[Osmf-talk] "a viper pit of racism and misogyny"

[Eric Dose]

There is no such thing as "reverse sexism". Sexism against men and sexism
against women are both just sexism. Racism against whites and racism against
blacks are both just racism. That one group is or is not (perceived as) dominant
has nothing to do with it.

A CoC however written does not change these facts, and a CoC that says
differently is simply wrong, no matter how beautiful the font it's written in,
and no matter who wrote it.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Rory McCann
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2017 11:39
To: osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org ; Blake Girardot
Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] "a viper pit of racism and misogyny"

Hi Blake, et al.

Previously, I said that you can't be racist against Americans. Since
it's come up again, we should talk about it, and decide *if* that would
be against the CoC. Maybe I'm wrong, convince me! 🙂

A part of the Geek Feminism CoC that Frederik¹ didn't quote says it
doesn't apply to "reversisms" (e.g. reverse racism, reverse sexism). The
SotM CoC was similar ("reinforce social structures"). Some OSM members
think an event aimed at women is sexist against men². If your CoC
doesn't explicitly exclude that, there *will* be those sort of CoC
complaints³.

I think that Americans (and America) are like white people in USA, men,
heteros, or cis people; the socially dominant group. Hence a CoC should
cover "discrimination against Americans" the same way of covers "sexism
against men" or "heterophobia", i.e. it shouldn't.

I mentioned before about Munroe Bergdorf, a black trans woman, who was
hired by L'Oréal to model for campaign. They sacked her after learning
of a emotive FB post where she criticized white supremacy and a neo-nazi
rally in the USA⁴. If someone says "all white people are racist", is
that a CoC violation? What about "I'd rather take the first question
from a woman" at a conference? If an American supports Black Lives
Matter, is that racist?⁵ Bigots and trolls *will* abuse the CoC.

With other nationalities you have to look at the whole picture of
(global) society. A British person insulting America is different from a
British person insulting Ireland, is different from an American
insulting the UK (or Ireland) etc.

I think it's important that we think, as a community, about this, and
where we want to go. IMO "national origin or culture" should be on the
list, and GF gets it right with "reverseisms". Allowing "reverse racism"
to be a CoC violation runs the risk of silencing marginalized people.

I could be wrong, but I suggest any replies clarify which bit (or both)
they find wrong, "CoC shouldn't cover Xist against the dominant X"
and/or "America is the dominant country/culture".

-- 
Rory

[1] Full disclosure: Frederik is my boss.
[2] cf. the "questions to candidates" at the recent board election
[3] This happened to a board member of NodeJS
https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_violations_by_nodejs_board_member/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munroe_Bergdorf_race_row_incident
[5] IMO none of those should be CoC violations.

On 20 December 2017 05:14:25 CET, Blake Girardot <bgirardot at gmail.com>
wrote:
>On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 12:42 AM, joost schouppe
><joost.schouppe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> BTW I've just been told the actual trigger was not anything said on
>here,
>> but some blatant anti-American hate speech  on IRC that wasn't
>countered by
>> those present there:
>
>Hi Joost,
>
>Wait, no, that is a mistake, my fault for the confusion.
>
>I mentioned that example but it happened after Dale's comment on
>twitter.
>
>I mentioned it because Frederick's list of things he was ok with
>trying to discourage and be able to actually point to as not
>acceptable in our community should also include attacks on peoples,
>nationalities and cultures. No one and no culture should be subject to
>comments like that in any online community I want to be a part of.
>
>The fact that it is so common toward Americans, even in the most
>extreme form and no one says anything but to just joke along with
>them, I said specifically was not related to Dale's email comment, but
>that it was an example of the kind of thing that contributes to having
>feelings about the osm community Dale expressed. I am not sure the
>context really matters, it for sure was not in a context of "Things I
>would never say" or "Examples of things to discourage" it was made in
>a discussion of avoiding the use of US based services (which is
>obviously a fine discussion as it was just a discussion about not
>using google, facebook, etc).
>
>The pervasive and perfectly accepted prejudice against some groups
>gets really tiresome and frustrating. It leads to a great build up of
>frustration at best and drives people away or to isolation from the
>larger OSM community at worst.
>
>Respectfully,
>blake
>
>
>-- 
>----------------------------------------------------
>Blake Girardot
>OSM Wiki - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Bgirardot
>HOTOSM Member - https://hotosm.org/users/blake_girardot
>skype: jblakegirardot
>
>_______________________________________________
>osmf-talk mailing list
>osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
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