[rustthrow]

> The recent incident with ThePHD’s keynote downgrade was not racially motivated, thankfully, but… if that’s what it looks like from the outside, and any form of official communication is still days or weeks away, does it really make a difference?

yes! it does!

we can't keep framing everything as race, gender, or orientation related. people have to have basic filters for what the most important issue is in a situation. stop falling back to "easy" outs or making sweeping statements about the "deeper systemic problem".

there are plenty of social problems which can't be solved by attaching every motive to every situation

[fnordpiglet]

I think it matters in so far as people who “don’t fit in” to a group often feel excluded from the group, and seeing people like you honored makes you feel more welcome. As a bunch of nerds surely we know what it feels like to be the odd man out. But what if you’re the odd man out in every context except for your family? What if you are the only one like yourself, the only one who when you walk in a room people stop talking and shift uncomfortably? Even in a room full of nerdy outsiders, you’re the outsider outsider. I don’t believe racism entered into the decision. But in tossing aside an opportunity to honor a black engineer for their legitimately earned achievements, you take away a chance to make that uncomfortable black engineer who feels outside the group a part of that group, and that is a shame. It doesn’t have to be the only decision making criteria. But in my life, opening doors to people and making the uncomfortable feel comfortable is important. I at least remember being socially uncomfortable and feeling like no one is like me at many points in my life. I know how that feels, and I know my experience was a shadow of what a black person experiences daily in the US, and in tech in particular where they are essentially unrepresented. Y’all don’t have to care how folks feel around you, but I was raised to love my neighbor, and small gestures to make entire classes of people feel welcome in my field when all evidence bears they’re not, I’ll take it.

[bluejekyll]

I believe the reason they are saying it doesn’t matter, is that without a clear statement of what happened from the decision makers, people can speculate.

One of those things people will speculate on is if this was one of the reasons. The fact that it is also part of the equation means it can’t be outright ignored and so will also need to be addressed. On top of that, this is already an underrepresented group, and regardless of if it was a primary motivating factor, it does not help show that group that they are welcome and in fact harms any effort to do so.

It absolutely matters if it was or was not a factor in this decision, but without clear information about the decision making process, speculation will occur, and that in and of itself is harmful.

[rustthrow]

I really don't agree, reading the original poster's experience, that we should walk away thinking that it was because they're black. Nor should we by default assume that's the case. Multiple follow-ups by people in the Rust community have said that the politics and behavior here are a wider issue with leadership.

If the takeaway or speculation is that what went wrong here was only an issue because the speaker is black, it cheapens their experience. It tells other minorities that when they flag a problem, the root cause is their race/gender/orientation; that the solution is then a code of conduct refresh, maybe diversity training, "educating themselves", etc. But that is not, fundamentally, as far as we can see, what is wrong here. We are not respecting the deep issues that the OP actually did identify by projecting other speculative possibilities.

What happened here is a problem no matter who the speaker was. Let's address that. If other evidence comes to light on the backing motivations, we can address those to, but it's not helpful to voluntarily pull other bad behavior that there is no reason to suspect here. No one can disprove a negative, but it's on all of us to not fall for that bait.

[DiggyJohnson]

I vehemently disagree. Unless there is reason to suspect race is a factor, which there is none in this case, then discussion should move on the issue at hand, and speculation about racism should be discouraged or ignored. Your perspective, while well intentioned, is exactly the sort that drives needless division and suspicion in modern discourse.

[brickteacup]

> without a clear statement of what happened from the decision makers, people can speculate

People can always speculate whatever they want. And let's be honest, the kind of people who like making utterly baseless claims about racism will do so regardless of any official statements or explanations. Unless there's actual evidence of racial animus it's best to just ignore these silly people.

[pantalaimon]

My first guess was the because ThePHD did a lot to push C23 forward, this might have been seen as a 'betrayal' to the Rust community - but maybe my imagination is a bit too wild, at least that’s what I hope.

[felipellrocha]

I don’t think the article is saying we should make everything into a question of race. Only that if Rust doesn’t reply, people will make up their mind, and people usually devolve to the lowest common denominator, which, in this case, is a race issue.

[anonymouskimmer]

> lowest common denominator

Occam's razor and salience come in to play here too.

[xiphias2]

Maybe the downgrade not, but the original keynote was, but we can only guess. I don't think it's popular to vote against a black person being the keynote speaker.

At the same time this keynote is nowhere near as interesting as last year's async stabilization keynote, I think we can all agree on that.

[pantalaimon]

If his talk would have been anything like his blog posts, I’d expect it to be brilliant

[jadamson]

If all you care about is appearances, it doesn't matter at all whether discrimination actually took place. If you do actually care about discrimination, it matters quite a lot whether it happened.

[krainboltgreene]

> we can't keep framing everything as race, gender, or orientation related.

No one is doing this, problem solved.

[tanepiper]

The last few incidents have been damaging with or without communication. For large companies who need stability to ship software - the Rust story has been one of what looks like a good language being destroyed by shitty leadership and shitty drama.

[twic]

You should have called this account rustreturnerr.