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Comment by jack-r-abbit | Hacker News Reader

> these things are hard

BOOM.. fired! See what happened there? You said it. I overreacted. You were fired. It actually is a real fear that something you say will unknowingly offend someone and get you in trouble. This has less to do with gender and sexism and more to do with just too many people being incapable of getting along.

> automatically act in ways that don't offend anyone.

Impossible. Everything is capable of offending someone. And everyone is offended by something. I would rather strive for a future generation that was not so easily offended.

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> these things are hard

>> BOOM.. fired! See what happened there? You said it. I overreacted. You were fired. It actually is a real fear that something you say will unknowingly offend someone and get you in trouble. This has less to do with gender and sexism and more to do with just too many people being incapable of getting along.

Something similar actually happened on Twitter, Steve Marx said something about a lynch mob and she turned it into racism[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313946261055221760

Cheese & Rice! I had no idea she was that far out there. As a developer I am offended by her claiming to be an evangelist for us.

"lynching" has a very well-established racial subtext in the US... I'm sure this person didn't intend it that way, but she pointed it out and he apologized, all of which seems completely reasonable.

well... he used the word innocently, then she pointed it out she was offended and he apologized for her misunderstanding him... yes, that was reasonable (to an extent). But then, not willing to let it be, she continued to throw race in his face... leaving him not much choice but to continue to defend himself. That is pretty far out there to me.

This happens all the time in public politics, when opposing sides playing gotcha with each other and words like "smart" or "golf" can be reinterpreted as racist insults. But there is a cutthroat world where flinging dirt at your opponent may be your only way to get ahead. Sad to see it invade other aspects of life to.

This is what's commonly known as the ignorance of privilege. It's white people saying, "Why can't I make jokes about black people, when black people can make jokes about me?"

It demonstrates a total ignorance of what it means to be a discriminated against demographic.

I'm confused. Are you saying that just because a person is white they are not allowed to be offended by stuff and not allowed to question the validity of others who are offended?

Well, according to Adria Richards: "Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power".

http://imgur.com/xPztO6k

I don't think Adria represents women in the industry, or anyone other than herself. I feel sorry for SendGrid, PlayHaven, the developer who lost his job, and the fact that this is distracting from the real issues of sexism in technology.

I don't feel sorry for Adria. She represented her company in a grossly unprofessional manner by publicly naming, picturing, and shaming (including the use of "ass clowns" to describe them) two developers. You don't have to be sexist to be unprofessional. I just hope SendGrid has their lawyers ready to deal with the potential fallout of firing her.

I saw that. Of course we know that is bullshit. Just like it would be bullshit to say: "women cannot be sexist against men"

Hmmm...'colorblindness' by a privileged group is a refusal to acknowledge the real inadequacies between social groups.

Basically, "I treat everyone the same--I don't see color" (or gender, or sexual orientation, etc.) is a luxury that only exists for some. For people discriminated against, they /have/ to see color, gender, etc., because it's a limiting condition of their social situation.

I see color (and gender, and sexual orientation, etc.). I just don't let them effect how I treat people. But it seems pretty clear that this is a standard only some people are held to.

People really, really oversimplify these situations when they focus on ideas like "feeling offended". Yes, everyone is allowed to feel offended. That's not the point.

The point is that women in our society live their entire lives under a constant barrage of related offensive behaviors that men do not. Black people in our society live their entire lives under a constant barrage of related offensive behaviors that white people do not. (Black women get hit by both barrages.) In each case, some of the offensive acts are overt and nasty, but most take the form of countless tiny slights that seem harmless on their own but add up to an intensely oppressive environment.

So yes, everyone is allowed to be offended. But it's really, really unwise to "question the validity of others who are offended" if you aren't subjected to the same continually hostile environment that they are.

constant barrage? A bit of hyperbole there don't you think?

Not in the slightest. (Unless you took my "constant" to mean "every second" rather than "multiple times each day".)

I used to think about this sort of issue in much the same way that you seem to (or at least, I made similar comments at times). I was doing my best to be fair and sensible. But over the past year or two, I've read a lot and learned a lot, and I've realized that I was wrong. This stuff is complicated, and if you haven't spent as much time studying it as you'd spend on a couple of college courses, you probably don't understand it as fully as you think. (I certainly didn't.)

> these things are hard

hahaha I like that

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