On Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 02:44:41PM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > I am always sad and disheartened when this kind of threads erupt. And > I can only imagine how this hurts people that cannot just sympathize > with you, but suffer instead in their own bodies and lifes the > discrimination. I am a believer of social change towards inclusiveness > and acceptance, but it's a long and very gradual process.
I agree that inclusiveness and gradual growth and patience are really important, and are the main way in which a project as wide as Debian can mature. However. We are talking about being on the receiving end of a steady stream of "you don't belong here", "your identity is not valid", "you don't have a right to exist", Gradual growth and patience work in a community, if the people being invalidated can rely on getting support, protection, and an affirmation of their validity. If we do *not* offer this, we *cannot* ask people for patience. Otherwise, it would be (and it is) asking disempowered people to perform on par with everybody else, while bearing the punches from the trolls, while being patient with the confusion of the innocent, and while being expected to politely and patiently educate the privileged ones. It would be like, in a school, expecting that the kid who most gets beaten up, be responsible for solving the bullying problem for everybody else. The responsibility for a healty community, where everyone can feel included and accepted, is nominally the responsibility of everyone in the community. In practice, however, it is *primarily* the responsibility of the people who are *in a position of privilege and power* within that community. Enrico -- GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enr...@enricozini.org>
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