There has been much to say about ‘seeking equality’ in the developer community. It seems this ‘started’ with an article written by Violet Blue for ZDNet. I responded Via Email to Pilky and we had an alright little back and forth.
I planned to let that be my contribution to this round of “let’s talk about equality”. But I have been roused to more after reading the latest round of responses, especially this one By Mike Lee, and the aforementioned Violet Blue article that sparked this debate.
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First, the zdnet article by Ms. Blue. It sounds like she did ‘ham it up’ and play the victim in her example conversation. She and her friend could have responded with honest answers and seen where the conversation went. That they fabricated their answers, however, does not invalidate the sense of unease that inspired that fabrication. It is terribly easy to say they aren’t real victims. After all, what really happened? They crashed a party and encountered some men whose behavior they did not care for. Big deal. right?
“What are you black people doing here?” See. Just like that the foul is easier to spot. Maybe the speaker simply had no other way to describe the subjects. If that was the case, maybe the speaker should have thought NOT to describe the subjects.
Beside the unnecessary description, asking someone you don’t know ‘what they are doing here’ implies that they should explain. Even asking someone you do know creates unease more often than not. To stop being coy, the statement seems careless at best. He may have simply wanted to start a conversation with the ladies and picked a bad conversation starter. Simple as that! The problem with this reaction is that it dismisses the poor choice of words as careless and moves on.
“She shouldn’t be mad about that!” Maybe not filled with rage, but she is right to be bothered by what sounds like a condescending question even if condescension was not ‘the intent’!
As an illustrative aside, one of my favorite memories of an old coworker of mine is a moment in which he addressed me as boy in an exclamation then, after a beat and without prompting, followed with “I sound racist with that boy S@!#” Now, I already knew he was not calling me boy in the old south way. I really did. Even knowing his that, the exclamation put me on edge. Anytime that anyone, regardless of race or gender, addresses me as boy, I am put on edge. I understand that there are many people who have no idea why it should bother me. I understand and still consider those who address me as boy to be careless. That this coworker noticed his moment of carelessness and addressed it spoke volumes of him.
That we would accept and dismiss the carelessness of beginning a conversation with “what are you girls doing here?” in a typically male dominated setting speaks volumes of us as a community. Go ahead and call foul on Violet’s charade, but address the topic she presents as well. Careless remarks are careless. and bear examining.
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On the reality of being a victim
Mike Lee, apparently, has a backstory with many backstories worth of terrible history. I will not, in anyway, attempt to invalidate that. What I will say is thatgrievous injustices should not dwarf less obvious incidents to the point of non-consideration. No, Violet Blue was not accosted in manner that can be legally prosecuted, but it was a ‘small’ failure of interaction that we could maybe discuss and learn from.
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I, for a moment, was self important enough to consider writing a much longer post with an edited version of my side of the pilky conversation. That seems like a silly endeavor. If someone happens to read this and wants to talk or post a comment or any such… griotspeak on twitter or gmail.