Jon Pretty

Everyone should read Ryan's post, though I regret that he had to write it. It shows, quite starkly, how frenzied the obsession with @jdegoes has become that a black man, who deserves to be one of the most welcome people in Scala, has to defend supposedly-racist associations.https://twitter.com/Ryan_Signify/status/1267593008033087490 …

I think there was a lot to agree with in Jamie's original post, especially how problematic the linked video was (before it was taken down, anyway... did you get a chance to watch?) I do agree, however, that taking guilt-by-association to a second degree is definitely too far.

I watched the video more than once last year. I think it would have come across as strange to a lot of people who don't have or don't care about the context, but I wouldn't call it "problematic".

I don't think I have vastly different standards for videos, and I'm sure my own biases play a part in my interpretation, but "problematic" suggests the sort of videos that deserve flagging on YouTube. It was made to sound like an incitement to violence, but it wasn't even close.

My biggest problem now is that the video is gone, and nothing is said of it. We're to pretend like it didn't exist, and we can't factually discuss the contents of the video any longer. It's swept under the rug, seemingly only because "it made people upset for some reason".

Well, I have the video, but I just don't want to go down the road of analysing it because I think we could end up debating its nuance, without conclusion. I hope I can (charitably) say "I just don't have enough time" as an excuse not to dig further into it.