[xya3453]

I believe the original text was "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as either all the white men at Google are bigots, or that Google should only fire bigots if they are a white male.

Highlighting race and gender when making such a statement is completely unnecessary, e.g. imagine the outcry if someone had said "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted black women".

[iak8god]

> "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as all the white men at Google are bigots.

It really can't.

[simonpenn]

I agree with you that this statement, on its own, does not imply all men are like that.

However, the following concerns apply

1) I as a (non-bigoted) white man do not trust the good faith of the person speaking (in context, at Google)

2) I have seen analogous comments about eg. black people be auto-interpreted as bad faith when context made it clear that it was not bad-faith.

3) The inclusion of "white" and "man" in that statement are unnecessary, so them being included in spite of that is a signal of bad faith.

I would like to work in a place where everyone is intelligent and good-faith enough to interpret this sentence in its reasonable sense. But the reality is that such a place doesn't exist. At best I can get a place where statements against white men as a group get this treatment, but statements against other groups will always be interpreted as bad-faith, regardless of context.

I would like for all ambiguous statements like this to be interpreted on the same standard, but as long as they will not be, the next best step is to err on the side of caution and have a blanket ban of things like this

[xya3453]

Sure it can, if a vegetarian friend of yours said "If you want to increase your health remove all the disgusting meat from your diet", would you read that as them saying that all meat is disgusting or just the occasional piece?

[slededit]

English isn't a strict language. The context here depends on the frequency that you would consume disgusting meat and that will change the common meaning. I suppose there are people who literally think all white men are bigoted and could mean it to apply that way, but I find it unlikely that was the original intent.

That said I don't think there was a need to call out white men specifically in the sentence.

[xya3453]

> Social Justice Unicorn. Genderqueer. Intersectional feminist. Work for @Google but opinions are my own. Pronouns: they/them/their

This is Alon Altman's (@epsalon) current Twitter bio. How would you read the original intent?

[aklemm]

Well, if that bio triggered me, I'd probably assume bad intent. But it doesn't trigger me, so it makes me glad to see people fighting for inclusion.

[Veelox]

I strongly suspect that you would find the statement "If you want to increase productivity at Google fire all the lazy black people." racist because it implies that all black people are lazy.

If both statement seems fine fine to you than okay.

[iak8god]

OK, I kind of agree with you. Logically, it doesn't entail that, but it would be insane to treat natural language as pure logic. Pragmatically, taking context into account, I think the original statement is more likely meant to imply that "All (or a vast majority of) bigots at Google are white men" than "All white men at Google are bigots."

[Veelox]

It is kind of like the thread I have seen a few times that does something like

>Damore didn't say women are inferior

>> Quotes Damore "I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership." >> See he clearly called them inferior.

>>> No he didn't he just said they were different.

Two people see the same sentence and draw very different conclusions. We can either adopt a norm of honoring what the writer intended or a norm of honoring what the reader observed. I think a lot of people who are most vocally pro-diversity use the later norm when determining if something is or isn't ????ist. If this is the norm I think it should be universally the norm. Thus if we are being charitable to the writer I agree with you that the interpretation should be "We should fire all of the bigots (who happen to be white men)" and not "We should fire all the white men (who are bigots)."

This is a really hard principle to apply consistently which is why I tried to highlight the same kind of statement that was racist instead of sexist. In hopes that people could understand why white men might take offense to the original comment.

Hope the explanation helps.

[iak8god]

> Hope the explanation helps.

Absolutely.

> We can either adopt a norm of honoring what the writer intended or a norm of honoring what the reader observed. I think a lot of people who are most vocally pro-diversity use the later norm when determining if something is or isn't ????ist. If this is the norm I think it should be universally the norm.

Gods, I hope this does not become the norm. "Everything can mean anything!"

[Veelox]

>Gods, I hope this does not become the norm. "Everything can mean anything!"

As a conservative it kind of feels like that is the case. The second named party in the Google suit got fired for an interpretation of his comments he didn't mean.

[mproy]

Actually, that's the most likely interpretation. To say otherwise seems disingenuous.

[aklemm]

Exactly. You have to willfully look for an uncharitable interpretation for either of those interpretations.