Tim's journal

Lowering the bar?

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 17:30:15 GMT

I want to remember to quote these tweets from Samuel Sinyangwe from now on every time someone opens their mouth about "lowering the bar." To wit:

"Of all the facts I've tweeted #onhere, trolls seem to direct the most vitriol at those re: how obscenely white and male US institutions are.

These facts, I'm convinced, are the most challenging to white supremacy.

Because to acknowledge that white men make up nearly 90% of the governing party brings you to one of two conclusions...

Either you believe racism exists or you think white men are so uniquely qualified for nearly every position and nobody else in America is."

There's a dialogue in tech companies that often goes like this:
A: "We need to recruit more diverse candidates."
B: "How can we do that without lowering the bar?"
A: "I'm glad you ask! You see, we're going to hold 'diverse' candidates to the same standards and... [1/937]"

I would like to see it go like this:
A: "We need to recruit more diverse candidates."
B: "How can we do that without lowering the bar?"
A: "Your question is ill-formed, because the purpose of recruiting more diverse candidates is to raise the bar: to improve the quality of our staff by hiring people on the basis of their qualifications rather than because they look the same as existing staff."

B's question is inherently racist. You cannot ask that question without a base assumption that the explanation for the paucity of Black people in tech is that Black people are less competent than white people.

We need to stop justifying why women could be competent, why Black people could be competent, why Latinx people could be competent and instead: (a) call out the assumption of incompetence as unshared (B asks this question because they assume A shares their prejudice, and in the first dialogue, A neglects to make clear that they don't share it); (b) demand evidence for a competence gap rather than rushing to provide evidence against it.

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Opinions Are Abundant and Low-Value

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 12:43:34 GMT

moscaddie once wrote, "Dick is abundant and low-value." As she acknowledged later, this statement is cissexist, but I can borrow the phrasing without endorsing the cissexism:

✨Opinions are abundant and low-value.✨

_danilo summarizes the co-optation of "diversity" in this Twitter thread: he observes that those who feel "marginalized by those who live in reality" demand inclusion because of "diversity of opinion."

Contorting "diversity" to demand more airtime for already-well-known beliefs relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of diversity. Diversity is a well-intentioned (if flawed) intellectual framework for bringing marginalized beliefs to the center. "Diversity of opinion" is a perversion of these good intentions to reiterate the centering of beliefs that are already centered.

Failure to explicitly define and enforce boundaries about which opinions a community values has the effect of tacitly silencing all but a very narrow range of opinions. That's because speech has effects: voicing an opinion does things to other people, or else you wouldn't bother using your time and voice to do so. (Stanley Fish made this point in his essay "There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, Too" [PDF link].) Everybody thinks some opinions are harmful and should be suppressed -- invoking "diversity of opinion" is a derailing tactic for disagreements about which opinions those are.

We do not need more opinions. We need more nuanced, empathetic conversations; more explicit distinguishing between fact and opinion; and more respect for everyone's expert status on their own lived experience. People who say they want more opinions actually want fewer opinions, because they are invariably arguing for already-privileged opinions to receive even more exposure. We do not need to value diversity of opinion; there are other values we can center to guide us closer to truth.
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Allygory

Sat, 14 Feb 2015 07:17:12 GMT

Inspired by "I live in a house with wild animals and I really have to pee" by Ashe Dryden

Oh hey, friend, thanks for coming over the other evening! It was really fun, and that pumpkin bread you brought was great.

[...]

Oh, him? I'm sorry he bit you. You're not going to get rabies or anything, though, I took him for his shots last July. Yeah, it must have hurt, though, sorry.

[...]

No, I didn't really... adopt him, so much. He just showed up at my front door a few years back and wandered inside. It seemed like he needed a home, so after a couple days I bought some dog food and a dish and started giving him food and water. I mean, how could I deprive a poor animal of those things?

[...]

Oh yeah, he's bitten a couple of other people who've visited. It's really too bad. And I sure wish I didn't have to steam-clean my carpet so often. What can you do, though?

[...]

Call animal control? I don't know about that, it sounds sort of confrontational. I wouldn't want some mob showing up in a van to take away Buddy, you know?

[...]

A dog trainer? Huh, maybe. That seems like it would cost a lot. And doesn't it kind of infringe on his freedom to be the kind of dog he naturally is?

[...]

Tired of it? Yeah, I am, a little bit, and my housemate moved out because she said she couldn't stand finding her laundry torn apart or her books chewed up anymore. It's too bad, because I've had a hard time finding a new housemate and now I have to pay the rent for the whole house by myself. But hey, I'm not saying I would put up posters all over the neighborhood if Buddy wandered off one day. If he did, I would just shrug and get on with my life.

[...]

Oh, no, you're totally not the first person who has told me this. A lot of my friends just won't visit my house anymore. They want to meet me for coffee instead when we hang out, in cafes that don't allow any dogs in. It's okay. The way I see it, it's their loss if they don't get to be in my house.

[...]

Sue me? Why, I don't see how any jury could convict me of a crime. I'm not biting people. I'm not tearing their clothing or barking at them so loudly they can't carry on a conversation. I've never been anything but impeccably hospitable and courteous to my guests. It's not my fault if that dog keeps harassing them and if he just won't go away.

[...]

No, it doesn't bother me that much personally. I have a thick skin, you know?

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