
BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity - Peroni
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/18/britruby-conference-felled-by-white-males/
======
obstacle1
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.

~~~
rmc
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.

~~~
Wintamute
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.

~~~
saraid216
Actually, most modern academic work on racism goes by his latter definition.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Sociological>

~~~
obstacle1
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.

~~~
saraid216
> 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.

(Also, loleconomics.)

------
Aardwolf
Why didn't they just keep the subject at Ruby?

People who are interested in Ruby would have come. Why does it matter what
race or gender these people are?

------
Peroni
BritRuby announcement: <http://2013.britruby.com/>

~~~
thedudemabry
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.

~~~
coolestuk
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.

The place is a mad-house.

~~~
objclxt
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.

~~~
mseebach2
> 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.

~~~
objclxt
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.

------
SeanDav
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.

------
josteink
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.

Cry me a river.

~~~
rmc
_You're not living under South African apartheid rule. You are not being
oppressed._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country>

------
tomwalker
The real losers are those that just wanted to go to a conference to talk about
Ruby.

------
jinushaun
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.

~~~
rubydriver
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.

------
drbig
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?

~~~
lutusp
> 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.

------
longtimelistner
I guess it was bound to happen. Does anyone know if it's real or not :
<http://awmconf.github.com/>

