BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
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.
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.
Yes we should probably do something to get more men into child care & nursing & primary school teaching. that wouldn't be sexist.
And yes, more men should do traditionally feminine activities. I'm male and took up crochet recently. I can empathise with women who work in tech. Tech is all male. Crochet is all female.
White people are under represented relative to the population in UK medical schools in this study
http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7647/748
Women out number men in western medical school
Will we ever see drives to increase white males into this profession? I doubt it
There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making up the majority. Could there ever be male only revision sessions? Of course not, that would be sexist
(My partner is a female doctor)
Are women definitely the majority in surgery as opposed to medicine? My impression was that men dominated the surgical specialisms. This isn't really intended to be a knock on your argument but to ask you to double check this point.
In answer to the general point I have heard discussion of ways to encourage men to become Primary School teachers although that might have been more to balance out the role models for young children than being a matter of pure justice.
It can be both.
So yes, by your own definition, complaining about the lack of non-white people would be racist -- but worth it.
It's also worth noting that there is a difference between complaining about a lack of non-white people and complaining about the existence of a certain amount of white people on a panel.
To say that the composition of a group of speakers is "designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races" simply based off of the proportion of races of people in the panel is a logical leap that is not necessarily warranted.
We have numerous expressions in the English language saying that lots of little things can build up: The straw that broke the camel's back, death by a thousand cuts. Let's try to get rid of as many straws as we can, and get rid of as many cuts as we can.
It's a programming conference, not a meeting of the KKK.
Yes that's what happens now.
Dell conference: comeidan brought on by Dell "The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out." http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2174903/dell-issues...
CouchDB "Perform like a porn star" http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/CouchDB_talk
Tech company organises a code jam. "Perks: Women" http://readwrite.com/2012/03/20/how-casual-sexism-put-sqoot-...
More here: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Incidents
Dell comedian? Comedians thrive on controversial material. Sounds to me like a tongue-in-cheek observational joke that is just as offensive to men as it is to women. "Congratulations, the IT industry is a sausage-fest, just the way you want it to be, right?"
CouchDB? Can't find a copy of the original presentation, but what's wrong with allusions to pornography? There are plenty of male porn stars, and plenty of pornography that degrades men?
Perks: Women? Again, an observation on the male dominance of the industry. Similar to the Dell comedian, this is much a joke aimed at men as it is at women; male geeks need to attend a code jam to come into contact with women, etc.
Conflating the two definitions and describing people as 'racist' for re-enforcing racial imbalances in society is disingenuous.
A lot of people oppose affirmative action (thus earning the label 'racist' according to the latter definition) not because they are prejudiced, but simply because they do not believe in the efficacy of the process.
As with many things in life, it's not necessarily what you say, but how you say it that determines context and intent.
Policies that acknowledge and address systemic racism are not "racist" because they acknowledge race and make decisions based on these imbalances.
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.
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.)
This is not my definition, there are loads of people with this definition.
Rational discussion can only occur once terms have been agreed and defined
Agreed, that's why I made this point. Too often people are only aware of the first definition.
The mere observation of an uneven distribution is not enough evidence for a power imbalance. It could also just be caused by deviation of interests, which would be totally fine.
Power imbalances cannot be reliably detected from the outside, so I won't comment on the ruby conf case.
Implying that all white people are the same and that there is no internal diversity within white people is racist.
This sounds like a straw man argument. You've created the fictional idea of a person whose interest in a conference is solely the diversity of the panel, as if there are people who don't even care what the conference is about or have any idea of the subject matter; they just like seeing different kinds of people on panels.
People who are interested in Ruby would have come. Why does it matter what race or gender these people are?
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.
Two known sponsors: Globaldev (the company I work for) & OnTheBeach.co.uk
Globaldev's take on the situation: https://twitter.com/globaldev/status/270452743733379072
OnTheBeach's take: https://twitter.com/SwitchJam/status/270261834991407104
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.
The most ardent opponents are those who hate gay people or black people and want to continue to shout vile things without repuccision.
Political correctness is "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending non-Christians. It's idiotic because for those not celebrating Christmas, indeed those that might be offended by mentions of Christmas, there is no season to celebrate. Don't send them a card. "Seasons greetings" is not "culture neutral", it's a code for Christmas. Pretending people are too stupid to figure out why suddenly people are eager to wish them a particular great third week of December is very offensive, IMO.
Mostly PC is not about avoiding "offence", but about ensuring under-represented minority is not felt left out purely for being in that group. Despite what right wing tabloid newspapers print, very few people are actually offended by the mention of the word Christmas. Instead saying "Happy Christmas" implies you aren't thinking about the non-christians, and/or that there is nothing wrong with not thinking about non-christians. Saying "Seasons Greetings" is a code for "We are aware there are non-christians here, and we want to let them know we think you're just as welcome here as christians".
Are we going to call meat "animal-sourced food" next? Just to let vegetarians know we're aware of them...
Because empathy towards your fellow human beings is a virtue and not giving two flying fucks about anyone except number one is not very nice. You may choose to live your life that way, but plenty of people in the world actually care about people aside from themselves.
Are we going to call meat "animal-sourced food" next?
Apples and Oranges. A more apt analogy is like a company having a meal outing and having no vegetarian options. It sends the signal to the veggies that they aren't fully welcome.
The example you provide falls under both categories, and it falls under political correctness precisely because it would be discriminatory to celebrate one religious festival without celebrating all of them. It is not politically "correct" to partake in discrimination.
I don't know if you're from the UK, but society today is highly secular. A British Humanist Association poll last year had 65% of respondents answer the question "Are you religious?" negatively. Of those who claim to be religious, most do not attend church on a regular basis, or take part in other religious rituals. Not to mention many of them are not Christian.
As for the number of Brits being religious, I think it's easy to conclude that more than 35% of Brits celebrate Christmas. Given the origin of the poll, I would not be surprised if the question was phrased very narrowly.
It's not discriminatory to celebrate Christmas by default if your company is in a culture that predominantly observe Christmas. It would be discriminatory to make special arrangement for time off on Christmas, but not accommodating seasonal holiday requests from Muslims on Eid and Hindus on Diwali.
I personally think the 35% figure is inflated by people who identify with Christianity but don't practice it, or people who do practice it but out of fear more than faith.
Britain is no longer a Christian country, and that's not a bad thing. Give it another two generations and Christians will be a small minority (5-10%)
> It's not discriminatory to celebrate Christmas by default if your company is in a culture that predominantly observe Christmas. It would be discriminatory to make special arrangement for time off on Christmas, but not accommodating seasonal holiday requests from Muslims on Eid and Hindus on Diwali.
You can't justify discriminatory actions by deferring to the culture in which they take place. Suppose we replace religion with race. Christmas is now a racial festival celebrating white culture. Is it appropriate to foist these celebrations on black people in the office? Of course not.
Does the fact the company operates in a predominantly white culture justify the practice? Of course not.
2) Christmas existed in virtually all European cultures before Christianity. Under different titles though.
Rather like the monarchy, people tend to go along with it, despite the fact it's an anachronistic and unjust system, because it gives people a warm fuzzy feeling.
I think that's part of the reason so much vitriol is aimed at "politically correct" attitudes towards Christmas. It angers both religious and non-religious people because they see it, more than anything else, as an attack on a national pastime.
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.
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.
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.
Society does not move to a predetermined end, and we will not be "better" off without protections of civil rights. That statement is dangerous because it assumes that there are not forces and persons who wish to regress.
A UK constituancy seat in 1960s was won by a conservative candidate against the Labour candidate, on the slogan: "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/27/race.world2
But no, apparently it's "gone too far" when you can't say that anymore!</sarcasm>
the UK doesn't have explicit free speech protection
Debatable. it doesn't have a written constitution, yes, however it has signed up various treaties that guarantee free speech (e.g. Charter of Fundamental Rights).
Regardless, all countries have limits on "free speech" (even USA). Many EU countries put a limit on free speech and don't include very racist vile speech as protected speech. This doesn't mean they have "no free speech".
I must point out Section 28 in the UK ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 ). It was passed in 1988, and banned local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". This was wildly interpreted as banning any mention of homosexuality in schools (amoung other things). It's the height of the AIDS epidemic and you can't teach gay kids in school how to have safe sex, and you can't tell them it'll OK to be gay, you can't have any books that have gay characters. It was repealed in 2003.
Political incorrectness and discrimination were enshrined in local government law in the 1980s.
I find it _VERY_ disturbing that government is even asking for such information. Political clime is changing quickly and such catalogs may end easily in wrong hands.
Holocaust was enabled just because of such lists. Birth Records was first thing nazis were after when they invaded new space. Without them they would not recognize Polish, Russian from Jews. For example Kafka: he had Czech name, most of his friends were Germans, was Jewish and spoke fluently all local languages.
I dont care about assurances, they may be void tomorrow. Collecting such information is simply completely unacceptable. Even Russia is more liberal in this.
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.
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.
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.