And making fun of names doesn't even rise to that level. No one thinks less of a culture or a person just because their name reads like "fuck", or "Biggus Dickus", etc., in English. It's just a funny impedance mismatch between languages.
This is what empathy looks like: you listen to the one on the receiving end and you believe what they say about how they feel. At the end of the day you have the right to decide that this isn't "actual racism" in your own mind, but that doesn't change the reality that the one on the receiving end still feels bad.
That's where I can't agree. It's possible to do something that feels "racist" to someone but isn't actually racist. If I'm wrong, then there's no objective definition of racism and we can all go home and call it "lack of empathy". You can't have it both ways. Either racism is objectively definable or it isn't.
Categorically speaking, there is a big difference between offending someone's feelings or sensibilities and committing an act of racism, which is defined as discrimination on the basis of race and is objectively measurable using well-established tests.
Imagine that you are walking by someone and accidentally elbow them in the ribs. They double over in pain, and exclaim loudly that you hurt them really bad and you should apologize. Now you could get defensive and say "Well I didn't mean to elbow you in the ribs, it wasn't on purpose so I did nothing wrong" and "Also getting elbowed in the ribs isn't actually that painful, there's no reason to make a scene about it."
But what you don't realize is this person was in a car accident last week, and below their shirt their ribs are broken. Your elbow just hit them on a sensitive bruise and jostled a broken rib. Your unintentional action was actually extremely hurtful. By protesting that you didn't do anything to hurt them you are just looking like a jerk. All it would have taken was an "I'm sorry, I'll be more careful" and it probably would have been fine.
This is similar to what racism and the effects of racism are: there are people who have suffered trauma from heinous acts. As a result they are already in a wounded state, and something "not racist" in your mind can still hurt because it pokes in the same place as the "actual racism". Just like you can't accurately judge whether someone is actually in physical pain and how much physical pain they are in, you can't always tell how much your action hurts someone emotionally.
In both cases the empathetic and moral thing to do is to believe the person in pain who says that your actions are hurtful.
In fact, one could say it's racist that you're feeling entitled to appropriate their pain when you claim to speak for them. Your racism is hurting me, and will continue to hurt me until you acknowledge that racism necessarily involves discrimination based on race, and that it's wrong and problematic of you to appropriate the actual suffering of others.
And you know, democracy is all about coalition building.
The correct analogy would be if the person I accidentally elbowed claimed I was physically assaulting them, which I of course would deny.
Racism is a very extreme call-out and it is no wonder that people defend against it. It is no matter of believing that I hurt the person, I do. But I am defending myself from an attack I believe is unproportional,and actually leaves no choice but to defend myself. Call it insensitive instead of racist and people are far more likely to listen.
Murder has a definition, which is precisely why we can do something about it.
When it comes to hurt feelings, it's not always the fault of the speaker. Some emotional pain is completely fabricated for egoic or malicious reasons, or is simply mistaken.
You're making several categorical errors in your posts. We have to be careful to speak and think with precision. "The truth will set you free" and "the tongue of the wise brings healing"; but logical fallacies only muddy the water, and vague accusations stir up strife.
It's very small in comparison to more serious examples - perhaps it's even the smallest possible example of problematic behavior - but it is problematic nonetheless.
That's literally the point that the Basecamp employees were trying to make in a relatively benign way before their leadership overreacted.
Similarly, we have unlimited methods to share culture and humor in ways that don't involve backhandedly belittling others and which don't include feeding racism as a side effect.
I would also bet anything that names like "Vinh Ng" or "Ravi Chakrabarti" aren't on that list. Because those names aren't funny in English. Because they don't mean anything in English. So there's no impedance mismatch.
I know it's popular these days to claim racism all the time, but there's no actual basis for it here.
Edit: according to this article,
"Many of the names were of American or European origin. But others were Asian, or African, and eventually the list — titled “Best Names Ever” — began to make people uncomfortable."
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...
So really, the people practicing cultural discrimination were the ones who were ok with the list so long as only European names were in it.
Jokes that begin more innocently can turn racist; happens all the time. It’s best not to allow them to turn in that direction by including the types of jokes that racists always love to latch on due to an element of plausible deniability.
If people took all the mental energy they expended in being apologists for inappropriate behavior and simply applied it to finding ways to enjoy time with others that don’t have all these issues, none of this would ever be a problem.
If a racist enjoys the list, that does not make it racist. Racists also eat toast. That does not make toast racist.
If people took all the mental energy they expended in labeling things as racist, and simply applied it to finding ways to enjoy time with people who don’t have all these issues, none of this would ever be a problem.