In the Hotseat: Black Python Devs Founder

24 thoughts on “In the Hotseat: Black Python Devs Founder”

• 1:18:28

  Honestly, after seeing this timeslot, I think framing this as a "Black Python Devs is a DEI thing" is a misframing and understanding Black Python Devs as coming from a place of DEI is a mistake.

  The fact that Black Python Devs kindof have to bear the slime of DEI is an accident in contemporary politics, because what I see Jay Miller caring about is helping people he sees as his own extended family. That's profoundly normal and something that shouldn't be surprising to any conservatives. Perhaps one issue is that a lot of conservatives or conservatively-minded people is that they've been poisoned by hyper-individualism and forgot the actual family values which are at the core of this extended family values that Jay Miller cares about.

  This is fundamentally about someone caring about their own community and wanting to help members of their own community look over the lies that mainstream education tells you expect (ie, job search by sending out hundreds of resumes blindly), and to acheive successful heights in their chosen field.

  Personally, I think the more that can be done to normalise and understand "I am helping my own people because I care about my own people", the more that the communist bloodsuckers that parasite alongside all this can be booted out of the tech space. Diversity quotas are, in my opinion, transparently used to facilitate communist infiltration, not actually helping your own demographic/extended family.

• I don't understand the need some/most? people have to see people who "look like them" more "represented" – I've spent most of my life being the odd one out in many different activities and it didn't bother me in the slightest, except when i could tell other people were uncomfortable around me for some reason

  i find it very weird that it's a goal at all to artificially have "representation" in terms of appearance or race or sex or age or whatever, when you're already going out of your way not to prevent anyone from participating

  in fact if something makes me uncomfortable, it's this seemingly pervasive attitude; as soon as this kind of talk starts I'm alienated

• my main worry when i see groups like this is that their primary goal should always be to ensure that they themselves become obsolete. There must be an end game in mind.

• The problem here i think is the global focus. You're not going to win. If you do, it creates the same problem that Amazon creates: huge concentration of power and poor management. Focus on local culture and it'll work out better for everyone.

• Spokane is quite unfairly called out in this. The police here don't specifically target blacks. They are universally terrible to everyone. They killed the local pastor who called for help with a prowler about 15 years ago and the situation has not improved. You only call them if you are legally required to do so or someone is already likely to die.

• 27:00 – Code switching is not a "protection" mechanism, it's about communicating effectively in the workplace. I've been to predominantly Indian workplaces and have had to learn to communicate their way. And that's fine.

  Though, conversely, I can understand having a space where you don't have to code switch is very nice, and can be a way to let your hair down and be more comfortable.

  So far, this organization straddles a line between being something I think is terrible, and something I think is fantastic.

  We have Irish pubs, and some are very Irish. You have to do things their way, and that's fine. It's a part of being part of a multi-cultural society. It's really hard to articulate.

• What would the GNOME Foundation think of a "White Python Devs" organization? They would use every antiwhite slur in the book.

• 1:17:44 "that's how it works for everybody!" In other words, Lunduke admits that the system is not remotely meritocratic and that the soundbite about the "War on Meritocracy" has been selective outrage from the start.

• Lol "codeswitching" … bro everybody does that around different people every day. That is not some black people only thing.

• Conferences are stupid anyway, who cares anymore? Just upload your tech talk on youtube

• Trying to needlessly categorize people by their race or heritage is a pointless, losing battle.

• Just welcome everyone wherever they come from. Don't make black teams, white teams, red teams and blue teams, because that does not unite, it divides. Give up all these stupid ideologies that are telling you how much of a victim you are and how you have to be part of the right "group" and instead just contribute code, docs, ideas and participate.

• As nice and cordial the interviewee was he still is a racialist. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity grants and direct black people towards them as a mission he'd rather spread influence and use his race to do so.

• Zimbabwe? I think its pronounced Rhodesia.

• I don't want to be a part of society anymore, everyone is going barking mad.

• No matter who / what you are: If you insist on having a red carpet(i.e. special treatment) rolled out before you show up, I do not want to work with you.
  (edit: clarified on what I mean by red carpet)

• Jay was an awesome guest. These really are the kinds of conversation that need to be had in order to keep the scales balanced. There is no destination with these things, there is only the journey and it's one that we have to take together.

• This reminds me of the woman who was a reporter interviewing a man and complaining that there weren't enough women in a certain male dominated profession. When the man asked the woman why she didn't choose to be in that profession she answered she wanted to be a reporter not someone in that other profession.

  For some reason it didn't occur to her that many women make the same choice and have similar preferences that she has.

• The biggest takeaway from this for me was how completely normalised rac!sm is coming FROM 'the b|ack community', not only as a matter of ha+e for the ha+eful but as a matter of standard operation across the board. It's very sad to see.

  That first message on the Discord can be spun any way you like but there's no question that it would pass the simple "replace b|ack/wh!te" test. So much that followed was not much better. And yet despite defending that, Jay seems like a very chill, non-ha+eful, very well-intentioned individual when he gets to explain his thoughts and motivations. I think it shows that much of what could easily be written off as 'hateful' is often more a result of self-interest and/or ignorance (from both sides) rather than blind hostility towards another demographic. More conversations like this – reaching out across ideological divides, not assuming malicious intent behind potentially uncomfortable questions, finding common ground where possible and respectfully disagreeing where not possible – will go a long way to fostering more empathy and less ignorance all around.

  Huge respect to Brian for daring to go where few mainstream 'journalists' would ever dare and being willing to address the elephants in the room, and equal respect to Jay for being willing to engage with someone who is so controversial among the GNOME circles he just got in be.d with. No doubt both of them knew what they were getting into yet it remained non-combative, informative, respectful and light-hearted.

  PS: this was originally posted over half an hour ago and realised now the comment was sh@dowba.nned hence some usual punctuation/etc in this comment.

• One of the accepted assumptions that I don't accept and wasn't addressed early enough is that people are being deliberately excluded. Since there is a group that doesn't seem to excluded it assumes that either that group excludes the others or there is a mechanism that excludes some but not others.

  Who are these people doing the deliberate exclusion, what is their motivation? What is this mechanism?

• 42:00 What controversy! Lunduke doesn't use Linux after ragging on CEO's not using Linux!

• I was taught from a very young age that when you hear the phrase, 'People who look like me', you ask 'Who cares'? Because saying anything else gives credence to the idea that I should make how I look an important part of something. It is dramatically different if a white person says 'people who look like me' because that implies the white person is embracing a worldview that qualifies people by their skin tone. How is that okay?

• I kind of understand the points in this interview. I wonder how much of this is a reflection of US socio-political issues. I have never encountered any of these issues as a Python dev in the UK.

• Phuck me. Politics and race taking over phucking everything. It's a racist organisation. I don't support it. Disgusted.

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