I don't think that has anything to do with being in Europe or not.
The emotions and opinions exist in all workplaces. Some are just open to it and others not. The important part is being respectful and having empathy.
The second employee was arguing in obvious bad faith, that apparently being accepted (to the point of the first being fired) is what should make people uncomfortable.
I do feel that in the US, the workplace has a much stronger weight, and often plays a much bigger role in the employee's life. I can see how that could lead to either very explicit work/life separation, or a blurring of the two.
Agree completely on the important part being respect and empathy. Agree on the second employee’s tone seeming argumentative. However, from the given information it’s not clear if the original (fired) employee remained respectful.
Last week in Europe, I was reprimanded by an US-based C-level exec for using the word "annoying" while asking a question about email filtering in a corporate Slack channel. Can't imagine being still employed if I used the word Nazi there.
People in US are broadcasting hypocrisy onto the world.
When taking a group of hundreds of millions of people with the same trait (such as their nationality), it’s easiest to compartmentalize and expect them all to think the same and behave the same. So when inevitably individuals or subcultures in that group have differences, it’s easiest to call it hypocritical.
I’ve been a European in American companies where saying “I don’t like that VP” in public would raise serious eyebrows, and I’ve been part of other American companies where saying “the VP Product is a fucking idiot” in public would make everyone laugh. It’s not the first time I hear GitHub fancies itself to be a bit edgy in culture, and I’m personally not into it, but it doesn’t make them hypocritical because some other guy you know, and you need to put in the same bucket, is different.
> People in US are broadcasting hypocrisy onto the world.
America is large country, half a continent. The existence of people and companies with widely different standards within it should be expected. That does not make it hypocritical.
Also, you treat Nazi as slur, but it is not one. It is political group.
Not only uncomfortable but it’s also somewhat embarrassing. I’ve always thought GitHub would be a pretty good place to work but judging from those chats I think I would definitely avoid.
As a member of the group of people who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated by the “real” Nazis, I’d much rather be warned that their successors were involved in an ongoing terrorist attack in the immediate vicinity than tiptoe around the issue to avoid making conservatives uncomfortable.
Hacker News has a huge global audience. Conservatism means something very different in all parts of the world. I assume you mean Republicans in America? Just to give you context, here in Europe we would consider the Democrats in the US a right conservative party and Republicans a far right party. Conservatives in Europe would be considered far left in the US, because in Europe even the most conservative person would still be in favour or public healthcare, pro gun laws and support many things like rent control or minimum wage. If you try to associate conservatism with American far right groups it only shows your own narrow minded "conservative" understanding of the world.
We are discussing a conflict between American employees in a US-based office about an event involving American residents. It should be clear that I’m specifically referring to American conservatives.
Conservative Jews were first vindicated for being Jewish in the 1940s and now the same people are being vindicated by the next ignorant group for being conservative, because people like think it is ok to blame an entire group of people based on personal, religious or political beliefs which do no harm. Conservatism isn’t harmful. Conservative Jews also hate Nazis.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. I’m simply saying that (American) conservatives get uncomfortable if you point out how often they end up standing beside literal neo-Nazis, which you can easily see on display in the comments for this article.
Fun fact, in China, conservatism tend to be related to old-school, Mao-era communism, which is probably considered far-far-left extremists in the free world.
The extreme sides actually join together around the back.
Just the reasoning that tends to get a bit muddy - for race/country/flag/god/people. I think the line tends to be when somebody starts mentioning 'the enemy' - and points to some formerly-considered-random guy nearby.
As a member of the group of people who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated by the “real” Nazis, I'd much rather not see words "Nazi" and "terrorist" used for protesters (or even rioters) whose intentions had nothing to do with extermination, torture, or serious attempts of coup or terrorism (cf. actual terrorist attacks by actual terrorists in Europe).
The guy in the yellow shirt is Jason Tankersley, founder of the Maryland Skinheads. The guy to his right in the mask is Matthew Heimbach, former leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party (a neo nazi org).
This wasn't an exaggeration, a high number of literal neo nazi leaders were present.
As a Londoner and European, I’d love to exchange our terrorists (that literally blow up kids, shoot them point blank, and decapitate and drive over people) for US “domestic terrorists” that ... take selfies (yeah a few people died unfortunately, not too surprising for a riot with a massive security failure, but far from a literal terrorist attack).
What’s the minimum body count required for it to be a terrorist attack?
Yes, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. But don’t kid yourself into thinking that their goal was just to take selfies in the Senate chambers. The only reason we didn’t see much more violence is that congresspeople were evacuated in time.
Half the problem is people throwing around words like them and their without qualification. There were thousands of people with different views. Some were neonazis and some were terrorist. We all need to be more careful with our generalizations
About you specifically, nothing. Based on pattern recognition pertaining to news reports and analysis of various events over the last 25 or so years, many analysts who are now excusing and making distinctions between various types of people were the ones who were pointing fingers towards Islamic terrorists as the instigators. This was most evident in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Balanced perspectives and opinions on Islamic terrorism and domestic terrorism are mindful of making distinctions between militants and other groups. Hypocrisy and partisan sentiments are rampant right now. I think it is that important not to fan the flames
I don't object to calling those people terrorists. Note that I also included "shoot kids point blank" in my comment, which was a direct reference to Breivik, inb4 "only muslims can be terrorists"
This is a confusing statement. When you say "there are nazis" when there are nazis (among a bigger group) that is just a factual statement. The disrespect is in not taking the threat seriously.
> I can't believe people talk like this on a work public channel.
Not sure if you're referring to the instance of the egregious anti-Semitic joke (CW for that link, btw), or to the bulk of the communications, but for any who feel the latter, that any conversation involving Nazism is improper, I'd consider a counterpoint:
We're in an industry where it's very easy for our work to be used for horrible things, where indeed there are historical examples of technology being used to accelerate the operations of genocide, and it's not only appropriate but essential that the employees of companies be allowed to call out fascism, and express their fear and dismay of Nazis, to colleagues whenever they see it, regardless of whether it is immediately linked to a product initiative.
The comment that states "you dont see 'commie' being dropped in the workplace nor should 'nazi,' it's just slandering" is the false equivalency of the century, and if we can't distinguish between words that over-simplify a political ideology, vs. words that concisely warn colleagues that something is going beyond political ideology and towards a pattern of racially-motivated behavior that places people in grave danger, we haven't learned our lessons from history.
> The comment that states "you dont see 'commie' being dropped in the workplace nor should 'nazi,' it's just slandering" is the false equivalency of the century
That comment about slandering is a bs and a person making it is a hypocrite. There were people, whose clothes literally manifested that they were Nazis. Camp Auschwitz, 6MWE, there is no guesswork, they themselves declared that they are Nazis.
I think we agree on the larger point but I disagree with a couple of your points here.
> it's not only appropriate but essential that the employees of companies be allowed to call out fascism, and express their fear and dismay of Nazis, to colleagues whenever they see it
Fascism is the reprehensible government structure du jour but I think it's wrong to be single-sided here. Employees should be allowed to call out things they disagree with. It doesn't necessarily mean anything will happen, and they end up leaving the company because of it. But I do think there are quite a few conservative, non-fascist, anti-Nazi people who will read a "employees can call out fascism!" comment and feel at least a bit like it's meant toward them as more conservative that most people in tech. I was a #nevertrump Republican throughout the primary and changed my party registration the day after his nomination. I think he's done 10x the damage to conservatism than Nixon ever could have. But I'm sure there are people here who, because I was a registered Republican during the Obama administration, view me as a fascist. I'm positive there are people who are registered Republicans today who hate what Trump is doing (both to the party and to the country), working in tech, and reading HN right now.
> regardless of whether it is immediately linked to a product initiative
This I'm not so sure about. I mean GitHub exists to ship software, and for the most part if you're communicating over a GitHub channel it should probably be about that. The fact that they have DEI channels and race-based channels and such on the official Slack in the first place is probably a larger discussion in itself.
> The comment that states "you dont see 'commie' being dropped in the workplace nor should 'nazi,' it's just slandering" is the false equivalency of the century, and if we can't distinguish between words that over-simplify a political ideology, vs. words that concisely warn colleagues that something is going beyond political ideology and towards a pattern of racially-motivated behavior that places people in grave danger, we haven't learned our lessons from history.
With regard to the 6th specifically, absolutely agree.
With regard to the language more generally, though, you're assuming that "commie" is always an over-simplification and "nazi" never is. Something actually are communism, which is responsible for a couple hundred million deaths historically, so while not directly racially related, it's not exactly a great thing. Commie also doesn't have quite the negative connotation of Nazi, and rightfully so. So even arguing the point feels a little like arguing about "cracker" vs. the n word. One is obviously worse, regardless of context.
> But I do think there are quite a few conservative, non-fascist, anti-Nazi people who will read a "employees can call out fascism!" comment and feel at least a bit like it's meant toward them
That's a problem for the definitely anti-fascist, anti-Nazi to sort out with themselves. Why do they identify with fascism in this context? Is it because they have openly labelled the BLM movement as a terrorist organisation? Is it because they cheered when protesters were deliberately run over or shot?
> I think [Trump has] done 10x the damage to conservatism than Nixon ever could have.
IMHO this is because of the number of Conservatives who followed him. It's not Trump's fault, though he's an easy scapegoat. Trump certainly empowered a lot of people to express opinions and perform actions they otherwise wouldn't have, but Trump didn't make those people say those things or behave that way.
If Trump is prosecuted and imprisoned, that will be a great start. There will be many people who will see Trump imprisoned, dust their hands off and say, "well, job's done, that's fascism in the USA dealt with," only to be shocked when it turns out that jailing Trump didn't actually solve anything and the USA continues to suffer problems such as entrenched white supremacy in the police forces around the USA, crony capitalism in all levels of government, and political parties acting in their own selfish interest.
Except that the comments weren't in the context of any product initiative or related to company business at all.
I'm sure Christians or other religious sects feel that it's essential that they proselytize their gospel to you, but I don't think you'd be very happy if you were getting bombarded with messages about it at work.
There's really no reason the kinds of conversations linked above should be happening with frequency in a company chat room. If you want to be an activist, great. Do it after hours.
The comment in question was "stay safe homies nazis are about". Telling employees to stay safe is absolutely related to company business. Not having employees be killed by Nazis is absolutely an important part of product initiatives.
I'm talking about the conversations linked in the Engadget article.
Though by that ludicrous logic you can say anything is company business. Saving an employees morality is absolutely important to a company from a Christians prospective. So is preventing them from dying, so surely you're okay with people harassing you at work about skydiving or rock climbing or drug use?
What impact does an employee’s “morality” have on the business, from a Christian perspective? I don’t actually believe there’s a cogent argument that e.g. premarital sex makes someone less effective at their job.
I want to say: I don't talk as casually as this in a work channel, though I do sometimes discuss politics and current events. That's not because I don't think it's professional, but rather because I'm jewish and what happened to this employee feels like a very present threat.
It is a well-documented fact that neo-nazi hate groups were a significant presence in the riot and preceding "protest" at the capital. Stating that fact ultimately lead to a nazi-apologist coworker denying it, and then the jewish employee being fired.
Many white supremacists and Nazis support the state of Israel. There are a lot of reasons, but the simplest is that they want Jews to migrate there so they can create an ethnostate here.
>The current conflict began the day of the riots in Washington, DC when a Jewish employee told co-workers: “stay safe homies, nazis are about.” Some colleagues took offense to the language, although neo-Nazi organizations were, in fact, present at the riots. One engineer responded: “This is untasteful conduct for workplace [in my opinion], people have the right to protest period.”
Ctrl-F for that to see the screenshot with the full context.
If you read the full sentence in the article, you will note that it continues by saying that the label is "slandering." Something has to be untrue for it to be slander. Therefore, by saying that labeling people in the crowd as Nazis is slander, it denies that there were Nazis in the crowd.
That employee is taking the position that "there are" is equal to "all those people are", the same flawed logic is being used as a premise by a lot of commenters here.
It's so blatently wrong that it's hard to assume good faith.
Now that you pointed it out I see what you mean, but I wouldn’t call it blatantly wrong. To me the statement honestly read like it’s lumping all protesters together, or at least it’s certainly not making an obvious attempt to differentiate.
> ... or at least it’s certainly not making an obvious attempt to differentiate.
It does not need to.
Yelling "Fire!" in a cinema hall does not need to be accompanied by precise instructions as to where said fire is burning. It's a warning, not a debate.
Thank you for correcting me. I can drop that point (unfortunately, I can't edit/delete.)
I hope my point still stands though. "Nazis are about" is an inappropriate comment during this political climate. It would be similar to saying "looters are about" during the BLM movement.
Why is it an inappropriate comment? It is factual. There are photos showing people that have Nazi symbols. One example is this guy in the “Camp Auschwitz” hoodie [1]. He also was present in a photo from the inside of Capitol, means he actively participated. There are more examples.
I had such a similar conversation with coworkers one time during lunch. I said that I had just seen a Nazi on a bike next to the office. One of my coworkers tried to argue, that not every biker was a Nazi and maybe I had jumped to conclusion too soon. Which of course is true, not every biker is a Nazi, but the one I’d seen had had a swastika and SS bolts tattooed on his shoulder.
This is the same as saying "Stay safe homies looters are about", or "Stay safe homies black people are about". The tone is distasteful, to say the least.
Also, it's a generalization that is harmful since nazism is a strong accusation. When accusing someone with things like this, you should be specific.
As an improvement, he should have used a more precise language in a sensitive issue like this like "Stay safe. There are some nazis in the protest, and the situation might be escalated to violence.". To be honest, this is like social skill 101.
Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees...
I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.