"But it's also not racism because racism (or sexism) requires both power and privilege."
a) Not according to the dictionary or Wikipedia or common usage, it doesn't.
b) Even if you don't use the word "racism" to describe it, it's still creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment, which one would have thought was opposed to the goal of this Code of Conduct.
> "One view holds that racism is best understood as 'prejudice plus power' because without the support of political or economic power, prejudice would not be able to manifest as a pervasive cultural, institutional or social phenomenon."
The word you're looking for is discrimination, which is also what the link I added for more information calls it.
The point of that part of the CoC is that all environments do not have to be welcome to all, specifically that environments that are safe spaces for a marginalized group do not have to also be a safe space for the dominant group.
"The point of that part of the CoC is that all environments do not have to be welcome to all, specifically that environments that are safe spaces for a marginalized group do not have to also be a safe space for the dominant group."
Now we're getting somewhere. So you've explicitly stated that Github should not be a "safe space" for the "dominant group," presumably white, male, et cetera. At least we've got that out in the open for the next time someone insists that these codes of conduct are simply about having a friendly and welcoming environment and aren't going to enable discrimination or harassment.
I don't think that part of the CoC makes harassment OK.
Furthermore, there's this part:
> "We will not tolerate discrimination based on any of the protected characteristics above [which includes race], including participants with disabilities."
I don't know how that maps to participation on GitHub. I will say that as a cis white man I am absolutely OK if a marginalized group wants to exclude me for their own comfort or safety. This can already be done just by using private repositories, for example, and I don't think it's controversial.
For public repositories I'm not sure what discrimination looks like. Certainly before this CoC no one had the right to force someone else to accept a pull request, right? The CoC makes it explicit that if you complain that you're excluded because of reverse racism your complaint will not be acted upon, though, which I don't see an issue with. It's a way to protect marginalized groups from spurious complaints by a dominant group.
If anyone who feels unsafe if they can't exclude some group is able to make a private repository, today, and you can't even picture what discrimination looks like on Github other than that... then what specific problem is it that we're actually solving here with this CoC? Sounds like an incredibly safe space for everyone already.
> The point of that part of the CoC is that all environments do not have to be welcome to all
So if I have a store that says "Whites only", that's OK now then? How progressive.
I don't care if someone labels it as a safe space or pull out the "but minorities" card, if you deny someone because of the color of their skin, it's racist; if you deny someone because of their gender, it's sexist. And I don't even care that that happens either - it's the double standards and avoidance and doublespeak and whatnot that bugs me. At least admit that you're racist/sexist and stick with it. Say you're in favor of equality, or that you want to give minorities a leg-up - not the wishy-washy safe spaces thing that is basically a politically correct way to say 'no whites/men'.
a) Not according to the dictionary or Wikipedia or common usage, it doesn't. b) Even if you don't use the word "racism" to describe it, it's still creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment, which one would have thought was opposed to the goal of this Code of Conduct.