[TriLUG] Palmer for another SC term; proposed amendment to the bylaws

[Cristóbal Palmer]

On Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 7:30 AM, Aaron Joyner wrote:
> in general we do not
> have laws prohibiting being a jerk, so if we feel it necessary to clarify
> the LUG's position, that's fine with me.

I'm glad you're on board! Maybe we'll see you in May and you can vote for it. :)

> By baking it into the bylaws,
> it's likely that we'll just look amusingly anachronistic if the LUG is
> still around in 50 years.


I certainly hope that it's anachronistic in 50 years, but since you
mention slavery I think it's worth pointing out that more than a
century passed between the end of the Civil War and the Fair Housing
Act. Law takes a long time to catch up to our notions of justice, and
I would hope that we'd want the history of being ahead of that curve.
We don't have to be the vanguard among tech groups, and we're not.
We're following the lead of various groups that have adopted a policy
like this, including multiple organizations and conferences in the US.

Further, this is intended to be a document that reflects /our/ values,
and amendment by a vote of the membership present is a low bar to
updating the anti-harassment policy if that is necessary in the
future. If TriLUG is around in 2063 and the bylaws haven't been
amended since 2013… that would be pretty baffling. This can and should
be a living document. Who knows, maybe there will be sentient
git-descendant cyborgs tracking our documents by then.

> 2 - No, I don't commute by bike any more, mostly because I carry a 3 year
> old with me part of the way.


Given our existing transportation infrastructure, I can fully
understand this. I say this as a board member for /another/
non-profit: the Carrboro Bicycle Coalition. I do commute to work by
bike.


> 3 - https://www.google.com/search?q=why+bike+lanes+are+bad


I'd encourage you to read City Cycling
(http://www.worldcat.org/title/city-cycling/oclc/780063831),
especially Chapter 6. Chapter 6 provides a history of the notion of
"vehicular cycling" in the US and why that approach is not supported
by data.

Bike lanes are not the right infrastructure solution in all contexts.
For example, at speeds greater that 45mph with more than two travel
lanes in each direction, simple stripes on existing lanes are clearly
the wrong intervention. When I say bike lanes, I say that both because
it's recognizable and shorter than saying something like "bike lanes
and other infrastructure, such as separated paths, bollards, etc."
Having said that, there are a lot of contexts where they make sense,
and I find the work of researchers like Pucher more compelling than
commentary that lacks that level of rigor. If you have particular
research you'd like me to read, I'd be interested.[0]

I still think it (bike lanes) is a good analogy, because institutional
bias across race or gender lines is remarkably like transportation
infrastructure bias (with what should be the obvious caveat that many
cyclists -- like me -- have a choice on any given day to be a motorist
instead, whereas a woman or a person of color, for example, does not
have that choice). Transportation infrastructure is the result of our
ongoing, collective decisions that many of us don't realize we're
making, and it has profound effects on our ability to function in the
world. Additionally, people who use the "normal" transportation method
have a hard time seeing both why they were choices at all and why
there is harm to others. This is why it's important to listen to
groups like the Ada Initiative who represent a group experiencing
harm, even if we have a hard time seeing the value of the specific
interventions they're pushing for.

If people don't find this line of reasoning compelling, that's okay.
It's just one among many, and I'm confident the larger point -- that
we have a gender problem, and that this anti-harassment policy is
something easy we can do that's part of addressing that problem --
still stands.

Cheers,
--
Cristóbal Palmer
cmpalmer.org

[0] I note that
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+bike+lanes+are+good has about
twice the results of your link. I don't think that is particularly
meaningful, however.