Dear Anasuya,
thank you. Even after reading your text, I still do not understand
what the meaningful difference between people (i.e., user accounts) of
different races is. Can you provide an example of how the UCoC should
take into account the race property of a person to influence a
decision?
Maybe there is a better wording that avoids this terminology entirely.
I believe for a decision on UCoC matters/violations race should not
matter, maybe this is obvious and does not need to be stated
explicitly.
Personally, I would love to have the option to not specify my race as a user.
All the best
physikerwelt
On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 7:39 PM Anasuya Sengupta
<anasuya(a)whoseknowledge.org> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
> [0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#Open_Letter_…
>
> [1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_%E2%80%93_Har…
>
> [2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#%22The_Wikim…
>
> [3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)
>
> [4]
https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/creative-commons-global-summit-201… and
https://whoseknowledge.org/media-section/toward-a-wikipedia-for-and-from-us…
>
> [5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strate…
>
>
>
> --
> Anasuya Sengupta
> +44 7367 868585
> Reimagining and redesigning the internet to be for and from us all
>
http://whoseknowledge.org
> We just launched the first ever State of the Internet's Languages report!
> There 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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