Re: W3C action/response to the BLM Movement

Hi Wendy, all

This is a longstanding question. For example it arose in response to the  
11 September attacks on the World Trade Centre and other targets in the  
US. It also arises in connection with the events that saw somewhere in the  
order of a million Rohingya seek refuge in Bangladesh from a credible fear  
of being raped, murdered, and dispossessed - a campaign where arguably W3c  
and its members have a much closer involvement. And many incidents before  
and after.

W3C is a global organisation, not a US-based one. Many people from around  
the world - from myself to TimBL  - have expressed their solidarity with  
those in the US who are now once again trying to instil the idea that  
people should be treated with respect, that the respectful treament known  
as "white privilege" should be extended to all people not just reserved  
for a few, and that the treatment of minorities in many places includes  
shameful and criminal incidents and long-term problems.

W3C's primary mission is to do a certain range of technical work that is  
important to its members, and they do this explicitly in the interests of  
the broader global community. Largely as a result of being a fair, open,  
global standards setting body, W3C is not in a position to comment as an  
organisation on matters outside its scope without developing a fair policy  
that would enable anyone to seek W3C comment.

W3C members have decided in he past that they did not want to support a  
group that would consider how the organisation might comment political  
questions directly related to our work. It therefore seems unlikely that  
they are prepared to invest the necessary effort to enable the Consortium  
to consider topical questions which are not directly part of its remit.

Obviously to most, in looking to build consensus on the technical issues  
that concern us as we build a global communications and application  
system, disrespect because of somebody's nationality, gender, disability,  
religion, political alignment, and so on is counter-productive to our  
work. Let alone systemic mistreatment, abuse or violence.

In principle, it is entirely reasonable to suggest to the Advisory  
Committee that they should reverse their earlier decision and ask W3C to  
make a comment on a specific topical event. However, it is worth  
considering what a precedent that is, and how much work the Advisory  
Committee of a global technical organisation would be taking on in opening  
itself to receiving this kind of request.

In the meantime, I would strongly encourage everyone to point out (yet  
again) that racism is one of many things that are unacceptable, and that  
we should be actively working to eliminate it. Of course, the practical  
implications of doing that are complex. But complex is what we do as a  
job, so we should be well-placed to work out how to change the many things  
that need to be changed in order to improve the world.

cheers

Chaals

On Fri, 05 Jun 2020 11:55:43 +1000, Reid, Wendy <wendy.reid@rakuten.com>  
wrote:

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> Hi Jeff,
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> Thank you for the quick reply. I too hope we can come up with some  
> actionable items for the organization. I don’t expect an >answer  
> tonight, but in reading over the policy in [1] I do not see anything  
> that appears to contravene with the
> W3C agreeing with and supporting the position of Black Lives Matter.
> ...

>
>
> It is good to see that individuals are permitted to comment as  
> themselves and staff, but on a matter like this, I think it sends >the  
> wrong message for the organization not to comment. But I only quickly  
> perused the document, so clarification
> would be helpful!
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> Thanks,
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> Wendy  
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> From: Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org>
> Several years ago, the Team worked with the Advisory Board to establish  
> policies about W3C making public statements [1].  Based >on this policy,  
> it is not in our scope to make a statement about Black Lives Matter,  
> until/unless we change [1].
>
>
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> W3C does support the work of IDCG and strives to improve inclusion and  
> diversity.  I endorse your renewed call for additional >action in this  
> area.  I hope to be able to make this call.  June is the time for my  
> annual blog report on Diversity at W3C [2],
> and so this discussion is very timely for me.
>
>
-- 
Charles "chaals" Nevile
PegaSys Standards Architect, ConsenSys

Received on Friday, 5 June 2020 06:39:51 UTC