Tech? I would have thought better of arguably among the most "rational" humans. Yet another lesson in how close to the surface very primitive emotions lie.
And tech remains a cesspool of mysogyny.
She said, "Black people CANNOT be racist. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has power."
The same premise that would lead to that position, would require someone to think the same thing about sexism and gender issues.
This context sheds some light on things beyond the faux pas aspect of publicly shaming someone on Twitter, via an unauthorized picture, which already is unacceptable for someone who is a professional communicator.
Now, if you want to say that this is "irrational venom" and "utter cowardice" and not "rational" and based on "very primitive emotions" and "mysogynistic", fine, but that itself is just an emotional spew that doesn't look at the facts of the case that I have pointed out.
Of course, there _are_ lots of trolls, but not everyone who thinks her behavior was disgusting should be lumped in with them.
If that's irrational, venomous, and cowardly I'll wear those labels proudly.
Every time something like this happens people act surprised. Hello, have you ever been on the internet before? I'm not defending it, just saying that it should be treated for what it is - background noise.
You can't use these kinds of situations to gauge reaction because the vocal minority yells louder than ever.
Not admitting that many important decisions have an emotional component is part of the problem.
They can be 'rational' when it comes to doing numerical things, but when it comes to an emotional issue like picking emacs or vi, they are no better than your average touchy-feely New Age believer at being rational.