Re: [Terminology] Terminology draft revised

[Dan Harkins <[e-mail]>]

   Hi Mirja,

   Well the text I wrote was called "racist" and it was claimed, without 
any evidence,
that my draft cause "racist behavior in the community" that "pushed away 
participants
and observers" so I think you're highlighting a distinction without a 
difference.

   And while I was not directly called a Nazi, Lars said that "within 
the last century"
there was a country that "categorized and labeled individuals in a very 
similar way
in order to then prioritize the order in which to murder millions of 
them." That
country was, of course, Nazi Germany. He then said that it was 
"abhorrent to see THIS
IDEA SUBMITTED TO THE IETF as a contribution to community discourse" 
(emphasis mine).
I didn't submit an idea that said we should prioritize the murder of 
anyone. He's
suggesting that I was doing what the Nazis did, prioritizing people 
based on their
"race and gender and sexual identities, etc" in order to kill them. I 
did no such
thing and I actually resent the implication. I was lampooning our woke 
society that
is categorizing people based on group identity and using 
intersectionality to
create power centers.

   So yea, it's possible to call someone a racist or a Nazi without 
directly saying
"you are a racist and Nazi".

   That you find this discussion worrying...oh well. C'est la vie.

   regards,

   Dan.

On 10/29/21 1:38 PM, Mirja Kuehlewind wrote:
> Dan, I don’t think anybody called you a racist or a Nazi. However, I have to say I strongly disagree with your views and find this discussion rather worrying.
>
> Mirja
>
>
>
>> On 29. Oct 2021, at 12:49, Dan Harkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>    Hi,
>>
>> On 10/28/21 11:59 PM, Lars Eggert wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On 2021-10-29, at 6:09, Dan Harkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>> But there was nothing racist about
>>>> those drafts. Lars called them "racist" in a tweet but that was to appease
>>>> the twitter mob.
>>> I don't think I used that term on Twitter, but we did say the anonymously posted drafts in question were "racist and deeply disrespectful" in the IESG announcement about their removal: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/3U8Yem7eo3HoZa5VGE7Spnx7RIw/
>>    My bad. You actually replied on twitter to one of the authors of the draft with a link
>> to the mailarchive in which you said "racist".
>>
>>> Different ADs had different reasons to support that phrasing. I don't want to speak for other IESG members, but when I read the two drafts, one of the most revolting concepts was that of an algorithm to assign a "victimization score" to individuals based on their race and gender and sexual identities, etc. I come from a country (Germany) that within the last century has categorized and labeled individuals in a very similar way, in order to then prioritize the order in which to murder millions of them. I find it abhorrent to see this idea submitted to the IETF as a contribution to community discourse. And no, dressing these ideas up as humor or sarcasm or satire to me did not change their nature, nor did posting them on April 1.
>>    But assigning a victimization score is not racist. In fact, that is exactly what the woke
>> (who I was satirizing) do. Case in point, Dave Chappelle's new routine on Netflix. He's a
>> comedian and like all comedians he makes fun of people and groups and things people do. All
>> well and good. He's very successful because he's very funny when he makes fun of people.
>> Except when he makes fun of certain groups. Now, Chappelle is black but he is being accused
>> of making fun of trans people and is being condemned and there are calls to cancel his show.
>> The CEO of Netflix gave a mealy-mouthed apology for airing Chappelle's routine. Now normally
>> you'd think, "a bunch of white people trying to shut up a black man? Outrageous!" But no,
>> you'd be wrong. These are not mere "white people" they are trans activists.
>>
>>    So given who is allowed to make fun of whom gives us a hierarchy, trans is above black.
>> I could give you other examples to fill out the hierarchy I provided in my draft but I
>> think Niels (an author of the draft, btw) said it best while whipping the mob up on Twitter:
>> "hint2: make fun of people with more power than you not less". So there's dynamic in play
>> here but it's not how Niels frames it, it's group identity and some groups are more protected
>> than others, some groups cannot be criticized (or made fun of) by other groups. As
>> demonstrated by Dave Chappelle, trans is above black. Just like it was in my draft. Again,
>> I could provide other examples with other groups showing how the hierarchy in my draft is
>> pretty accurate among the woke but for the sake of brevity I hope you'll just accept that.
>>
>>    Now your Nazi references fall flat because of the other thing I was ridiculing:
>> intersectionality. Where identity groups can compound their power with the intersection
>> of their venn diagram of group identity. A trans black activist would have more
>> "authenticity", more ability to shout down Dave Chappelle than a white trans activist
>> and both of them would have more power than some cis white male trying to shout down Dave
>> Chappelle. If this was an exercise in Nazism, as you sadly try to make it into, no one
>> would practice intersectionality because it would be inherently dangerous. But in this
>> case, there is power in that intersection, the power to shut others down, the power
>> to be above criticism. See? It's the opposite. The goal is to be in as many identity
>> groups as possible. They highlight their group identity intersection because it _increases_
>> their place on the hierarchy! Exactly as I ridiculed in my draft.
>>
>>    You can claim that my sense of humor is bad, that it wasn't funny, you can say all
>> sorts of things like that but you can't say it's racist and you should be careful who you
>> accuse of practicing what the Nazis did. A good plan when in a hole is to stop digging,
>> so don't compound calling me a racist with implying I'm a Nazi, OK?
>>
>>    Dan.
>>
>> -- 
>> "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
>> escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius
>>
>> -- 
>> Terminology mailing list
>> [e-mail]
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/terminology

-- 
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius