

Adria Richards makes an email statement, says she's moving on - freejoe76
http://blogs.denverpost.com/techknowbytes/2013/03/27/adria-richards-fired-from-sendgrid-after-social-media-firestorm-says-shes-moving-on/9472/

======
jholman
_tl;dr:_

Adria Richards's statement quoted in TFA is self-serving, disingenuous, and
contains some obviously false statements, but oh well, so what. Passing
judgement on this incident is beneath me (I strive to one day act as I
preach). Adria, and arguably dongle-joke-guy, made some mistakes, and the use
of this incident to third parties like myself is to take a moment to
contemplate how to avoid making similar mistakes.

\-------------------

Some choice snippets from her statement:

"I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for
everyone"

Almost no one can honestly claim this, and we've seen plenty of comments in
the past weeks which, if true, show that Adria is no paragon of virtue,
including a few from activist feminist women in tech who feel that Adria's
high-profile unreasonable belligerence has repeatedly damaged the cause of
equality. The claim seems likely to be a self-serving lie, although perhaps
she believes it herself.

"the severest of consequences have manifested"

Seriously? You can't imagine any more-serious consequences for starting a
fight with someone? Idiot.

"we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"

Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for
_everyone_.

"all of these issues have reasonable, and, I think, easily reached solutions"

That's fascinating optimism. Easily reached, eh. Seems so delusional to me
that I think she's lying.

"conference spaces are workplaces!"

Well, yeah, some people are working at conferences, but some people are not.
Public parks are someone's workplace too, and so are strip clubs. What's your
point?

"I want to be an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals"

Yeah, I _bet_ she wants to be a core individual. Way to focus on your own
ambitions.

"I want to be ... part of a ... group ... that comes together in a spirit of
healing and openness"

This is... not consistent with much of her publicized behaviour. Is it?

\-------------------

So, I don't give a rat's ass about Adria, Sendgrid, the guy who got fired, his
company, whatever. And honestly I think most of HN shouldn't either. This is
still a tempest in a teapot, ignore it. Passing judgement, a thing I love to
spend time doing, is spectacularly unproductive most of the time, and often is
damaging to your own mental flexibility (even aside from the time wasted).

And PyCon, which I do care about, seems to have had a proportionate level of
response (deal with the incident reasonably and in line with policy, also
update policy to clarify that public shaming isn't wanted either), and is
getting on with more interesting things. So, the incident in question has
taken care of itself.

The interesting part for all of us, I believe, is whether we can learn
anything useful to ourselves. For myself, I can remind myself that throwing
javelins is dangerous, because it can bite you, and building bridges is
usually more effective. And though I'm personally not a huge fan of the
wording of PyCon's conduct policy, that's fine, it's their con and I see the
advantages, so for myself I can remind myself that reasonable people hold this
position, and if I don't want to offend those people and start fights, I
should take that into account.

~~~
codygman
>>>>"we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"

>> Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for
everyone.

She started with newcomers. I'd argue that focusing on minorities when
building bridges for everyone is more important than focusing on those that
already have bridges.

I think you're largely ignoring how micro-aggressions come into play here.
Also, shaming someone on twitter can only be considered bad if you think she
did it knowing the outcome.

More at fault are sendgrid and the companies that fired employees over this.
Also, her publicly shaming them is nothing compared to the backlash, sexism,
racism, and harassment she has faced.

My initial reactions were a lot like yours, then I put myself in her shoes. I
think she felt like she could make a difference by publicly shaming them and
had no idea they'd encounter such harsh backlash, nor that she would encounter
such backlash.

If I'm right in assuming those things, Adria Richards didn't really doing
anything that bad.

~~~
mnicole
But that's kind of the point; she knew what she was doing and that's exactly
why she did it, she just hoped that in mislabeling it a women's issue, people
would be empathetic to the fact that she was shaming someone that couldn't
possibly set the record straight before the internet started hacking away at
him. You can't just wrap anything with a feminist bow and expect people to say
"Yeah, totally justifiable to shame that nameless guy in his company t-shirt
that didn't actually do anything sexist in front of thousands of people." To
add insult to injury, her self-made claims of being Joan of Arc and her out-
of-touch legion of supporters humiliated the guy further into needlessly
apologizing more in one post than she has in a week after he lost his job over
it.

Starting wars on Twitter doesn't make you a crusader, it makes you no better
than most of the people insulting your willingness to use your celebrity
against everyday people just trying to enjoy a conference they were there to
help support, all because you couldn't just say "Come on, guys."

~~~
precisioncoder
Can you give the url of the post where he apologizes? I wasn't able to find
it, I'm just reading through some of the drama now out of curiousity

~~~
mnicole
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681>

------
coldtea
> _all I wish to do is find the good in what has been one of the most
> challenging weeks of my life._

As if it's all about her.

Not a word of sorry for eavesdropping on a private conversation and posting it
on Twitter along with a candid photo of the person, with cost him his job (and
all for a joke).

After this, I refuse to take seriously her other statements, about always
helping" everyone, "building bridges" etc.

------
obstacle1
This just in: Non-developer Adria Richards believes she did nothing wrong,
plans to continue "building bridges" for use only by women, black people, and
other Adria-approved minority groups on behalf of the developer community.

Also, sounds like a lawsuit is brewing:

"I cannot comment at this time on the specifics of what occurred at PyCon on
March 17, and the subsequent events of the following days, but I can offer
some general thoughts"

------
ChikkaChiChi
If only someone were to want to build the bridges of equality without some
doing it in a way that made them sound self-aggrandizing or with an undertone
that they really want to be known in the "cool club" for doing something
without really doing much of anything.

For better or worse, Richards accomplished her mission: Idiots like me now
know who she is, what her face looks like, and I'm sure she's now on the
pundit roster for many news outlets to chime in anytime something happens in
the tech world.

Our society as a whole needs to stop paying attention to this gossip-rag like
behavior and ignore the "Look At Me!" crowd.

Richards is a hypocrite who doesn't belong dictating professional standards in
any form and her mere attempts at martyrdom are a disgrace to those fighting
through the glass ceilings of our sector every day of their lives without
posting to Twitter about it.

------
cafard
"an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals that comes together
in a spirit of healing and openness to devise answers to the many questions
that have arisen in the last week."

I guess she can get work writing mission statements.

------
tapatio
Where are all the neutered male backers of her now?

Check out one of the Tweets she recently deleted:
[http://qph.cf.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-
adcfdad91e1f9664ff518b4...](http://qph.cf.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-
adcfdad91e1f9664ff518b48bde24966)

OMG, is that a penis joke? No way! I thought she was offended by sex
jokes?!?!?

More to read here: [http://allthingsd.com/20130327/fired-sendgrid-developer-
evan...](http://allthingsd.com/20130327/fired-sendgrid-developer-evangelist-
adria-richards-speaks-out/)

------
Joeboy
I think she's a bit of a dick, but I've never worked anywhere where at least
two people weren't at least as dickish as her in some way or other. Although
I'm not a fan, I'm glad she seems to be OK.

------
bitwize
Every time I read her name I think "Is this about the Unix system girl from
_Jurassic Park_?" That was Ariana Richards.

Shows how relevant she is. She got sorted into the wrong hash bucket.

------
escaped_hn
All i need now is for the guy who got fired to be rehired by his company and
my life will be complete.

~~~
RougeFemme
Or even better, maybe he's in a better position than the one he got fired
from. A lot of people are sympathetic to his plight - that's in his favor. I
wouldn't particularly want to go back to a company that fired me so quickly -
unless it truly _was_ my dream job, otherwise.

------
Kudzu_Bob
Diversity = walking on eggshells. Exhibit A: The two guys Adria got fired.

~~~
RougeFemme
Depends on how you parse it. There _should_ be nothing wrong with diversity,
in and of itself. But yes, I'm aware of the emotional buttons that get pushed
when that word is used. And even when you see a group that _appears_ to lack
diversity - i.e., same age/gender/color/size - there will be some diversity
_somewhere_ within the group. And nothing wrong with that, either.

------
miql
In before the delete.

------
codygman
I think everyone in this thread needs to read three pages:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege>

Also, let me exercise my white male privilege by saying that I'm a white male.
What privilege does that give me? The privilege of you taking me more
seriously of course!

~~~
AnthonBerg
?

