OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 2:10 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755)
In reply to: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd by ctpm
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

I just had this conversation -- or it's analogue -- with a black cow-orker.

I'm white and male, and have worked with people of various races and nationalities over my life, but this is really the first time I've worked with black people in what I guess I would call an upper-socioeconomic business environment, closely enough to get to know them fairly well. As I expected, they're little different from me.

But it has made for some interesting conversations on race, and -- Robert Parker's Hawk and his opinions on the topic aside -- I've found that a lot of my assumptions are pretty close on.

The one that's at hand right now has to do with the phrase "you people", or "your people", as black people often get bent up about the use of by white people. I said something that was *not* that as a throwaway the other morning while talking with 2 of our HR ladies, one of whom is about a 60-40 mix, colorwise, and the other, a... Cape Verde Islander? One of those accents that sounds vaguely Jamaican, but isn't.

The door being opened, I later asked one of them about the disconnect between "we don't want you to discriminate against it just because we're a minority" and "say it loud; I'm Black and proud!" She really couldn't find much to say about it.

It really does seem to be that they want it both ways... and it's common amongst groups who are (or perceive themselves as, or are perceived as) minorities in their larger society: Deaf people (with a capital D) have some similar intersocietal behavioral tics. (If you want more on that, Google up "cochlear implant Deaf culture" and be prepared to duck)

So indeed, Claudio, I agree with you: there seems to be some schizophrenia in the group behaviors of minority groups, and it comes out pretty squarely in conversations like this.

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OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 3:36 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

> Deaf people (with a capital D) have some similar intersocietal behavioral tics. (If you want more on that, Google up "cochlear implant Deaf culture" and be prepared to duck)

This is off-topic, but since today seems to be my day to call people on things... I am genuinely offended by this statement. Certainly cochlear implants are a complex issue, but to dismiss a marginalized group's opinions on an often-problematic medical intervention as a "tic"? That's disgusting.

(Perhaps this makes our interchange an example of the "schizophrenia in the group behaviors" of white males; but then again, perhaps not, because members of a unprivileged minority can't get away with half the things you're doing.)

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 1:48 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

I haven't the impression from the (admittedly somewhat cursory) googling around that I did that "often-problematic" was the proper characterization; certainly CI surgery doesn't always provide what the non hearing impaired would call "good hearing", but you're correct in that the analogy with this handicap is probably not all that good.

I have, though looked into the arguments made by the Deaf community on CI surgery (capital D on purpose), and I have to tell you, as what I consider to be a reasonable man (yeah, yeah, don't bother :-) I have to say that someone who can *afford* CI surgery for a child, whose physician tells them that it has an excellent chance of allowing that child to function in the "real world" (where sound is, y'know, pretty common -- like car horns?), and deciding consciously not to allow that *because they want their child to grow up in the Deaf Community -- for me, that's so close to child abuse that you have to talk me down off the ledge...

and I'm about the most liberal 40 year old I know.

Hence my choice of wording; I apologize if you took it personally.

(I'll note here, for what it's worth, my view that if you are not deaf, you're not really *entitled* to be offended by what I said...)