• davemeech@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    White dude here. It’s super easy to read something like this without feeling disenfranchised or bullied. Sure we can do better to avoid it, but that should not at all be the main takeaway from this testimonial. Why aren’t you angry at the common propensity for women in places of academic and professional authority being looked down upon and disrespected like this? This is super common.

    • Abnorc@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      One can and should be angry about both. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the person who posted this a racist, but it’s still not a good practice. Taking an example of a stupid thing someone did and directing the criticism at their race isn’t OK for good reason. (Yes, saying “a white male did ____” is directing the criticism at the group, not the individual.) It encourages people to form judgments about white males as opposed to assholes who belittle others, which is who she’s really having trouble with.

      The same thing being done to minorities and women is a much bigger problem, but using the same attack in the opposite direction isn’t exactly a good solution.

    • azenyr@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Why aren’t you angry at the common propensity for women in places of academic and professional authority being looked down upon and disrespected like this?

      Well, I am angry at that. Women and all races deserve equal rights and possibilities. We should keep fighting for that. But white males don’t need to be transformed into comedy punching bags in exchange for women/other races equality. Can we respect everyone INCLUDING white males?

        • _tezz@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          No it doesn’t. Not wanting to be the target of racial or sexual discrimination is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for. I swear, half the “leftists” on Lemmy are just larping…

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      They could have simply said “post doc” and the story would read the same. Race/gender adds nothing to the story and is unneccesary and like they said if it was any other combo of race/gender it would be seen as racist so why add it?

      • davemeech@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Sure, I can appreciate that in cases where it feels particularly forced or inorganic. However, to the extent that the tech/software world aligns with academia or leadership, it’s such a common trope that white guys are very predominant in these positions of authority and conduct themselves like this to women constantly. It doesn’t feel inorganic I guess because of that frame of awareness.

        So I do agree that mentioning race like this is sure to be received poorly, but I struggle to weigh that aspect of her post in the focused magnitude that others here as significant compared to her treatment.

      • azenyr@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Exactly. People don’t seem to understand that my comment was refering exclusively to the fact that she added race and gender only for bullying or hate speech pursposes. If it was a women or any other race she wouldn’t add it or would she?

        • matthewmercury@reddthat.com
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          9 months ago

          As a white male myself, I know exactly how much it sucks when another white male gets all fragile and in his feelings, because now I gotta stand up and point out that you’re whining about somebody pointing out the bad behavior of a Caucasian dude. My man, our cohort is so incredibly prone to bigoted, self-important, crybully temper tantrums that I can’t open a browser without seeing a white dude whinging about how much it sucks to have to hear about actual harm done by actual white men. Yet I am not oppressed by any of those stories. Neither are you. The original post was not about you.

          • _tezz@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Look I understand where you’re coming from, and I kinda agree with you. Also speaking as a white male, though, we would rightly declare someone like Candace Owens an internalized racist if she said the same the thing that you just did but about black people. I don’t think it’s fair to raise your arms and say “Well yeah some of the people in my group are problematic, so it’s okay if we behave inappropriately toward the entire group. I personally don’t feel oppressed so why are you mad?”

            Like that’s pretty silly right? I’m afraid that the divide in political ideology between young men/women is due to years of white-men-bad rhetoric, pushing these young boys to Tate and Fresh n Fit, and it’s having the opposite effect that we want. We’re no longer educating at a certain point, we’re just shaming.

          • davemeech@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            Unfortunately this seems to be my experience and perspective too. White guys who think this strongly that we’re victimized or disenfranchised make me very suspicious of what the rest of their worldview entails.