[Novalug] OT: old white men blabbing

Nino Pereira ninorpereira@gmail.com
Sun Aug 16 17:56:11 EDT 2020


Peter,

in checking Grace Hopper's videos I ran across one that may be
relevant here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqwvIPibGfM

It's full of not OWM.

Nino

On 8/16/20, Peter Larsen via Novalug <novalug@firemountain.net> wrote:
> On 8/16/20 11:21 AM, Brandon Mitchell via Novalug wrote:
>> On Sat, 2020-08-15 at 13:54 -0400, Nino Pereira via Novalug wrote:
>>> One perennial issue is that of feeling welcome in a group that may seem
>>> standoffish. IMHO the cause lies more often in the person than in the
>>> group: you may feel an outsider because there are few of 'your kind' in
>>> attendance. Again, IMHO, this depends on how you see yourself: if you
>>> define yourself by your professional activity, or your interest, you are
>>> welcome in NoVaLUG: if you define yourself more as an immigrant,
>>> black or brown (except, of course, indian or middle-eastern or another
>>> type of brownish-looking persons amply represented among computer
>>> people) you may not. Or, being of the unstereotypical gender or
>>> sexual orientation, whatever the less represented categories are these
>>> days.
>>
>> The sentiment here bothers me. It implies that it's the responsibility
>> of others to conform with the group, rather than the responsibility of
>> the group to be more welcoming of others.
>
> Hey Brandon,
> Unfortunately my reply here is going to mostly be about why I don't
> agree with you. So I first want to stress a very important point - not
> agreeing doesn't mean you and people who share your view aren't welcome.
> At least not if I have anything to say about it.
>
> Let me make an analogy here - let's say me and a couple of neighbors
> have a Bridge Club - we meet once a week, have drinks and snacks, chat
> and play bridge. A new neighbor moves in, and learns about our club. Now
> this new neighbor is a vegetarian - and the snacks had at our club is
> "pigs in blankets". Our new neighbor likes Bridge but not the way we
> play it. The way I read your paragraph you're suggesting that the bridge
> club change how they've meet, what they eat and how they play so PERHAPS
> this new neighbor wants to join?  Should the new neighbor not join
> because "those meat eaters are just repulsive"? Isn't the right process
> that they join, while there suggest not just having pigs-in-blankets but
> perhaps a veggie tray or something and work from there?  Do you really
> believe in what you said, that the minority is who sets the agenda here?
> If you want to join the club, you join the club for WHAT IT IS.
>
> This is basically what NOVALUG is. A lot of people who shares a single
> interest. We all have other interests and functions in our life, but
> here on this mailing list only ONE of them matter. Regardless of who
> else we are none of that can matter here. And who knows - once our new
> neighbor joined, they may like the way we played OR *drum roll* once we
> try the new way of playing that may be our new favorite. But it cannot
> be a pre-condition for joining!
>
> So I absolutely do not agree with this core notion that we as a group
> need to understand everyone else's opinion/view. "All" we need to do is
> allow others who also want to talk about Linux to get a voice here. And
> make sure they can do so without fearing "bad things". Look at it as an
> opportunity to educate.
>
>>> I do hope that those who may not feel as welcome as they would like
>>> will come out of the woodwork and share their views. I'm quite sure this
>>> group will try to accommodate their feelings.
>>
>> This is a perfect example of how discrimination against minorities
>> happens. It's not the job of the minority to educate the majority on
>> how to be more welcoming.
>
> Sure it is! Unless you show me how you can tell what I think and feel,
> it's absolutely up to ME to tell YOU how I perceive your actions. It
> cannot never be the other way. You seem to hint that just because
> someone's skin-color is white that it has ANY impact on what that person
> is, do and can do? Or for that matter any other skin-color? No way I can
> tell what someone who just happens to not be white likes, thinks or do?
> Isn't that the kind of actions and ideas we want to avoid?
>
> It's up to people who feel mistreated to speak up. KIDS have their
> parents to help read/protect them and speak up on their behalf, but
> among adults it's up to each and everyone of us, to speak up.
>
>> If we look around and only see others that
>> look exactly like us, then it's our job to educate ourselves on what we
>> are doing wrong.
>
> Really? So in my household we have only white people. I'm white, my wife
> is white and the kids and grand-kids are all white. What are we doing
> wrong??  Btw. I recently (sort of - before all this COVID crap) had a
> great visit with a college of mine celebrating his extreme BBQ skills -
> they all happened to be "not white" - what are they doing wrong?
>
> Social groups establish around commonalities. It's how families work.
> It's how cities and states got established! Guilds and unions - it is
> all established around commonalities. Something shared. Is it a problem
> that the Teamsters is only Truck Drivers?
>
> Now, if my family had a non-white person knock on our door and we would
> not answer because of that, then I agree there's a problem. But how in
> the world would I know why someone chooses not to knock on our door to
> begin with?
>
>> Those that are trying to break into this industry
>> already have enough to do with the systemic discrimination that happens
>> at every level.
>
> Examples please. I'm not saying there aren't people who discriminate -
> you can find that all over the place, just like there are still
> murderers, rapists etc. even though it's illegal. But you're saying
> systematic.
>
> This is a huge political topic - if 2020 haven't already make it
> absolutely abundantly clear that as a society we have FAR to go here
> well, I don't know what will.  It's a bit disheartening to learn that to
> some NOVALUG is impacted of it. Even if nothing so far has been
> specific. If anyone has been turned away from our meetings or mailing
> list based on who they are it's a problem, and something to be taken
> seriously. As you can see/read, as a group nobody has seen such actions
> so the next step would be to take a past history that made others say
> otherwise, and explain that this is the kind of behavior that caused
> someone to withdraw from the group.
>
> That's the topic I hope we can stick to here. The rest is highly
> political and much bigger than NOVALUG. Only as much as it impacts what
> we do, should it be a topic here.
>
>> If the group wants a concrete thing it could do right now, I'd start by
>> adding a Code of Conduct to the group.
>
> I'm a member of a lot of groups outside of NovaLUG - some political,
> some about social change etc. EVERY FRIGGING ONE OF THEM died when they
> tried this. Talking in generalities simply alienates EVERYONE or worse,
> requires the group to dismiss the trend setters to fulfill a social
> equality quota, hence making NOBODY interesting in staying put.
>
> Unless there are specific examples of prior actions taking in the group
> we want to address, this makes absolutely no point and to me it will
> cause the death of the group.
>
> I don't want to have to look for a speaker female+Hispanic+less than 20
> years old to happens to know about Python. I don't need the qualifiers.
> I need to find someone who knows Python well and is willing to talk
> about it. That's all that matters - if the speaker happens to be one of
> those (or all) attributes GREAT - it's hard enough to find speakers, let
> alone trying to pretend the rest of the attributes makes any difference.
> A good speaker is a good speaker, regardless of gender, "race", age etc.
>
>> Link it right to the home page,
>> announce it at the start of meetups, and make sure it provides a way to
>> privately report any violations. And then look around to meetups that
>> don't have these issues and see what steps they've taken.
>
> If it's systematic as you claim, who would you report to?  Open
> communication works a lot better, particular if you're talking about
> actions. Again, from other groups I've seen this closed-door meeting
> stuff come up with the most obscure decisions based on accounts that
> were never validated or true. Rumors or worse bad-intention rumors are
> all they go on, because they are not held accountable. Resulting in
> dismissal of people who've done nothing but help - and well, dragging
> everyone else with them as they are forced out.
>
> I can talk long about a poor fella who got in a lot of trouble because
> he asked a girl in an elevator if she wanted to join him for a cup of
> coffee later. That got him kicked out for sexual harassment! All based
> on the sentiments you suggest here.
>
>> And if those here need an example of what else the group does that
>> could possibly turn off minorities, scroll back to early in the year
>> when we tried to put something together to "Honor RMS", after his
>> remarks condoning underage prostitution went public.
>
> Finally! Thank you for sharing this.
> If I recall (not going back to read it) this thread concluded that
> people are more than ONE thing. Honoring RMS for his work creating the
> foundation of our free/open software, doesn't go away because other
> parts of his personality is obscure (trust me, there's a lot more than
> the example you give). People aren't perfect - lots of people who made
> the path to where we are today have a less than perfect past - for
> instance, William Shockley was part of the trio that invented the
> transistor - he was a jack-ass (white supremacist even!) taking credits
> for things he didn't do, treated his employees like dirt and died more
> or less without any friends - but he's still being honored for his
> impact/part of inventing the transistor. We can do that without also
> honoring other attributes of the man. There's a type of Diode that's
> still named after him because of his work making it possible! But
> perhaps to your point, it's now a very rarely used Diode ... (no I'm not
> talking about Schottky diodes - those are different).
>
> Put differently, we all stand up there and if we can be dismissed
> because we did/said something stupid in our past - how many do you think
> would remain standing? Is that really how you measure people?  And
> realize that those people who break our norms, who think outside the
> box, often do not fit our society well. Albert Einstein fits that bill
> very well. But because he didn't think/act like the rest of us he was
> able to see things we didn't. And push our science decades if not
> centuries forward.  Or should we dismiss Newton because he was a
> religious zealot? Jefferson for holding slaves but still creating the
> foundation of the federal state system we have? With this notion the US
> would never have broken free of Brittan as those who did act all had
> bleak pasts. After all, they were all traitors to the crown!
>
> We can talk about people without having to endorse EVERYTHING they did.
> I may even go as far, that we should bring up more often the stupid
> things people did so we don't leave everyone with the idea that "great
> people" were perfect.
>
> Now I get that we didn't agree on this point. And after this we most
> likely will STILL not agree. And that's ok. But that doesn't mean it
> turned off anyone. Heck, if you expect to join any group like ours and
> agree with everyone on everything - it would be boring and kinda
> pointless. As was suggested - hit delete on a thread you're not
> interested in. Thunderbird (that I use) have a nice plugin that allows
> me to "ignore" threads - ie. I don't get notifications etc. when posts
> come to threads I'm not interested in. Delete works too.
>
> So next time when we talk about big personalities from the Linux/FOSS
> world, feel free to add other dimensions to the discussion - particular
> if it is relevant. William Shockley would not hire "colored" people and
> who knows what inventions/progress we've missed because of that? Stuff
> like that is relevant, but it doesn't take away everything a person has
> done. If we had to do that, our world would indeed be small - probably a
> big fat 0.
>
>> The fact that the
>> entire group didn't immediately shutdown that discussion and many
>> others felt comfortable agreeing with the sentiment should be a clear
>> sign to minorities of the views of the vocal in this group, and I
>> completely understand why they would hesitate to speak up.
>
> The thread is still open - I think you mistook disagreement with shutdown.
>
> Let's turn it around - one of my heroes (heroin?) of IT is Grace Hopper.
> She not only defined what define as computer code today, she pioneered
> for Women in IT and generally women's rights in the work place. She was
> darn smart, and I bet a lot of fun to work with (who don't wish they
> would have been part of the actual bug-hunt that gave us the term "bug"
> describing a fault!?). I really kick myself for never attempting to go
> to a conference to meet her when I had a chance. I've watched so many
> videos of her talks - it would have been great to be there in person!
> She'd gotten lots of honors, and her detractors (mostly based on her
> being a woman) have all eaten their words many times. As it should be.
> But do you really think she never said something wrong? Understand the
> world she was born in - do you really think she never used the "N-word"?
> Or sat in a diner that was "Whites Only"?? - where do you draw the line
> here?  ALL people have multiple dimensions. And while we can admire one,
> we can disagree or despite others without taking away from the first.
>
> So if the goal of doing this to make a group where you know everyone
> will never disagree or feel someone went too far, there won't be a
> group. Some of my best friends are that because I and they said "I'm
> sorry" when it went too far. We don't have to be perfect.
>
> --
> Regards
>   Peter Larsen
>
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