I'm not a cis white male and I'm not internalizing oppression
but obviously (to almost everyone) these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
if anyone hasn't been exposed to this experience, the people that want corporations to "use their platform" for things unrelated to revenue are also believing that all aspects of life are political for people that aren't "cis white males" and if you're any combination of minority/woman/LGBT and disagree with that then you're "internalizing oppression" because to them we can't have independent thoughts. For me, these "allies" are worse than the silent apathetic people as well as the overtly prejudiced/racist people. Primarily because they're unpredictable and even more reactionary to having their world view challenged.
> I'm not a cis white male and I'm not internalizing oppression
The “internalizing oppression” thing is such a disgusting accusation. It’s just a way for the activists to trade on the moral authority of pretending to speak for their group, even when they don’t represent the views of their identity group: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang
So why don't people in those groups speak out against it?
When Reddit hired an admin with repeated links to child molestation, moderators of trans communities like r/LGBT staunchly took the position of the admin and called anyone speaking out against it transphobic. (The admin is trans).
It kinda feels like law enforcement. The good apples aren't speaking out about the bad apples. If you see activists using your group to advance an agenda you disagree with, eject them. Don't just let them do their things.
I believe this is one Yglesias' best writing. Simply because he has captured so vividly the wide gap between activists and the group that they speak for.
The woke left of today remind me so much of the ultra right-wing religious nut jobs of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Morality extremism always leads to a lack of tolerance, suppression of independent thought, and manners of totalitarian BS being imposed on those who don’t want it. It’s always bad.
Sounds like a modern version of "false consciousness" which some left wingers were using to explain why some people they thought to be natural allies didn't agree with them.
The article says the primary reason people exited is that the memo was seen as shutting down unionization activity.
> these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
How do statements like this fit HN's guidelines?
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
EDIT: Perhaps the thing to do is to write to the mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
> However, several current and former employees told TechCrunch that they believe Medium’s mass exodus is tied more to Williams’ manifesto, dubbed “the culture memo,”
A perspective.
You chose one of several from the article.
These are related controversies. The opposite of unrelated.
I am a cis straight white male, but I do have colleagues who are gay, lesbian, trans, and/or non-white, and all of those who I've spoken to on this topic do not agree with your take here.
It just goes to show you that everyone is different, and there's no such unified thing as "what gay people believe" or "what black people believe". Some like that their employers make business decisions based on the personal ethics of those in leadership positions, and some don't like that. That's just life, I guess.
That's like using the term "Black Crow" to describe the vast majority of crows, simply because a "Blue Crow" [1] exists, yet consists of a very tiny fraction of all crows.
Let's say 99% of crows are black. Then there's no need to call them "Black Crows" as there's a very low probability you'll need to point out the color of the crow.
Just say "Crow". Or "male" / "female". No need to throw in "cis" unless you're simply trying to demonstrate your conformity to the new fad of wokeism.
In which case, ya lost me as someone who will take you seriously.
Somehow I went all of the aughts and half of the 2010s without noticing
That makes me feel a lot better about the viability of any of this
Can I ignore it if I stop noticing and caring about politics and modern inclusitivity pushes?
I have my doubts but I’m willing to try! Its just other people shoving it in my face that I don't get to inherit American dreams because I’m not a cis white male and keep reminding me, not that I would want to be. Any accomplishment I have must be broadcast! Any setback must be broadcast as well! Doesn't feel like privilege. I dont want to be a role model I just want to blend in and make money and enjoy the same vices as everyone else.
I have to point out that your second source is a conservative think tank, and if you're conservative it generally means that the status quo is in your favor ("you like/are happy with the status quo") and any challenge to it looks like the start of a revolution.
"Entryism (also spelled entrism or enterism or called infiltration) is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program."
This is for every framework (left, right, economical, ecological, etc.)
If the framework gives you direct power over other people, you want the framework applied everywhere: work, private life, politics, etc. The people at the forefront of these frameworks use the rest of the group as a stepping stone to their personal power and the framework to enhance their importance (any other positive and negative effects of the framework aside, those I don't want to judge).
> these "allies" are worse than ... overtly prejudiced/racist people.
I disagree. By my reckoning, there just isn't a comparison, by almost any metric of societal damage. Of course, it doesn't have to be a contest. That's not the important thing.
I concur with the parent comment. A lot of these groups show such a deep religious fervour to their "ideology", that any slight disagreement to them on any topic is not allowed. They will hound you out, suppress your opinion if you don't subscribe to the groupthink.
Twitter is a pain to use because of this behaviour, I wouldn't want the culture in my workplace to be like it.
I agree with GP. The antagonistic "allies" push away neutral people, turning more people against the groups they're supposedly trying to help. Overtly prejudiced people do the opposite, with neutrals seeing them as obviously wrong.
Overt racists are dangerous like bears. The danger they present is obvious to anybody with sense and they're not pretending to be anything other than dangerous.
The aforementioned "allies" are dangerous like bear-traps. Ostensibly they exist to deal with the bears. But they lay hidden in the brush ready to take off the foot of anybody who missteps, bear or otherwise. And you probably won't notice one is around until somebody steps on it.
HN should be a place of justice and sharpening of ideas. Thank you for participating in that.
Allies and racists both exist on a continuum, do they not? A single individual will take actions that are both helpful and harmful in different measures to other people and groups in society.
Some racists are going to be net benefits to society. Their racist views may be limited, unintentional, unexpressed, or any combination of the above. While their works may be helping minority groups directly.
That's just one example of the presented framework breaking, but there are many more permutations. Hopefully this is enough for us to agree that a blanket statement like
> these "allies" are worse than ... overtly prejudiced/racist people.
is, if not inaccurate, so imprecise as to be meaningless.
The thing is, when the social justice left do things that are actively prejudiced against and intentionally hurt the minority groups they claim to be helping, you just don't hear about it because one of their core beliefs is that they're always helping by definition and they have enough power over the mainstream discussion that it's impossible to challenge.
For example, one of the last things the Labour party, who're the more left-wing of our two main parties, did when they had power here in the UK was write a special exemption in anti-discrimination law to deny trans women access to rape and domestic violence services at the request of a feminist lobbying group. (As in this was literally the stated purpose according to the official guidance accompanying the law when it was proposed.) Any discussion of how this happened or the lobbying group behind it was explicitly forbidden in the left-wing and feminist publications and communities with any reach. The press only turned on the Labour-linked lobbying group in late 2019, over a decade after the original law, when they started lobbying the Conservatives over the same anti-trans cause. The discussion of this has been so warped that the established social justice left view on the whole thing is that it shows transphobia is a right-wing thing and proves any attempt to equate the left with them (not just over transphobia, but any attempt to claim they're comparably bad in general) is a dangerous false equivalence.
Maybe, but you’d have to back that up with at least an anecdote. I agree with OP and the fact that most racists are extremely poor and rural with no power makes them a downward punch for most people.
Its the unpredictability to having their world view challenged that I called out and already clarified. Those are completely related thoughts separated by punctuated. There's no point in trying to find other metrics I didn't specify at all.
There's significant funding and political force at the local, state and federal levels that, if allowed, would "ban" LGBT existence and put Christianity as the U.S. official religion. Along with every other crazy idea you can think of. Luckily, there's funding and work in opposition.
People can be very comfortable sitting on an unbalanced rock, until it tips.
The US is in a bad state today because people have forgotten how to speak to each other respectfully, they don't agree to disagree, they violently disagree. Fear mongering and labeling will only make things worse.
Both sides need to stop explaining, justifying and funding their bad apples by pointing to the other.
In medical terms, stop tying to cure an infection with another infection of your own.
This is hyperbole. There is a First Amendment standing in the way of making Christianity an official religion. I am conservative and follow political forums. Conservatives may oppose gay marriage but do not seek to re-criminalize homosexual relations.
As someone who is far-left (and not cis-white), virtually none of us proclaim ourselves extremists. Progressives, yes, perhaps even militant around organizing around a cause, but I fail to see how this part of your comment can be read as anything other than political straw-man flamebait.
> but obviously (to almost everyone) these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
In this narrative, the CEO is playing the role of far-left extremist? I'm confused, please clarify.
no, the people that left the company over not being able to talk politics typically would be more sympathetic to far left extremist ideas, because politics at work is one.
- obviously (to almost everyone) these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
The current state of social discourse is essentially landmines in the form of Kafkatraps[1]. Once there's any form of discussion on an unfalsifiable topic, it provides the leftist with a false sense of justification, simply because it was discussed...even if the leftist's reasoning made no sense and they lost the debate. Then they use the false justification to trick low-intelligence people into believing it's actually justified.
This has led us into a race towards the bottom within society, catering to the loudest complainer in the room. Crabs in a bucket.
Seems like the only real way to counter these unfalsifiable arguments is to call the person a fucking clown and tell them what a kafkatrap is.
Thank you! I now know what this phenomenon is called. I went through "diversity training" when I worked at a university, and was appalled at the presentation. The Kafkatrap was _exactly_ the trick used throughout the entire "Q&A". It was so insidious, bit I didn't have a name for it -- now I do.
It's no different than the far-right unfalsifiable standards that were enforced for centuries, more often than not with religious overtones. Let's not pretend this is a left/right thing, so much as it's just an extremist thing. Only now, the leftist is using the outrage tactic just as effectively as the right, which has lost a lot of its moral high ground on most social issues.
> Then they use the false justification to trick low-intelligence people into believing it's actually justified.
I don't agree with this. Anyone who has been following politics has noticed the growth in the left's base, mainly from the college educated. A lot of these activists seem to be motivated by the (ironically) paternalistic notion that they know better than the groups they advocate for.
why do people always link the worst possible site to cite the kafkatrap? it's literally a conspiracy theory site encouraging a prosecution of Fauci on the front page.
Basically no one is "cis", because people are just born the sex they are and don't "identify" with it, or agree with all the outdated stereotypes placed on their sex. Men and women aren't a subset of their sex.
I don't "identify" as "cis". I think of myself as normal, pretty much like everyone else. But when I need a word to describe myself as "not trans"... There isn't one, until "cis" came along.
So yes, I'm "cis". I don't like the word, and I probably would not have managed to come up with it on my own. But "straight" doesn't describe the situation and "not trans" is inherently negative, where no negativity is desired.
I'll fully agree that I don't follow a lot of the stereotypes for my gender, but there are a lot I do follow, too. Nobody is 100% stereotypical. And Cis- and trans-gender isn't even about that. It's about how you feel and who you feel you are, not about following stereotypes.
so the reason I use that adjective is because it only has upside. It is effortless, harmless, actually briefly conveys a much longer abstract message which is the purpose of language, and helps otherwise marginalized people feel included and stay productive.
it doesn’t matter to me that 99% of people already match that adjective which wasn't previously known or necessary
This is framed as a bad thing but it seems like the purpose of these “no politics at work” “culture memos” is specifically to encourage people to the door who require or desire a more modern/activist/diverse/BLM work environment. I suppose we see an experiment playing out between the companies that want to preserve the “old” ways of companies with their politically incorrect employees who would be considered “toxic” and “bros” and “problematic” (and to adapt to modern standards, to adopt a don’t ask don’t tell policy with respect to their personalities) whose animating principle is “coffee is for closers” and the newer diverse, “intersectional,” “antiracist” culture that claims “diversity is our strength.”
I don't want actual politics at work. I don't want to be debating politically contentious events at work. E.g. (to pick a contentious topic that was in the news recently) a long winded debate on the palestine/israel conflict is not something i want to have at work. That doesn't mean i don't have opinions on the subject or that in a different context i wouldn't want to debate it, work is just not the time to get into it.
However that doesn't mean i think racism/bigotry/etc is acceptable at work.
The immediate response will be: "bawolff, through their silence, is promoting not-my-agenda (obviously!) therefore I feel unsafe and want bawolff fired!"
I wonder how this works in, say, the Marines, or the Navy, which I believe are much more diverse than tech. Are people discussing politics endlessly at work? Is there a code of ethics/conduct that explicitly bars such behaviors?
Tech is extremely un-diverse, but it somehow seems to attract much more vocal and activist types compared to the above. For example, I have never read about such incidents in the Navy or the Marines... Is it simply my ignorance, or does the military have an established way of dealing with such things?
FWIW, I'm sick of the politicization and invasion by SJWs of the discourse in our little bubble in the Bay Area. I'd heartily appreciate the day when I can spend a whole day at work with absolutely no discussion of politics and religion at work. Even private home life is not impervious to this nonsense (even talk at the dinner table often comes down to this, much to my dismay). Do others share a similar sentiment? Just like there are 'no-cellphone' train compartments, perhaps we can have 'politics/religion-free' zones at home and the office!
Many people would call your refusal to hear their opinion on Israel/Palestine or any other issue “problematic,” or contributing to an “unsafe” environment. You can say you’re against racism at work but do you think you can push back against the next BLM workshop with “this isn’t appropriate for work?” Doubtful.
To be clear, the new generation of political activist is the one creating the dichotomy. The kind of workplace you’re describing in the first paragraph would be, according to Kendi, racist.
> However that doesn't mean i think racism/bigotry/etc is acceptable at work.
A big issue is different people have different definitions of these terms.
For example, say a very religous conservative doesn't want to use a trans persons preferred pronouns as they consider said pronouns to be untrue and sinful. They are otherwise polite and nondiscriminatory (e.g. they will listen to and implement ideas from the trans person and don't bring up their opinions of trans issues). Is this bigotry?
Or say some people in the company want to run a BLM donation drive and a conversation then ensues where someone states that they don't think racism has anything to do with USA police killings of blacks and it's actualy down to problems in the main african american culture. Is this racism?
> I don't want actual politics at work. I don't want to be debating politically contentious events at work.
Frank and Kate is sitting at the lunch table. They are discussing "Israel's ongoing massacre in Gaza" and how awful it is. Your opinion is contrary to theirs. Do you feel that you have the right to make them not talk about this topic because you don't want "actual politics" at work? I'm curious to know where you think the line should be drawn. Suppose you are an atheist and you just got a warning from your manager because a Christian employee overheard you saying to a colleague that "all religions are such bunk." Should you not have been allowed to express that "controversial" opinion?
>I don't want actual politics at work. I don't want to be debating politically contentious events at work
to take the example from the article:
"In July 2019, for example, Medium chose to publish a series that included a profile of Trump supporter Joy Villa with the headline “I have never been as prosecuted for being Black or Latina as I have been for supporting Trump.”"
When you're in the business of news publishing, on an incendiary and relevant political event at that, and your decisions have a real chance to influence public discourse, even engineering decisions, how is it realistic to think you're not involved in politics, or even can get away from it?
Tech, in particular media and communication platforms directly sit at the intersection of politics, news and technology. Those copmanies build the platforms where moderation and editorial decisions are made that have huge impact.
what happens when your "work" does business with politicians then? Why shouldn't you be allowed? Directly or indirectly all "works" do business with the politicians and they favour politicians for their interests, not YOUR interest.
Sounds some kind of perverted game. The big ones are allowed to do whatever they want, the small ones should obey the rules of the big ones.
So should perverted games be allowed to the workplace? Another interesting question.
I feel that employers can no longer silently ignore call-out culture, as it moved from Twitter to corporate Slack and real meatspaces where petitions to punish X and Y are now circulated.
Either they hop on the wagon fully or do something against it, but looking the other way means that real power within the community of employees will snowball to the most effective organizers of new call-out campaigns. Who may or may not have the best intentions, but their incentives do not really align with that of the corporation.
This is really a case of "everything can be overdone". Most people want to have the ability to protest against big outrages such as a KKK-themed party in the workplace. But calling out everything that someone on Slack finds offensive is an overkill that polarizes the community and diverts attention from the actual job tasks that need to be done.
Constant culture wars are, among others, a giant waste of energy and time. Most private sector institutions cannot afford to join them full time.
To be replaced with "merit doesn't matter, only group identity"?
> “diversity is our strength.”
That's rich coming from an ideology that actively depersonalises and reduces people to a group identity. Merit, intelligence, accomplishments, effort, passion - these things don't matter. Personal choice when it contradicts the narrative - seen as misguided, not respected!
What diversity is that, when they ignore exactly what makes one different from another in the same group? How is it fair when it proposes group guilt and punishment, to ignore all personal circumstances except race, gender and a few more attributes? It's diversity meant for group identities, not for people.
The ugly thing is that identity politics emphasises differences while being silent about cooperation. We all benefit from the work and advancement of the other groups, we cooperate more than we fight each other. There's more value in being together, but that's uncool to praise for them.
For reference take a look at how guilting and punishing for ideological motives and based on group identities went in the French Revolution. They started with an absolute monarchy and ended with an absolute dictator, in the meantime any wrong think could send you to the guillotine.
You have made a false dichotomy of it I feel. I don't think there are two models, just various points on a spectrum of tolerance.
I don't entirely disagree that politics is not needed in the workplace, but people spend almost all their time at work now and so it has become their defacto social space. If you spend 8 hours a day there it is important to make sure it's comfortable.
That increase in diversity is a direct result of talking about the issue of intolerance in the workplace, making it more comfortable for different people to work there.
You can be a hard working closer and tolerant of others all the same.
From the employer's perspective, there is one type of employee that can pretty much work in any environment given that they are paid - and there is another type that needs ALL the other coworkers doing things and acting in a particular way for them to feel safe and productive. I'm not even against their need to feel safe, included, heard, or their claimed victim status, ptsd, lack of representation, whatever they are concerned with at any point in time - but it is very hard and expensive to build and maintain an environment where they will prosper - very expensive too.
A new drama every week, dealing with bad press from a resigned "activist" employee every other month. Even with sympathy towards those people, I probably wouldn't want to touch them with a ten foot pole when money and livelihood of all my employees are at stake. I'd probably just try to help their cause by other means but would not try to torture them in an environment where they'll inevitably suffer and be unproductive. Their utopia does not exist in planet earth (yet), is it reasonable to expect that to exist in a company working environment?
From a certain perspective, more is wrong with the world than right, and it is impossible to provide an environment that is "right" when most of the world is wrong. When you are the employer, you take the implicit role of building miniature model of that world in their working environment and I reckon that is impossible, at the very least very very expensive.
Diversity of culture between workplaces is collateral damage of diversity and inclusion efforts.
All cultures are not compatible. Not everyone will not be comfortable in a particular culture. Not everyone will not be wanted in a particular culture. [0]
The left call this immoral, believing that any exclusion or disparity is the result of circumstances that enslave humanity, from which humanity should be liberated [1]. The result of this thinking is the limiting and constricting of various liberties, and a push towards the formation of a soulless, foundationless, conglomerated monoculture.
Instead of fighting to produce this horrible monoculture, we should accept that people don't get along, and then find a way to allow all cultures to thrive.
I see this claim made a lot every time the "politics in the workplace" conversation happens, but really? "Almost all their time"? Isn't a normal person supposed to work 8 hours a day, sleep 8/10hours at night and spent 8/6 hours doing something else? If my math is correct that's not "almost all their time".
If some people are incapable of having a life outside of work, well balanced people shouldn't have to pay the price of their obsessions.
> Williams wrote that while counterperspectives and unpopular opinions are “always encouraged” to help make decisions, “repeated interactions that are nonconstructive, cast doubt, assume bad intent, make unsubstantiated accusations, or otherwise do not contribute to a positive environment have a massive negative impact on the team and working environment.”
>He added: “These behaviors are not tolerated.”
That doesn't sound like an unbiased removal of politics from the workplace to me. I think I would be out of the door, too.
It’s not an unbiased removal — the text of the memo specifically targets the screechiest voices. If you want to put BlackLivesMatter in your Slack status I think you’ll find few complaints but if you present a list of demands starting with “The Company must take a public position in support of reparations” then they’re saying you will be shown the door.
That doesn't sound like an unbiased removal of politics from the workplace to me. I think I would be out of the door, too.
Why, do you "assume bad intent" and "make unsubstantiated accusations"? Do you want to, or do you want to work with people that do? I don't think anyone who quits because those "behaviours are not tolerated" will be missed by their former colleagues.
NASA hired literal Nazis to start its space program.
The Soviet space program was somewhat kneecapped by having its management shift with the political winds as people fell into or out of favor and having good people stuck in marginalized roles because of their political history.
I'd bet good money on the winner being the the model that doesn't care what people believe on topics not related to work.
... and the Soviets beat NASA to space, both in getting a satellite in orbit and in getting a human in orbit.
(There's a bit of inherent Great Man Fallacy in figuring out the contributions of the Nazis, because while on the one hand von Braun did lead the design for the rocket that got NASA on the moon and the Soviets failed miserably at their equivalent, on the other hand, the Soviet rocketry lead who was behind their two previous successes died in 1966. There's an argument that they would have pulled it off if he had survived, but more generally, there's an argument that people other than von Braun were perfectly capable of competently building rockets, and in particular that they could do better work than the Americans while under Soviet-style politics.)
I'm fine with both models existing. I'm happy the "old" model is seemingly gaining popularity. It seemed like every organization I have been a part of has been going the "woke" route, and it worried me.
This new trend sounds great for companies as a way to purge extremists from their workforce. From my anecdotal experience the people trying to bring politics at work were not very effective.
It would be interesting to compare productivity before and after the exits.
My first thought whenever I hear how much effort and time is spent on all this drama, especially in large companies, is "how do these people have any time to do actual work?"
Part of me honestly considered getting a job at some Woke Megacorp because I figured I'd have at least a couple extra hours to myself everyday where other folks were involved in internal forum wars.
While I do think there are bigger societal and systemic issues, I agree with you. My first thought is that they don't have enough work to do. I've worked with gay, trans, transitioning, liberal/conservative, whatever and it's never been an issue (or even anything we thought about). We were too busy trying to make enough money to keep from going out of business.
The shared challenge with people different from yourself is a great way to remove biases. Unfortunately, there are fewer avenues for that type of challenge today, and fewer still as people retreat into their homogenous bubbles.
Something that pushed me to resign from a job at a 2nd tier technology company (gaming) was receiving in invitation (company-wide or locality-wide) from an HR person, via company communication channels, to an after-work-hours drag queen conference call event.
It just made me question the value of the HR department-- Here I am with a ton of pressure on me to build a product.
And the HR department is organizing a very non-work related politicized event, using company resources?
I was disgusted-- not about people attending an online, non-work related drag queen event-- Fine, people can do whatever they want in their off hours-- it's none of my business.
But I was disgusted simply that company resources were used to organize peoples' attendance to an event that promotes drag queens. It was the last straw, decided to quit soon after.
As a person who thinks for themselves, I find all these woke people very bigoted, close-minded and discriminatory. My opinions are attacked and unwelcome.
I’m inclined to agree with you, despite your downvotes. Woke ideology is steeped in fundamentalism and it seems to have filled the void where religion used to be. Some people can’t help but be religious; it’s an emergent quality of humans in large societies.
As a POC, I appreciate these woke people, even though some of their actions may be heavy handed. I wish there were more of them when I was growing up and being bullied by real bigots.
People are falling over themselves in this thread to blame "Woke" people, but there are barely any concrete examples here at all. It should be easy to provide if this is so blatantly fundamentalist?
That's how debate works! Opinions are SUPPOSED to be attacked! Your opinions are being attacked because people think they are trash. If you can't stand it then don't share your opinions.
I work in Google with many people strongly holding strong beliefs. Not sure where the line for "extremist" actually is, but I can easily imagine these people getting called by that. I can't say I've noticed a significant correlation between that and productivity.
But: coffee breaks with a group involving people of two opposite views are always a sight to behold.
You are attacking a strawman. The commenter said extremists, not diversive opinions.
It's one thing to have diversive opinions and comely discussing them... And another to be emotionally overinvested and dumping you issues onto your coworkers.
Why is it difficult to keep the political leanings, opinions, activism away from the workplace and act like professionals? If you disagree with something your colleagues or the company you work for, just quit and find another job.
In my humble opinion, there is a place for expressing/speaking up about the things you care about, but workplace is not one of it. You have no locus standi.
I think a lot of these people don't bring much to the table professionally, so they use woke call out culture to implicitly threaten those around them to treat them with kid gloves and give them a wide birth. I doubt these companies feel that sad when people like that leave.
This is a broad generalisation without supporting evidence - not sure if this helps improve the quality of the discussion. Can you substantiate your statement further?
America atleast created a society where life revolves around corporations. Your job is a big part of your identify. Corporations are part of your identity in general. Your a McDonald's or a burger king person, coke or Pepsi. private corporations run America. I think it's only natural for people to express them selves through their work
I think younger workers bought the lifestyle pitch of their employer hook, line, and sinker. They see the office (virtual or otherwise) as a part of their identity.
It’s hard to get employees to work 60+ hour work weeks if they aren’t bought into the company mission. It is very effective to blur work and life lines to get workers to put in the extra hours.
> If you disagree with something your colleagues or the company you work for, just quit and find another job.
On the flip side, why should you? Companies and cultures are made of people and they change as people change. Why should you just quit before trying to institute change?
When I hire people, I generally look for people who don’t accept the status quo as inherently right and try to solve problems.
> When I hire people, I generally look for people who don’t accept the status quo as inherently right and try to solve problems.
There are limits to this aren’t there? I too am a fan of contrarianism, but at some point — depending entirely on the context and the role of the employee — self-indulgent contrarianism becomes counterproductive.
I blame the long hours and dying of outside of work social groups. Churches and "bowling league"-style activities probably kept it out of work fairly efficiently.
>Why is it difficult to keep the political leanings, opinions, activism away from the workplace and act like professionals?
It's not a question of how difficult it is. Their goal is literally the opposite. Everything is a platform for political discussion, identity, etc. Work, culture, art, etc.
It's totally possible to have a workplace you describe, but when people view everything as a platform for activism they don't want that. They want the platform.
It's difficult when the company itself decides to be political. Acting like professionals and having official channels talk about ethnicity ratios is not very compatible:
> Medium said that 52% of departures were white, and that one third of the company is non-white and non-Asian.
The workplace is inherently political; it consumes the vast majority of workers' waking hours for years, and decades. Corporations have vast, measurable influence in peoples lives, both good and bad. Why are the workers, to you, not permitted the agency to bring politics to work?
Because you’re being paid to come to work and work. That’s why they call it “work”, not “debate club”. The idea that young, affluent tech workers like those at Google expect to come to work and argue over the plight of black lives in between writing code for serving ads all while making $300k a year and complaining about other peoples’ privilege is just gross (and a little funny).
> The workplace is inherently political; it consumes the vast majority of workers' waking hours for years, and decades.
Where are people working where the vast majority of their waking hours, for decades, are spent at work? At least be honest, these articles about bringing politics to work are talking about people in comfy tech jobs working 8 hours a day, not wage slaves in coal mines and factories working 12 hour days.
I very strongly disagree. No one is asking their companies to stand up for trade policy or any wonky stuff outside their business. It's almost entirely about representation and discrimination. Things are part of everyone's everyday lives and things very much in every company's power to resolve.
I think the notion that companies should only care about their bottom line is the thing that needs to end. Returning profits for shareholders isn't enough. Employees have started to think that who they work for should reflect their values. And why not?
It's false equivalence to say that just because someone wants identity politics out of work, they also are against representation and discrimination.
Someone may support active efforts to address inequality in the workplace (eg better interviewing procedures, bias training, inclusive language in products), but be against anything that's political, such as supporting black lives matter or taking a position on middle east conflicts at work.
It doesn't mean they disagree with the latter. They just want it out of work, they might even support it.
> Employees have started to think that who they work for should reflect their values. And why not?
Then this is perfect, they can leave and find a job that does reflect their values. They should've quitted right when they realized their values weren't aligned but I guess they valued a severance package more. Still, win-win.
I think this article is off-topic to the memo itself - it seems to be going to a lot of random culture war issues that don't seem to be dealt with or related to the part of the memo quoted. The journalist is probably looking to gin up controversy by attaching issues to Medium that aren't really the driver of the situation.
The story here seems to be Medium is struggling to turn a profit, and there are a lot of people reading which direction the wind is blowing and getting out. Mass resignations are a sign of poor job security and general management problems, not people seeing red over vague and not-much-quoted-here memos.
> “[Medium wants] to enforce good vibes and shut down anything that is questioning ‘the mission,’” they said.
Medium are right to “enforce good vibes”. Nobody wants to come to work to constantly defend themselves from ideological harassment.
It is openly conceded in the piece that the critics know that Medium leadership didn’t write anything unacceptable, and that those critics are leaving owing to their understanding/interpretation of leadership’s implicit message that while philosophical diversity is acceptable, harassment of colleagues is not.
Definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. They might have been more honest than they planned when they indirectly admitted they're proud to have an above-average ratio of a specific skin color in their company.
As a European who doesn’t think Europe has an ongoing skin color / racism problem, you’re signaling that you’ve never really thought about the proceeds of slavery and colonialism to finance, well, almost everything we associate with modern Europe. Especially ignorant if you’re French, British, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, and probably a few other extreme oppressors left off that list.
America has a lot of problems, but we TALK about them. Europe is at least 20 years behind the curve. You guys would be happy with pedophile priests if we hadn’t exposed them.
I didn't want to start a comment war of Europe against USA. I'm saying that from my outsider point of view, with an European education that taught me about slavery, colonialism, and a little of finance, USA has an obvious ingoing problem with skin colours and racism. I don't really think us European are behind the curve, we are just on another line. We are not perfect too, and we haven't been in the past. You mention slavery and colonialism I will add the too many genocides. We can take, and we do take lessons from USA, sometimes a bit late yes. USA could also take lessons from Europe, we have some experience about what not to do.
I've heard, that people from the USA understand the term 'race' differently than Germans. A direct translation into German would be 'Rasse', a term reserved for dog breeds and history lessons.
From how I see the word 'race' being used in the USA, I can't see the difference to the German word 'Rasse'. For me, the racism in the USA begins with the insistence of separating people according to their 'race' and this race based thinking has permeated their entire culture. Doesn't matter where you look, old school liberals vs woke, republicans or democrats, they all divide people according to their race. It's even on their ID card.
And yet some claim 'race' is a totally different concept compared to 'Rasse'. I don't buy it, not one bit. The USA will never overcome racism, until they stop thinking in races.
> The USA will never overcome racism, until they stop thinking in races.
That is a necessary but not sufficient condition. You also have to (a) somehow stop the people who like discriminating based on race ("racists"), and (b) do something about the systems that were intentionally setup to discriminate based on race ("systematic racism").
Since you say you're not from the USA, I'll give you some context which is that your talking point is frequently used by people here to argue against addressing (a) and (b). And often it is particularly brought up by people accused of discriminating based on people's race, as though pointing out that someone is being racist is worse than actually being racist.
Readit News
I'm not a cis white male and I'm not internalizing oppression
but obviously (to almost everyone) these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
if anyone hasn't been exposed to this experience, the people that want corporations to "use their platform" for things unrelated to revenue are also believing that all aspects of life are political for people that aren't "cis white males" and if you're any combination of minority/woman/LGBT and disagree with that then you're "internalizing oppression" because to them we can't have independent thoughts. For me, these "allies" are worse than the silent apathetic people as well as the overtly prejudiced/racist people. Primarily because they're unpredictable and even more reactionary to having their world view challenged.
The “internalizing oppression” thing is such a disgusting accusation. It’s just a way for the activists to trade on the moral authority of pretending to speak for their group, even when they don’t represent the views of their identity group: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang
When Reddit hired an admin with repeated links to child molestation, moderators of trans communities like r/LGBT staunchly took the position of the admin and called anyone speaking out against it transphobic. (The admin is trans).
It kinda feels like law enforcement. The good apples aren't speaking out about the bad apples. If you see activists using your group to advance an agenda you disagree with, eject them. Don't just let them do their things.
The new hotness in activist circles is empowerment, helping people find their own voices, making the space for them to be heard.
Change is painful, slow. But it's happening.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be such an ideologue that you have to project on other people.
> these are unfalsifiable standards that self-proclaimed far left extremists have created to invalidate everyone's thoughts but their own
How do statements like this fit HN's guidelines?
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
EDIT: Perhaps the thing to do is to write to the mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
A perspective.
You chose one of several from the article.
These are related controversies. The opposite of unrelated.
Dead Comment
It just goes to show you that everyone is different, and there's no such unified thing as "what gay people believe" or "what black people believe". Some like that their employers make business decisions based on the personal ethics of those in leadership positions, and some don't like that. That's just life, I guess.
I like your conclusion: it isn't unified. There is a lot of pressure to conform to certain buckets and it also still can be an absurdity to do so.
That's like using the term "Black Crow" to describe the vast majority of crows, simply because a "Blue Crow" [1] exists, yet consists of a very tiny fraction of all crows.
Let's say 99% of crows are black. Then there's no need to call them "Black Crows" as there's a very low probability you'll need to point out the color of the crow.
Just say "Crow". Or "male" / "female". No need to throw in "cis" unless you're simply trying to demonstrate your conformity to the new fad of wokeism.
In which case, ya lost me as someone who will take you seriously.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Crow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...
Also see this article from 1999 when all this was getting started:
https://www.hoover.org/research/why-there-culture-war
That makes me feel a lot better about the viability of any of this
Can I ignore it if I stop noticing and caring about politics and modern inclusitivity pushes?
I have my doubts but I’m willing to try! Its just other people shoving it in my face that I don't get to inherit American dreams because I’m not a cis white male and keep reminding me, not that I would want to be. Any accomplishment I have must be broadcast! Any setback must be broadcast as well! Doesn't feel like privilege. I dont want to be a role model I just want to blend in and make money and enjoy the same vices as everyone else.
Interesting article, though.
"Entryism (also spelled entrism or enterism or called infiltration) is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism
If the framework gives you direct power over other people, you want the framework applied everywhere: work, private life, politics, etc. The people at the forefront of these frameworks use the rest of the group as a stepping stone to their personal power and the framework to enhance their importance (any other positive and negative effects of the framework aside, those I don't want to judge).
> these "allies" are worse than ... overtly prejudiced/racist people.
I disagree. By my reckoning, there just isn't a comparison, by almost any metric of societal damage. Of course, it doesn't have to be a contest. That's not the important thing.
Twitter is a pain to use because of this behaviour, I wouldn't want the culture in my workplace to be like it.
The aforementioned "allies" are dangerous like bear-traps. Ostensibly they exist to deal with the bears. But they lay hidden in the brush ready to take off the foot of anybody who missteps, bear or otherwise. And you probably won't notice one is around until somebody steps on it.
Allies and racists both exist on a continuum, do they not? A single individual will take actions that are both helpful and harmful in different measures to other people and groups in society.
Some racists are going to be net benefits to society. Their racist views may be limited, unintentional, unexpressed, or any combination of the above. While their works may be helping minority groups directly.
That's just one example of the presented framework breaking, but there are many more permutations. Hopefully this is enough for us to agree that a blanket statement like
> these "allies" are worse than ... overtly prejudiced/racist people.
is, if not inaccurate, so imprecise as to be meaningless.
For example, one of the last things the Labour party, who're the more left-wing of our two main parties, did when they had power here in the UK was write a special exemption in anti-discrimination law to deny trans women access to rape and domestic violence services at the request of a feminist lobbying group. (As in this was literally the stated purpose according to the official guidance accompanying the law when it was proposed.) Any discussion of how this happened or the lobbying group behind it was explicitly forbidden in the left-wing and feminist publications and communities with any reach. The press only turned on the Labour-linked lobbying group in late 2019, over a decade after the original law, when they started lobbying the Conservatives over the same anti-trans cause. The discussion of this has been so warped that the established social justice left view on the whole thing is that it shows transphobia is a right-wing thing and proves any attempt to equate the left with them (not just over transphobia, but any attempt to claim they're comparably bad in general) is a dangerous false equivalence.
>I’m tired of being told to change my views by white people who think they’d make better Black men than me
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-glover-cancel-cu...
I'm so tired of these smug oppressive clowns who claim to represent progressives, the left, minorities, and the oppressed.
People can be very comfortable sitting on an unbalanced rock, until it tips.
The US is in a bad state today because people have forgotten how to speak to each other respectfully, they don't agree to disagree, they violently disagree. Fear mongering and labeling will only make things worse.
Both sides need to stop explaining, justifying and funding their bad apples by pointing to the other.
In medical terms, stop tying to cure an infection with another infection of your own.
Dead Comment
Your religious right may have been a real national force in 1980, but not now. It’s just a boogie man.
As someone who is far-left (and not cis-white), virtually none of us proclaim ourselves extremists. Progressives, yes, perhaps even militant around organizing around a cause, but I fail to see how this part of your comment can be read as anything other than political straw-man flamebait.
In this narrative, the CEO is playing the role of far-left extremist? I'm confused, please clarify.
The current state of social discourse is essentially landmines in the form of Kafkatraps[1]. Once there's any form of discussion on an unfalsifiable topic, it provides the leftist with a false sense of justification, simply because it was discussed...even if the leftist's reasoning made no sense and they lost the debate. Then they use the false justification to trick low-intelligence people into believing it's actually justified.
This has led us into a race towards the bottom within society, catering to the loudest complainer in the room. Crabs in a bucket.
Seems like the only real way to counter these unfalsifiable arguments is to call the person a fucking clown and tell them what a kafkatrap is.
[1] https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/editorials/wendy-m...
It's no different than the far-right unfalsifiable standards that were enforced for centuries, more often than not with religious overtones. Let's not pretend this is a left/right thing, so much as it's just an extremist thing. Only now, the leftist is using the outrage tactic just as effectively as the right, which has lost a lot of its moral high ground on most social issues.
I don't agree with this. Anyone who has been following politics has noticed the growth in the left's base, mainly from the college educated. A lot of these activists seem to be motivated by the (ironically) paternalistic notion that they know better than the groups they advocate for.
I think a better strategy is to avoid engaging them in the first place.
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So yes, I'm "cis". I don't like the word, and I probably would not have managed to come up with it on my own. But "straight" doesn't describe the situation and "not trans" is inherently negative, where no negativity is desired.
I'll fully agree that I don't follow a lot of the stereotypes for my gender, but there are a lot I do follow, too. Nobody is 100% stereotypical. And Cis- and trans-gender isn't even about that. It's about how you feel and who you feel you are, not about following stereotypes.
it doesn’t matter to me that 99% of people already match that adjective which wasn't previously known or necessary
It will be interesting to see which model wins.
I don't want actual politics at work. I don't want to be debating politically contentious events at work. E.g. (to pick a contentious topic that was in the news recently) a long winded debate on the palestine/israel conflict is not something i want to have at work. That doesn't mean i don't have opinions on the subject or that in a different context i wouldn't want to debate it, work is just not the time to get into it.
However that doesn't mean i think racism/bigotry/etc is acceptable at work.
I don't see these two things in conflict.
It really is as simple as that.
Tech is extremely un-diverse, but it somehow seems to attract much more vocal and activist types compared to the above. For example, I have never read about such incidents in the Navy or the Marines... Is it simply my ignorance, or does the military have an established way of dealing with such things?
FWIW, I'm sick of the politicization and invasion by SJWs of the discourse in our little bubble in the Bay Area. I'd heartily appreciate the day when I can spend a whole day at work with absolutely no discussion of politics and religion at work. Even private home life is not impervious to this nonsense (even talk at the dinner table often comes down to this, much to my dismay). Do others share a similar sentiment? Just like there are 'no-cellphone' train compartments, perhaps we can have 'politics/religion-free' zones at home and the office!
A big issue is different people have different definitions of these terms.
For example, say a very religous conservative doesn't want to use a trans persons preferred pronouns as they consider said pronouns to be untrue and sinful. They are otherwise polite and nondiscriminatory (e.g. they will listen to and implement ideas from the trans person and don't bring up their opinions of trans issues). Is this bigotry?
Or say some people in the company want to run a BLM donation drive and a conversation then ensues where someone states that they don't think racism has anything to do with USA police killings of blacks and it's actualy down to problems in the main african american culture. Is this racism?
> I don't want actual politics at work. I don't want to be debating politically contentious events at work.
Frank and Kate is sitting at the lunch table. They are discussing "Israel's ongoing massacre in Gaza" and how awful it is. Your opinion is contrary to theirs. Do you feel that you have the right to make them not talk about this topic because you don't want "actual politics" at work? I'm curious to know where you think the line should be drawn. Suppose you are an atheist and you just got a warning from your manager because a Christian employee overheard you saying to a colleague that "all religions are such bunk." Should you not have been allowed to express that "controversial" opinion?
to take the example from the article:
"In July 2019, for example, Medium chose to publish a series that included a profile of Trump supporter Joy Villa with the headline “I have never been as prosecuted for being Black or Latina as I have been for supporting Trump.”"
When you're in the business of news publishing, on an incendiary and relevant political event at that, and your decisions have a real chance to influence public discourse, even engineering decisions, how is it realistic to think you're not involved in politics, or even can get away from it?
Tech, in particular media and communication platforms directly sit at the intersection of politics, news and technology. Those copmanies build the platforms where moderation and editorial decisions are made that have huge impact.
Sounds some kind of perverted game. The big ones are allowed to do whatever they want, the small ones should obey the rules of the big ones.
So should perverted games be allowed to the workplace? Another interesting question.
Either they hop on the wagon fully or do something against it, but looking the other way means that real power within the community of employees will snowball to the most effective organizers of new call-out campaigns. Who may or may not have the best intentions, but their incentives do not really align with that of the corporation.
This is really a case of "everything can be overdone". Most people want to have the ability to protest against big outrages such as a KKK-themed party in the workplace. But calling out everything that someone on Slack finds offensive is an overkill that polarizes the community and diverts attention from the actual job tasks that need to be done.
Constant culture wars are, among others, a giant waste of energy and time. Most private sector institutions cannot afford to join them full time.
To be replaced with "merit doesn't matter, only group identity"?
> “diversity is our strength.”
That's rich coming from an ideology that actively depersonalises and reduces people to a group identity. Merit, intelligence, accomplishments, effort, passion - these things don't matter. Personal choice when it contradicts the narrative - seen as misguided, not respected!
What diversity is that, when they ignore exactly what makes one different from another in the same group? How is it fair when it proposes group guilt and punishment, to ignore all personal circumstances except race, gender and a few more attributes? It's diversity meant for group identities, not for people.
The ugly thing is that identity politics emphasises differences while being silent about cooperation. We all benefit from the work and advancement of the other groups, we cooperate more than we fight each other. There's more value in being together, but that's uncool to praise for them.
For reference take a look at how guilting and punishing for ideological motives and based on group identities went in the French Revolution. They started with an absolute monarchy and ended with an absolute dictator, in the meantime any wrong think could send you to the guillotine.
Dead Comment
I don't entirely disagree that politics is not needed in the workplace, but people spend almost all their time at work now and so it has become their defacto social space. If you spend 8 hours a day there it is important to make sure it's comfortable.
That increase in diversity is a direct result of talking about the issue of intolerance in the workplace, making it more comfortable for different people to work there.
You can be a hard working closer and tolerant of others all the same.
A new drama every week, dealing with bad press from a resigned "activist" employee every other month. Even with sympathy towards those people, I probably wouldn't want to touch them with a ten foot pole when money and livelihood of all my employees are at stake. I'd probably just try to help their cause by other means but would not try to torture them in an environment where they'll inevitably suffer and be unproductive. Their utopia does not exist in planet earth (yet), is it reasonable to expect that to exist in a company working environment?
From a certain perspective, more is wrong with the world than right, and it is impossible to provide an environment that is "right" when most of the world is wrong. When you are the employer, you take the implicit role of building miniature model of that world in their working environment and I reckon that is impossible, at the very least very very expensive.
All cultures are not compatible. Not everyone will not be comfortable in a particular culture. Not everyone will not be wanted in a particular culture. [0]
The left call this immoral, believing that any exclusion or disparity is the result of circumstances that enslave humanity, from which humanity should be liberated [1]. The result of this thinking is the limiting and constricting of various liberties, and a push towards the formation of a soulless, foundationless, conglomerated monoculture.
Instead of fighting to produce this horrible monoculture, we should accept that people don't get along, and then find a way to allow all cultures to thrive.
[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
I see this claim made a lot every time the "politics in the workplace" conversation happens, but really? "Almost all their time"? Isn't a normal person supposed to work 8 hours a day, sleep 8/10hours at night and spent 8/6 hours doing something else? If my math is correct that's not "almost all their time".
If some people are incapable of having a life outside of work, well balanced people shouldn't have to pay the price of their obsessions.
Dead Comment
> Williams wrote that while counterperspectives and unpopular opinions are “always encouraged” to help make decisions, “repeated interactions that are nonconstructive, cast doubt, assume bad intent, make unsubstantiated accusations, or otherwise do not contribute to a positive environment have a massive negative impact on the team and working environment.”
>He added: “These behaviors are not tolerated.”
That doesn't sound like an unbiased removal of politics from the workplace to me. I think I would be out of the door, too.
Dead Comment
Why, do you "assume bad intent" and "make unsubstantiated accusations"? Do you want to, or do you want to work with people that do? I don't think anyone who quits because those "behaviours are not tolerated" will be missed by their former colleagues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule
The Soviet space program was somewhat kneecapped by having its management shift with the political winds as people fell into or out of favor and having good people stuck in marginalized roles because of their political history.
I'd bet good money on the winner being the the model that doesn't care what people believe on topics not related to work.
(There's a bit of inherent Great Man Fallacy in figuring out the contributions of the Nazis, because while on the one hand von Braun did lead the design for the rocket that got NASA on the moon and the Soviets failed miserably at their equivalent, on the other hand, the Soviet rocketry lead who was behind their two previous successes died in 1966. There's an argument that they would have pulled it off if he had survived, but more generally, there's an argument that people other than von Braun were perfectly capable of competently building rockets, and in particular that they could do better work than the Americans while under Soviet-style politics.)
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It would be interesting to compare productivity before and after the exits.
Part of me honestly considered getting a job at some Woke Megacorp because I figured I'd have at least a couple extra hours to myself everyday where other folks were involved in internal forum wars.
The shared challenge with people different from yourself is a great way to remove biases. Unfortunately, there are fewer avenues for that type of challenge today, and fewer still as people retreat into their homogenous bubbles.
It just made me question the value of the HR department-- Here I am with a ton of pressure on me to build a product.
And the HR department is organizing a very non-work related politicized event, using company resources?
I was disgusted-- not about people attending an online, non-work related drag queen event-- Fine, people can do whatever they want in their off hours-- it's none of my business.
But I was disgusted simply that company resources were used to organize peoples' attendance to an event that promotes drag queens. It was the last straw, decided to quit soon after.
Dead Comment
But: coffee breaks with a group involving people of two opposite views are always a sight to behold.
It's one thing to have diversive opinions and comely discussing them... And another to be emotionally overinvested and dumping you issues onto your coworkers.
In my humble opinion, there is a place for expressing/speaking up about the things you care about, but workplace is not one of it. You have no locus standi.
Some people have made these things part of their core identity.
On the flip side, why should you? Companies and cultures are made of people and they change as people change. Why should you just quit before trying to institute change?
When I hire people, I generally look for people who don’t accept the status quo as inherently right and try to solve problems.
There are limits to this aren’t there? I too am a fan of contrarianism, but at some point — depending entirely on the context and the role of the employee — self-indulgent contrarianism becomes counterproductive.
It's not a question of how difficult it is. Their goal is literally the opposite. Everything is a platform for political discussion, identity, etc. Work, culture, art, etc.
It's totally possible to have a workplace you describe, but when people view everything as a platform for activism they don't want that. They want the platform.
> Medium said that 52% of departures were white, and that one third of the company is non-white and non-Asian.
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Where are people working where the vast majority of their waking hours, for decades, are spent at work? At least be honest, these articles about bringing politics to work are talking about people in comfy tech jobs working 8 hours a day, not wage slaves in coal mines and factories working 12 hour days.
Dead Comment
I think the notion that companies should only care about their bottom line is the thing that needs to end. Returning profits for shareholders isn't enough. Employees have started to think that who they work for should reflect their values. And why not?
Someone may support active efforts to address inequality in the workplace (eg better interviewing procedures, bias training, inclusive language in products), but be against anything that's political, such as supporting black lives matter or taking a position on middle east conflicts at work.
It doesn't mean they disagree with the latter. They just want it out of work, they might even support it.
Because employees don’t all have the same values.
Then this is perfect, they can leave and find a job that does reflect their values. They should've quitted right when they realized their values weren't aligned but I guess they valued a severance package more. Still, win-win.
The story here seems to be Medium is struggling to turn a profit, and there are a lot of people reading which direction the wind is blowing and getting out. Mass resignations are a sign of poor job security and general management problems, not people seeing red over vague and not-much-quoted-here memos.
Medium are right to “enforce good vibes”. Nobody wants to come to work to constantly defend themselves from ideological harassment.
It is openly conceded in the piece that the critics know that Medium leadership didn’t write anything unacceptable, and that those critics are leaving owing to their understanding/interpretation of leadership’s implicit message that while philosophical diversity is acceptable, harassment of colleagues is not.
Good for Medium.
As an European reader, it's incredible to read such a statement. USA has a skin colour / racism problem.
"It's funny how [a tiny percentage of very vocal] Americans think that"
Dead Comment
America has a lot of problems, but we TALK about them. Europe is at least 20 years behind the curve. You guys would be happy with pedophile priests if we hadn’t exposed them.
How dare they not base their identities around talking about it.
I fear you are correct. If current political trends continue, in 20 years race relations in Europe will be as harmonious as they are in America today.
Educate yourself; Stay in your lane; etc
https://youtu.be/2dKdBlKgquw
Keep on convincing yourself its normal.
From how I see the word 'race' being used in the USA, I can't see the difference to the German word 'Rasse'. For me, the racism in the USA begins with the insistence of separating people according to their 'race' and this race based thinking has permeated their entire culture. Doesn't matter where you look, old school liberals vs woke, republicans or democrats, they all divide people according to their race. It's even on their ID card.
And yet some claim 'race' is a totally different concept compared to 'Rasse'. I don't buy it, not one bit. The USA will never overcome racism, until they stop thinking in races.
That is a necessary but not sufficient condition. You also have to (a) somehow stop the people who like discriminating based on race ("racists"), and (b) do something about the systems that were intentionally setup to discriminate based on race ("systematic racism").
Since you say you're not from the USA, I'll give you some context which is that your talking point is frequently used by people here to argue against addressing (a) and (b). And often it is particularly brought up by people accused of discriminating based on people's race, as though pointing out that someone is being racist is worse than actually being racist.