Let’s try this again: No really, we deserve it.

I have to apologize for the previous post on this topic. I didn’t realize I had actually published my buffer instead of saving it as a draft. In any case, lets go on tot he post.

Daniel Martin made a comment on one of my recent posts about the "brownfemipower" flouncing that I think was worth a slightly longer response than a fast comment.

Let’s take it out of the emotionally charged context of race. Let’s imagine that my friends and I were just at a “non-mainstream programming languages conference”, with my Lisp-using friends. Let’s imagine that, say, FooCorp was there and interviewing, a friend of mine goes for an interview, and the interviewer smacks him down after just reading the resume while showing some classic ignorance about Lisp. (Say, something on the order of “you need more experience with a compiled language”)

Already Daniel, the analogy you is trying to set up fails utterly. Seal Press did not in any way disparage anyone at the conference in question. They were asked about the viability of a book project in the market and they made suggestions. Let’s construct a real analogy then that is equivalent.

Let’s imagine that my friends and I were also at the same Lisp conference. We have a proposal for a startup firm and the representatives from FooVent (a venture capital firm) are there. We make our elevator pitch and ask them about the chances that our project might attract venture funding. The FooVent rep says "you need to tighten up your pitch, and you will need to sign up a prominent entrepreneur with a good track record on the board or it will be a hard sell… and those folks are hard to get in touch with".

That is, for all intents, what actually happened. You can try and spin, but there is no indication that anything actually out of line happened. Yes some folks who have a hair trigger that would make an amateur IED look stable flipped out but frankly I never bought into the idea that the person who is most upset gets to define reality for the rest of us.

Now, I blog about the conference, and mention all the great presentations, and at the end say “Oh, and by the way? FUCK FOOCORP”. And then, in the comments, my friend says “Thanks for that; FooCorp really has nothing on Lisp Users”. (*) Because, you know, that’s what friends do for friends who’ve been dumped on – you support them.

Yeah, how dare FooVent give me the advice I asked for!? Those bastards! Don’t they realize I wasn’t actually asking for advice? I was looking for a pat on the head and some validation? We were just testing them!

Then faster than you can say “corporate community relations damage control” some FooCorp PR person pops up saying “we’d like to do more to support the lisp community, but we just don’t have the experience. We’re interested in a dialog with the lisp community.”

Good god. How dare they try and reach out to us. Speak reasonably and ask for input. Don’t they know we have a good hate going on here?

The conversation goes downhill from there, with all sorts of people saying how it’s clear that FooCorp doesn’t care at all about anything but C++ and Java, how there’s whole worlds their little minds can’t handle, etc. Classic Internet flame fest made worse by the fact that I don’t really feel comfortable discussing the details of my friend’s interaction with them, or his name, because future employers can use Google, and so won’t explain the context of the original shout-out.

In other words, you know your friend is being a serious pain in the ass, and you want to make sure no one else knows it before they get suckered into dealing with him.

Now, WTF? I mean, who is it who first jumps on the “OMG! Please don’t hate me!” wagon? Who is overreacting to a perceived slight? It isn’t the person who said “FUCK FOOCORP”.

The beauty of people who define themselves as victims, and in fact the reason they do so, is because it allows them the freedom to act in any way they choose and then demand not to be held accountable. "You can’t blame me for my words! I am just a poor downtrodden victim who holds no power!"

It is amazing to me that the same people who will argue that "fuck Seal Press" is not insulting will then bend over some insane barrel to try and paint the completely reasonable comments of Seal press as racism and hatred. Its like the oppression Olympics.

You know, sometimes us white folk have to accept that PoCs are going to be pissed at us sometimes. Part of real respect is not freaking out at every imagined slight.

Of course there are PoC’s who hate whites, hell one of them is a close friend of a presidential candidate. Just like there are whites who are racists. There are people who wish to eradicate capitalism. There are people who wish to kill all men or all women. There are religions out there who are actively engaged in the deliberate attempt to murder anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. These things are facts of life and not subject to acceptance or denial in my mind.

Personally, I don’t choose to associate with those folks. I have friends who will get angry at individuals but I don’t spend any time with folks who get "pissed" at an entire gender, race or religion so I never find myself needing to "accept" it on a personal level, nor do I intend to do so in the future.

I may ignore the hatred of others. I certainly realize that their unreasoning anger exists… but I simply do not have to "accept" it.

I know I’m going to screw up and do or say something racist or ignorant at some point.

You are certainly welcome to take on the guilt assigned to you by others. Maybe you believe in your heart you are a racist. I have no idea. However I have no intention of being similarly martyred or allowing myself to internalize the loathing that others have for my gender or race.

The simple reality is that I am not racist. I may at times say something that is unintentionally insulting. I may at times say things that hurt or anger someone. However I am not a ticking time bomb of unintentional racism waiting to happen because I simply do not have any within me.

As a result, I do not ascribe any moral or intellectual high ground to anyone who has decided to wrap themselves in the cloak of their imagined victimization.

If I get called on it, it’s my job to look at what the other person is saying and look at what they say. Specifically, it’s my job to not freak out.

If someone "calls me" on what they think is my "racism" whether or not I will defend myself, comment or try and open a dialogue (what you call "freaking out") will depend entirely on whether or not they have a point or whether they are just using the attack as a weapon to try and back me down thinking I am someone who houses this all to
common guilt.

I harbor no guilt about myself, maybe that is why the weapons of those who use their imagined victimization have no lever to move me with. They do keep trying to lay it on me and those like me though. It is amusing in a sad way.

“OMG! SOMEONE CALLED ME A RACIST! THEY’LL TAKE AWAY MY LIBERAL BUMPER STICKER!” A single “FUCK YOU” shout-out doesn’t demand going all “let’s dialog with the community and use multisyllabic words that make us all feel nice and generically calm and like we really truly care about every human being”.

<sarcasm>I see, the real sin here is that the folks from Seal Press were polite and have a reasonable vocabulary. I can see now how hurtful hat must be.</sarcasm>

Oh, and not heard of Alice Walker? What rock have you been hiding under to imagine that the author of The Color Purple wouldn’t be a recognizable name among Seal Press’s target market?

Whether or not they she would be recognized not only isn’t relevant, but no slight can be inferred from her not being named. She is simply not the big draw that those who were named would be. You can whine about that all you like, reality will not change because of it.

(*) never mind that this wouldn’t happen because the lisp community is a bunch of bitter individualists – imagine for this example that they’re as friendly as Ruby users, at least to each other

Don’t tell an ex Amiga user about bitterness!