I think the issue is that companies like this pump millions of dollars into "diversity programs" and strictly police any language that could be considered racist. But they often seem completely blind to the fact that many minorities identify strongly with their lower-class communities, and that office culture that mocks and denigrates those communities actively drives away minorities (and all lower-class individuals) from applying for those jobs. Which kind of defeats the purpose of pledging millions toward "diversity".
A lot of American leftists seem to have labeled any political rhetoric about "the elites" as alt-right talking points. But as someone who works frequently with lower class individuals across the political spectrum, this is a deep-seated frustration I hear from people of all races and political parties.
Regardless of race, no one wants to work at a workplace where you know the majority of people think less of you. This is something that I think corporate America needs to understand better, if they genuinely want better diversity numbers.
I had a large, scary looking rescue dog for years. Sweetest cuddle bug ever. But she looked tough as hell, and it was amazing how the reactions of people differed when I walked with her versus without her.
I appreciate that you take the time to teach your daughters those sorts of safety precautions. Personally, I went through an, "Ugh, my parents are SO paranoid and judgemental" phase as a teen. But their wisdom has gotten me out of some tricky situations in the past, and now that I'm older, I will be forever grateful for it.
>others had noted a workable "compassionate system": more housing, plus supportive services. no coercion necessary.
I didn't see the commenter you replied to dismiss these options. They just expressed frustration that a working version of this solution seems to be far off, and that in the mean time, the issue at hand can't simply be ignored in day-to-day life.
> about handling unexpected situations, the control aspect is about how you respond (e.g., quelling fear so you can think more quickly and nimbly), not how you directly control others.
This can be a helpful coping mechanism on an individual basis. But this seems like a poor solution to the overall problem. Is the government going to spend billions on sending women to improv and self defense courses? That doesn't seem possible.
I think this advice also falls into the same realm as the advice to "dress more modestly." It's putting the responsibility for action on the women getting assaulted. In my opinion, the problem doesn't lie with women lacking "mental agility." It's with the severely mentally ill men assaulting these women.
>i sympathize with your anecdotes, but is this a problem you only face with homeless men?
Unfortunately not. However, the rate of harassment and aggression I've experienced from homeless men is far higher than the average man. This is backed by statistics on the rate of violent crime and sexual assault among the homeless.
Of course, there are plenty of violent, aggressive men who aren't homeless. But these people aren't generally living in large camps at my local park and intimidating me from using public property.
> tangentially, homeless folks are at much higher risk of assault than non-homeless folks.
This is absolutely right. The rate of sexual assault against homeless women is simply heart-wrenching.
But I think the critical piece of information here is that most of these assaults are committed by other homeless people. Large camps of people with severe mental illness, drug and alcohol problems, and nothing to lose tend to veer toward violence.
Having spent a lot of time volunteering with the homeless, and having close friends who work at shelters, the stories of violence and assault that occur in homeless camps are gut wrenching. When people advocate to just "leave people alone" and "have compassion" in regards to the homeless and their growing camps, I don't think they understand the underbelly of violence that occurs in many of these communities.
I don't think this was the intent of the comment you're replying to. Personally, I interpreted their position as exactly the opposite: they're very anti-unnecessary force, and frustrated that we can't implement a compassionate system to deal with the problems at hand.
> when faced with a "crazy" person, it'd be better to control your own fears and realize that that person is quite unlikely to be a threat to you. control yourself, not others, and default to compassion and humility under uncertainty.
As a woman, I appreciate the empathy here, but question the logic. I cannot "control" the fact that I have breasts. The multiple times I've been agressively groped by homeless men has been entirely out of my control. The threats of assault I've received when ignoring catcalls were also out of my control (and luckily the homeless man who charged at me and threatened to stab me was held back by a good samaritan, because I assure you, that situation was entirely out of my control.)
Homeless people are harmless 99% of the time. But when you pass 100 homeless people every day, that 1% genuinely does matter.
My friend's youngest is little miss princess. Everything has to be pink and sparkly, and tiaras are the height of fashion.
My friend was pretty dismayed at first, because she's quite feminist and has been very careful to raise her daughter with gender neutral toys, media, etc. All her family and friends have taken similar precautions, and if anything, this kid has been raised to see "girly girl" things as quite negative.
Ultimately, my friend came to the same conclusion as you--you can only shape your kid so much. For whatever reason, her daughter is just naturally obsessed with being a princess. Genetics probably play a role, plus other far more subtle environmental factors.
My friend has embraced her duaghter's interests--after all, feminism is all about letting women chase whatever interests and life paths they want! But we still chuckle at how unlikely it seems for her, of all people, to have a daughter so obsessed with pink.
It's really staggering how different my job search process is from my male friends, especially since I work in an ultra-male dominated niche. For them, it's like begging in the street for an offer. For me, it's like strolling through the supermarket and selecting which one I want. I have literally only once interviewed and not gotten an offer.
People get upset when I speak about this, because it's taboo to say women have it easier (in some aspects) in the tech world. But I try to be vocal about my experiences, in an effort to encourage more girls to go into tech. After all, what better incentive is there than fantastic pay that's easy to get?
Yes, I agree that it's very noteworthy. These groups generally appear in response to right governments. Which means I suspect we'll see more of them in coming years.
I am all for fighting far-right extremists. I am very against innocent civilians being killed, oppressed, or censored in the process.
I see this link happened in Brazil. Definitely a horribly incident.
My comment, and my personal experiences, relate to America. At least here, I don't know of any events where police have opened fire on a pack of teenagers partying without reason. But they could exist, which was why I was asking for evidence.
I am 100% fine with telling them this is wrong. I'm quite vocal about this being wrong.
But I am not okay with unleashing random internet people on a mentally ill person, which could easily spiral into a mob that involves death threats, doxing of personal info, etc. Hell, I'm not okay doing that to a mentally healthy person.
Promoting universal healthcare and proportional taxes isn't dangerous at all. Neither is promoting freedom of speech and healthy laws for small businesses.
It get dangerous when either side decides that anything standing in the way (in their opinion) of these ideals are "other", and that the "others" are so evil they are simply inhuman, and must be quashed by all means necessary.
This pattern repeats in history many, many times. And lots of people are nervous that the beginning of that pattern is starting to play out in the modern West.
> they'd most likely arrive shooting, as they do when there are parties in slums.
Can you please link to the news articles about these slum parties that are broken up by officers who start shooting the moment they arrive? Seems like something that would definitely get reported on.
In all my time living in low-income housing, I never witnessed something like this. And I had plenty of sleepless nights when neighbors would throw ragers. Some got broken up (mostly when a fight would break out among attendees), and I'm sure some of the cops weren't pleasant. But I never witnessed cops jumping out of their cars with their guns blazing.
Although I'm one piece of anecdotal evidence, so I'd like to see the evidence you have of this event.
Correct. I know at least one of the authors who was behaving horribly has severe depression. I don't care how horrible their behavior was, I'm not going to potentially sick an unknown internet mob on a person with suicidal tendencies.
I really like the term purity spiral. It captures it quite well.
Alas, it seems this thread was flagged. Ironic given the content. But I'll continue to share that article about the purity spiral with others, it captures a lot of the things I've seen quite well.
Don't want to dox anyone and post which authors had such horrible behavior, but I will say I personally witnessed those tweets discussing book burning, stalking, and public harassment.
This happened during the BLM protests this summer in St. Loius. The looters she reported were blocks away from any BLM protest, and other looting bands were setting fires on nearby blocks.
Frederick was a vocal advocate and financial supporter of BLM and had attended protests in the past. Didn't stop the hordes from calling her racist and threatening to ruin the careers of agents who dared to work for her literary agency, and authors represented by her.
Her agency was gutted. All over calling 911 to report people crashing a van into a small business to raid it.
(Edited to add: I worked in publishing for years. I left because of the censorship in the arena. And I'm a proud lefty.
It's gotten really crazy. Authors getting death threats. Books literally ripped off the shelves and destroyed. (No, not rabid white supremacist books. Books by PoC authors.) But industry professionals insist this is NOT censorship, just business decisions. And if you disagree? You're a dirty, filthy -ist.)
Another edit to add links to the incidents I was referring to:
A lot of American leftists seem to have labeled any political rhetoric about "the elites" as alt-right talking points. But as someone who works frequently with lower class individuals across the political spectrum, this is a deep-seated frustration I hear from people of all races and political parties.
Regardless of race, no one wants to work at a workplace where you know the majority of people think less of you. This is something that I think corporate America needs to understand better, if they genuinely want better diversity numbers.