I'm glad that they're taking it seriously and not just saying they're committed to diversity.
It's postponed, not cancelled, though.
It's postponed, not cancelled, though.
Its new tech, conferences are important promotion opportunities, especially for tech as maligned as Electron is.
This seems like bad optics, and I feel bad for anyone who was accepted but gets bumped for a new presenter of the "right demographics".
Personally even if I was someone who would at some point be interested in speaking at such a conference, I would now avoid applying for fear of being accepted wholly or in part to fit their female quota as opposed to on the merit of my proposed material.
Like maybe they were trying to get some legit outreach going but it fell through, who knows? To me, the work of Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates is that the dialog around racism has to be open, transparent, honest. Especially becomes important if you're developing tech that will impact everyday people.
Another thought. To me, racial oppression is like a virus that is replicated particularly when the oppressed are shamed into silence, complicity, or the sense the they have to adopt the memes, mental constructs of systematic oppression. So like, what do we mean when we say meritocracy?