As a white cis male, I don't have to try to be racist, sexist, or bigoted. I don't have to intend to hurt someone.
I can have the best intentions in the world.
But we live on this timeline - literally the default is that anything I do or say carries with it some type of oppressive baggage. Even this, responding to someone with a name that appears female, is.
I don't get to make that choice. Adam, being a white male in tech, has the same privilege.
Adam's tweet, intentionally or not, was a dog whistle that called intentionally bigoted, sexist, racists to pile on a (presumably) healthy critique of his project. Also his tweet framed it as a personal attack.
It's not OK at all. He did not just what he accused (what's the worst that could happen? A few people make an informed decision about using TailwindCSS? A few people make an erroneous decision? Lol okay), but that tweet launched a volley of actual abuse, I'm guessing more than one rape/death threat. Pretty sure someone's day was really ruined.
Hey @waynejwerner, I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I'm being cornered into hiding this thread because the original poster has opted to retain a portion of her commentary that is accusatory, false, and destructive.
I've learned since hiding other comments, that this will result in your comment being hidden as well, and I welcome you to repost it, or post a link to it at the top level so others can engage with it.
You may also receive notification from the DEV system about this, and I apologize in advance.
From mental health & arts to software engineer in under a year. Passionate about tech for good. Will inevitably end up writing about how coding makes me feel too…
I am not denying the existence of the power dynamics described in the article, or by you - and if you had read my other comments you would know that. I just still fail to see how the tweet in question is conclusively an example thereof. Living in a society that is shaped by various sexist and racist power dynamics is not mutually exclusive with this Tweet not being a great example of these dynamics in action. Where you saw callousness and potentially even malice enabled by power dynamics, I saw frustration.
My default assumption when seeing the tweet was not "damn, look at how society's power dynamics have enabled this white cis het male to tweet this way", it was "wow, I bet it must be a bit upsetting to see someone with 100k+ followers tweet an article that literally likens your creation to a fart. I wonder how I'd deal with that".
I agree that the tweet was not the most graceful way to handle things, and ideally as a public creator you'd have thick enough skin to accept feedback and move on without any backlash. But I also know that emotional regulation is HARD. I used to work in mental health, and I know these things are more difficult for some than others.
Bottom line, the tweet is something I can see myself tweeting too in his shoes, on a bad day, badly hurt. But I think what you're saying here is that coming from me, a woman, these words wouldn't incite harassment, because the power dynamics are different? Makes me feel like I'm the one with the privilege of being able to freely express my feelings on Twitter, then... I'm really trying to understand here, because the last few days of conflict, even harassment, due to my opinion being the minority one, have been hard.
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As a white cis male, I don't have to try to be racist, sexist, or bigoted. I don't have to intend to hurt someone.
I can have the best intentions in the world.
But we live on this timeline - literally the default is that anything I do or say carries with it some type of oppressive baggage. Even this, responding to someone with a name that appears female, is.
I don't get to make that choice. Adam, being a white male in tech, has the same privilege.
Adam's tweet, intentionally or not, was a dog whistle that called intentionally bigoted, sexist, racists to pile on a (presumably) healthy critique of his project. Also his tweet framed it as a personal attack.
It's not OK at all. He did not just what he accused (what's the worst that could happen? A few people make an informed decision about using TailwindCSS? A few people make an erroneous decision? Lol okay), but that tweet launched a volley of actual abuse, I'm guessing more than one rape/death threat. Pretty sure someone's day was really ruined.
Hey @waynejwerner, I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I'm being cornered into hiding this thread because the original poster has opted to retain a portion of her commentary that is accusatory, false, and destructive.
I've learned since hiding other comments, that this will result in your comment being hidden as well, and I welcome you to repost it, or post a link to it at the top level so others can engage with it.
You may also receive notification from the DEV system about this, and I apologize in advance.
I am not denying the existence of the power dynamics described in the article, or by you - and if you had read my other comments you would know that. I just still fail to see how the tweet in question is conclusively an example thereof. Living in a society that is shaped by various sexist and racist power dynamics is not mutually exclusive with this Tweet not being a great example of these dynamics in action. Where you saw callousness and potentially even malice enabled by power dynamics, I saw frustration.
My default assumption when seeing the tweet was not "damn, look at how society's power dynamics have enabled this white cis het male to tweet this way", it was "wow, I bet it must be a bit upsetting to see someone with 100k+ followers tweet an article that literally likens your creation to a fart. I wonder how I'd deal with that".
I agree that the tweet was not the most graceful way to handle things, and ideally as a public creator you'd have thick enough skin to accept feedback and move on without any backlash. But I also know that emotional regulation is HARD. I used to work in mental health, and I know these things are more difficult for some than others.
Bottom line, the tweet is something I can see myself tweeting too in his shoes, on a bad day, badly hurt. But I think what you're saying here is that coming from me, a woman, these words wouldn't incite harassment, because the power dynamics are different? Makes me feel like I'm the one with the privilege of being able to freely express my feelings on Twitter, then... I'm really trying to understand here, because the last few days of conflict, even harassment, due to my opinion being the minority one, have been hard.