On Mon, Apr 05, 2021 at 08:29:59PM +0000, Salz, Rich wrote: > > This whole exercise is mere posture. It reeks of "Yes minister" logic, > > we must do something about injustice, this is something, therefore we > > must do it. > > Many of us feel it is more like: we need to be more inclusive, this is > an easy first step, let us do it. Changing the language to be more > inclusive conveys a better impression, and might change people's > attitudes. Some people will summarize this with the term "virtue > signalling," often in an attempt to be dismissive. I'm okay with that, > my response is "yes, we are trying to be virtuous and this is a first > step." You might say new terminology is more inclusive, or that old terminology is exclusive, or just say this is the new style or something. But whatever you do, calling the community racist is not ok, just bullying by intimidation. > Will it become a cudgel and used to toss people out? Viktor is > confident that will be the outcome. I am equally confident it will not > be, although I admit that it will be hard, for a while, for me to work > with some people. [...] It's not very far from "it will be hard, for a while, for me to work with some people" to "let's toss them out (this cudgel is handy!)". If anything, your reply strengthen's Viktor's argument with an existence proof of the danger in question. If you wish to dismiss that argument, you could do worse than to stop the intimidation tactics and start calling them out when you see them. (Apologies for specific, egregious incidents would be nice too.) Nico --
