Woah woah woah, deep cleansing breaths, friend. you've misinterpreted the quote you've used. When he says He's saying, in his theoretical situation "I just got fired for saying x in a context where i hoped to please people. This confused me, and as a result instead of having the desired reaction of regret and positive change, I would be radicalized into becoming angry and whatever subconscious bigotry i did have would become conscious and more fervent as I blamed x minority for my problems." The worrying part about this interaction is that you've just done exactly what he was positing. Not everyone who makes a racist joke is exclusively a racist bigot. There are all sorts of things that people say and do because of the innate human desire to be accepted by the group. This doesn't make these actions okay, but it does make explaining to that person why that action is not okay a reasonable first step. If there is evidence of systematic bigotry by that person, then that's a different story, but you've got to see that pattern of behaviour before you can make that judgement. Like, when someone calls me "a transgendered", or "born a x", it's like, well, that's not strictly accurate, and you take an opportunity to educate in a neutral or positive setting. Or if someone says "I have a tranny friend", it's like, "i don't have a problem with that term, but you gotta know that there are a lot of people who have some serious issues with that term and you gotta be careful with a loaded gun like that in the future". It's always best, when faced with a morally ambiguous comment, to first assume the best intentions of people, not just on the internet, but in real life as well. For one, not everything comes across properly in text without context and for two sometimes have legitimately no idea that something is offensive (this is far more common than you'd believe). Getting angry on the internet is even more useless than it is in real life. real social change is the kind of work that requires the channelling of frustration and anger, and the tempering of expectations with time. You can spend your life angry and vitriolic, or you can put that energy into affecting useful positive change in your environment.I'd be out of a job and miserable - who would I blame, myself, or them?
Don't believe it for a minute. Brian Lam feeling bad about stealing an iPhone Adrien Chen sorry/not sorry about the Lucidending bullshit Even News of the World printed a retraction every now and then. That doesn't mean they weren't subhuman douchebags. It works like this: 1) Gawker does something horrible 2) That horrible thing ruins lives 3) Gawker faces scathing press 4) Gawker pretends to be introspective so that they can be in front of the story 5) Lather, rinse, repeat Gawker, publicly: http://gawker.com/unpaid-intern-not-a-real-employee-cant-sue-for-sexual-1442902764 Gawker, in sworn affidavits: http://pando.com/2014/02/21/revealed-gawkers-sworn-affidavits-explaining-why-its-greedy-interns-didnt-deserve-to-be-paid/ Never Never Gawker Ever. That shit right there is (5). "Would I ruin a life again? Absolutely. But I'd make sure to write the article about how I felt bad about it ahead of time to get ahead of the news cycle."but I do want to encourage more introspection from the editors of sites like these. Even if it's only because he was hoisted by his own petard.
As if being an unpaid intern wasn't bad enough, now a federal judge in New York has ruled that individuals who don't get paid for their work aren't protected by the New York City Human Rights Law and therefore can't bring a sexual harassment claim against their employers.
None of our internships were paid, and the interns understood that it was an unpaid position. We had one or two paid interns at the launch of the site, but we stopped paying the next interns that arrived in 2009. None of the subsequent interns complained that they were not paid since they understood that it was an unpaid internship from the beginning…
I've been asked many times if I would post Sacco's tweet all over again, and I still don't know how to answer. Would I post the tweet again? Sure. Would I post the tweet knowing it's going to cause an incredibly disproportionate personal disaster for Justine Sacco? No. Would I post the tweet knowing it could happen? Now we're in dicey territory, and I'm thinking of ghosts: If you had a face-to-face sit-down with all of the people you've posted about, how many of THOSE would you do again? We're wading through swamps and thorns, here.