Thank you Adele and Anasuya, for pointing out how problematic that sentence
is. I also find that it subverts the otherwise brilliant work of the
Harassment section, and my layperson's +1 is to remove everything between
the parentheses. The section would then read:
slurs or stereotypes, and any attacks based on personal
characteristics.
Insults may refer to perceived characteristics like intelligence,
appearance, ethnicity, race, religion (or lack thereof), culture, caste,
sexual orientation, gender, sex, disability, age, nationality, political
affiliation, or other characteristics. In some cases, repeated mockery,
sarcasm, or aggression constitute insults collectively, even if individual
statements would not.
The statement stands on its own and needs no additional qualifiers.
I believe the "does not endorse" phrase is a symptom of a real cultural
phenomenon of so-called color-blindness, which can still be heard echoing
in this mailing list thread, and I think we should explore the
misunderstanding that makes it possible for reviewers to have passed over
the phrase. The concepts might be made more accessible by turning to the
parallel (though not equivalent) question for gender: *does it matter what
gender a person is?* — Yes! Very much so, as gender is a deep part of our
ideas of self, and shapes interactions with other people and life
opportunities under patriarchy. As feminists, we (speaking for myself)
demand equality of outcome and of opportunity regardless of gender, and
reject any suggestion that gender determines an individual. In other
words, knowing a person's gender doesn't mean you know anything else about
them. I assume this is what was meant by not being a "meaningful
distinction" in the UCoC, in which case the same applies to all of the
listed personal characteristics, not just race and ethnicity.
Kind regards,
[[meta:Adamw]]
On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 10:51 PM Physikerwelt <wiki(a)physikerwelt.de> wrote:
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…
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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