The PSF should be less political, not more

[brettcannon]

@nathaniel

if after all this discussion you feel so deeply that what the PSF has done or said is still so unconscionable, then I would encourage you run for a Steering Council position and enact the changes that you wish to fight so hard for.

Just to be clear, that would be running for the PSF board of directors, not the steering council.

[nathaniel (Nathaniel Compton)]

Thank you. I corrected my post.

[grodola (Giampaolo Rodola)]

The PSF should be less political, not more

+1
It inevitably leads people to take sides, which easily creates division.

[hawkowl (Amber Brown)]

@brettcannon

I will say that I don’t view what’s going on as US-centric. Protests are being had here in Canada against systemic racism. There have been protests worldwide. While a US event may have been the catalyst, what’s going on now transcends US borders.

There are also tens of thousands of attendees to Australian BLM rallies, with a particular focus on injustices to Australian Indigenous people and dozens of deaths in custody. The PSF’s statement is certainly applicable here.

By the way – Australia, if I have my numbers right, is the home of largest single-nation Python conference in the world, and the third largest behind PyCon NA and EuroPython.

I would therefore say that the Python community in Australia is both not minor to the PSF, as well as one that this message and support is incredibly relevant to.

[glyph]

For what it’s worth, I support the aforementioned statement by the PSF, and while it saddens me to see Jack leave as a result, I think it’s a statement that needed making. Hopefully he will reconsider after coming to understand its importance.

Regarding the title, I believe it’s a bit of a red herring to try to figure out what is and isn’t “political”, because almost any controversial issue can inherently become political based on how and where it becomes debated. Organizations should not (and, functionally, can not) avoid all controversy because then they cannot ever say or do anything substantive. Certainly the PSF has made plenty of positive statements about gender and racial diversity in the past.

Now, surely the PSF should avoid unnecessary controversy that is irrelevant or peripheral to its mission, and should not, for example, take a strong stand on a policy proposal regarding the gradations of the marginal personal income tax rate in Maine, or endorsing a specific political party or candidate in an election. So then we have to look at this statement on the merits: does it matter to Python; is it relevant to “promoting, protecting, and advancing the Python programming language, supporting and facilitating the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers”?

I was originally going to relay some second-hand anecdotes here from Black developers here that would help to make the case that more explicit support from the PSF would help them to show up and join the community. But frankly I don’t think I should be speaking for them, and it is perhaps a stronger point anyway that despite the fact that I know almost everyone posting in this thread, zero post so far have come from Black developers to directly share their experiences. Why aren’t they here? If there’s any chance that it’s because not enough of them have felt safe and supported by our community, then a statement like the one on Twitter is really the least we can do.

So I think this statement falls squarely into Popper’s paradox of tolerance. We cannot be passively intolerant of intolerance; statements like this one, voicing active support for oppressed participants of our community at a time when silence would be a statement of its own, is both positive and necessary.

[adrinjalali (Adrin)]

Interesting. All I an say is that the PSF’s message makes me feel more comfortable as a minority member of the python community, and reactions against the statement such as the ones we see in this thread make me less comfortable. An absence of PSF’s statement would have made me feel they really don’t care about the diversity of our community, and I’m glad they do.

So if you genuinely agree with PSF’s statement but have a hard time understanding whether it’s appropriate to be made on PSF’s behalf, you can maybe think about how it makes the minority groups feel (both the statement and your reactions).

[Alex_Martelli]

I believe applicable precedents may include the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. Each organization clearly has political stances it advocates, and a branch (or, equivalently, an affiliate sharing the org’s well-known brand) which acts to promote such stance and/or oppose contrary ones. Nevertheless, each organization was also able to structure itself so that another branch or affiliate, engaging exclusively in 501c3-compatible activities (pro-bono legal defense, medical advice and help) is eligible to receive tax-deductible donations (also, some employers match such donations by employees, although they wouldn’t match them if they were to explicitly-political entities). Slightly different, but analogous, are “get out the vote” organizations; hard to argue that increasing voter participation is NOT a political act, yet such orgs, as long as they carefully avoid bias about WHOSE participation they support by overt political means, are apparently also eligible for 501c3 status (and potentially donation-matching by some employers).

I imagine it takes smart lawyers to structure organizations in such ways, but if ACLU, PP, and rockthevote.org can mobilize such lawyers and restructure to keep receiving tax-free donations, I guess the PSF could achieve that, too.

[felipeca (Felipe Carvalho)]

i am with PSF

[aeros (Kyle Stanley)]

While I 100% agree with the message in the tweet and stand with the PSF in their statement, this thread demonstrates that we should consider taking additional measures before going forward with similar public statements on behalf of the entire PSF.

In particular, I think it would be reasonable to have the statement go through other channels (such as psf-community@python.org and/or here on discuss) to receive approval from the community prior to publishing it as something that the entire Python Software Foundation stands behind. Not only does it provide a chance for all members to provide feedback; it also adds further strength to the eventual statement.

[methane (Inada Naoki)]

I am 100% with PSF statement. Black Lives Matter!

On the other hand, I feel it is a bit “America First”, because PSF has not taken a stand for Syria, Uyghur, Venezuela, and other serious human rights violations.

I know PSF is in USA, so it is not a problem. But I think PSF can (not should) be more political when serious human rights violation happens.

Regards,

[aeros (Kyle Stanley)]

@aeros

In particular, I think it would be reasonable to have the statement go through other channels (such as psf-community@python.org and/or here on discuss) to receive approval from the community prior to publishing it as something that the entire Python Software Foundation stands behind.

To elaborate a bit on this, I’m specifically referring to statements that explicitly claim to be representing the entire PSF; e.g. “The Python Software Foundation stands in solidarity…”, not all statements made by the PSF.

Also, by “receive approval from the community”, I mean through something like a poll accessible to all voting PSF members that would pass if it receives majority support from those who choose to vote within the window, vaguely similar to the core dev voting process. It might be realistically impossible to get everyone to entirely agree on a statement without removing its meaning, but that doesn’t mean that the voting members of the PSF can’t be involved in the decision.