He told me he felt cut off, etc, even though we were sharing the same experience. If we had something similar happen, how can he definitively attribute that experience to racism? Even if it was, that was not the point of the conversation. We were all sharing our experiences on that topic and no one mentioned race. Why do we need to bend ourselves backwards to make sure all minorities feel comfortable all the time?
The point here is you can't talk to minority groups about anything these days, if you are white.
I don't think that these universal sort of statements are anywhere near universally accurate.
There has certainly been a shift about what is an acceptable public topic lately, but "anything" is certainly false.
In most cases I hear of people that claim they’re afraid of giving “candid feedback” to a minority, it’s almost always the case that the person is an asshole when giving feedback IN GENERAL as well. Maybe evaluating your general behavior first, before going all scared of this or that minority group, would be much more productive? The net result is almost always positive.
Edit: I interpreted this as you having been witnessed situations where you felt someone was an asshole, and someone else did too but ascribed it to sexist or targeted. Apologies for the non-fluency.
I wouldn't, I'm not sure how you took that from my comment. I'm saying if I defend my group (eg "not all white males are like that" or "that wasn't sexism, he was doing the same to everyone") it often (in my personal experience) gets interpreted as defending the asshole, by going against the claim of sexism/racism/whatever.
In my personal experience, the chances of any comments on the situation getting misinterpreted as negative are too high. Either you get accused of denying the sexism is real (ignoring that you got treated the same way by the assholes), or you get accused of "well actually...". Sure, sometimes people understand, but the risk is real.
> The point here is you can't talk to minority groups about anything these days, if you are white.
You lost me here.
You had one experience with one person and extrapolated that to multiple entire groups.
You should be able to discern how your conversation with that one person was okay and not a "cancelable" offense, and how your comment that I quoted is not okay and could be a "cancelable" offense. Or if that's not the issue, you should be able to see how to have that conversation.
Can you see that I can't tell if you've been pushed to extreme views where you wind up on websites where other people say the same thing and agree with you, or if you all your experiences are segregated like this to the point you would fit a definition of racist?
That was rhetorical.
The point is that your one experience is something fairly predictable but not an area that validates your complaint. There would be a way to continue that conversation, acknowledge the person's experience and how they conflate that with race-based oppression, while also being able to contribute to the conversation.
It's exactly this line of thinking that is so problematic. You assumed that the asshole guy was "getting a pass".
So I did this as usual and offered a hint to the last person (who was a woman) to not see the trick this time. It surprised me when she looked visibly upset and asked me why I was explaining it to her. I'm guessing this is because of her own insecurities that she was worried that I thought she was too dumb to solve it on her own otherwise. Up until this point her gender was irrelevant to me. I only explain stuff because the value of discussing interview problems is to get practice solving and explaining stuff to each other. But now I have to question whether I was "mansplaining" or not.
This minor event bothered me so much I never talked to her about programming puzzles ever again.
This makes me sad, but it is exactly what I would have done. My life is built on avoiding anything awkward or uncomfortable. And...that's not working for me anymore. Thanks to a mental health professional, I'm working on embracing these "problems".
If I had your experience today, I'd come up with a plan to at least clarify things. I'd probably start with a slack message. Maybe something like:
> I'm sorry.
> When I talk programming puzzles with <person>, we have a routine of the first person to solve waits a short while and then shares the answer.
> I like that system, as spending 45 minutes to come up with the "trick" usually isn't fun for me.
And then see how the conversation goes. I'd expect 70% something with the feeling of apology-accepted, 20% being told that mansplaining is a pattern of mine, 5% things getting very personal/real/vulnerable, and 5% wildcard. Maybe the estimates are wildly off. I'm still new to being honest and real. But today-me looks at those odds and says sum of awkward + fear isn't high enough to beat the expected value of the conversation.
Yes, absolutely. Men do that all the time.
I personally haven’t found this to be the case. I’ve often found that starting out with an apology leads the offended to be much more receptive to what you have to say next. Best case scenario the person you are apologizing too isn’t offended at all and tells you so. Worst case scenario the offended uses your apology as justification that a wrong was committed in the first place. Thankfully I have only ever encountered either the former or people somewhere in the middle.
A white person reports this story and says "see, minorities exaggerate." and you are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that it must have happened to more than one person.
Do you see the problem?
In this hypothetical, I don't believe I did anything explicitly wrong. But I also didn't handle the situation well. Maybe the "sorry" is "sorry for not addressing your concern". Or maybe it's just "sorry that 'mansplaining' is a situation you encounter frequently". It doesn't have to be BLAME. Just empathy.
All an apology costs you is pride, which is basically free. If it gets you to a place where you can have a normal conversation, who cares who has done what wrong? The point of talking things out isn't about assigning blame.
My only comment was regarding the number of experiences of the parent. Nothing less, nothing more.