Author's Note

Some of you have probably noticed I almost never use the second person here (and rarely the first). It’s because I don’t feel like I’m writing to you. I feel like we’re working together, here. Trying to understand the misunderstood and fix the broken. Figuring it out.

But now I’m writing to you.

I’m asking you, actually. I’m asking, “What do you think about the Google manifesto?”

Do you think it’s been blown out of proportion? That maybe it made some good points? Do you think there’s an equivalence between diverse, inclusive speech and speech against diversity and inclusion?

Fair enough. How about the Nazis who showed up in Charlottesville?

They have the same manifesto. Do you support them? If you’ve already bought into the genetic inferiority of all women, it’s really not much of a jump to throw blacks and jews on the fire as well, is it?

If you believe we have to be “open and honest” about women’s genetic limitations so we can “help” them find their proper role in tech, maybe you would stand arm-in-arm with the alt-right to defend that statue of Robert E. Lee? Lee, who wrote “the blacks are immeasurably better off” as slaves and “the painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race” and “will prepare & lead them to better things.” It’s the same manifesto.

The Charlottesville Nazis, the alt-right, who proudly march alongside them, our president, who makes excuses for each, and this Google manifesto prat — they are all of a piece and they are all selling the same scam. Support for one is support for all.

And support of any means you will find no support here. There will never be a “we” that includes you. Your only goal is to misinform and break.

We’re here to understand and fix.