[comte7092]

Your assertions don’t really stack up with the known facts of the situation.

It seems that there was at the very least one instance of behavior that employees perceived as outwardly racist (the names list) and were seeking to address issues surrounding that behavior.

On the outside, it’s hard to know much more about the details, but it also would appear that employees took issue with other somewhat minor slights that may have amounted to a pattern of behavior, in particular relating to someone with a lot of authority at base camp, who was then given a pass under the guise of political differences.

[throwaway789256]

I think my assertions stack up pretty well with the facts.

The names list hasn't been clearly established as racist. If you have 10 times the European names as you have Asian names, is it racist against Asians, or were there "funny" names in all groups?

The perception of racism is not necessarily racism. That is precisely the point that is being argued. The claim of white supremacy does not mean that an organization is white supremacist. Big claims need big evidence. I haven't seen it.

Minor slights happen. They are inevitable in daily life no matter what your race, gender, sexual orientation or other identity. If you use minor slights to create an uproar in the context of your job, you are a bad employee who should be fired. Tying minor slights to genocide is one way of creating an uproar.

Singer had power and seniority at Basecamp. He once linked to a Breitbart page. While I differ with Breitbart on most issues, I do not see that as prima facie evidence that Singer is white supremacist or racist.

Just because Singer is a white male with authority does not make him, by definition, a white supremacist or a racist.

And if the only cure for that kind of "white supremacy" is replacing all the white males with any power or authority with people of other identities, then I'm opposed to that "cure," because it is a racist and discriminatory cure based on false generalizations about genders and racial groups.

[comte7092]

Your assertion was that these people cannot accept race neutral, they’ll only accept anti racism.

With that framing, the perception of whether the list was racist does matter as it explains their motivation. Because they did perceive the list to be racist, it’s just not the case that they were taking issue with the idea of being race neutral.

Second, you are jumping to wild conclusions about what they were asking for. At no point did anyone say that “all white males with any power or authority” must be replaced. If that were true, it would stand to reason that they’d aim their ire at the entire leadership structure itself rather than on the one individual. Your blanket assertion may have some grounding in your personal experiences, but it is overly broad in this instance.

Finally, while the equivalence between minor slights and genocide has been made, that was not the reason why I brought it up. The reason why I mention minor slights is that, while they may be minor in isolation, when taken in context together they can reveal a pattern of behavior that is hard to explain to those on the outside, and thus is difficult to perceive to us as observers. In this instance it seemed that employees wanted to shave a forum to address this and were shut down.

[throwaway789256]

> With that framing, the perception of whether the list was racist does matter as it explains their motivation.

I don't think we know their true motivation. Anyone can claim to perceive something as racist. We cannot control their sense of offense. The act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist.

But what advocates of critical race theory have found is that, by claiming that something is racist, they can bring pressure on their employers.

That is precisely what happened here. Basecamp is now under tremendous pressure. Plenty of ire has been focused on the co-founders as well as Singer. Singer has quit, though we don't know the facts of the case. Accusations of racism are fatal to one's career, whether or not they have a basis in fact.

Another word for "revealed pattern" is "narrative." Many narratives can be told about the same set of facts. And many of those narratives are deeply subjective, or driven by ideology.

I could take many minor actions by Jane Yang and others at Basecamp and interpret them as a power grab.

To be clear, I know that some people and companies do act in racist ways. Such behavior is illegal and should be punished. But the evidentiary bar to establish that is high. That bar has not yet been met here.

In this case, we have very serious accusations and very little evidence, evidence that can be interpreted in several ways. But Basecamp and Singer have already suffered serious consequences, and the claims have been aired publicly.

So they were able to create a scandal without going through the effort of proving anything.

[comte7092]

You claim not to know their true motivation, yet your entire argument relies on the assumption that they had malicious intent. You also note that “the act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist” and yet it is clear that you have assumed that it is not throughout your post.

And this is the crux of the issue. Ones entire interpretation of these issues relies on whether or not one believes racism exists as a structural problem or not. Opponents reduce this down to a simple difference of opinion, but if you see that the world treats certain groups differently than others, it is not mere difference of opinion, there are real, tangible consequences that go along with that disagreement.

The thing that you get wrong, that so many people get wrong on all sides of this, is that the issue at hand here isn’t about whether Singer is himself a racist person. When people speak of “white supremacy” refers to a structural system within society that treats people differently on the basis of their race, in a hierarchy that places white people at the top. It’s not a matter of individual intent, but the culmination of ways that people act differently towards each other that nets out to place people in different positions within society.

I think it’s reasonable to disagree on how you go about remedying that situation, but the assertion that “people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race” shouldn’t be that controversial of a statement.

[asabjorn]

> You claim not to know their true motivation, yet your entire argument relies on the assumption that they had malicious intent. You also note that “the act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist” and yet it is clear that you have assumed that it is not throughout your post.

The person(s) that attacked Singer used social justice activist techniques, claim of and demand for denouncing "white supremacy" in order to reduce a viewpoint opponents moral authority, where "white supremacy" uses the social justice unstated redefinition of the colloquial term to mean "policy or habitual behavior that could perpetrate outcomes not in alignment with social justice dogma".

This activist technique is a kafka trap with no good answer. Keeping that in mind its pretty clear where the accuser comes from.

As a side-note: a discussion/debate between viewpoint opponent break down if serious accusation are made without evidence, and a healthy discussion and work environment need to exclude such bad actors. Kudos to basecamp and coinbase for adopting policies that discourage such behavior.

[comte7092]

Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups?

If you agree with both of those statements, do you believe white peoples are still given a higher place in society? Do you believe that to no longer be the case?

I’ll limit this to the United States.

[throwaway789256]

> Ones entire interpretation of these issues relies on whether or not one believes racism exists as a structural problem or not.

I think you are right that that belief shapes how we interpret these issues. By racism as a structural problem, I assume you mean this:

> “people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”

Society is not an actor. It is a collection of people, and the people are actors. Some of them are racist, and some are not.

I do not believe that every situation is permeated with structural racism that must be corrected, but I suspect that people who believe in structural racism tend to find it everywhere and use it to justify the changes they propose.

I don't assume that they had malicious intent. But I do think that they perceive situations through a distorted lens, which often leads to behavior that is harmful to the organizations where they work.

I think that Basecamp and Singer and most organizations and individuals deserve an assumption of innocence.

Racism has to be proven. Accusations must be backed up with evidence. And the burden of evidence is on the accusers. I think critical race theorists start with the assumption that racism is shaping the interaction.

It is not enough to say that structural racism exists and therefore we should believe that it shaped the behavior of people at Basecamp. You have to prove it case by case. Simply claiming structural racism does not justify enormous change.

Statistically, people of different races experience different outcomes in the US on average. But there is a huge standard deviation in those outcomes by race or gender; that is, any given individual may be doing relatively well or poorly relative to the average.

And I think that applying assertions about society and societal ills to individuals, their actions and specific situations is often misguided, because they may deviate wildly from the average.

But that is exactly what critical race theorists tend to do. They treat individuals as representatives of a larger social trend. A male represents the patriarchy. A Caucasian represents white supremacy.

But attacking an individual to remedy a larger statistical discrepancy is in itself a form of injustice. Especially when we diagnose the supposed cause of that discrepancy with vagueness, as a culmination of ways that society acts.

That is not enough to convince me of the claims being made against Singer and Basecamp, or of the rightness of the Basecamp employees in rebellion.

[comte7092]

You’ve made it clear that there is no evidence that can be brought forward that would get you to accept that there exists diffuse but consistent behavior that creates structural hierarchies within society.

It would appear then, that we are at an impasse.