On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 02:03:40PM -0800, benjamin barber wrote: > It's unfortunate that Debian is named after Debra and Ian, because having > the project named after a white supremacist, who used his ex-wifes name as > an trophy.
I agree in whole with the responses of my fellow developers Dimitri and Russ. I also believe, because the Internet never forgets, that this libelous accusation needs to be addressed directly. In the time leading up to Ian's death, he posted on his now-deleted twitter account about an altercation with police. He described being the victim of police brutality, and expressed the desire that his story be widely known - in the hopes that, where stories of police brutality (up to and including murder) of racial minorities in the United States have failed to lead to the systemic reforms that are needed, perhaps a story of a white, affluent, educated, middle-aged man being a victim of the same systems might tip the scale. In the course of expressing these views on twitter, Ian used a racial epithet. It appears to be this one word that has led to him being branded here as a "white supremacist". It is not racism to call attention to racial bias inherent in systems of unequal power. It is not white supremacy to use a taboo word for its shock value when discussing violations of civil rights that should be shocking to all, regardless of the color of the victim. One can certainly disagree with his methods, but there is no cause for accusing Ian of "white supremacy" when all the evidence suggests he desired to see civil rights abuses corrected for the good of all. His memory deserves better than this. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org
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