It most certainly does.
In fact, I would argue that the public's opinion of the validity of these grievances hinges on the outcome of these high-profile cases.
It's never a good idea to cry wolf.
edit: I'm not saying she was lying. Hell, I have no idea. What I am saying is that if people view this as a frivolous case or think she is lying, that most certainly does harm to the underlying cause.
Grievance - Racial minorities (specifically, black people) are unfairly discriminated against by law enforcement.
Just because, in this case, this tragic situation was deemed a legally acceptable use of force, doesn't mean that racial minorities are not generally discriminated against by law enforcement.
Similarly, just because this case wasn't a clear-cut case of gender discrimination, doesn't mean it isn't still a valid problem in this industry.
Michael Brown supporters/witnesses made claims about that situation that were later shown to be false.
I am arguing that the public ties the validity of that case to the underlying grievance.
Same here: If people think Pao was lying or view her negatively, that causes quite a bit of harm to her cause.
"made a reference to a woman’s testimony who claimed she had seen the shooting of the black teenager by the white officer, but she “clearly wasn’t present” at the scene. McCulloch reportedly said that the woman “recounted a story right out of the newspaper" that backed Wilson’s version of events surrounding the fatal shooting that occurred Aug. 9."[1]
"Most of the dozens of witnesses who testified likely did their best to describe what they saw, but a review of thousands of pages of grand jury documents shows that untrustworthy testimony came from some witnesses on both sides." [2]
"Key Witness In Michael Brown Case May Not Have Actually Seen Him Die, Report Says" [3]
[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/mike-brown-shooting-witnesses-gave-fa...
[2] http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/14/justice/ferguson-witnesses...
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/sandra-mcelroy-ferg...
The point/original statement is that people should not do this; whatever did or did not happen with Michael Brown and Ellen Pao in their specific cases does not actually have any bearing on whether there are general issues with race or gender discrimination in this country. Which IMO at least there clearly are.
I would much rather that the media focuses on the trials of the underrepresented many who are facing real gender discrimination in the workplace.
>It most certainly does.
There's only a grievance if you assume that promotion at somewhere like KP is evidence of empowerment.
If it's actually evidence of something else - like being recognised as a member of the nomenklatura on the VC scene - then perhaps it's more evidence of successful conformity than successful empowerment.
IMO you don't win at empowerment by playing someone else's game and complaining you lost and that's not fair - you win by creating new games and making the other games irrelevant.
> There's a difference between a company being shitty and it breaking the law.
I agree. Strip mining is pretty shitty. Fracking too. But what's your point? Our courts shouldn't be used to expose 'shitty' companies. They should be used to punish unlawful actions.
It isn't the purpose of the US Judicial system to look at an action and say 'We don't like that asshole, so we're going to just say what he did was illegal and punish him'.
You need to cite a specific infraction, charge them with it, and then prove that person/firm committed that crime.
It sounds like you would rather start with an action that upsets you, make it illegal and retroactively punish people. This is pretty much the opposite of how our system is supposed to work.
Your comment can be massaged into something reasonable with a bit of after the fact recasting, but in the context of the parent post that's possibly the most misleading way to characterize trials and judicial review that I've ever seen.