> his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority
Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me.
I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon and started replacing 'A's in their company logos with lambdas, etc.). I actually only went there because my friend was giving a talk about Git. That, and they had free pizza. But I digress.
Anyway, there was this guy showing an interesting library for Java, name of which I can't remember now, that was aimed at seriously reducing the amount of cruft and boilerplate one has to write, replacing common patterns with annotations. I thought it was a great idea, and wanted to congratulate him, but suddenly, the entire audience started criticizing. That it's wrong, it's not "the Java way", etc. I voiced my opinion, that it clearly improves readability, for which I heard that I "don't get the Java way of doing things". I think I might also heard someone telling me, "you're a Lisper, this is different, you won't understand".
Now should I be offended at that reaction? Well, I felt bad, but should I cry foul, and vent out on the obvious discrimination of concise languages? Should I Tweet about how misolambdic the people on that conference were? How they hate metaprogramming? Should I get someone fired from their job because they told me I'm a Lisper, and thus don't understand Java? I'm a minority after all. I can't even get a job in the field I love, and have to code PHP to earn my bread.
I don't think anyone would find affirmative answers to above questions reasonable. And yet in some cases, it's apparently fine to overhear a random joke and turn it into a mess that gets two people fired from their jobs, just because you're a part of a minority. Do we want a society that's afraid of minorities? Because in a way, it validates discrimination - when people see that the smaller group has a disproportional ability to cause damage, it makes people hate them, not welcome them.
Moreover, I believe that not being easily offended is the sign of being a mature person. You shouldn't let some passing airwaves upset you to the point of losing control.
> So, if I try to understand your choice of comparisons, do you live with oppression because you're a Lisper?
If you call my peers laughing at me for "learning this weird thing" for the past 3 years, then yes, I live with oppression.
But more seriously, the reason I chose a clearly absurd example is to separate the issue from the emotional weight people give to topics about sex. I see this emotional attitude as a reason people get so irrational about the topic.
We're granting the power by our reaction. If we're willing to accomodate even most absurd demands on the threat of being attacked by the rest of our group, we implicitly grant a minority the power to do whatever they want with us.
Parent is wrong though. Nobody is granting anybody power.
Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.
Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.
> Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.
To cede your power to a minority is exactly to grant that power to them. That's exactly what I'm talking about.
> Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.
SendGrid didn't grant 4chan the power to DDoS them. But they surely granted the trolls power to get someone from the company fired over a stupid Twitter dispute. The next time they'll be considering whether or not to launch another attack to get someone fired, they will be more eager to go through with it.
If, howewer, there was such a history, would me making fuss over the situation in the story above make my behaviour justified?
The point is, there is always a minority to be found and a member of such can always find a reason to feel offended - but this by itself does not justify being aggressive. I used a clearly absurd example to separate the issues from sexual themes, because those get people emotional and irrational.
I don't think anybody is saying that being in a minority is justification for being aggressive. I think what some people are saying is that being oppressed might be a justification for being aggressive, but I can't say for certain. I'm just an average Asian who appears like an average Caucasian.
Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me.
I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon and started replacing 'A's in their company logos with lambdas, etc.). I actually only went there because my friend was giving a talk about Git. That, and they had free pizza. But I digress.
Anyway, there was this guy showing an interesting library for Java, name of which I can't remember now, that was aimed at seriously reducing the amount of cruft and boilerplate one has to write, replacing common patterns with annotations. I thought it was a great idea, and wanted to congratulate him, but suddenly, the entire audience started criticizing. That it's wrong, it's not "the Java way", etc. I voiced my opinion, that it clearly improves readability, for which I heard that I "don't get the Java way of doing things". I think I might also heard someone telling me, "you're a Lisper, this is different, you won't understand".
Now should I be offended at that reaction? Well, I felt bad, but should I cry foul, and vent out on the obvious discrimination of concise languages? Should I Tweet about how misolambdic the people on that conference were? How they hate metaprogramming? Should I get someone fired from their job because they told me I'm a Lisper, and thus don't understand Java? I'm a minority after all. I can't even get a job in the field I love, and have to code PHP to earn my bread.
I don't think anyone would find affirmative answers to above questions reasonable. And yet in some cases, it's apparently fine to overhear a random joke and turn it into a mess that gets two people fired from their jobs, just because you're a part of a minority. Do we want a society that's afraid of minorities? Because in a way, it validates discrimination - when people see that the smaller group has a disproportional ability to cause damage, it makes people hate them, not welcome them.
Moreover, I believe that not being easily offended is the sign of being a mature person. You shouldn't let some passing airwaves upset you to the point of losing control.