I completely agree that the PSF should be less political and not more political.
The PSF is choosing to comment on arbitrary political issues. There is institutional racism in non-black communities as well. When will the PSF mention racism against “brown” people?
The relevant issue here is the PSF statement, which is clearly political. As an example, consider the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Before you start raging, try to understand that one can believe that there are real injustices in society, especially as it relates to the black experience, and simultaneously believe that this particular slogan has proven divisive and has hindered the movement unnecessarily. Why not #JusticeForAll or #EqualityForAll ? Regardless of your particular views on that slogan, it is indisputable that it has been politically controversial and it’s use will be seen by others in that light.
This is just pure FUD. Life is extremely high-dimensional, and you are saying that if one does not move in this single dimension that somehow it means you are supporting the status quo. Give me a break. Did you change your Instagram profile picture to be all black? When precisely did you do it? I noticed your profile picture on this site is not blacked out. Aren’t you supporting the status quo?
One can speak out about issues in many ways, and one should not be shamed for choosing to express in a way that doesn’t align with the ephemeral hipster trends.
The question here is whether or not the PSF should have made a statement. Politics is ugly, and there are entire organizations dedicated to it. That is not what this community should be about.
“What a horrible, ignorant, selfish take. I’m glad PSF is taking a
stand, and that it causes people with reactionary ‘beliefs’ to reveal
themselves and depart from the community.”
I don’t think that comment is accepting of constructive criticism,
respectful of differing viewpoints, or empathetic towards those whose
distaste for politics is greater than yours. (Or perhaps their learned
helplessness.) And it is certainly neither welcoming nor inclusive.
You and Jack disagree about the actions taken by the PSF. Jack doesn’t
want the PSF board to make political statements on behalf of all members
rather than just speaking as individuals. Can you see no alternative
than to assume that Jack is acting in bad faith, or that he is a
reactionary authoritarian and racist?
The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to support the growth of a diverse community of Python programmers. Making a statement that underlines the PSF’s support for diversity and speaking up against inequalities is not equivalent to a political statement.
Apologies, but I do not agree. The PSF support for diversity and equality are generic statements that hold always. The Twitter post is not a generic statement. It was a timely response to political events that are happening in the world right now, and therefore participates in that political arena. It is a political statement. We should be very clear about that.
Even if you personally do not believe it to be a political statement, if enough people in the world interpret it as a political statement, then it becomes one from the perspective of public relations. Organizations do not get to pick and choose how their public statements are experienced by their audiences.
I don’t follow foreign news that much, so I’m probably not getting all of the context for that tweet. (One of the reasons I tend to avoid Twitter is that tweets avoid links and references, so you can’t easily get up to speed in conversations. But that’s not the digression I wanted to start with.)
When I helped bootstrap PyLadies CZ, I got a lot of questions about why I’m helping women specifically. What about other groups we don’t see in IT?
My answer was always that there’s just one of me, and I need to pick my battles. Getting more women into IT makes the crowd more diverse, and if it’s OK to be a woman on a team, that also makes it be a bit more OK to believe a minority religion, have one arm, or just wear unusually colorful hair.
If anyone accused me of favoritism, I told to go help any or all other marginalized groups – blind people, the elderly, the Romani, the homeless, people with physical disabilities… If I was in the US, I’d probably mention Black people or prisoners. (Apologies if I’m using disrespectful terms; please educate me if so. English is not my first language.)
It’s really hard to do something about discrimination in general. Specific examples help.
If the Python community is now focusing its generic diversity/anti-discrimination policy on Black people (of all the races) just as we see PyLadies or Django Girls focus on women (of all the genders), that’s great! And if the PSF is riding a wave of public interest to further the cause – well, hopefully it’ll continue even when the wave recedes. It would be sad if this was just a reaction to blood on the streets.
I see that the tweet shows how the PSF’s general principles relate to current events in one country – and a country big enough that local changes there could easily be felt globally.
Let’s do more of those.
(Also: remember the murders of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, which caused protests across the nation. What can the Python community do to protect free speech and investigative journalism?)
It may well do. Why would excluding that person makes things better, though? You had a contributor who had trouble working with Antoine without saying why. Now you have one less contributor.
Now if that person publicly posts racist or xenophobic comments aimed at members of the Python community, I agree the problem should be tackled at the community level.
To me, this sounds like a new form of McCarthyism. All sides of the political spectrum have, at point or another in history, suffered from such behavior. Do you think it will make people feel safe and welcome?
As far as I’m concerned, I find it unsafe and disturbing to learn that people may be punished for their unvoiced opinions “without having to wait for an actual violation”. This is the mark of a totalitarian organization, and not something that I expect in a free software community.
To be clear, again, nobody asks you to be personally indifferent and, as said above, there are good reasons not to be indifferent. This discussion is entirely about the PSF’s stance.
The question is not about beliefs [1], the question is about the appropriateness of the venue. I also do not think the PSF should be making political statements, nor religious statements, nor statements about national pass-times and who’s team is best [2].
[1] Jack says he agrees with the statement – were you so angry by that point that you missed it?
A 501c3 can take stands on policy issues, but must stop short of endorsing or opposing specific candidates or parties:
Then again, IANAL.
That said, I would prefer that the PSF not presume to speak for its membership. And, in that respect, it’s immaterial to me whether I agree or disagree with the politicized statements it makes. On the other hand, I don’t mind much, because anyone who thinks the PSF speaks for its membership apparently knows nothing about its members anyway .
The PSF had to choose to speak up and get yelled at by y’all that they’re too political, or stay silent and get yelled at by those who want them to speak up, because other foundations and projects did that too. There was no choice that didn’t involve someone being angry at them.
This thread did indeed convince me that the PSF’s statement was mistaken (as in “failed to reflect the objective reality”) in stating that the Python community comes together in support. It evidently does not.
Judging by the way it is used, the word ‘political’ at this point seems utterly devoid of any meaning other that ‘that which is bad’. The statement’s bad because it’s political, and that is bad. The train of thought stops here.
Let me ask: why is that bad? You say “because it’s controversial”. IOW, people who believe police violence shouldn’t be protested, who value their comfort of not being disturbed by pesky politics more than anything else, they exist, somewhere, such a statement alienates them, and that is bad. That’s where you lose me. Why should you want to welcome and appease those charming souls in your community at the cost of losing diversity? Even if you only care about the optics, don’t you find the optics of that to be horrible?
It’s mind-boggling. How can a person of good conscience (!) be so incensed by a statement that they supposedly either support themselves or not care about (!!) to the point of leaving the community (!!!) on principle that… some people might not agree with it? And valuing that principle more than a display of solidarity with people who suffer from systemic injustice? I honestly can’t comprehend that. I give up.
Punished how? All my clumsy example was trying to say is that by declaring support for our black community members and against inequality the PSF sets up expectations without having to wait for an ugly violation first to set the ruling precedent. Again, we are talking about “opinions” which even in the current unchanged wording of the CoC would be considered violations.
BTW, big guns you’re bringing out with the “totalitarian” parallels. Let’s keep Godwin at bay.
Nobody is threatening kicking anybody out for their thoughts and feelings. Our CoC however lists inappropriate behavior and that includes any “conduct that is inappropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds”.
The PSF says in its statement that “any threat to the diversity of our community is a threat to our entire community” and it asks the Python community to come together in action “to eradicate racism, xenophobia, and all other forms of inequality”. This is naturally in line with the stated standard set in the CoC:
The Python community is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion (or lack thereof), education, or socio-economic status.
“Nobody”? This is the sentence I was originally responding to (not by you), in which the poster clearly rejoinced about @jackdied’s decision:
I’m glad PSF is taking a stand, and that it causes people with reactionary ‘beliefs’ to reveal themselves and depart from the community.
I notice you didn’t take the opportunity to reply to that sentence, but instead replied to me, which suggests that you’re ok with shunning away a longtime contributor who didn’t even (to the best of my knowledge) violate the Code of Conduct.
I will just mention that in many workplaces (aka professional audiences), political discussion is often considered inappropriate. Why? Because the world is a diverse place with many differing opinions. It is far too easy for the majority (or a perceived majority) to create an environment wherein those with differing views feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. In many cases, historical and present, these issues can lead to discrimination. I’m sure you can think of a few good examples. All of this should sound familiar…because the mechanisms are often the same.
Group dynamics are hard. When deviating away from work-related or expected topics, it’s common to focus on items that are not political, religious, sensitive, triggering, etc. Maybe it should not be that way, but that is the current culture.
My friend, this is a low blow. I decide not to engage with heated language since it escalates the situation. This is why I also ignored your remark about low reading comprehension by another commenter.
Am I indifferent to Jack’s leaving? I don’t know, maybe I’ll quote… me…
LOL. Thank you for pointing out why it is political.
I’ve seen untold number of twitter conversations where people who agree in principle are yelling at each other on the meta of where to put the emphasis. Putting the emphasis on the issue (black lives matter as much as white lives) is one approach and there are pros/cons to that. Putting the emphasis on the ideal (equality for all, including black lives) is another approach and there are also pros/cons. There’s simply no denying that it has been a controversial slogan, and there may have been more unity on the issue much earlier had the slogan been worded differently. There’s just no advantage to offending people who can be allies on a topic. The same idea is in play with people kneeling during the pledge of allegiance. It clearly offends some people. Those kneeling are free to continue to kneel, but by switching the tactic just a bit, you can avoid the “controversy” and unite people quicker. I saw US flags being burned during these protests. Someone might argue that we aren’t calling attention to the problem of police killing black people with impunity unless we burn the USA flag. That’s certainly an opinion someone can take, but it is a very controversial opinion and there are probably more effective approaches to getting the message across. Etc. Etc.
There is often a subtle implication that by emphasizing the ideal standard that people are incapable of understanding the motivation for the protests. That’s not really true. And there are many brown lives that are being taken with zero cause as well. Inclusion > exclusion.
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