[otde]

Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work — like a fish trying to avoid water in the ocean. The ways companies are built and maintained, the relationship between employers and employees, workplace requirements and benefits — all of these are shaped by and and built from political systems, to say nothing of how politics surrounding a person’s identity might affect their worldview. You’re never going to shut all of that out of your company.

Lots of fearmongering in the comments about “woke mobs” here, and I want to offer a counterpoint to the characterization of the Basecamp employees who left as some kind of shrill hypersensitive scolds. Put yourself in their shoes.

You notice the company you work at has a circulated list of customer’s names, some of which make fun of your race — have been used to make fun of you since you were young. You go “hey this sucks” and it gets taken down. You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life, and that pattern has affected your life negatively and materially. This is not received well — combating a single incident is easy, but unraveling a pattern of behavior is an arduous, years-long, and sometimes unprofitable path. At an all-hands meeting, a higher-up not only denies this pattern exists, but any action taken to unravel it would instead target him instead. The Big Bosses do not refute this until much later, and only partially. Would you feel respected? How would you react if someone said you were acting like a child and demanding something unreasonable? How would you feel if someone told you that you’re only doing this to perform “wokeness?”

[dnautics]

> You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life.

Sure, as a poc I can empathize with this but to then escalate it beyond "hey this sucks, let's stop, let's be better humans" to godwinning it with real atrocities in the outside world is toxic to the workplace. I would not want to work at a place where a POC of my own color was constantly making everything out to be a racial issue, and saying that my colleagues were the worst and equating them to literal terrorists and nazis because they did an ignorant thing here or there, not the least because I'm sure that even as a conscientious person I make mistakes from time to time and I'd rather be treated with forgiveness than blame.

Being treated with forgiveness instead of blame goes for technical stuff and incident management, too. If you start doing this with social issues 100% the culture of blame will bleed over into the technical issues and it won't be pretty.

[ylem]

I agree with you about the decision not to reflexively fire those responsible for the list. Though for the conversation to veer towards white supremacy and for ~30% of the company to leave, I do wonder if something else was going on there. I could be a bad judge of humans, but if it was just one guy overreacting, I would think that fewer people would have quit.

[dnautics]

To be honest, I would leave almost any company that offered me 6 months salary in severance, if for no other reason than to work on projects for a couple of months while seeking a next job and then making double salary for four months. I passed up that opportunity once (and it was the right choice because it was my first tech company experience,I needed to build up years behind the keyboard and a portfolio), but I definitely would not today.

[ylem]

I guess it's just a different way of thinking that I'm unfamiliar with. I have turned down other job offers (30-40% salary increase--not 2x) because I like where I am--coworkers, projects, autonomy, city, etc.

[duxup]

I can understand being hurt and more about the funny names list.

But I think things have gotten out of hand when at an all hands meeting people are debating topics like:

"we live in a white supremacist culture"

Or demands from one employee to another at all hands meetings to denounce white supremacy.

I doubt many companies could handle that right... and I'm sure many people would come away more hurt.

[stevenwoo]

The context is he was responding to employee #4 who constantly quoted Breitbart on company forums (which employees brought up until Basecamp went in and erased old messages.), and the company #1 and #2 backed up the Breitbart supporter, and denied employee request to change the racist code names for outside companies. This is similar to GitHub where they fired the Jewish employee for telling people to be aware of Nazi sympathizers on January 6 because using the word Nazi offended some “apolitical” employee who objected to using the word Nazi to describe Nazis.

[sol_invictus]

So the problem is not that Basecamp doesn't allow political opinions, it's just that they don't allow the right political opinions. Why am I not surprised... This whole American thought police experiment is going to end in a massive dumpster fire in the not-too-distant future.

[newacct583]

We don't know the context, but as to your second item... when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial?

I know what you're really saying, which is that people on the right feel persecuted by being implicitly accused of being racists. And... y'know, that's fair. Probably 90% of the time in arguments like this that's an unfounded accusation made in bad faith just to score points.

But still... the treatment is to point out that, yes, you guys might disagree with us woke hippies politically but you're still on the light side of the force and care about the same basic morality so of course you denounce white supremacy. Right?

What's horrifying to us hippies is the extent to which so many of you simply won't, and want to turn it around into an argument instead. But you do, right? Denounce white supremacy? If your coworker demanded it, you might roll your eyes a bit but you'd do it? Right?

[duxup]

I think demanding someone denounce white supremacy on demand seems kafkaesque.

You're only asked if you're perceived to have done or said something someone else thinks wrong...

"when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial"

I don't know what you mean by that, and i honestly don't understand who "you guys" are or the rest of your premise.

[ertian]

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

It's a loaded question, with no right answer. According to the article, the same speaker claimed that there was a culture of white supremacy at the company. There were demands to stop 'protecting' an exec who had expressed conservative views in the past.

Do you now or have you ever had sympathy for the positions of the communist party?

Well, do I mean the position that anybody who disagrees with the leadership should be sent to the gulag, or do I mean progressive taxation? Sorry, it's not clear--now answer quickly, before you're judged on your hesitation! Anything you say may be enthusiastically used against you in future discussions! Are you a racist, or do you admit here in public that this company has a racist culture?!

[_y5hn]

It's especially troublesome for a wife-beater that wants to stay in power.

People in power do all sorts of stuff, to stay in power and keep others down.

[ertian]

And people who seeking power do all sorts of stuff to gain it, including asking trap questions with no right answer and using the result as leverage to push people out of leadership positions.

[wvenable]

> when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial?

I'm old and never in my life have I ever been asked to denounce white supremacy. If someone asked me to denounce it, I'd be insulted that they asked. There's some serious implications behind asking someone that question that I hope would never apply to me.

[ryandrake]

I don’t understand how white supremacy even comes up as a topic at a company that makes business collaboration software. Maybe I’m lucky but I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years, and it’s never come up as a topic of work discussion. Vi vs emacs? Yup. Debugging techniques? Sure. Linux vs Windows? Many times. White supremacy??? I can’t think of a single moment where that would have been on-topic for any tech job I’ve ever done. What on Earth kind of software are you all working on?

[bellyfullofbac]

It probably came up because of the "funny" internal names they were giving to customers, some of them being in Asia and Africa. While some may view that as harmless fun, others might see it as mocking/insulting. Maybe it's a valid question whether the names came from wanting to feel superior.

If my wife told me the neighbors got a BMW, I could reply that "Huh, their bank is going to lose all their money", mocking them to make myself feel better after seeing that I'm not that well-off to be able to buy such a car. IMO it would be an attempt by me to gain some superiority...

[luxuryballs]

I would be shocked if anyone was being racist or thinking themselves superior by making a list of funny sounding names that made them laugh. It’s just a coincidence that the funny names would possibly be a specific race. This seems obvious given the fact that the names were chosen for being funny not because they were names belonging to specific races. Any name that didn’t sound funny yet was a person of another race didn’t likely make it to the list… unless they specifically had a list of “non-white people using white sounding names”, etc.

[Poiesis]

I think people's defensiveness can get in the way of empathy.

I would be somewhat dismayed if someone asked me to denounce white supremacy, because I would hope that it would be obvious that I abhor white supremacy.

I don't think I'd be insulted, though--and certainly not to the level of refusing to do any denouncing. Of course it's wrong! Hope to live in a world where it goes without saying. Until then, happy to repeat as often as anyone cares to hear it.

[_y5hn]

Some people will never be happy, but will happily tear everyone down. They will never mature to grow out of resentment and forgive.

It's way harder though as long as injustice is perpetuated.

So it's nuanced.

[luxuryballs]

and if someone is being defensive it’s extremely likely that they were approached or engaged with an equal lack of empathy, the obvious one being starting out with any assumption based on their skin color, it then risks becoming a Kafka trap, which is when you claim someone denying something is evidence of it actually being true

[username90]

> But you do, right? Denounce white supremacy? If your coworker demanded it, you might roll your eyes a bit but you'd do it? Right?

Bullying people creates enemies, not allies. They might not be a white supremacist but they would not denounce them either because you are being so annoying.

As a counter example, lets say someone comes to you in the middle of your work and demand you denounce black crime. Would you do it? Black crime is bad, right? Why wouldn't you denounce black crime, are you pro crime? That can't be true, can it, why can't you just denounce it? Its just a few words, simple right?

Now, you would likely just see that guy as an annoying racist rather than someone who wants law and order. Now from that perspective take a look at yourself and see how people see you when you try to force random people to denounce white supremacy.

[sol_invictus]

The hordes going around asking you to "denouce white supremacism" isn't anything to do with white supremacy, it's a power play to subvert. Again, it helps to reverse the roles here to see how idiotic this is: imagine someone going into a black neighbourhood asking regular people to denounce gang violence.

[philosopher1234]

you think they would resist denouncing it, despite the racism in that question?

[sol_invictus]

Of course they would and they should, much like I would tell someone asking me to denounce white supremacy to f-off despite me being white.

[simondotau]

> Denounce white supremacy? If your coworker demanded it, you might roll your eyes a bit but you'd do it? Right?

Would you though? Having a co-worker insist that you denounce white supremacy says far more about the co-worker than any refusal to play their little games says about you.

[_pmf_]

> when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial

White people existing is not "white supremacy".

White people existing in positions of power is also not "white supremacy".

"White supremacy" is an ideology that declares the White race as genetically superior. (Yes, I know the left tries to shift this as it sees convenient.)

Claiming that Basecamp has a problem with "white supremacy" would be a blatant lie.

[simondotau]

Watch out, I get the feeling that "white supremacy" now also means other things. Remember we're all expected to be up-to-date on the latest definitions of Words To Describe The Bad People.

[ipaddr]

Demanding you denounce a minority population is how we got into this problem in the first place.

Don't you see you are creating white supremacy by demanding everyone persecute it? You create the demand.

[simondotau]

That's an interesting perspective which I had not considered before. There are certainly plenty of people out there desperate to sit in opposition to mainstream culture, not merely to be arbitrarily contrarian, but because they enjoy the feeling of being hated. The fire-hose of scorn and derision maintained by such rote denouncements might attract them to the idea like moths to a flame.

[Ygg2]

I don't think it's going to increase demand by persecution.

Maybe if being racist becomes the new underground lifestyle like being goth, etc.

[brailsafe]

This basically does happen. For it to not happen, people would have to universally be ok with prejudice toward them based on their skin colour, and that's obviously not true. A certain percentage of them will develop more hostile beliefs toward people who they feel are persecuting them.

[edanm]

> We don't know the context, but as to your second item... when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial?

We do know the context. It was in the article. And without taking sides on this issue, just to clarify - the original question "debated" wasn't an ask to denounce white supremacy, it was the question of whether "we live in a white supremacist culture" and whether "white supremacy exists at basecamp", which are both very different from blanket denouncing white supremacy.

(And just to be super clear - this did lead to being asked to denounce white supremacy, and I get the impression the employees considered the response to this request inadequate, though in follow ups Jason did denounce white supremacy. I think the context of when/how this was asked is important, and luckily we do have it.)

[notSupplied]

The most typical reason people don't like to answer that question is because they believe it is as setup for a followup:

"Then why aren't you doing X?!" where X in this case could be "Fire this person", "Setup a committee overseeing all hires", "Commit to quotas", "Donate money to this cause."

Also reminds me of this "Yes Prime Minister" skit about leading questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

[notSupplied]

Actually, an even more obvious reason that I missed:

Politics have become so tribal, that even simple sentences no longer mean what they mean at face value. Instead, they more often signal membership in a group who holds a certain bundle of beliefs.

Do you think human lives matter...as in...all of them? Do you think men should have basic rights...as in...mens rights?

Did you cringe a little at the last few words of those sentences? Even though at face value, they are very agreeable sentences? I think similarly, middle/right leaning people who aren't actually racist, think that parroting a political phrase on demand at work, is signaling a bunch of other "bundled ideologies" that they don't want to be a part of.

[Ygg2]

> But you do, right? Denounce white supremacy?

Sure, if the other party apologies to me (a Slav) first for their bigotry, racism, and slaver history.

[sol_invictus]

It's quite the opposite - it's a fool's errand harboring fragile employees who are willing to make such a show about a email containing juvenile name calling. You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue.

This will hurt Basecamp in the immediate term but over time they will be better off.

[philosopher1234]

This comes off as though you didn't even read the comment you're replying to. I don't see how you can, in good faith, frame their point as "the most miniscule issue".

[sol_invictus]

Lets try it the other way around - convince me that the issue at hand isn’t way overblown. I promise to try to be as objective as possible.

[philosopher1234]

Thats what the original comment did, and you neglected all of their points.

[simondotau]

Within the context of Basecamp internal company chat, demands that employees must prove they're not A Bad Person by repeating an particular string of words (as though that would prove anything anyway) is an incredibly minuscule issue indeed.

[philosopher1234]

How is this related to the GP comment?

[simondotau]

It sounds like the two of us have different ideas about what the GGP referred to as the issue when they said "You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue."

I'll leave it to the GGP to clarify.

[acituan]

> You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life, and that pattern has affected your life negatively and materially. This is not received well — combating a single incident is easy, but unraveling a pattern of behavior is an arduous, years-long, and sometimes unprofitable path.

One can empathically agree that such injustice, and any injustice, sucks, and still advocate compartmentalizing between institutions of the society writ large. That unprofitable path is not Basecamp's to bear. Not all injustices of the society receive a corresponding level of PR and therefore can be equally leveraged in the context of employee activism in a private enterprise.

If rank ordering of the issues of the society is left to the ripples made by affluential corporate citizens, that will introduce a host of biases that will alienate the full set of citizens of the democracy, and will likely create its own class of injustices.

The issue is not about surgically removing politics from work, it is to prevent its (mis)use as a backchannel.

To be clear, I feel equally strongly against corporate activism at the C-level or at the corporate identity level. But most employee activism is not only not a counter to that, it amplifies and parasitizes those very dynamics.

[paulddraper]

> Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work

No?

Politics and religion: the two topics you avoid in professional settings. Over drinks? Sure. But not at work.

[tarsinge]

I don’t follow the justification of the general statement you put first with then Basecamp specific customer’s name list issue. Basecamp were wrong in how they handled it, but I think the general point still has its merit: there is too much political discussion nowadays, and maybe the workplace should stay professional. Too bad Basecamp just ruined that discussion.

[hinkley]

I think one of the reasons companies introduce matching donation programs is that it’s politically easier to manage than trying to pick five charities to support. Someone will have a loud reaction to whatever you chose. Matching makes you vote with your wallet. Put up or shut up.