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Comment by stevecalifornia | Hacker News Reader

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." ~ The Social Network

A good number of social activists are rude and abrasive and then blame how people react as racism/sexism. No one wants to be around or work with anyone who is a jerk. The quote above sorta reminds me of how this person is going about their life.

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I read her email and all I could read was her privilege and her entitlement. I think she knows there is racism and sexism in play but thinks everything is about that. The feedback going to HR was probably because they didn’t feel comfortable telling her it direct for fear of reprisals from her.

One unusual privilege that she has is the ability to describe her experience of racism and sexism and expect to be listened to - her e-mail here speaks mostly on this point.

Her e-mail identifies that you can speak on racism and sexism as much as you want, but all of your speech will be routed to /dev/null.

> Her e-mail identifies that you can speak on racism and sexism as much as you want, but all of your speech will be routed to /dev/null.

I think the fact people need to go through HR to give Feedback means the speech isn't going to /dev/null. People seem to take her speech very seriously and don't want to feel her wrath.

In fact, Google even appeared to take her concerns onboard after she got a lawyer and only threatened to sue. She just seems to expect more which is the entitlement I was talking about.

(My intention above was to say that Timnit Gebru does have that privilege, and is using it to speak for other people who don't have that privilege)

I totally agree with you. Screaming racism/sexism/marginalisation every time someone disagrees with you is annoying and tiring. I am a second degree immigrant in Norway and I always see this behaviour in people who blame society when they don't get their way when in reality people rarely get their way all the time. I hope the level of stupid activism does not reach Norway although we do copy many stupidities of the US :)

Falsely screaming racism and sexism at everything hurts people who are actually impacted.

This behavior also enables racists and sexists.

Worst of all, it pushes non-racists to become actual racists.

If you start attacking people who previously had no problem with you, grouping them as evil on the basis of their physical characteristics, you’re going to get various forms of backlash. One of those is going to be those people seeking support among others belonging to the evil group identity that you carved out for them, and they’re going to push back in kind.

> One of those is going to be those people seeking support among others belonging to the evil group identity that you carved out for them, and they’re going to push back in kind.

I don't think that happens very often outside of the villain origin stories in comic books. A normal non-racist person doesn't react to being called a racist by becoming the biggest racist they can just to spite people.

Oh, I don’t think it happens in the common case, no. But it absolutely happens at the margins, particularly among folks who are more predisposed to radicalization. I know that happens.

And racism isn’t binary. You don’t have to be pushed all the way to wearing KKK garb to have some level of contempt or prejudice towards other races. So a great way to avoid this outcome and minimize exacerbating existing tensions is to not engage in more divisive hostility on the basis of their identity. Like the guy she is berating likely didn’t even consciously realize he was white until she made a point of reminding him in the worst way possible. A dumb, counterproductive strategy.

But her behavior is going to make it harder for all other black people to get hired. People who are otherwise not concerned with race or sex at all will see this and then need to convince themselves that she is not representative of most black people. Some will undoubtedly just go with the option that seems like it carries the lowest risk to them personally and professionally.

Personally I would not hire anybody who has a history of trying to weaponize twitter. And being smeared as a racist, like she is doing to Jeff Dean, can be extremely damaging and severely career limiting. He’ll probably be ok, but it’s something that many people can never move past, especially if Vice or Vox or Salon or whatever culture war libel vehicle decides that they can twist your story into a hot hit piece.

Key & Peele had an excellent sketch about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3h6es6zh1c

Experiencing marginalisation is frustrating, and frustrated people sometimes have outbursts.

I don't think we can infer much from a few highly publicised events.

Was she marginalized? She ran a team at Google. How many of us can claim that?

How was she marginalized? Marginalized means keeping someone in a powerless or unimportant position in society, which she was not as she had one of the most important roles in AI and was a manager.

Even if you are marginalized, threatening to resign with ultimatums will never work in your favor unless you have an entire union behind you.

I wasn't commenting on expected outcomes of their behaviour, just that I think it's a bit of a jump say to they are "rude and abrasive " in general.

That's a little ungenerous. Social activists may go over the line and be rude or abrasive, but unfortunately it's impossible to be a polite social activist. Activism fundamentally requires telling people that their actions should be modified, that their beliefs may be flawed, that their systems have problems. It's really hard to do that and be a likeable person.

Of course social activists may at times cross the line and be unnecessarily rude or abrasive. But I'd have more sympathy because their fundamental job is to be subversive and critical of people.

Ilhan Omar said something similar on Twitter in response to Obama's criticisms of the "defund the police" slogan. I think you're being overly generous to social activists. Their fundamental job is to bring social change. You can't change anything by simply alienating those who disagree with you. That creates political entrenchment.

The fact is that Obama has got way more done for America than Omar, so I'm inclined to think he's right.

I think we need to distinguish between social activist and politician. Social activists can certainly be politicians, such as Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders etc. But many are not. Obama is not a social activist. He's an effective politician, one who has certainly brought about change. But he's not a social activist.

Many social activists were famously unpopular. Martin Luther King died with a 66% disapproval rating^[1]. Susan B. Anthony was ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage (sound familiar?).

Of course some activists veer too far. Jane Fonda is an example. I don't fault her opposition to the Vietnam War, but her infamous photo practically advocated for violence against American troops.

In a sense the aim of social activists is to be ahead of their time. MLK was reviled in his time and practically infallible today. We need both politicians and activists for progress. Politicians push forward the policy, but the activists push forward the politicians. Without activists, politicians can end up in holding patterns, afraid to lose popularity. Without politicians, activists are just screaming into a void.

[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/martin-luther-king-jr-was-not-alway...

Obama got his start as an actual activist, under the title of "community organizer", in Chicago. Even in his early years, he clearly understood that to get real results, you have to make compromises and avoid demonizing people on the other side of issues. To my eye, Obama's emotional intelligence, communication ability, and strategic aptitude are genius-level-off-the-charts-stupendous, whereas these firebrand activists you mention are operating at an elementary level.

If I may put it differently, you know how most on the left see trump as infantile, poor of character, and so on

>Many social activists were famously unpopular. Martin Luther King died with a 66% disapproval rating^[1].

Being unpopular is hardly the same as being abrasive and rude.

> The fact is that Obama has got way more done for America than Omar, so I'm inclined to think he's right.

Its funny how the people endorsing Obama's experience on the "defund the police" slogan losing people seem to ignore the other "error" he mentioned as losing people in the same interview: giving too small of a platform within the Democratic Party to voices like AOC's (who, obviously, has the opposite view as Obama on "defund the police") who have proven quite effective with connecting with large constituencies with which the party establishment (implicitly, including Obama himself) has been ineffective.

I would be cautious in selectively referencing that Obama interview to suggest he knows better than "The Squad".

May I direct you to watch Daryl Davis's ted talk or really anything he speaks about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw

For context he is a black man that has gotten over a hundred leaders of the KKK, including former convicts to leave the Klan. Not by arguing with them, not be reasoning, not by showing them the effects of their behaviour, but instead by sitting down, talking with them and becoming their friend.

In a nutshell this one man has probably done more to combat racism, than all the angry tweets on twitter combined.

What a talk. Thanks.

he is amazing, I lack the self control

"I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anyone can do that. Take the time to talk with your adversaries, you will both learn something."

Thanks for the link, that was an incredible talk, and that guy is cool as hell.

Daryl Davis is certainly a wonderful inspiration in his patience, compassion and effectiveness in reaching racists. However I'm not sure about using him as a model for how activists should behave. What that's essentially requiring is that activists should patiently reach out until the people oppressing them learn enough to stop oppressing them.

In some cases this is possible. The Klu Klux Klan is comprised of broken men who dance in costumes at night. What about the racists who do not do that? Who enact their racism as government policy? Or as housing discrimination? Or through their art?

How long will it take to reach them? To quote James Baldwin^[1]:

> You always told me it takes time. It's taken my father's time, my mother's time, my uncle's time, my brothers' and my sisters' time, my nieces' and my nephews' time. How much time do you want. For your progress.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUlE5ldPvM

If one uses twitter and mobbing to do it, one will never reach them.

>Social activists may go over the line and be rude or abrasive, but unfortunately it's impossible to be a polite social activist.

Exhibit A: Gandhi

> it's impossible to be a polite social activist.

Fred Rogers and Carl Sagan are standing at the front of a very long line of people who are waiting to gently disagree with you.

As much as I respect Fred Rogers and Carl Sagan, they were white men working for goals that weren't exactly controversial. If we're calling them social activists—I'm not opposed to that, I just didn't consider them as activists in my original comment—then yeah there's plenty of polite social activists. The social activists I was considering were along the lines of MLK, Susan B. Anthony, James Baldwin. People who were advocating for something fundamentally opposite to current societal values. With that definition I believe there's no way to be polite.

I guess if I had to refine my original claim: it's impossible to politely disagree with fundamental societal values.

>unfortunately it's impossible to be a polite social activist

Tell that to Gandhi, tell that to the many people in the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, tell that to the people who were in the Monday demonstrations in East Germany, the list goes on.

Martin Luther King was assassinated.

His demeanor was polite, but his impact was rude and abrasive to many (racist) people.

The Freedom Riders did something fundamentally abhorrent to southerners. They went into white establishments as black people (or accompanying black people). It's only because of changing norms that we don't see their actions as horrifically rude or even violent in nature.

Ever heard of Noam Chomsky? Not sure if he’d agree with you.

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