Thread by @expensivestevie

For clarity on my previous tweet about the react community shenanigans, just so it’s clear where my displeasure steams from, let me try to explain why I lost respect for a lot of folks and how this would have been handled differently in the ember community from my own experience

I met Ken Wheeler about a month ago at #FullStackCon in London. We had very good conversations at the speakers lounge and into he came across as respectful and thoughtful. The key thing here however is that this is my ”personal opinion” of the lad based on my experience with him.

Yesterday, when I saw the sub tweet, the first thing that came to mind was to send him a DM pointing him to the thread with a friendly advice that he should clarify the tweet if this was a misunderstanding or apologize if it was a mistake. Mistakes and misunderstandings happen.

Last thing I was expecting anyone from the react community to do is attack the messenger. This gave me the impression that there is a ”white bro world order” in the react community that seems should never be challenged. It totally opened up a can of worms I didn't know existed

The idea that because you're comfortable with someone/something means no one is allowed to differ is basically an strong attribute of the ”supremacy concept” and it kinda validated the sub tweet message. How do you expect minorities to feel safe in that kind of toxic space?

It showed the lack of empathy the larger react community has, which is a stark difference from the react community in Finland. @freiksenet @bebraw You guys do a good job with react Finland and no doubt I feel absolutely safe within the react finland community as well 🙌🏾

To put this more into perspective, as to how it could have been handled differently, I'll explain one example as to why I feel safe in the @emberjs community and how issues are handled based on my own personal experience at @emberconf earlier in the year.

Just before my talk at @EmberConf I got on stage to try out the audio using YouTube. I listen to a lot of Latin music and usually this comes with a lot of unclad features. When I opened YouTube an unclad video came up and @vaidehijoshi was concerned about it as it violated COC

She informed @wifelette about it and Leah quickly came up to me at the speakers lounge to clarify, making sure I wasn't going out on stage to play videos of half naked women dancing to shakira. It would have been the same approach if it was say @tomdale for example.

Now just imagine @wifelette telling @vaidehijoshi that ”I know Stephen, he can't do that, he's an absolute gentleman so go screw yourself”? Doesn't sound right I guess? This is exactly what the React white bro’s did and they seem not to see anything wrong with it 🤦‍♂️🏾

In the end, it is important to understand that everyone has a right to their feelings and should not be shut down or attacked because you do not agree with their opinions of something/someone. Diversity/Inclusion aren't buzz words to throw around only when you feel comfortable.

The react community yesterday showed how dysfunctional and full of itself a lot of people are, which is sad because there are also a lot of good folks there. Also, it's worth noting the cultural differences and I can see how Ken could come across to European folks differently

Take Finland for example, our idea of patriotism is paying our taxes and holding our government accountable, making sure everyone has a decent life. We don't go around with finish flags on our cars or that sorts, we have flag days for that, except of course sons of Odin

So while it might be very American to fly flags as a sign of patriotism or do the America first and all that, in Europe that doesn't fly as we have a totally different idea of patriotism so such tendencies might be interpreted as far right attitudes and create bad blood already