Cultural differences and how to handle them
On Tue, Jul 02, 2019 at 08:14:40AM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote:
>
> [listmaster copied in hopes they will agree with my assessment here]
>...
> If you are going to participate in a diversity discussion beyond a
> certain point you do need to actually spend some time with google just
> as you would for any technical topic.
>
> In this instance, researching arguments about privilege, criticism of
> the all lives matter movement, explanations behind the black lives
> matter movement (and why it is important to its members) would all be
> valuable.
>...
Trying to belittle or even deplatform people whose opinion you don't
like is not a good way forward, unless you want to live in a culturally
homogenous filter bubble.
Which is not what a global project is.
Looking at what other people are saying, and trying to understand why,
made me realize that the core difference might actually be cultural
differences in a diverse global project.
Every country has its own conventions, problems and solutions.
But these are often specific to one country, and not applicable
to other countries or global projects.
People should be expected to research movements that are relevant only
in a handful of countries with < 10% of the earths population for being
allow to discuss on Debian lists.
Hispanic people only being welcome for diversity in Debian if they
already have the privilege of being in the US, but not welcome for
diversity in Debian if they live in Mexico or South America might
only make sense from a US-only point of view.
Let's look at some non-obvious but possibly relevant differences:
People in the US are used to minority quotas in various places.
In most European countries it would be considered unacceptable racism
if skin color would play any role in university admission.
Children in the US grow up learning that they are living in the greatest
country in the world, an example for the world.
Children in Germany grow up learning that "I am proud of being German"
is an unacceptable antisemitic expression, nearly synonymous to
"I am proud of the holocaust".
In this discussion here we have two pretty distinct groups of people:
The first group has the opinion that Debian should honor various
minorities, and that Debian in general should have also a political
mission.
The second group is unhappy with people being honored by Debian for
non-technical reasons, and wants Debian in general to be a non-political
technical project.
Easy to miss, but obvious once you are aware of it:
The people with English as native language are in the first group.
The people with German as native language are in the second group.
It is likely not the language itself and causes might be different
from what I outlined above, but it looks pretty clear to me that
language/cultural/geographical differences are the root cause of
these disagreements.
And this makes you appear very offensive, and it might even drive people
out of Debian, if you try to push your groups opinion in Debian
mistakenly thinking people who fundamentally disagree with you would
only be uninformed.
> --Sam
cu
Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed
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