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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

> As to "aggressions", I would challenge anybody to find a quote from the memo that could be considered aggressive.

The entire premise of the manifesto is that one third of the company only has a job because of their gender. In what world is saying to thousands of people "We only hired you because you don't have male genitals" is not an aggression? Maybe it's not to people who don't give two shits about their work, or their accomplishments at it, or whether or not they'll have a job next week. Most people aren't in that category.

Has you ever been in that kind of situation? Where somebody reduces your entire justification for existence to the color of your skin, or which chromosomes you've got?

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While the author used dubious rhetorical tactics (e.g. stating scientific "facts" without citation), he was never hostile towards any one person or group of people. Even if the argument he was making was that Google should fire or cut the pay of its female software engineers (which it wasn't), it wouldn't necessarily be aggressive. That word is not applicable here.

And yes, I have been in a situation where my merit as an engineer was called into question (I'm sure most engineers have). At the time I felt that the assessment was unfair. However, even if it had been demonstrably, objectively unfair, it would be incorrect to call it aggressive unless the intent had been to cause or threaten physical or psychological harm.

Aggression is an accusation that hinges entirely upon intent. Even an act that actually causes physical harm is not aggressive unless the intent of the perpetrator is violent or hostile. Similarly, even a memo that actually causes psychological harm is not aggressive unless it was the intent of the author to inflict that harm.

The media stripped out the citations.

I haven't checked that the citations are any good... but he certainly put them in.

Out of Interest: are they allowed to do this?

Surely he owns copyright, and his work is being published without consent?

That's very interesting. Where did you hear that?

Or should I say... could you please add a citation? ;)

Gawker article has a line saying something like "some charts and links were omitted"

Without the links it looks like a bunch of totally unsubstantiated arguments. With the links, parts of it are better substantiated.

"While the author used dubious rhetorical tactics (e.g. stating scientific "facts" without citation), he was never hostile towards any one person or group of people."

Most of the members of those groups would highly disagree with you. Most of the female Google employees who have expressed opinions about it on twitter are quite angry over it. And, regardless of how it was meant, saying that a third of the people at the company don't deserve to be there is hostile.

> he was never hostile towards any one person or group of people. Even if the argument he was making was that Google should fire or cut the pay of its female software engineers (which it wasn't), it wouldn't necessarily be aggressive.

Let me present an argument:

"Black people are killers, thieves, and lazy layabouts. Statistics [Citation, Citation, Citation] support me. The only reason <company> employs black people is affirmative action. Draw your own conclusions, folks. ;)"

How is this not aggression? What would be aggression, at this point? Dressing up in a white hood, and circling the office with a wooden cross? Do we need to have rational, calm, logical debate about whether or not the statistics I'm citing are correct?

Physical violence isn't the only form of aggression. Telling your colleagues that they aren't wanted in your workplace is absolutely a form of aggression.

> And yes, I have been in a situation where my merit as an engineer was called into question (I'm sure most engineers have).

Was your merit called into question because of the colour of your skin? Or your gender?

There is a world of difference between being treated like crap for <some reason>, and being treated like crap because the asshole you're dealing with is prejudiced towards you. It really has to be experienced to be believed.

> Black people are killers, thieves, and lazy layabouts.

Introducing "killers" and "thieves" to this example distances it from the discussion we are having, since you introduced words with violent connotations. Let's leave it at:

> Black people are... ...lazy layabouts.

This is still a far cry from the contents of the memo, but we can work with it. There are a lot of negative adjectives that can be applied to this sentiment: Racist, wrong, counterproductive, even evil. But aggressive is still wrong. It just doesn't fit the definition. Stereotyping a group of people as "lazy" or even "useless" is not violent. It doesn't threaten violence, and it's intention is not necessarily to cause harm. Have a talk some time with an actual racist who is otherwise a peaceful person. They used to be very common. You'll hear them make all sorts of generalizations about black people that sound totally insane and horrible to us, but they don't mean it in an aggressive way. They wouldn't wish harm, physical or otherwise, on anybody. They genuinely believe that that is simply "how God made them" or something like that. Judging from the tone of the memo, plus the benefit of the doubt which we owe even those we disagree with, I think it's plain that the author of the original memo feels similarly.

Again, aggression is all about intent. You have little evidence to back the idea that our author guy wishes women, or any other person or group, harm.

Hacker News, where taxation is theft backed by state violence, but systemic racism is just, like, an opinion, man.

> Let me present an argument:

Are you suggesting the author put forward a similar argument?

It's the same category of argument. It also has 'indisputable' statistics supporting it. It does not attack particular persons, just the policy of hiring them. It disparages their co-workers for being born wrong. Much like the manifesto, it's a slam-your-head-into-the-textbook example of racism.

People have also made that exact same argument for decades. Racism was not a moustache-twirling Klanner setting crosses afire (Although it was that, too.) It was the reasoned, fact-supported argument for why people of colour are not as good as Real Americans. Ever since the civil rights movement, it has somewhat fallen out of fashion in the workplace - possibly because most of us accepted the radical notion that the color of your skin has no influence on the quality of your work.

He made the exact opposite kind of argument actually.

His argument is let's treat people as individuals and we should stop using inappropriate grouping to push a discriminatory agenda.

An accurate analogy using race might be:

White people are more shy on average than Black people. Companies are using this statistic to justify white only social skills classes.

I think that discriminates against all the black people who are also shy. Let's just make it so any shy person can go to these classes.

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