Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
On Mon, Dec 23, 2019 at 05:43:21PM +0100, Iustin Pop wrote:
> Well, I would clarity as well here—is this the official position of the
> project, that some groups (and I really don't care which groups) get
> lenience on the CoC because they are minorities?
>
> If so, that also troubles me somewhat. What Pierre-Elliott said in a
> follow-up email (that neither the original email nor Tina's reply were
> appropriate) is, IMO, how "equality for everyone in Debian" should be,
> not that "oh, CoC is flexible depending on which group you belong to".
>
> Of course, I belong to a priviledged group, so I am biased here. But I
> would hope that equality starts with at least _intending_ to apply the
> rules equaly.
I'm more interested in levelling the playing field than in applying
rules with strict equality: if you like, equality of outcomes rather
than equality of regulations. To me that principle does indeed imply
trying to take account of the reasons behind what people say on project
forums: somebody who's clearly lashing out because they're frustrated
with their own unequal treatment isn't in the same category as somebody
who's clearly lashing out in an otherwise equivalent way because they
want to make it clear that they don't intend to respect somebody else's
identity.
The point of recognising privilege is to see that certain groups tend to
have things all their own way by default. But just seeing that is
useless if you then apply an interpretation of equality that tends to
reinforce the status quo by penalising people who display their
frustration with it.
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@debian.org]
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