because we have no idea how to do it, but we can infer them from statistical trends. We've chosen to call this racism.
That's language drift for you. There are reasons not to call it racism. Apologists, such as yourself, have enumerated a good number of them for us. But there are also good reasons to call it racism. First among these is that we do not need the more generic definition any longer. English speakers generally have difficulty finding instances of chattel slavery or explicit segregation laws. In both of these cases, we have more specific terms anyways. Second is that it signals the correct emotional reaction. Most people are offended when called a racist, because they've been trained to understand it is a bad thing to be. Used properly, it forms a foundation to change behavior. (And before you say that it is sometimes used improperly, this would be true of a different term as well; but a different term would not have the same, useful emotional charge.) Third is that the issue remains one of "dividing people into groups called races which contain people with identifiably similar traits". The generic definition still actually applies, but it does so more weakly.
I'm sure you take issue with all of these, but really? The definition could be improved. That doesn't make it meaningless, as demonstrated by the many people who use it in that capacity without a problem. It does make it difficult, as demonstrated by the many people who seem incapable of understanding it.
Of course, if sociologists accepted the former definition, they wouldn't have anything to talk about.
Conflating the two definitions and describing people as 'racist' for re-enforcing racial imbalances in society is disingenuous.
A lot of people oppose affirmative action (thus earning the label 'racist' according to the latter definition) not because they are prejudiced, but simply because they do not believe in the efficacy of the process.
"A lot of people oppose affirmative action (thus earning the label 'racist' according to the latter definition) not because they are prejudiced, but simply because they do not believe in the efficacy of the process."
As with many things in life, it's not necessarily what you say, but how you say it that determines context and intent.
No, he was suggesting a definition of racism that called anti-racist affirmative action as "not racist", and attempts to undermine affirmative action as "racist". That seems rather specialised to me, and at best a convolution on top of the sociological definition you linked to. Also, most modern academic work != a wikipedia link, do you have any other sources?
Again, your 'second definition' isn't diametrically opposed to the first, it includes the first. Defining 'racist actions' presupposes a definition race and in turn racism that you can't just toss aside. Defining racism as a systemic disadvantaging of certain races takes as a given the definition of racism as -- you guessed it -- the dividing of people into races and ascribing them characteristics en masse.
Yes, one is a subset of the other, but they are not the same. But ascribing characteristics to one race is not racism. Just like both are subsets of "a human behaviour", which is not racist.
Those aren't separate definitions. The second is simply a justification of certain forms of racism as worth the harm they cause to the victimized group because of the benefit to the disadvantaged group; it uses the first definition you gave in defining itself.
So yes, by your own definition, complaining about the lack of non-white people would be racist -- but worth it.
It's also worth noting that there is a difference between complaining about a lack of non-white people and complaining about the existence of a certain amount of white people on a panel.
The problem is that having conference speakers who happen to be disproportionate in race does not immediately translate to racism.
To say that the composition of a group of speakers is "designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races" simply based off of the proportion of races of people in the panel is a logical leap that is not necessarily warranted.
If you're in a under-represented group seeing that "all people who do Ruby/Tech/IT/knitting/nursing/$ACTIVITY are members of $OTHER_GROUP" can be just another reminder that your group shouldn't be here, that you'll stick out, that you'll be the different one here.
We have numerous expressions in the English language saying that lots of little things can build up: The straw that broke the camel's back, death by a thousand cuts. Let's try to get rid of as many straws as we can, and get rid of as many cuts as we can.
I can't fathom why racial minorities would not feel welcome at such a conference. Do they think people are going to be surprised that they are in attendance, disapprove of them being there, or look down on them?
It's a programming conference, not a meeting of the KKK.
If you try hard enough you can be offended by anything.
Dell comedian? Comedians thrive on controversial material. Sounds to me like a tongue-in-cheek observational joke that is just as offensive to men as it is to women. "Congratulations, the IT industry is a sausage-fest, just the way you want it to be, right?"
CouchDB? Can't find a copy of the original presentation, but what's wrong with allusions to pornography? There are plenty of male porn stars, and plenty of pornography that degrades men?
Perks: Women? Again, an observation on the male dominance of the industry. Similar to the Dell comedian, this is much a joke aimed at men as it is at women; male geeks need to attend a code jam to come into contact with women, etc.
By definition complaining about a panel's being "100% white males" is suggesting the lowest common denominator of skin color and gender. The twitter complainers in this case did not care about the panel's nationalities, ethnicities, first languages, etc., just that they were white. The suggestion is clear.
It might not be racist, but could be ideologically charged.
The mere observation of an uneven distribution is not enough evidence for a power imbalance. It could also just be caused by deviation of interests, which would be totally fine.
Power imbalances cannot be reliably detected from the outside, so I won't comment on the ruby conf case.
Medical School? Like for doctors? I thought that was roughly 1:1, rather than 15:1 in tech? If the figures are well off and men are being systemetically disadvantaged due to their gender in medical school, then yes we should have affirmative active for it. I'm skeptical though because traditionally medicine has been heavily male dominated.
Yes we should probably do something to get more men into child care & nursing & primary school teaching. that wouldn't be sexist.
And yes, more men should do traditionally feminine activities. I'm male and took up crochet recently. I can empathise with women who work in tech. Tech is all male. Crochet is all female.
Will we ever see drives to increase white males into this profession? I doubt it
There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making up the majority. Could there ever be male only revision sessions? Of course not, that would be sexist
> There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making up the majority. Could there ever be male only revision sessions? Of course not, that would be sexist
Are women definitely the majority in surgery as opposed to medicine? My impression was that men dominated the surgical specialisms. This isn't really intended to be a knock on your argument but to ask you to double check this point.
In answer to the general point I have heard discussion of ways to encourage men to become Primary School teachers although that might have been more to balance out the role models for young children than being a matter of pure justice.
encourage men to become Primary School teachers although that might have been more to balance out the role models for young children than being a matter of pure justice.
Excellent point! I see more and more of this hysterical attitude in tech. If your only concern with a conference is about the panel diversity then perhaps the conference is not for you.
"If your only concern with a conference is about the panel diversity then perhaps the conference is not for you."
This sounds like a straw man argument. You've created the fictional idea of a person whose interest in a conference is solely the diversity of the panel, as if there are people who don't even care what the conference is about or have any idea of the subject matter; they just like seeing different kinds of people on panels.
well, this is exactly what I get from all those who are complaining. To me, they seem more interested in sex/gender/race of the speakers than WHAT is going to be presented.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease. These people are clearly willing to complain. No complaints about what is being presented implies only that they are satisfied with what is being presented; it does not imply that they do not care about it.
Except that the point of the conference was to present the audience with itself as a community. If the conference was only about the talks, then they might as well just make a YouTube channel and ask people to send them videos of talks.
This is definitely an interesting development. While I'm saddened to see a Ruby conference canceled with a full roster of qualified speakers, I'm happier to see the pendulum on this side of perfect balance than the alternative. This problem has clearer and more positive strategies than its opposite.
Edit: Whoa. I did more than 10 seconds of research and this situation is more fucked than I snap-judged. My heart goes out to the organizers. A very reasonable twitter debate was mistaken for scandal and outrage and shut down any chance of building a diverse and interesting conference. This was not the right time to take action.
This shambles could only happen in Britain. Senior politicians get accused of being paedophiles by journalists with no evidence. Politicians routinely steal from public coffers, and don't even lose their place in Parliament (even though some were sent to prison). The country is awash with video surveillance, yet trying to get the police to respond to a crime report is like swimming upstream. A christian preacher who said "Homosexuals are deserving of the wrath of God – and so are all other sinners – and they are going to a place called hell" received a £1000 fine and a criminal conviction. Indian sikhs who criticise Indian muslims are accused of being racists.
Political correctness had taken hold in local government by the early 1980s. Practically every interaction with them requires you to tell them your race, gender and sexual preference.
Political Correctness is great if you are a minority. It means you have similar rights to the powerful group. As a gay man, I know I can mention the gender of my spouse (male!) in a workplace environment without being worried about being fired (for example). Straight people have always (more or less) been able to mention their spouse in the workplace without fear of repercussion. Now I can too! Political Correctness means I don't have to watch every word I say in the office! It's done wonders for my freedom of speech.
The most ardent opponents are those who hate gay people or black people and want to continue to shout vile things without repuccision.
That's not political correctness, that's anti-discrimination.
Political correctness is "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending non-Christians. It's idiotic because for those not celebrating Christmas, indeed those that might be offended by mentions of Christmas, there is no season to celebrate. Don't send them a card. "Seasons greetings" is not "culture neutral", it's a code for Christmas. Pretending people are too stupid to figure out why suddenly people are eager to wish them a particular great third week of December is very offensive, IMO.
This can become a no true scotsman argument. What's the difference between political correctness and anti-discrimination? Is saying "spouse" or "partner" (instead of "wife") to a man you know is married politically correct or anti-discrimination?
Mostly PC is not about avoiding "offence", but about ensuring under-represented minority is not felt left out purely for being in that group. Despite what right wing tabloid newspapers print, very few people are actually offended by the mention of the word Christmas. Instead saying "Happy Christmas" implies you aren't thinking about the non-christians, and/or that there is nothing wrong with not thinking about non-christians. Saying "Seasons Greetings" is a code for "We are aware there are non-christians here, and we want to let them know we think you're just as welcome here as christians".
Why should I be aware of everybody's likes and dislikes?
Because empathy towards your fellow human beings is a virtue and not giving two flying fucks about anyone except number one is not very nice. You may choose to live your life that way, but plenty of people in the world actually care about people aside from themselves.
Are we going to call meat "animal-sourced food" next?
Apples and Oranges. A more apt analogy is like a company having a meal outing and having no vegetarian options. It sends the signal to the veggies that they aren't fully welcome.
I don't think empathy and acknowledging is the same as going out of my way to make sure any possible minority is pleased if I accidentally meet them on my way.
"Anti-discrimination" is part of political correctness.
The example you provide falls under both categories, and it falls under political correctness precisely because it would be discriminatory to celebrate one religious festival without celebrating all of them. It is not politically "correct" to partake in discrimination.
I don't know if you're from the UK, but society today is highly secular. A British Humanist Association poll last year had 65% of respondents answer the question "Are you religious?" negatively. Of those who claim to be religious, most do not attend church on a regular basis, or take part in other religious rituals. Not to mention many of them are not Christian.
I meant anti-discrimination as the law that keeps the GP from being fired for admitting he's gay.
As for the number of Brits being religious, I think it's easy to conclude that more than 35% of Brits celebrate Christmas. Given the origin of the poll, I would not be surprised if the question was phrased very narrowly.
It's not discriminatory to celebrate Christmas by default if your company is in a culture that predominantly observe Christmas. It would be discriminatory to make special arrangement for time off on Christmas, but not accommodating seasonal holiday requests from Muslims on Eid and Hindus on Diwali.
The question was "Are you religious?", and 65% answered negatively. You can't really frame something as fundamental as that.
I personally think the 35% figure is inflated by people who identify with Christianity but don't practice it, or people who do practice it but out of fear more than faith.
Britain is no longer a Christian country, and that's not a bad thing. Give it another two generations and Christians will be a small minority (5-10%)
> It's not discriminatory to celebrate Christmas by default if your company is in a culture that predominantly observe Christmas. It would be discriminatory to make special arrangement for time off on Christmas, but not accommodating seasonal holiday requests from Muslims on Eid and Hindus on Diwali.
You can't justify discriminatory actions by deferring to the culture in which they take place. Suppose we replace religion with race. Christmas is now a racial festival celebrating white culture. Is it appropriate to foist these celebrations on black people in the office? Of course not.
Does the fact the company operates in a predominantly white culture justify the practice? Of course not.
I don't disagree. Christmas occupies a peculiar place in British culture because it is part religious festival, part cultural tradition.
Rather like the monarchy, people tend to go along with it, despite the fact it's an anachronistic and unjust system, because it gives people a warm fuzzy feeling.
I think that's part of the reason so much vitriol is aimed at "politically correct" attitudes towards Christmas. It angers both religious and non-religious people because they see it, more than anything else, as an attack on a national pastime.
I disagree: it could have happened in many Western countries.
The problem with a 'it's political correctness gone mad!' argument is it ignores the context in which those laws were enacted. Racism and sexism were systematic and endemic in the UK during much of the 20th century.
You say that "political correctness had taken hold in local government by the early 1980s", but you don't mention that the reason for this was that during the early 1980s there were numerous serious race riots throughout the UK.
Hate speech and anti-discrimination laws have drastically improved the lives of millions of people in the UK. I don't pretend that discrimination has been eliminated, but you simply can't deny the fact that British society today is considerably less racist and sexist than it was thirty years ago.
Now, there is a side effect to this. Because the UK doesn't have explicit free speech protection mistakes have been made enforcing those laws. Sometimes people mis-interpret them, in the same way people mis-understand health and safety laws. But I would argue these costs are far out-weighed by the benefit that a ethnically diverse and accepting society has brought. I see that since I started typing this someone has already replied to you saying how much their life has improved due to these laws.
Getting back to your original point: I don't think this is a UK specific problem. I could probably cherry-pick similar examples from the US and other EU countries and come up with equally compelling arguments that "this shambles could only happen in [X]".
This is obviously a very emotional topic for many people. I don't expect this reply to change your mind, and I fully expect people to disagree with me. All I really want to get at is that as someone who also lives in the UK I disagree with your viewpoint.
> Hate speech and anti-discrimination laws have drastically improved the lives of millions of people in the UK.
Cause and effect, dude. This happened in the same time frame in virtually every single developed country on earth with different ways of approaching the issue. Chances are that being more tolerant was simply just an idea whose time had come.
Certainly true, but the switch doesn't simply flip overnight. Take the US: the impact the Civil Rights Act had is immeasurable.
Laws can and do cause drastic change. I think we could safely say that if hypothetically the supreme court was to find prohibiting same-sex marriage as unconstitutional the impact would be far more immediate and greater than legislating on a state-by-state ad hoc basis.
"Chances are that being more tolerant was simply just an idea whose time had come."
Society does not move to a predetermined end, and we will not be "better" off without protections of civil rights. That statement is dangerous because it assumes that there are not forces and persons who wish to regress.
Racism and sexism were systematic and endemic in the UK during much of the 20th century.
A UK constituancy seat in 1960s was won by a conservative candidate against the Labour candidate, on the slogan: "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/27/race.world2
But no, apparently it's "gone too far" when you can't say that anymore!</sarcasm>
the UK doesn't have explicit free speech protection
Debatable. it doesn't have a written constitution, yes, however it has signed up various treaties that guarantee free speech (e.g. Charter of Fundamental Rights).
Regardless, all countries have limits on "free speech" (even USA). Many EU countries put a limit on free speech and don't include very racist vile speech as protected speech. This doesn't mean they have "no free speech".
> Practically every interaction with them requires you to tell them your
I find it _VERY_ disturbing that government is even asking for such information. Political clime is changing quickly and such catalogs may end easily in wrong hands.
Holocaust was enabled just because of such lists. Birth Records was first thing nazis were after when they invaded new space. Without them they would not recognize Polish, Russian from Jews. For example Kafka: he had Czech name, most of his friends were Germans, was Jewish and spoke fluently all local languages.
I dont care about assurances, they may be void tomorrow. Collecting such information is simply completely unacceptable. Even Russia is more liberal in this.
Political correctness had taken hold in local government by the early 1980s
I must point out Section 28 in the UK ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 ). It was passed in 1988, and banned local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". This was wildly interpreted as banning any mention of homosexuality in schools (amoung other things). It's the height of the AIDS epidemic and you can't teach gay kids in school how to have safe sex, and you can't tell them it'll OK to be gay, you can't have any books that have gay characters. It was repealed in 2003.
Political incorrectness and discrimination were enshrined in local government law in the 1980s.
I sincerely don't believe cancelling was the right choice. There were 5 speaker slots left to be filled with a December deadline to fill those slots. Why not use the controversy to attract appropriately diverse speakers with interesting and relevant proposals?
Sponsors pulled out because of the controversy, the contract for the venue had to be signed and the organizers weren't sure they could find more sponsors to fullfil the financial obligations. There weren't many options left but to cancel.
This is the bit that intrigues me. The organisation I work for were one of the primary sponsors for the event. We saw the controversy and simply assumed the BritRuby team could handle it. At no point did we threaten or even allude to the possibility of withdrawing our funding. To make matters worse, had we been aware that the event was at risk due to a lack of funds we could have considered stepping in and increasing our sponsorship. Unfortunately, the first we heard about the cancellation was via twitter.
I'd really like to know exactly which sponsors pulled out because of this. Between the first tweet and the announcement of cancellation there seemed to be only 9 tweets of criticism: https://gist.github.com/4108671 .
Seems a bit rash.
This kind of reminds me about affirmative action. This is an oxymoronic action where people attempt to reverse race/religious/sexual discrimination effects by discriminating by race/religion/sex, but in a "positive" way.
This can even apply where no discrimination was intended until the do-gooders come along and attempt to apply their own reality distortion fields to a situation.
Minority/Majority are only terms which makes sense in a specific context. This context can be gender, can be race, can be nationality, age, experience, school of thought, sexual orientation, preference in food, preference in code-editor etc.
If you find yourself in a "minority", it's because you have chosen to identify yourself with something which puts you on the outside.
People calling for discrimination in cases like this often have chosen to identify themselves with a metric which puts them in the minority (race, gender) instead of one which wouldn't (nationality, age, experience, school of thought, etc).
To me it seems like a personal, deliberate choice to weight your identity in on things which are not important to the subject instead of those which are. And I find it hard to sympathize with.
You're not suffering. You're not living under South African apartheid rule. You are not being oppressed. In fact, you are using your freedom, which you do have, to cause a shitfest over statistical anomalies or tendencies.
Lame. Anti-white racism is still racism. Growing up colored in the US, I encounter anti-white racism all the time among my peers, but never once received racism against my skin color from whites.
How interesting I grew up colored in the US also and experience racism everyday from white people. Please let me know which part of the US you are living in. I would love to live there and not have to worry about people giving me a hard time because of the color of my skin.
Ehh... I thought that 'diversity' means we give everyone equal opportunities and treat them the same way. Now it seems it means 'we need to have this particular distribution of genders and races'. Utter stupidity, from one extreme straight to the other :(
Isn't it really obvious that different topics inherently attract different audiences, and as long as we give everyone equal chances to participate we are okay?
> I thought that 'diversity' means we give everyone equal opportunities and treat them the same way.
No, that's survival of the fittest. Giving everyone equal opportunity and being blind to everything else is how nature does it. It's called evolution.
"Diversity" is a code word for increasing the number of participants over what natural forces would allow for, if the best and the brightest were to be the only selection criterion.
Having said that, there is a point to diversity -- it hopes to address prejudicial forces that prevent everyone from having an equal opportunity to show what they're made of.
But "diversity" means exactly the opposite of what you seem to think. The point of diversity is to maximize variety, not competence. But it can often lead to a good outcome.
The goal of a technical presentation should not be to filter speakers via quota into race and sexuality; it should be to discuss technical things.