CoC diversity list concerns, suggestions
Aaron Wolf
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I want to reiterate and discuss some points about the list of acknowledged diverse identities.
The current CoC draft has 2 duplicate listings of:
> regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, spirituality, religion (or lack thereof), education, or other inherent qualities.
Drop duplication
At the very least, there should be only one case of this list. Any other place can simply refer back to the "list above" or similar.
Stop trying to be complete?
But I'm still concerned that any list of entries larger than around 5-7 items (i.e. the number of things people can hold in working memory) inherently comes across as an attempt at being a complete list even with the acknowledgement of "…or other".
So, for example, consider if we removed "neuro(a)typicality" from the current list but left everything else the same. That would seem clearly to be omitting that class and be a signal to people that this issue was not considered and may not be recognized.
However, I think everything would be better if we made the list much shorter and emphasized the incompleteness, such as: "…regardless of personal qualities such as gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, or other diverse traits".
That short sentence, easily readable, makes it clear that these really are just examples and in no way feels like neuro(a)typicality is specifically omitted.
Even if we keep the attempted-exhaustive list, add "qualities such as" to the front of the list in addition to the "other" at the end helps ENORMOUSLY in my view. So, let's please do that at least.
Still, the huge list seemingly trying to be exhaustive always makes me feel an obligation to expand the list for any trait I see missing. A short list feels like not only are we simply imperfect at exhausting all possibilities but we actually know that more than this are covered and so there's no doubt about privileging certain traits per se. If we keep the long list, I have other traits I think should be added. I can't get over having both a long list and omitting traits that we surely do want included… if it's long, it needs to be thorough.
Diversity in other areas aligned with our values
We should not tolerate intolerance. So, we should not support the expression of prejudiced discriminatory views, particularly against marginalized people. Adding Nazis isn't the form of diversity we want.
I think we can simply acknowledge that we don't tolerate views in conflict with our celebration of diversity and the rest of the co-op values. When there's no such conflict, we want to support diversity of opinions, professions, etc.
If we keep a shorter list (as I suggest above), then it's easier to just skip the idea of listing "professions" etc. because it's acknowledged that unreasonable discrimination on that basis is not okay along with lots of other unlisted traits. But if we keep the long list, then we need to have this debate about that and other things to continue the expanding list…
Aaron Wolf Thu 2 Aug 2018 11:05PM
Though longer, I'm leaning toward adapting their wording like this:
As a cooperative, Social.coop is based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. Our members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. We also follow the rest of the ICA co-op principles.
For our Code of Conduct in particular, we emphasize the principle of Voluntary and Open Membership. We welcome all persons able to use our services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, with no discrimination based on personal characteristics such as gender, class, race, age, or other traits.
And I'd like to see something added in there explicitly emphasizing these two issues:
- general celebration of diversity in all forms
- no support of prejudice/intolerance/bigotry (in other words: it's a violation of the CoC to express views in opposition to our core values)
All that said, I still want to make sure that there aren't people out there who worry that we're not doing enough to emphasize deference to marginalized voices.
I'm concerned that there are people who just won't accept a short list because they insist on seeing explicit reference to disabilities, neuro(a)typicality, or other things… I'm not convinced we can avoid a long list, I'm just pointing out the problems with it. My own ideal is to have no list in the core CoC and only reference it in an annotated version.
emi do Fri 3 Aug 2018 12:31AM
@wolftune how about something like this?
As a cooperative, social.coop is based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. Our members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. We also follow the rest of the ICA co-op principles.
*For our Code of Conduct in particular, we emphasize the principle of Voluntary and Open Membership. We welcome all persons able to use our services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, with an openness to celebrating diversity in all forms and with no discrimination, prejudice, intolerance of bigotry based on personal characteristics. *
Aaron Wolf Fri 3 Aug 2018 5:35AM
I like that overall. Some minor edits:
- "with an openness to celebrating" could be just "with celebration of"
- add comma after "equity" in first paragraph
- "intolerance of bigotry" — I assume you meant "or" there (and need an extra comma), but I think the list of discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, or bigotry — that's a bit redundant and long. Or maybe you meant "intolerance of bigotry" as something we DO (we don't tolerate bigotry), but then it doesn't go in a list of things we don't accept (that would be a double negative).
"diversity in all forms" doesn't handle the issue of "we don't mean diversity where Nazis add political diversity". I think what we want includes an extra statement that says effectively that we don't accept political views that conflict with these values.
Maybe: "We welcome all persons able to use our services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership. We particularly celebrate diversity, and do not tolerate discrimination or prejudice based on personal traits such as gender, race, class, or other such characteristics. Diverse opinions on politics, religion, and other matters are welcome as long as they align with our core values."
Something like that. So the idea is: the one thing we will censor are views that conflict with our core values. And if inclusion of diverse members is a core value, then views that go against that are included in the things we don't tolerate.
I hope this idea is clear. I'm not quite satisfied with an exact wording yet.
emi do Fri 3 Aug 2018 7:32AM
Hmmm, I really don't see the benefit of the short list but I like the rest of it. So perhaps :
We welcome all persons able to use our services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership. We particularly celebrate diversity, and do not tolerate discrimination or prejudice. Diverse opinions on politics, religion, and other matters are welcome as long as they align with our core values.
Aaron Wolf Tue 7 Aug 2018 11:32PM
I love how clear that is.
Picky thoughts:
Maybe somehow capture better clarity that we do discriminate against ideas that are in opposition to our values. So perhaps "do not tolerate discrimination or prejudice based on inherent personal traits"? That makes it clear that it's the more fixed, inherent traits where discrimination is unwelcome, and the next sentence you wrote does a good job of qualifying discrimination on less inherent views etc.
I think those who had concerns on this issue in the past should be consulted rather than be surprised about changes later. Is that @meltheadorable maybe…? And Jon Pinkus who doesn't seem to be registered at Loomio…
My vote is for your general wording probably with my "based on inherent personal traits" addition (or similar) while adding more discussion and examples in a separate annotated document.
emi do · Thu 2 Aug 2018 10:39PM
I was just in the process of replying to your message @wolftune ! I seem to have the same issue. Sometimes ing through fields in the comment box works better than trying to click through with your mouse.
From what I understand from your comments above, you'd be comfortable with an edit like this:
Social.coop members agree to adhere to the [International Cooperative Alliance's Statement of Co-operative Principles Values.]
Member's behaviour in [social.coop spaces] is expected to be in alignment with the Statement:
"Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others."
Where [International Cooperative Alliance's Statement of Co-operative Principles Values.] would link to https://www.ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles