[jrm4]

If you follow who is saying what, I don't think you and I fundamentally disagree - or at least are not THAT far apart on this - I (the black person here who is still saying yep, my black opinion is important) have also been strongly suggesting that we not automatically attribute these problems to intentional racism.

So to clarify -- the "rush to excuse" that I'm saying is dangerous is really "the rush to insist that there is definitely no bias in play," NOT the "the rush to accuse individuals of being racist" -- and I suppose the fundamental problem I see going on here is that people can't seem to distinguish these two things, even though they are very different.

I'm going to keep saying this: the biggest problem is not smoking out hardcore racists who openly hate, the biggest problem is getting much of the non-black tech populace to even begin this conversation without the hypersensitivity kicking in (fully acknowledging that, while I'm not a fan of the terms "SJW" and "woke" and such, there also absolutely exists a naive liberal left that presently makes this conversation harder because they lean too hard into their particular direction)