“This sounded to me like” is the problem.
Everyone hears what they want to hear for their narrative. Then it becomes a juicy internet drama rather than some mundane thing.
Everyone hears what they want to hear for their narrative. Then it becomes a juicy internet drama rather than some mundane thing.
This sounds more like a threat than a promise. A promise he chose to carry out. Why should it be divisive, if you're actually going to listen? Is it because you'd end up saying things like "white supremacy is a myth" and denying the notion of institutional racism?
It sounds a lot to me like the continual "predictions" (threats) from some Republicans that there's going to be a "race war" or other war with liberals, if the left keeps doing what they're doing. They make it sound like it's something inevitable that they're predicting, but in reality they're simply saying what they want to do.
Why should it be divisive, indeed. “America is not a racist country” was just the position expressed by Sen. Tim Scott in a national prime time address, yet it’s enough to force an employee from a company?
And even between "America isn't a racist country" and "the people who talk about implicit biases are the real racists," which is closer to what he actually said (allegedly).
(And if we want to have this discussion, I bet we could do it in a way that wasn't "painful and divisive," because I have no desire to be those things, so I'm not going to predict/threaten it.)
Rather it sounds like a person afraid to share his views for fear they would be misconstrued or met with emotional outbursts.
Employees were claiming Basecamp has a white supremacist culture, an indictment against anybody working there. The idea that you can't reject such preposterous accusations without being "complicit", or without the denial somehow serving as further evidence, is insane.
The onus is on the accuser to provide evidence of their claims. Management agreed that a list of funny names does not count.
Yet the employee continued to make unfalsifiable assertions such as:
"the silence in the background is what racism and white supremacy does...It doesn’t require active malice".
So denying an accusation of white supremacy is evidence of guilt, and remaining silent in the face of such an accusation is also evidence of guilt.
It's impossible to work with such people.
But why? What process led those people to decide it doesn't count? And why would only the management have a voice in that decision?
Claims of white supremacy need to be backed up with proof.
Histrionic breakdowns and screaming at screens doesn't count as proof I'm afraid.