Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
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User ID: 863
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
9hr ago
Do you think this is a just outcome for this incident?
I think the arbitrator makes a compelling case.
If you think this is a just outcome, are you comfortable with people generalizing the logic behind this outcome into a set of rules you will then accept living under?
I am not even sure what this means. I expect we disagree about what the rules are here that you are suggesting generalizing.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
9hr ago
As best I can tell from reading the decision the incorrect quote of Kirk didn't come up in the firing context at all. There were two posts cited to, allegedly because they disparaged white men on the basis of gender or race, but the arbitrator ruled that was not supportable by reference to the post themselves (Page 30, Section C The Record Does Not Establish That the Grievant Disparaged White Men). The posts themselves are:
Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence
Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.
As a white man myself, I don't feel disparaged by either post.
The only other basis given for the firing was the alleged security threat due to other people threatening Attiah for her posts on the topic. I generally think it would be a bad precedent to set that you can get fired because other people communicate threats against you. If people had sent threats to Google over Damore, would they have been more justified in firing him?
More generally, I think this illustrates the advantage of having a union! If there wasn't a CBA I'm skeptical Attiah would have won a more general employment discrimination lawsuit from this set of facts.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
11hr ago
The survey doesn't have a break out for "ethnically British", whatever that means. But it does break the survey down by people who do/don't consider themselves British and by White/Other Ethnicity. In both cases the numbers are pretty close to the population numbers. Among Whites, 59% think it is important to have been born in Britain (vs the population 55%) and 41% think it is important to have British Ancestry (vs the population 39%). Among those who identify as British the numbers are 59% (the same) and 40% (1 percentage point lower) respectively.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
12hr ago
I suppose I am with @Crowstep. Phillips just has a difference conception of what it means to be British than people like Tomlinson. It seems like she's hardly alone in this. According to the British Social Attitudes survey:
Over the last ten years, there has been a decline in the proportion who regard birth or ancestry as important for being ‘truly British’.
The proportion who think that to be ‘truly British’ it is important for someone to have been born in Britain has fallen from 74% in 2013 to 55% now.
Similarly, the proportion who believe it is important for someone to have British ancestry has dropped from 51% to 39%.
In contrast, 86% say it is important that someone respects British political institutions and laws.
It appears that quite a lot of British people agree with Phillips that being British is more rooted in adapting to British institutions and laws than having a particular ancestry. To the extent the British people are the authors of what it means to be British they seem to be moving more towards a Phillips definition than a Tomlinson one.
Well, the author in question (in an actual article) did make some comments structured similarly about black women. From page 25/26 of the arbitration PDF:
Is it racist against black women to describe them as "enforcing U.S. complicity in [an] atrocity?"
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