Google's diversity strat lead who said Jews have 'insatiable appetite for war' is no longer diversity strat lead A Googler who was supposed to steer diversity efforts at the internet titan has been removed from his post – after netizens found a 2007 blog post in which he suggested Jewish people had an “insatiable appetite for war and killing" when acting in self-defense. He also wrote that he "still despised" homosexuality. Kamau Bobb …
I wonder if anyone has checked to see if these are still his views.
I'm sure we all have some skeletons from the past that we would rather not come to light in later years, having presumably matured in our positions somewhat.
Judging someone now on what they thought 14 years ago is probably not all that fair, although I do not know this chap at all.
That's the problem with having everything recorded for eternity in the Wayback machine. Nobody cares if you change your mind.
It doesn't matter what his views are today. He has been judged in absentia in the court of public opinion, based on today's social mores, on views he expressed a decade and a half ago, and has been found guilty without an actual trial. There will be no appeal, and those suggesting one will automatically be judged similarly.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. You may be next.
Remember that of-colo(u)r joke you used to tell in the frat/sorority house?
@Jake “It doesn't matter what his views are today. He has been judged in absentia in the court of public opinion…”
A court willing to pass judgement on statements taken out of context. I read the linked article, it was not antisemitic it was a condemnation of the policies and actions of Israel under the guise of Judaism. In fact, nothing he said has not already been voiced by some members of the Jewish faith.
As for the comment on homosexuality I could easily take offense he is attacking my sexuality. But again, read the linked article it is nothing of the sort, again taken out of context.
Maybe he is unsuitable to have a job with some role in diversity. Seems you can not be diverse and have an opinion.
"...that whole article has a homophobic under current..."
I'm not gay, so I don't know, but I am very confused. I don't even really know what the article is about, and I've read it twice. He has a lesbian friend I guess, and so he doesn't hate gay people or hate homesexuality logically, just emotionally? He's working on tolerance of different sexual orientations? I really don't know. The whole thing sounds like somebody staring at a car accident and going "really makes you think."
You can tell there's a lot of effort put into his words to seem like he put a lot of thought into whatever the hell he was thinking of, but I cannot tell what he was thinking of. Or at least, I do not know why the thoughts he had seemed like something I would ever say out loud or write down for the public to see. It's like the first draft of an unqualified and unresearched opinion on a complex topic that got run through grammarly and posted.
The daft thing for me is that the quote on homosexuality isn't homophobic when taken out of context.
It must be possible to despise homosexuality while also supporting the right and freedoms of others to enjoy it.
I don't despise homosexuality (although I don't want to participate, thanks for asking, and please, stop running your tongue over your lips at me, it makes me uncomfortable and the other bar staff are teasing me about it). Others can't help who they're attracted to and if they can achieve a happy consensual relationship then go for it.
That doesn't stop him being effective in a diversity role, and indeed a level of self awareness and understanding may be beneficial.
(His comments on Jewish people relishing violence however I find unnecessary and at best deeply ignorant)
OK, replace 'homosexuality' with 'black people'
"I realized that within my inner emotional core, not only do I not agree with black people, I still despise them in a way that I would not want there to be any connection between my personal character and them"
Not racist? After all, by your logic - "It must be possible to despise black people while also supporting the right and freedoms of others"
Your suggested replacement is a false equivalence. You're switching a trait for the people with a trait.
A better comparison would be 'dark skin', in which case he can welcome and treat people with darker skin as equals while still avoiding sunlight like a vampire.
I knew a girl like that once. She'd be beautiful whatever her skin colour but hated getting even the slightest tan. She married a black man..
"Maybe he is unsuitable to have a job with some role in diversity."
That may very well be true. Or it may not. Half a dozen words typed in who knows what circumstances a decade and a half ago are certainly not enough to go on, IMO.
"Seems you can not be diverse and have an opinion."
Oh, you can have an opinion alright ... it just better be the same as the minority doing the current screaming. All else makes you into a bad-guy, regardless of how reasonable you are.
Don't you just love the knee-jerk downvoters in threads like this?
I weep for humanity.
Have a beer, friend.
I weep for humanity.
I wonder about the the rabid pack-hound behaviour that happens on social media that led me to abandon all of it years ago, is because of social media enabling or stimulating it? Or was it always there but I didn't know before because there was no social media to expose it?
I feel I would rather not know that humans can behave in the way that they do on social media, and when I found out I lost something I will never get back.
It is enabled by social media because the rabble rousers never actually have to face the people they are "outing", and neither do the braying mob who follow them. Essentially, TehIntraWebTubes encourages cowardly bullying anonymous pack behavio(u)r in humans.
Does it exist without "Social Media"? Sure. In the same way that a tree falling in the forest without anybody there to witness it does, indeed, make noise.
Angels on the head of a pin territory, for sure. Beer?
Social media suffers from two effects: the tendency for echo chambers to develop and the fact that is a media, ie. not face-to-face. Together the two combine to form vociferious niche groups: we tend to move towards groups of people with similar opinions; mediated communication is worth less than direct, which makes it inflationary, but also more difficult to judge the impact. So, we gather in groups where hear what we want to hear and say what we think others want to hear and this includes baying for blood.
"In fact, nothing he said has not already been voiced by some members of the Jewish faith."
Of course. Members of %group are allowed to say things about %group which non-members of %group are not allowed to say. Unless %group is privileged, in which case members are allowed to say "sorry" and non-members are allowed to say anything they like.
One of the things that seems to me to be prevalent today is the idea that any criticism of Israeli government policies is automatically anti-Semitic. Some is, because some people don't seem to be aware that Jewish ethnicity is not the same as the Judaism the faith and neither are equivalent to an enthusiastic support of the government. But valid criticism is often shouted down.
This conflation has, I personally think, been very carefully crafted and cynically encouraged over a length of time by a highly effective PR campaign.
Even typing this I'm trying to be very careful about what I say!
I think you might be getting confused with "the idea that any criticism of Israeli government policies is automatically anti-Semitic" and "the idea that any criticism of Israeli government policies" that are different to the criticisms levelled at other governments on the same issue "is automatically anti-Semitic".
If you apply unique standards to Israel, you are probably anti-Semitic.
(And let's not go near your suggestion that some secret cabal is controlling world events...)
Sorry if it came over that way, I had no intention of implying a "secret cabal" with all the associated historical and social baggage. All nations indulge in influence, public relations and propaganda to various degrees, some are better than others, and again in this instance I'm referring to nation states, not peoples, faiths etc.
And as for criticising on the "same issue" - some issues are very strongly geographically specific, I'm not sure how I could criticise Thailand for it's use of air strikes in the occupied territories. Or for that matter criticise the Israeli government for the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar. The criticism needs to be applied to the agency carrying out the actions.
His point seemed to be that emotionally he found homosexuality repugnant, but he recognized that logically his position was nonsense or worse. And as for his emotions, he wrote "Indeed, it is through the lasting nature of that friendship that my emotional core is changing."
IOW, in my reading, he knows his emotional reaction is bad, and is working to change it.
your description of 'cancel culture' needs to include: "no forgiveness, and no opportunity for redemption" for these 'cancel culture' people are NOT interested in improving human behavior, they are interested in executing the kinds of shunning power they had when they were in high school (i.e. "the jocks" and "the queen B's court" will NOT allow YOU to be POPULAR, and so on).
however you would normally expect that someone with the term "diversity" in the job description wouldn't have ever expressed any anti-[fill in the group] attitudes. As such, the discovery of ANY kinds of prejudicial attitudes raises questions about the integrity in bringing about any kind of 'fairness' from that job position.
If he didn't, he should have owned up to it when he was interviewed prior to be hired for that position and and said "I believed different things in the past than I do now" and told them what he used to believe and why his viewpoint changed. If he didn't say anything then, why should we believe him if he now claims his views have changed in the past 14 years?
Its possible someone who used to discriminate and saw the light might be a better leader for diversity efforts than someone who has never discriminated. Some of the best spokesman against white supremacy are former members of the KKK or neo-Nazi groups, who know how they think, how they operate, how they indoctrinate.
The real problem was saying he "still despised" homosexuality in 2007. That's pretty unforgivable. It isn't like homosexuals are trying to recruit people, their existence doesn't threaten anyone who isn't a bigot. If he'd said "I still believe marriage is between a man and a woman" it could be excused if he's a member of a faith that holds those beliefs. Others may have different views about marriage depending on their religion, but saying "they shouldn't marry" and "I despise them" on are very different levels.
The real problem was saying he "still despised" homosexuality in 2007
there IS a difference between disliking a behavior, a sub-culture, or similar, AND YET ensuring that someone is never discriminated for it. If he can guarantee that homosexuals are not discriminated against in hiring, firing, promotions, and so on [including his behavior towards people], what's the problem? "Thought police" goes WAY too far...
Now, if he's a card carrying member of the Westboro Baptist Church, or has made a LOT of online noise that suggest a pattern of pejorative or defamatory things against homosexuals, then yeah, THAT would be a problem...
I happen to REALLY dislike smoking. It doesn't mean I can't work with smokers, nor respect their basic rights [even if being near them after they've been smoking gives me a HORRIBLE sinus headache]. I see it as the same kind of thing, i.e. "I dislike what you do and it causes me distress but I'll respect you anyway". Policing my thoughts over this matter, because I do not embrace it and avoid smoke whenever I'm near it, would be a violation of MY rights.
How about an open free dialogue where all with different opinions are able to posit their positions and be challenged respectfully as equals leading from thesis to antithesis to synthesis where eventually conversions are made by both sides leading to finding a common ground ?
See here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The problem with allowing all opinions to be posited and challenged respectfullly as equals is that some opinions are inherently disrespectful and unequal, and some people have absolutely no interest in finding a common ground. Given the topic, it's a good example to point out how well a policy of respect and appeasement worked on the actual Nazis. Kicking off a flame war the moment someone says anything you vaguely disagree with isn't helpful, but neither is blindly assuming that everyone must be interested in having constructive, rational discussion if only you're nice enough to them. Some people really are just dicks.
That's not the point. The point is that he was hired to oversee diversity, and that's nearly impossible when you, quite flatly, state:
"I realized that within my inner emotional core, not only do I not agree with homosexuality, I still despise it in a way that I would not want there to be any connection between my personal character and it." (emphasis mine)
So exactly how is he supposed to well-serve Google's LGBTQ community when he flatly states he wants nothing to do with them?? Disinterest or neutrality is one thing, but he states a level of personal animosity towards them, yet he is supposed to be there to hear their grievances and be their voice in the corporation.
That is a fundamental conflict of interest, with the LGBTQ community the demoted party.
I agree fully. Then he should be, on record, as retracting those statements. The only thing we've heard is:
“These writings are unquestionably hurtful. The author acknowledges this and has apologized"
That's it. No retractions.
Maybe the people who knee-jerk to "Too much PC!" in defence of this guy need to improve their reading comprehension?? I don't care how much you guys choose to downvote me...because you are WRONG. If he had issued a public retraction - and he had 14 YEARS to do so, to issue a mea culpa - then there would CERTAINLY be a question open as to whether Google's reaction was just.
But there is no record of a retraction for statements issued over a decade ago, whilst he was going on to promote himself as worthy of a position of diversity leader. He only *deleted* the statements in hopes of World+Dog forgetting about them. After all, he STILL could come in front of a microphone and apologize.
And he STILL hasn't even done that!
I didn't notice any hatred in either of those posts - they were very analytical. He pointed out clearly the Israel was fighting in self defense. He pointed out clearly that he wanted social tolerance of gay people. He struck me as thoughtful rather than hateful.
Clearly some critics took his words - written 14 years ago long before his job - out of context. If that had been his daily blog while serving as diversity chief - that would be different.
I would be disappointed if that was really the reason that Google altered his status. However, we don't know the entirety of the circumstances surrounding that decision. So I can't honestly make a judgement on that.
All I can say for certain is that dragging those blogs out after 14 years and cherry picking three word phrases is the darker side of our connected society.
There was a journalist in a local paper, a few years back who wrote about a gay pride event. The jist of the article was expressing that it would be nice if it wasn't necessary to hold these events because different sexuality should be accepted as absolutely normal and there should be no need to take any special action to promote and achieve absolute equality. There was nothing in the piece against the event, in fact it was supportive.
But it spread on social media with out of context quotes and the journalist was vilified, with the employer also under attack as well as family members. An absolutely barrage of sanctimony. It ended with the journalist resigning.
There was an effort to teach more men how to cook family meals at Foothill Jr. College in Los Altos a little over a third of a century ago. The feminists went berserk. Their theme was "men already have all the opportunities!" It was funny, in a sad kind of way.
I'm not sure why you were voted down as I agree, he was wrong to conflate the actions of Israel with people of Jewish faith and/or people with Jewish ancestry.
Critique Israel for its actions, challenge the racism and other issues of the Jewish faith but keep people with Jewish blood out of both conversations, as their race is entirely irrelevant to both.
There is a big difference between criticising the former Lukid Party government, who lost the most recent election with only 24% of the vote, and ciriticising Jewish people, many of whom don't even live in Israel.
Yair Lapid's coalition, who successfully won that election by criticising the former government, are they anti-semitic?
"more diverse" really only matters if you're being sued for discrimination [which Google is, last I checked]
What you REALLY want is a work force that GETS WORK DONE. But hiring practices need to NOT discriminate on factors NOT related to getting work done. So rock, meet hard place.
I disagree, and feel[0] that you are an evil-meany poo-poo head! ElReg should remove your gold flashy-badge-thingie forthwith!
[0] I dropped the four letter f-bomb, so I must be right. Apologies to all who may be offended by such strong language. In penance, this round's on me.
I think the real problem is because he was in a position that requires a certain mindset, but had made statements in the past that question that mindset. Since he was removed from the position, I am fairly sure that he did not tell Google that he had made the public statements that could cause issues. Admitting to them up front and explaining his change of view usually does not disqualify someone from getting the position. Blindsiding your employer almost always causes repercussions.
From the article:
"No one at Google googled Bobb, it seems."
They've got a bit of a habit of not using their own tools.
The guy who announced Google Protocol Buffers admitted on stage to never having heard of ASN.1, a well established standard and technology that does exactly what they wanted GBP to do, only better.
They're writing Fuchsia and are ending up with an OS that is remarkably similar to QNX, probably having spent more money doing so than it would have cost to have bought Blackberry to take control of QNX.
So what, one might ask? Well, if Fuchsia is to expand their opportunities for $billions revenue, and if that's to come on stream in the next few years, you have to compare that to the cost and time scale of having bought Blackberry to get QNX, and the revenue streams that would have come in with it as well as the the earlier arrival of the revenue streams Fuchsia is supposed to generate.
And when you do that, so far Fuchsia is representing a lost opportunity cost of tens of $billions. Throw in the fact that had they bought Blackberry they would then automatically have a presence in half the world's in car entertainment systems, and it's a massive miss.
So, permitting their engineers to go off and have fun writing an OS just looks fantastically ridiculous from a business point of view, especially as Fuchsia's technological descriptions is comparable to QNX's.
They've certainly not searched for anything about brand loyalty / fragmentation / inertia in messaging tools usage by real people. I've lost count of how many they've stood up and withdrawn.
Nor have they apparently done much searching about what safety critical software development actually means, in terms of what it has to achieve, who you have to convince that it's done that, and how you have to go about showing them that it has really been done. If they had, you'd think that they would not have bothered lurching into the self driving car malarkey.
Nor do they seems to have used their own services to see how good their service is. Cough cough Google Music - - > YouTube Music.
Why This Is a Problem
The problem with this is that it shows, perhaps only to a small group of people who notice these things (eg TheRegister readers), that there is an significant immaturity to how Google / Alphabet goes about its business, outside of its core business of search, map, YouTube.
The thing is, the people who do notice these things and understand their cause are then deterred from ever working for Google. And they're probably going to be the most mature, sensible engineering types who Google actually need to stop them getting it so wrong so often. Throw in the fact that their HR apparently can't spot an apparently homophobic antisemite before appointment, despite owning the very tools that would have revealed that to them, does not paint them as a good company to work for.
And this has suddenly become a critical problem, probably. With the G7 signalling an end to the creative tax efficiency measures employed by companies like Google, that might put a huge dent in their profit from search ad revenue.
It goes right back to the beginning of the company. The founders were so absolutely certain that they were right about everything that they were doing that they didn't even bother to spellcheck the name of their company. It was supposed to be Googol.
And of course we won't even bring up minor faux pas, like when Marissa Mayer proudly told anyone who would listen that she was a goo girl, or sometimes googrrl. (Warning! Googling this will bring up NSFW content! Don't say I didn't warn you!)
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