[Foundation-l] Cultural awareness and sensitivity

[Fred Bauder]

Native Americans used to compare European Americans to spiders.

http://www.native-languages.org/cheyenne-legends.htm

That referred to our quick adaptive nature that was not rooted in
tradition. We seem to be very clever and good at things, but not
committed to anything. I think the problem has probably grown much worse
as the broad spectrum of our activities impacts traditional societies.
Not only is our music different, but there is a hundred kinds of it;
likewise our other cultural artifacts.

I suspect users from many cultures do better in an environment that is
sheltered from the full impact of Western culture.

Fred Bauder


> To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and
> usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must
> admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed
> (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant
> serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so
> callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly
> impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no
> meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
>
> We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that
> affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously
> underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly
> to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was
> applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some
> familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian
> Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community.
> I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome
> people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be
> wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another
> distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to
> a minority culture in the US.
>
> Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't
> say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude
> certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually
> tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that
> even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear
> hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward
> living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the
> consequences of that impression created by our culture.
>
> Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a
> similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the
> "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be
> more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is
> part of that.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
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