I feel bad for everyone involved. This story made me realize that working at Basecamp is not something I would want to do in the future, primarily because DHH and Fried are so egotistic.
However, it also makes me face the reality that I would not want to work with many of the people that resigned. Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd. I imagine myself working at some of my earlier minimum wage jobs in college and putting forth such a requirement to my managers then. It's a non-sequitur.
When I talk to my family and non-tech non-coasts non-city friends about the sort of political polarization I encounter at my high-tech Seattle job, they often think I'm messing with them, that I'm being facetious or exaggerating. Unfortunately, I'm not.
It's all so tiresome. The increasing politicization of everything, and tech being at the center of it, made me realize I have no interest anymore in climbing the corporate ladder. I realize that my lack of political fervor is a liability. I wish I cared more about these things, I really do, but I don't.
> it also makes me face the reality that I would not want to work with many of the people that resigned
I totally get it. Toxic people tend to clump. And they eventually aim their toxicity at each other. You don't want them in the workplace or really, in your life at all.
> Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd.
Not only is it absurd, the whole demand to say such a thing was a Kafka trap to begin with.
> I realize that my lack of political fervor is a liability. I wish I cared more about these things, I really do, but I don't.
It's not a liability, at least not in the long term. The time when being 'woke' is beneficial to advancement will come to an end. Because if the fervor one has for politics is what a company values, then they'll get increasing fervor until the place is too toxic to be productive.
Your inability to generate a constant stream of passion for your opinions and hate for contrary opinions is a sign that you are normal. That you are reasonable. And that you are dependable. It's nothing at all to apologize for.
There will always be companies that have employees with different political, religious, and social opinions who will find common ground in their desire to build cool shit and provide value. Go find one of those places and be happy.
I think the company will be better off with the 30% gone. They can regroup. Calling it a racist company because some of the head guys are republican that don't see white supremacists every time they see a white person walking down the street is idiocy. Both sides of the fence have turn to zealotry rather than finding common ground. Let the 30% go form their on basecamp rival that is focused on promoting the idea that all white people are racists by their very nature and see how far it goes. Getting politics out of the company sounds good to me. I don't care about your color or your issues, I just want coworkers I can depend on and get along with and don't wear their politics on their sleeves or feel they're owed a special privilege because of their skin color rather than what they bring to the team.
I get that it's super easy to just claim white supremacy is everywhere, but implicitly the claim is that someone put it there and is perpetuating it. At a company of 58 people, you're pointing at a very small group of people as the ones responsible for all of this supposed white supremacy.
Unless everyone swallows the Kool-Aid and apologizes for being so racist, someone in leadership will eventually have to say, "Actually, this isn't a white supremacist company." Otherwise you've essentially surrendered your company to the "woke" mob.
Alternatively, you exhibit the kind of people skills that should be a baseline qualification for a senior leader. You don't draw lines in the sand, you don't internally frame this as an them-vs-me thing, you certainly don't try to give your staff condescending mini-lectures about basic topics in social criticism such as how framing works. Brinksmanship isn't going to lead anywhere good, and someone has to take the first step toward de-escalation. While anyone can theoretically be that person, if you're the ostensible adult in the room, then it's your actual job to put aside your sense of honor and be that someone. So you take a deep breath, and get to work: try to be a mediator, understand where these frustrations came from, and figure out what you can do to alleviate them.
Alternatively, if you can't feasibly mediate, because it's basically all your employees airing grievances at you, then you screwed your job up long ago, and it's time to cop to that. The longer you put off eating crow, the more crow you're eventually going to have to eat.
How do you avoid being framed as “us vs. them” when you are being openly called a white supremacist?
What you’re describing is “appeasement.” Presume they’re operating in good faith and that maybe they’re kind of right. So you cut a compromise, and sure enough, the white supremacy is still there! And what do they recommend? More appeasement.
I agree it was a management problem, but the problem is it wasn’t identified and nipped in the bud sooner.
No one was calling anyone a white supremecist in the conversation. They were likely talking about white supremacy as a cultural and political force in the context of how the policy could perpetrate it.
That doesn’t change the fact that leadership then must either:
* Accept the claim that the company is and has been supporting white supremacy, de facto surrendering decisions on anything an employee suggests might support white supremacy
* Disagree with the claim
The redefinition of white supremacy (as you’ve defined it) is a bad faith rhetorical tool designed to create these kind of situations. Leaders are under no obligation to appease employees acting in bad faith.
First, you're creating such a stark false dichotomy that it's hard not to wonder if it's somehow deliberate.
Second, saying that white supremacy is present in the company is not the same thing as saying that the company is run by white supremacists. The term functions very differently in the noun sense than it does in the adjective sense.
> First, you're creating such a stark false dichotomy that it's hard not to wonder if it's somehow deliberate.
Perhaps you might enlighten us as to why this is a false dichotomy, and what other options there are.
> Second
You cannot run a company that perpetuates white supremacy without implicitly supporting that white supremacy, whether you know it or not. I've already been clearly told that malice and intent are not required.
Or are you genuinely going to make the case that "someone who supports white supremacy" is not interchangeable with "white supremacist?" I'm not interested in debating your personal redefinitions of terms.
Since we've already touched on the subject of "bad faith rhetorical tools," getting on other people's cases for acknowledging that the English language is soaked in polysemy isn't exactly an encouraging sign. It's difficult to have an enjoyable conversation with someone who's brandishing a cape.
But no one's done that. You keep claiming the other side is doing that, but they keep disagreeing with you. You're ascribing actions that aren't done and proceeding to take offense.
The first step to knowing what someone else thinks is to ask. You seem to have skipped that step, and when they clarified, you disagreed. Who are you to say what they think?
Again this is all you projecting thoughts onto other people.
There's no value in debating bad faith personal redefinitions of words lobbed as insults.
If I called you a pedophile, I imagine you wouldn't be super expectant of a productive conversation about my unique definition of the word or how I think it applies to you. You wouldn't care what I thought, because if I cared what you thought, I wouldn't have smeared you as a pedophile.
You're begging the question. The entire point people have been making is that white supremacy as a socio-political concept is not the same as a white-supremacist in the nazi-saluting way that you seem to have in your head.
You're still mentally skipping the idea of systemic white supremacy and jumping straight from white supremacy to you are a nazi. But that jump comparison only works for white supremacist. There isn't a comparable systemic thing for pedophilia. We don't discuss systemic pedophilia and how society broadly favors pedophiles in the same way that we do talk about systemic favoritism of white people and culture (and even if you personally disagree that society does favor white people and culture, the conversation does happen). When the other person says white supremacy, this is what they mean: cultural systems and norms that favor white people and things associated with white people, often to the detriment of other cultures and peoples.
So again, you're presupposing someone is smearing you, when they've once again never claimed to have done that and further more actively claimed the opposite. And please note that now four different people have pointed out that no, this wasn't calling anyone a white supremacist. So perhaps it is simply you who is the one using a custom definition here.
Part of this seems to be that you keep insisting on making things about individuals, and not the company and systems itself. Consistently you've changed "the company's actions maintain white supremacy" to "the leaders of the company are white supremacists". That's two jumps: company and its actions to the leaders and then an ascription of intent. People can do things by mistake. Groups can do things unintentionally. You're assuming that everyone is presupposing fault and intent, and using that to ascribe nefarious motives to people who at no point appeared to ascribe fault or intent.
It's also totally unclear how
> * Accept the claim that the company is and has been supporting white supremacy, de facto surrendering decisions on anything an employee suggests might support white supremacy
makes sense. This is akin to saying "yes, we've made mistakes before". I don't see how that "surrenders decisions", I mean unless you mean that they're going to say this about certain decision but still assume they made the right decision (or maybe they did, but then they need to justify this).
You are correct activists use this undeclared redefinition of the term white supremacy to mean "someone that does not have a social justice activist mindset". Which is exactly the issue.
Why? It is a tool to utilize confusion to remove the targets moral authority. Both yes and no are bad answers that make you loose moral authority, which is the point of the power tool.
Never trust anyone that uses such a tool, as it shows that the activist attacker is willing to smear individuals they disagree with using deceptive language in order to reduce the unlucky targets moral standing. Is this someone that is worthy of trust?
Do you have a counter argument? Do you think such a person should be trusted or do you think this is not how the activism works?
If it’s about my comment on trust: You are welcome to trust someone that use these power tactics based upon lies to undermine the moral authority of viewpoint opponents, I just believe there are so many people of better character out there to build a relationship with.
Social justice tactics when it boils down to it are effective, but not very creative. Domain specific language is coopted and it’s definitions changed to mean what’s useful for activism. Goal is to redirect as much as possible of an organizations resources and attention towards the ideology instead of whatever it used to do.
It’s nonsense that you have to accept a premise to argue against it. That’s exactly what I did. On this website it’s expected that if you don’t have an argument, don’t make one.
With your assertion in mind that there is no issues with the activist technique. Do you denounce pedofilia? Do you denounce defrauding elderly relatives? See how this activist technique works, no answer is good and the question is directed at you as a potential complicit person, and using it is in my opinion a sure sign of a worse character than what I’d like to engage with.
Please point out where I asserted there are no issues with activist techniques. As far as I can remember, all I've done is point out that you constructed an arbitrary binary specifically to decry the creation of arbitrary binaries.
> Please point out where I asserted there are no issues with activist techniques.
Refer to the comment I replied to where you argue "No one was calling anyone a white supremecist", and then justified this conclusion by stating the social justice redefinition of the colloquial term:
> No one was calling anyone a white supremecist in the conversation. They were likely talking about white supremacy as a cultural and political force in the context of how the policy could perpetrate it.
To your other statement:
> all I've done is point out that you constructed an arbitrary binary specifically to decry the creation of arbitrary binaries.
There are many different types of individual viewpoints and behaviors, so a critique of or an unwillingness to accept a type of behavior normally means that you have tons of others you accept. Disagreeing being a binary choice is a social justice dogma that model the world very badly.
Due to rising costs, the company decided to outsource some production. The end product was just as good in quality and much cheaper, even after shipping and import taxes.
A few employees were concerned about outsourcing to that specific country and started to discuss and petition the senior executives.
The CEO clamped down hard and said it was a business decision and if anyone didn't like it, they could leave. No politics.
In the end, those employees are still here, but the quality of their work has definitely suffered.
That's also not what Singer said. Singer said that he doesn't believe we live in a white supremacist culture. In a statement lower in the article he explicitly says it does exist, and I don't see that as necessarily contradictory with anything else he had said during the meeting in question.
White supremacy is so baked into American culture that over 90% of immigrants to the US are non-white.
The US is the least racist nation in the world according to Pew surveys.
What we have an abundance in the US is people who, if racism disappeared tomorrow, would be out of work and have to find a new career. These same people are the ones who act as if the election, to 2 terms, of a black president translates to the US making no progress on race since the 60's.
I grew up in a mostly black county in Virginia. I know what demagoguery looks like, and witnessed it with the GOP for decades. The Democratic party has embraced it, in a big way, since Hillary's loss. It works to win elections, but at the cost of elevating racial reductionism in POC. And the more POC embrace racial reductionism, the more moderate whites will do the same, creating more white supremacists. I've already witnessed colleagues who are moderate getting frustrated in meeting where they are demonized, and next thing you know they are googling and listening/reading conservative authors who mirror their frustration and amplify it.
Singer didn't deny that white supremacy "exists". He simply stated, in my opinion correctly, that it's not embedded in American institutions. Because it's not, as evidenced by the fact that we actively import (to an extent unsurpassed by the vast majority of nations in the world) non-white immigrants to the tune of over a million a year.
My next door neighbor is an Indian immigrant family. My neighbor across the street is from Vietnam. Both are naturalized citizens, and this ethos is going to try to say that the institution that naturalized them is white supremacist. It's patently absurd and irrational, and appeals to gullible college students and losers who desperately want to externalize blame for their failures.
Refusing to say it isn’t denying it exists. Those are different things.
If I’m trying to count to 100 and someone says “Prepend, please say that white supremacy exists.” And I respond “I’m busy counting to 100 and will not comply with your wishes.” That doesn’t mean I’m denying that white supremacy exists.
It’s odd you would interpret it that way as it’s illogical.
But he wasn't counting to 100, he was at a company-wide all-hands specifically about political and social speech with tensions revolving race. You can't just erase the entire context of quote and meeting just to call someone's interpretation of that event 'illogical'.
I think we disagree on this. I have worked with and for many great leaders who never “acknowledged white supremacy” so it is definitely possible for me, and others to trust such people.
I’m not arguing semantics as my point is that there are many things more important than acknowledging white supremacy exists. This may not be true for others as it seems it’s super important for some.
But if I’m in the business of counting to 100 (or anything) I can be quite successful without including taking about eliminating white supremacy.
Note, I think that systematic racial inequity is bad and must be eliminated. But I don’t think the most effective way to do that is by talking about it all the time. And I think that I can not have any portion of my workday talking about it. This doesn’t mean I am for white supremacy.
I think, at it’s most basic, I don’t think silence is the same as endorsement. The world isn’t black and white (no pun intended) and everyone isn’t forced to choose sides. And it’s certainly not important to state one’s position over and over and over.
There are certain issues (like this one) where silence has historically been used as a form of endorsement. It is certainly not irrational to perceive it as being an endorsement.
Arguments from silence are, by definition, illogical fallacies. There could be any number of reasons why someone might choose to remain silent. It's possible they are endorsing it, but you don't really know without additional statements or context.
If someone asks you “do you denounce white supremacy?”, and you stay silent… many people (myself included) would see that as a form of endorsement. I don’t need any additional context, and I don’t see it as being any kind of logical fallacy.
So, do you denounce white supremacy?
If you said yes, what if they followed up with the following questions:
- What have you done to fight it?
- Have you donated to XYZ org?
- How much? Why not more? Surely you could afford it?
- How much time have spent volunteering for causes that fight it?
- How much? Why not more? Surely you could afford it?
If you anticipated this line of questioning would follow, where the person asking the question's intent is to test you, and shame you if you were to fail it, would you still engage with that question?
All civilized people condemn ethnic/racial supremacists so frankly if someone asks me if I denounce white supremacy I'm going to ignore it.
My choice not to dignify that question with a response is not an indication that I endorse white supremacists any more than my choice not to dignify a question like "do you believe the earth is round" indicates my belief that the planet is flat.
The word “civilized” is doing a lot of heavy lifting for you there.
White supremacy is still very real in America and throughout the rest of the world. The idea that you’d brush off someone asking about white supremacy in the same way as a flat earth denier is absurd, and says more about your own position of priviledge.
And there it is: because I refuse to repeat the words that the woke orthodoxy demands on command you accuse me of "privilege" despite knowing nothing about me or my belief system.
Oh please, now you see yourself as persecuted by the “woke orthodoxy”.
Do you really deny that you have privilege? You’re both white and male, aren’t you? The way you talk actually says a lot more about you than you’re aware of.
There could be many reasons for silence, such as not wanting to be bullied into saying something, no matter how true it is. In some situations, that might be the nobler option and could take a lot of courage.
Perhaps not irrational, but incorrect. I’d like to see whatever evidence means silence is a form of endorsement.
It’s hard to know, but I have one data point in my own self in that I really don’t talk much about anything and certainly don’t endorse white supremacy and I actively live my life fighting inequity. Someone saying that I endorse something because I don’t speak about it is incorrect as I know myself better than others do.
Following this logic leads to absurdity. Should people spend their days speaking for or against everything? What about people’s right to privacy?
I mean there’s so many example of how silence=support is illogical, I’m not sure how people can hold this opinion. This assumes that there’s a single set of priorities and white supremacy is near the top for everyone.
It’s also fairly odd in that it assumes that the whole world is in America so that even people in remote countries must make statements against white supremacy lest they endorse it. That’s just silly.
On any topic, only a few thousand or perhaps millions express a position. Does that mean everyone else is against or for? Does silence always equal endorsement? Does it mean opposition?
You haven’t stopped this conversation to call out how you recognize murder is evil and are against it. Does that mean you endorse murder? Isn’t murder important enough to speak out against? I certainly think murder is terrible and am shocked that someone would endorse murder through their silence.
Etc etc etc, there’s a million of these. Not everything has to be a conflict and not everyone owes me an answer. Sometimes I just don’t know and don’t get to know. I should only assume when necessary and using some evidence to support my assumption
I am not talking about silence at all times, but specifically silence at times when someone is given the opportunity to speak up about an issue and chooses not to.
Perhaps the increasing prevalence of "opportunities" to denounce things and endorse political beliefs had something to do with the decision to move away from politics in the office. If Thea opportunities can be freely presented at any time and demand a positive response or invite condemnation, surely you can see how this might be considered wasteful from a business point of view.
Essentially, the core disagreement is about what is or isn't white supremacy. There isn't one way to define this, but if you start asking for things like "disavow white supremacy!" in a conversation like this then you're essentially just chucking good faith out the window. The context here matters a lot.
I wouldn't have "denounced" white supremacy either. If these are the base conditions under which you're prepared to talk to me then quite frankly, fuck you. There is nothing to gain for me, and you're clearly not prepared to take anything I say in good faith. Okay, I might have in a leadership role to keep the peace as a matter of professionalism, but I'd also have started looking for a new job as this is not a healthy atmosphere. I don't want to work with people who think I'm secretly a white supremacist.
The problem is that I've seen many things being labelled as "white supremacy" that seem ... a bit of a stretch. For example people have argued that Alien (the film) is an example of white supremacy as the alien represents a stereotypical black women; "Black women have been portrayed in contemporary white social and political culture as super-fertile and indestructible breeders whose sexual reproduction must be controlled."[1]
When I first read that, it took me quite a while to realize this was even referring to the alien itself, rather than some character that got infected. It seems it purely based on the fact that the alien is black.
There are many, many examples of this, especially in the last year people have been going way to far in re-analysing everything through the lens of race, often with some very harsh words like "white supremacy". Sometimes this is a good thing, but often I find it's not. Either these are general problems that affect everyone (just black folks more, but that doesn't mean the core problem is racism), or it's outright nonsense like the above.
Now, I don't know what argument that person made exactly in support of "White supremacy existing at Basecamp", but if you make such a strong claim – which is essentially calling your leadership/coworkers white supremacists – then you better have some good arguments. I'm skeptical they existed; they're certainly not present in this article beyond wishy-washy "creating a space where people do not feel welcome".
And considering that this discussion left people "crying and screaming at the screen" it seems rather easy to make some people feel "not welcome".
The entire thing stinks; perhaps the leadership could have handled things a bit better here and there, but if you're not willing to take a somewhat nuanced disagreement in good faith then there's nothing you can do except nod and smile on every sort of nonsense they bring up, and anything else will upset people.
You're describing the critical perspective, which is just a framing that motivates discussion. There are versions of it for essentially every sociological phenomenon. The hypersensitivity to it among certain demographics is what's remarkable, much moreso than the thing itself.
Yes, the well known unforgivable crime of referencing that a publication you do not like exists. I think this is a pretty good basis for upending someone's career.
Promoting, not referencing. Whether I "like" it is irrelevant, it has a very specific political viewpoint. Your "explanation" is entirely misdirection.
Yes, the well known unforgivable crime of referencing that a publication with "a very specific political viewpoint" exists. I think this is a pretty good basis for upending someone's career.
It’s a catch-22. Princeton gave an excuse to be investigated by the federal government when the head admitted that they’re an institution of “white supremacy”
>When I talk to my family and non-tech non-coasts non-city friends about the sort of political polarization I encounter at my high-tech Seattle job, they often think I'm messing with them, that I'm being facetious or exaggerating.
Finally! I have been pointing this out as being mostly a tech circle thing. But almost every time I get downvoted for it.
The question here is, why Tech? What is specific about Tech as an industry, and that is not just in US, it is also spreading in UK, ( or mostly English speaking countries ). I assume it has something to do with Social Media. But then other industry also have access to social media usage as well.
A key point not being talked about enough is that the employees quit after being offered 6 months salary as severance, no questions asked. Heck a large chunk of the workforce of the best run company in the world would take up that offer. I imagine few of them actually cared too much about this whole saga.
I guess I'm weird. If I were offered 6 months of severance to quit a job at a successful company where I enjoyed the work and my coworkers, why would I take the offer? I've turned down offers that paid over 30% more because I like where I am. I don't think it's so uncommon.
"Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd"
The founders effectively took everyone's voice away. I think that's a very consistent way to get people to leave - especially people who for whom having a voice is more important than working at basecamp
I don't disagree with you, but I think it's a symptom of a much larger problem in the US that many people feel that their workplace is the only place where they have a voice and that the corporation they work for is their only avenue for political agency.
Obviously, you ideally want your job to be politically aligned with you so that your labor doesn't conflict with your beliefs. But today it seems like many feel so disconnected and disenfranchised from any communities outside of work they they put all their eggs in that basket, and that ultimately never goes well.
> The founders effectively took everyone's voice away
Setting aside the merits of all the underlying arguments, the founders were clearly only talking about their "voice" within the context of their employment at basecamp, not their ability to have a voice in all other possible contexts. And thus the following is a non sequitur:
> having a voice is more important than working at basecamp
Being an employee at basecamp is a necessary prerequisite for having a voice as an employee at basecamp.
I doubt most of the people who resigned resigned because of that employee. They probably resigned because DHH decided that, because the discussion had made him uncomfortable, no one should be able to discuss anything "political" at work anymore. That's a very "take your ball and go home" attitude which I wouldn't want in my employer either. And given that this seems to be pretty normal behaviour for him, it was probably the last straw for a lot of employees.
This was my thought too. The guys at the top just might be arrogant and difficult. My opinion is that Singer wouldn’t say “white supremacy exists” not because he’s a white supremacist, as people keeps interpreting this, but because he didn’t want to be told what to do by an underling. Trump did the same thing in interviews, press conferences, and I think even in a debate.
> They probably resigned because DHH decided that, because the discussion had made him uncomfortable
That's completely understating the entirety of what happened; the culmination of which seemed to be frivolous HR complaints. Has anyone disputed the details of the fuller context available through David's blogs and other sources?
> no one should be able to discuss anything "political" at work anymore
Can't they though? Here is what Jason had to say:
> 1. No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account...People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can't happen where the work happens anymore.
I understand your frustration with the polarization of political discourse in the workplace- I imagine it is stressful for all involved. However I think the notion that everything is becoming more and more political, is a little bit misleading. What of your work does not affect society? Do the products and services produced by the firms that employ you not affect it? Do the employees not work for wages necessary for their immediate survival? Do most working people not spend a substantial portion of their daily lives in a fashion dictated by those furnishing those wages?
I have trouble imagining how labor could ever lack a political dimension, and the distinction that presents itself to me between the past supposedly 'less politicized' workplaces, is that workers (or at least minoritized workers) were simply less safe to discuss politics and justice in this context that dominates their life and survival.
However, it also makes me face the reality that I would not want to work with many of the people that resigned. Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd. I imagine myself working at some of my earlier minimum wage jobs in college and putting forth such a requirement to my managers then. It's a non-sequitur.
When I talk to my family and non-tech non-coasts non-city friends about the sort of political polarization I encounter at my high-tech Seattle job, they often think I'm messing with them, that I'm being facetious or exaggerating. Unfortunately, I'm not.
It's all so tiresome. The increasing politicization of everything, and tech being at the center of it, made me realize I have no interest anymore in climbing the corporate ladder. I realize that my lack of political fervor is a liability. I wish I cared more about these things, I really do, but I don't.