On 22 January 2016 at 05:25, David E. Wheeler <david@justatheory.com> wrote:
> I can’t help that there are a whole lot of white guys working on this document, with very little feedback from the
peoplewho it’s likely to benefit (only exception I spotted in a quick scan was Regina; sorry if I missed you). I
suspectthat most of you, like me, have never been the target of the kinds os behaviors we want to forbid.
Others have addressed the reasons for not going with the Covenant;
however I would like to make the point that, just because I'm a white
straight male, it doesn't mean that there haven't been occasions when
I have suffered from prejudice: I didn't talk the right way, my
parents didn't have enough money, I'm too geeky, I wore the wrong
clothes, I have a name that was a double-gift for mean kids (UK
readers will remember Rainbow, I expect) etc etc etc.
Admittedly most of that has faded since childhood but there have been
aspects of it even in places I have worked as an adult (thankfully not
where I am now) and we don't even have recourse to the legal avenues
that have been created for racial and sexual discrimination; it's
probably one of the reasons that geeks find ourselves in these
tech-based online communities so often - there's so little chance of
being bullied by the cool kids.
I also have a feeling that that might have something to do with why
there's quite such a pushback against the type of person who shouts
loudly and motivates others to form a mob to get his or her own way
(and therefore why the covenant is unlikely to gain traction here).
Finally, to open a new thread and effectively say "you know the work
that you guys have put in over the last month, I'm sure it's fine, and
I haven't bothered to read the whole thread, but why don't you do it
Right instead?" is pretty insulting, don't you think?
Geoff
