> On Sep 21, 2018, at 8:01 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.mo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 12:38, Carol Willing <willi...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words. >> >> IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept and >> trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python language. >> >> From the original post: >> >> Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a >> sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she can >> count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to >> beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult >> wont reduce you to tears, right ? > > I agree - *but* there's a whole lot more I wish I could say, about > context, and looking at how the conversation reached that point. > > But I won't, because frankly I'm scared to do so. I don't trust myself > to explain my feelings without doing so in a way that people find > offensive, and suffering a backlash that I didn't intend to trigger, > and which won't help the discussion. > > I'm not sure that "I'm too scared to participate in this discussion" > is where we want to be, though…
I think that this is being framed somewhat poorly. The idea that the problem is that someone might be “offended” is I think the wrong take away. People can choose all manner of things to be offended by and just because someone might take offense to a statement, doesn’t mean that the statement is inherently something that cannot be uttered here. For instance, someone might take offense if you say that you think it’s easier to write clean code in Python than Brainfuck (or perhaps that pip is the best or worst package installer ;) ), but that doesn’t mean that you can’t express that opinion. What I think the real problem is, things that attack people, particularly for some inherent thing they are or something that has happened to them outside of their control or the like. Sometimes that can come across as “well someone might take offense to the use of this word”, and it’s important I think to remember why that word has that particular connotation. If you spent a lifetime having someone shout “Python!” and then a bucket of cold water dumped on you, you would likely start to get a bit afraid anytime you heard someone say “Python”, when you’d look for that next bucket. That’s a really silly example, but there are groups of people who *to this day* are attacked in one form of another simply for who they are, and there are a lot of things associated with those attacks, be it words, or images, or what have you, and the mere use of those words, images, or whatever can make those groups of people feel like the space they’re in is one that is likely to attack them too. That’s not just about the specific word used in the original post, but also things like making joke of assault and similar as well. It’s particularly troublesome in a society that doesn’t entirely believe that those things are wrong. So part of being and open and welcoming community, is knowing and understanding that words, images, etc like that can make people feel like we’re either a group that will directly engage in those attacks that have been associated with them in the past, or at least won’t come to their aid if someone does initiate those kinds of attack. This is a bit different than say the use of Master/slave. Those words might make some people feel uncomfortable for sure, but they don’t have the same connotations. Because they make people feel uncomfortable, it’s generally a good idea to avoid using them (particularly when there are better, more descriptive terms available) but that you’re not going to be cast out into the wilderness if you happened to use them. Overall, I think people are generally reasonable, and if you say something “bad”, but you weren’t aware or didn’t mean it that way, people generally accept an apology and then will move on [1]. They might be a bit less unsure of you after that, but if you don’t continue to repeat it, then most people will forget about it and look at it as an isolated incidence. Obviously if you keep doing it, and apologizing each time, at some point people are going to just assume the apology isn’t in earnest. [1] I know this, because I’ve done it. I grew up in let’s say, a very rural setting, and I had expressions that were disparaging to groups of people, that I didn’t really intend to be, it was just something I had always said because it was a common idiom where I grew up. I got called out on it, apologized, and everyone went on their way. _______________________________________________ python-committers mailing list python-committers@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
