_______________________________________________Tl;dr Urgent need to address the note denying race and ethnicity as “meaningful distinctions among people” in the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). The current wording is highly problematic and can result in endorsing systemic and individual discrimination and violence on the basis of race and ethnicity, rather than preventing it.
Dear Wikimedians,
We are writing this letter as the Whose Knowledge? user group, both to Wikimedia-l, as well as adding it to the talk page for the UCoC.[0] We endorsed the UCoC in the community voting process because we are committed to its principles and intentions (indeed, some of us have been expressly working towards it within the movement for a very long time, in multiple ways).
However, we continue to be deeply concerned about the current wording of a specific note in the UCoC: under Section 3.1 about Harassment, the note under Insults states that “The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion here is to mark that they are prohibited in use against others as the basis for personal attacks." (emphasis ours)[1]
This is both manifestly incorrect and entirely against what we believe to be the principles and intentions of the UCoC. Other Wikimedians have already pointed out the deeply contradictory nature of this statement, including WJBScribe on the talk page in May 2021,[2] but their comments appear not to have been considered yet.
By stating that "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people," those responsible for this text do not seem to fully grasp that:
Even though the concept of ‘race’ as a biological distinction has been refuted, ‘race’ as a social construct has been fully accepted by modern scholars.[3] Even more importantly, we know historically that the concept of ‘race’ was created and developed to serve and justify European colonialism in its quest to enslave, marginalize, oppress, dominate and exterminate black, brown and indigenous peoples in the lands they colonized. This form of “racial science” was also responsible for the genocide of Europeans who would otherwise be racialized as white outside of Europe, in particular during World War II. Since then the concept of ‘race’ has been used to develop and create some of the most wide ranging systems of power and privilege that currently marginalize and oppress the majority of the world.
By denying or not ‘endorsing’ the existence of race as a “meaningful distinction among people”, the Wikimedia movement is not doing non-white people any favors or helping to end racism or racist demonstrations, such as insults based on race. As we’ve said before, being silent about racism doesn’t make it go away. It only creates the perfect environment for the continued existence of the deep structural powers and privileges that created it in the first place.[4]
Additionally, it is equally manifestly important to acknowledge the ways in which the concept of ‘ethnicity’ is used to create “meaningful” - including violently discriminatory - “distinctions” amongst people, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism as two obvious examples. It is equally obvious that the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are not equivalent and/or interchangeable, and cannot be used so.
By including such a problematic statement, the UCoC contradicts the movement’s commitment to knowledge equity, clearly stated and approved as part of our Wikimedia Movement Strategy for 2030. The Universal Code of Conduct of a movement that doesn’t “see” race or ethnicity or acknowledge the historical and current effects of our racialized and ethnically-driven world, cannot and will not be able to “focus our efforts on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege.”[5]
Leaving this wording in, also negates the ongoing efforts by individuals and organizations across the movement who work with passion and commitment towards knowledge equity in different ways, including through challenging racist and ethnically discriminatory behavior in our projects.
As long-time members of our movement, we assume good faith, and recognize that this current wording may have happened through honest intentions gone badly wrong. As Wikimedians who believe in shared improvements through collective editing, we hope that this mistake too will be immediately acknowledged and removed from the UCoC. We are not entirely sure who is ultimately responsible for this change, but if the Wikimedia Foundation Board is in charge of reviewing the policy, we believe it is incumbent upon the Board to share with us what possible next steps they will take, towards this.
We look forward to a UCoC that lives up to its principles and intentions, and we commit to its practice as Wikimedians.
With love, respect, and solidarity,
Adele and Anasuya with the Whose Knowledge? team, advisors, and friends
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_%E2%80%93_Harassment
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)
[4] https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/creative-commons-global-summit-2019/ and https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/toward-a-wikipedia-for-and-from-us-all/
--Anasuya Sengupta+44 7367 868585Reimagining and redesigning the internet to be for and from us allThere can be no love without justice... The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.(bell hooks)
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