I don't think it's the part of marginalized people to educate bigots. Sorry if I wrongly assumed that you aren't marginalized.
My view is that the moral non-marginalized should speak out loudly against bigots. I was trying to encourage you to attack the bigots instead of attacking everyone else.
Edit: BTW, Everlaw has a blog. Anyone is welcome to read it and form their own opinions about our culture.
BrandonM, I'd encourage you to keep educating yourself. I'd suggest reading resources like http://juliepagano.com/blog/2013/11/02/101-off-limits/ and following some "social justice warriors" via your platform of choice.
I, personally, am still very much in the process of learning about how my own privileges (white, middle-class, male, cis, het) affect me and others, which is why I find article's like Danilo especially useful.
That's the main reason why Danilo's actions bothered me so much today. My initial post basically boiled down to, "The article misrepresented Hacker News: it's no worse than other communities with similar demographics. And when bigots make themselves visible, it gives us a chance to change minds." Even I can come around to the idea that those are shitty points.
But we didn't have that discussion. Instead, Danilo used his Twitter privilege (where I have none) to level an attack at me, threatening my livelihood. To me, that seems like a different version of the exact problem he is purporting to solve.
If the "warrior" in "social justice warrior" is literal, then I suppose that tactic makes sense. But I think there's a better way. I read this today:
The biggest crime of fear is getting my mind so wrapped up in itself, I forget that that I’m not the only one who is afraid. We’ve all got things that haunt us.
Did I really deserve what Danilo threw at me today?
> Twitter privilege
Goodness. If anything, you got off easy, bub. Even now, oblivious, invoking concepts like "privilege" you clearly don't understand.
You don't get to run your mouth about things you don't understand and then escape accountability. You don't get to excuse a terrible status quo as being acceptable because it serves to educate people at the expense of the marginalized.
You are exactly the problem. Not the bigots. Not the overt sexists. Not the children posing as grownups, too young to know their indecency. The problem is mealy-mouthed folks who mistake differences of power for differences opinion. And who forgive the unacceptable on that basis.
And feel so righteous doing so.
Sorry if that's not the sort of coddling you're used to. But I'm not here for you. I'm not here to make you comfortable and I'm certainly not here to persuade you. I'm here because what you said was wrong and dangerous.
I'm a lot more concerned with the feelings of people who are being driven out of this industry because of exactly the sort of chicanery you're excusing.
Working for you sounds damn crummy. If you don't want that sort of observation leveled in public in the future, I have one suggestion:
read some books
Do the right thing because it's the right thing. Not because someone was nice to you or not on Hacker News.
> threatening my livelihood
And where is the threat to your livelihood, exactly?
If what you said was as acceptable as you claim, you face no danger.
If what you said was problematic, then why did you say it? Publicly? Flying under the banner of "Lead Software Engineer for Everlaw."
And why would you expect a public wrong to pass with impunity?
You're arguing both that you were perfectly reasonable—and that I was unreasonable to call you out for saying something crummy.
Pick one.
And yet you're comfortable saying that I'm "exactly the problem", that I'm "desperately" defending Hacker News, that I'm crummy to work with. You don't know me.
When I say that I feel victimized by you, you call me more names, say that I'm running my mouth, that I'm used to being coddled, that you can't possibly have more privilege than me. Sound familiar?
Please try to have a bit of perspective on your own behavior. There are much more effective, humane ways to win the hearts and minds of others and achieve your goals.
I know you made the top comment on my article say you're glad when people say bigoted things so that the folks most impacted by them have to donate time to educating them. 'Bout all I really need.
> There are much more effective, humane ways to win the hearts and minds of others and achieve your goals.
Did you miss the part where I said that wasn't anything close to my goal?
Again: I expect people to demand the right things because they're the right things. Not because people are "nice" or not.
> you call me more names
Citation needed.
> When I say that I feel victimized by you
Whew. The privilege to call being disagreed with "victimization." Incredible. Tech in a nutshell, right here.
What I actually said:
> It gives others a chance to provide them with some perspective.
When I said "others" I didn't intend that to mean the victims of their bigotry. I was referring to myself and the many other Hacker News members that disagree with those views. I can certainly see how my comment was unclear on that front, and I regret making such a contentious statement without making my intended message as clear as possible. ("Open views can be criticized and corrected. Subversive hate or discrimination is much harder to address," as I later clarified.)
There's a difference between a disagreement and a personal attack. We both disagreed with each other's messages, certainly. But I did not attack you or your character.
Take anything he says, interpret it in the most uncharitable way possible, and then get him mobbed online. His company cuts off the limb to save the body by firing him. This is a tactical way of shutting somebody up, not a sign of their moral deficiency. Anybody with some numbers behind them can do it. I also got a sorta "I know where you live" vibe from how you repeated back his job to him, so I think you know this.
So, for me, as a person who's got a couple layers of outsider-ness from the typical tech workforce, I would be extremely uncomfortable working with this person. This is a person who made clear they supported public forums being open for bigots to say what they like.
So they can be educated.
Dang. That's awful. It suggests a terrifying lack of empathy. It's something I would want to know about. And certainly not something I'd want in a colleague.
Freedom to speak is not freedom from accountability.
I'm here to fight marginalization. That's my fight, too. In quite a big way.
I respect that your approach may be different from my own—as marginalized individuals, we do have common cause.
You can and should view HN however you'd like. But there's a lot to be angry about on the merits. And a lot to be angry about when those problems are excused or dismissed. I can't apologize for that. And I must maintain my original position: I would loathe to work with someone who is this unaware.
Where I do apologize is if my tone carried a righteousness you found alienating, and if my frustrated words denied you the sense of solidarity I would aspire to offer. That's crummy and worth examination.
Thank you for your candor and clarity.
The story I got from your public persona was that you came up from nothing to be a web programmer who calls the Bay Area home. That story could describe me.
I hope you will forgive me for my incorrect assumptions.