khrabrov-sbtb.md

Recent tweets by Alexy Khrabrov, organizer of the SF Scala meetup and Scale by the Bay (a Scala conference).

Update: Khrabrov has written a couple of responses and deleted both. In the second he writes:

Folks -- these tweets are taken out of context, mistranslated, and are used as a cudgel on Twitter to trigger others into canceling communities and people. They do not represent my views on race in any way, for instance.

The links below are to archives that provide the full context, and all of these quotations are verbatim (I had originally copied the Twitter-provided English translation of one Russian phrase, but have removed that for clarity).

Update: The Wayback Machine links below currently give an error ("This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."), and searching the CDX index for tweets by this account also fails ("org.archive.util.io.RuntimeIOException: org.archive.wayback.exception.AdministrativeAccessControlException: Blocked Site Error"). I'm not sure if this is permanent, but I have local copies of all of the pages linked below. Please contact me if you need a copy of this archive.

BLM protests, police, etc.

• 11 September 2020: "Window sign: 'The Lives that don’t smash these effin windows matter too.'"
• 28 August 2020: "Do you feel that looting in America is justice, and makes you more safe? justice, more safe / injustice, more safe / justice, less safe / injustice, less safe"
• 28 August 2020: "Once 'minor' acts of looting and vandalism are overlooked, even if illegal, they easily escalate into beating owners, passersby, and finally murder, as we have seen. There's no such thing as minor looting that's OK, or vandalism of statues and buildings."
• 28 August 2020: "Read Hitler's first 100 days, about street violence used to displace german state authorities, e.g. whipping mayors to resisted to let the protesters to hoist their flag on the city hall, shaming and parading them, etc. It's very easy to see this happening next unless it's ended"
• 27 August 2020: "Every day in America shit is set on fire and people shoot each other with the guns they can buy in a supermarket. Families feel no less safe because of it. Defunding the police solves it. Let's talk about Russia and how it will interfere in our elections to make us less safe."
• 27 August 2020: "Instructive how completely MSM avoids this. They literally are at a loss for words. Is this 'BLM'?"
• 27 August 2020: "No but nobody is asking what represents it. Certainly not a guy on TV threatening others with a theatrical costume of carefully arranged sneakers and a baseball hat? Is this related to BLM? If so then how? What has to be done about it? Is that OK, like many seem to say?"
• 27 August 2020: "Also Hunter Biden taking money from Burisma for doing nothing has nothing to do with corruption. A similar random coincidence not pursued by Ezra as extraneous."
• 27 August 2020: "And looting only overlaps with the BLM transpiring somewhere else as temporal phenomena often do? The tide and the moon?"
• 27 August 2020: "I'd posit it's a strange fantasy to pretend that condoning protests turning violent will not lead to looting and murders. 'Some violence to vent the rage' is not OK."
• 16 July 2020: "Idea: protest banner for local shops, to be out in the windows, saying 'The lives of those who depend on this li’l shop, or leave it the fuck alone, matter too'"
• 15 July 2020: "A Black Mirror episode where every single anti-police shitposter from the places where tough police situations are seen only on TV, is suddenly robbed, brutalized, and murdered, but no police comes to help, while everyone else is saved promptly by friendly and professional cops."
• 9 July 2020: "-- Abolish the police. -- Abolish your butt. #2020Kindergarten"
• 9 July 2020: "Which slogan will lead to more practical results? abolish the police / abolish your butt"
• 4 July 2020: "Defund the your mother."
• 1 July 2020: "Any MFer wants to defund the police, go handle this on our highway first."
• 1 July 2020: "I listed real issues: highway and gun safety. As real as it gets. We see that in our area. You cannot defund that. It is based on actual events happening in real time, it is not misinforming. I report my own reaction to it, which is less disingenuous than a BS term 'defund'."
• 1 July 2020: "'Defund the Police' is exactly the Tea Party defunding Big Government."
• 1 July 2020: "My OP is my own reaction to actual work of the police and the word 'Defund'. Which is a BS term then — you endlessly explain how it does not mean what the word means. Readjusting the government by shrinking it is exactly what Tea Party wanted, making it more efficient."
• 1 July 2020: "I often follow a highway patrol car weasvong across lanes to protect a disabled car. The police risks their lives every day. It is very important to use the proper terms that respect the crucial work of the police, and 'defund' is not one. 'Help', 'augment', etc."
• 22 June 2020: "The media will not show pics of that stuff broken into."
• 22 June 2020: "Please please don't smash our stores peaceful protesters"
• 21 June 2020: "Yes I realize my USSR-informed opinion is not popular. We had 'protesters' smash malls and then go into residential areas in East Bay. Families and businesses were terrified. That did not get any coverage in the media. Smashing statues is just a harbinger of violence."
• 20 June 2020: "The family of those murdered and shot in #CHOP, in addition to pursuing the perps criminally and civilly, should sue the Mayor of Seattle and everyone who abdicated the responsibility to protect the lives of the US citizens. Every single official who defected must be punished."
• 20 June 2020: "Furthermore, those who egg on and cheer on illegal mobs that shoot and kill citizens and destroy their businesses and property must also be held responsible. First, invite the mob to protest on your street, then ask us to be OK with them on ours, where it could be effin close."
• 20 June 2020: "Say you are a city councilman and defund the police. Then residents get killed. They#or families should be able to sue you — without any qualified immunity."
• 20 June 2020: "And learn history, motherfuckers. Toppling Ulysses Grant statue is not cool. Messing with a Churchill statue is stupid."
• 20 June 2020: "Hey @nytimes really have you written things like 'protests keep families and businesses on edge'? 'Despite health concerns, protesters pack close and forget themselves pushing against the police'? 'Protesters put stuff on fire endangering lives'? Anyone took their temperature?"
• 20 June 2020: "Alas no court could stop the violent protests because the protesters did not ask for a permit. They do not undertake to give out masks or take temperature measurements. It is clear to anybody that protesters endanger public health but you never dared to raise a single concern."
• 17 June 2020: "I cannot bring myself to cancel, just like the people stuck on the Bay Bridge had to say they supported the protesters. One goes weak in the knees before the inexorable march of history."
• 17 June 2020: "Political slogans in store fronts reminded me of Kristallnacht. Please don't smash our shops, peaceful protesters."
• 17 June 2020: "Coming from a country where the Communists blew up buildings and statues, renamed streets, then other communists removed thousands of Stalin statues and renamed streets, and finally ex-Communists renamed a lot of things back, and seeing exact same BS in the US is such a déjà vu."
• 17 June 2020: "What's most annoying to you in seeing beautiful statues of Columbus removed by angry mobs or cowardly city workers? idiotism / anti-historism / latent anti-Semitism / nothing I love it"
• 17 June 2020: "Is removing statues of Columbus a combined act of idiotism and anti-Semitism?"
• 17 June 2020: "A beautiful status of Columbus removed in St Louis is a disgrace. History is history. The current barbarism shows a lack of historical education in the US, nothing else."
• 17 June 2020: "I'm a sensitive non-white barbarian, you made me cry."
• 16 June 2020: "Should the Columbus Salami be renamed to Indigenous People Salami?"
• 14 June 2020: "How did the protesters defecate and urinate? What did they envision the drivers will do? What if a driver is a single mom who needs to get back to her kids? What is they are black too? Did anyone among those stuck on the bridge not dance, and was not amused by this sabortage?"
• 10 June 2020: "Really, those who want to dismantle police, what happens when you’re robbed, your bus is literally full of shit, and your Safeway is burned down? What’s the thinking there? Are you ensconced in some cushy areas where this is all TV stuff?"
• 8 June 2020: "I think if the riots taught us anything, we need more funding for the police, not less. More gear, more training, more warning. A black cop was killed. Police shot at and kids taken hostages 10 blocks from me. Who are the people who want defunding, criminals?"
• 7 June 2020: "We need to ramp up funding for the police: -- more training -- more and better protest support, safer, more effective, protecting both sides -- prevention of injuries and loss -- prevention of cop-killing/vandalism/looting/beatings If anything is done, police has to be ready."
• 7 June 2020: "If you want to defund/abolish police, do you live in an area with a lot of crime and see the police ensuring your safety, or do you live in a safe place already and mostly see police in the highway or TV? abolish, police around me / abolish, police on TV / keep, police around me / keep, police on TV"
• 7 June 2020: "So I live in Oakland, we see the police keeping peace every day and night, and I seriously don’t need people from suburbs or places with zero crime or living in tall buildings to reason about things they have absolutely 0 clue about besides hearsay/TV/3rd party agitation."
• 7 June 2020: "This is about objective facts of policing being helpful to those who need it regardless of race. Ie not about theories of how people feel about police."
• 7 June 2020: "If we want Amazon workers/grad students to unionize, why not police?"
• 7 June 2020: "The idiots defacing a statue of Churchill would probably either not be alive or be in Nazi bondage if not for him."
• 6 June 2020: "Nobody will defund the police, they’ll defund their ass first."
• 1 June 2020: "In Alameda, the rioters broke a CVS door so now people cannot get basic stuff. Moms in need of formula have to drive elsewhere."
• 1 June 2020: "Should homeowners arm in the face of the riots? yes / no / depends on the area / depends on the country"
• 30 May 2020: "Anyone who lived in a country fucked up by a revolution and street violence has 0 sympathy for rioters and vandals. Peaceful protests, OK, arson, looting, meet the law enforcement. And don’t give me that BS about the system. Follow legal routes, US is a democracy."
• 30 May 2020: "The cop is charged and will he tried. Those who say that those against looting put it above human lies are double pieces of shitty shit."
• 30 May 2020: "No, the tea was British, the stores, cars, and small businesses are local American and have nothing to do with the looters or arsonists in any universe but a very thwarted one."
• 12 May 2020: "Another example I observed on a Septa train in Philly. When a deranged guy soiled the seat and refused to leave, a team of three cops with a stick asked him, very politely, to leave, three times. Then they hit him once precisely and carried him out in a second. 100% pro work."

Race, racism, slurs, etc.

• 9 October 2020: "Any ideology that does not allow one to laugh about it is a big red flag. (Often lit has a literal red flag.) And if it wants to kill you for laughing about it is a power play by its brahmins."
• 5 October 2020: "The new name of the EskimoPie will be GöbbelsPie. After all Göbbels is dead and cannot get offended, nor anyone else will get offended for him."
• 6 September 2020: "Imagine this set in WW2. Jessica Krug, a Jew, pretends she's African to escape the Nazis. This deserves a movie, not a sad and boring 'cultural appropriation' stuff. https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/our-statement-jessica-krug How boring, GWU."
• 6 September 2020: "In fact, humans are malleable. The fact that this causes such a rigid response shows how our fluidity threatens dogma. She should have embraced and celebrate her achievement, a living experiment in sociology. And be studied and celebrated in return. Amirite @marc_smith?"
• 6 September 2020 "I'm probably out of my element, but I feel Jessica Krug, identity scientist, did something very cool which should be celebrated, not cancelled. So here's a question. I hope it's OK to ask. If it's fine to move along the gender axis, why is it different along the race axis?"
• 6 September 2020: "Say you are a perceptive young woman who grew up in a multi-racial household and you for some reason identify with a different race. I know an Irish-Jewish woman who is observant and was brought up by an African-American jazz musician. She is truly American. All cultures."
• 6 September 2020:"We went to the World Trade Center when it still was there and while waiting in line, she talked to an African-American guard, like one of her people. The guy turned to me, a nerdy Russian Jewish immigrant, and said, 'Enjoy her. She is a true American.' This is what's needed."
• 6 September 2020: "Say you identify with a culture more. You like the style, the dresses, the braids. Why do you have to stop at something?"
• 6 September 2020: "If gender is a question of self-determination, with a lot of history that prohibited it too by was not overcome in many places, why can't we allow racial self-determination?"
• 1 September 2020: "Also this kind of thing could happen in Russia. Which is why I always answer US forms as 'Other'. Russians are Black, basically. We shout across the street when we see friends, we are loud, and we boil sausages."
• 8 August 2020 (in response to the question "What are your average Haskell consulting rates?"): "3 wetback monads"
• 16 July 2020: "Would you instinctively reject an email/LI invite from someone called Something Islam Somethingsomething? yes / no / I’ll reject it for idiocy"
• 6 July 2020: "If an infidel impugned Islam as a religion of peace, should they be jihadded? yes / what do you think / no / dude"
• 1 July 2020 (in response to a comment about the term "master branch" and being afraid of being misunderstood): "What a niggardly scope!"
• 26 June 2020: "If you want to understand the melting pot of the US: To the (1) survivors of totalitarian slavery, cancel mobs are like [;] To the (2) survivors of racial slavery, the lynching mobs. Feelings of (1) are no less important than (2). Both are Americans deserving understanding."
• 26 June 2020: "If you want (2) to feel safe by respecting the experience of their response you cannot reproduce, you also have to grant the appreciation of (1) the fear of cancel mobs stemming from the historical trauma you have not lived."
• 20 June 2020: "No. Aunt Jemima had nothing to do with the BS and so does Yale. Jesse is just trying to jack up his brand. He’ll scream and we’ll laugh. The circus continues."
• 20 June 2018: "Who has more privilege? Canine Americans / Feline Americans"
• 20 June 2020: "Algorithms don’t have bias. People have bias."
• 20 June 2020: "Give me an example how code is biased."
• 20 June 2020: "How is code biased if it is logical? You might be in danger of descending into characterizing things by vague nature of who thought of them."
• 20 June 2020: "So ML proves the model is the predictor? How is it racist? If it is a fact of effin life?"
• 20 June 2020: "In Russian we a saying, the truth pokes the eye"
• 17 June 2020: "OK real white privilege and 1% are those who got HEY invites from @dhh. Congress: when you invite @dhh to testify, ask him exactly what the process was for granting the first HEY invite codes. Rich and famous, overwhelmingly white bloggers! Fight me."
• 17 June 2020: "Academic news: Master's Degree now will be called Main Degree or Y'all'ses Degree."
• 17 June 2020: "The guy who renamed the master branch to daddy, receives an honorary Daddy Degree from Harvard."
• 15 June 2020: "Dude how can you as a 'white guy' use this term as if from the outside? Also isn't it racist too?"
• 12 June 2020: "Why do even assume anyone is white? In France Berbers who are white discriminated because of their African background, not race. In Russia there’s no anti-black racism at all but there local prejudices against people from the Caucuses who are “backward” (but Caucasian)!"
• 11 June 2020 (in response to a joke about Russian pronunciation ending with "- K'nigga"): "Тебя уволят и депортируют, береги себя!"
• 8 June 2020: "I'll rename my master branch to 'daddy'."
• 8 June 2020: "@Quillette is most excellent, IMHO, if causing deranged ire is a metric. And @wsj is much more balanced than @nytimes lately."
• 7 June 2020 (in response to being told "you are coming close to sounding unintentionally racist"): "Well thank you, I was expressing a linguistic surprise, nothing more. People take themselves too seriously."
• 21 April 2020 (in response to a poll reporting that "41% of Dems say it bothers them that their nominee will be a white male in his 70s"): "Lots of racists apparently"
• 13 March 2020: "Do you think it would be a good time to suspend identity politics and BS laws renaming Columbus Day and such?"
• 1 March 2020: "OK, black and Latino voters. Let the nightmares of sabotaging the first gay candidate for President forever haunt the rest of your days into your dotage and senility. Let your gay children and grandchildren forever ask you, why you sat it out!"
• 27 February 2020 (referring to the 1619 Project): "This is a divisive and wrong way to look at the history of the USA, emphasizing what once separated people instead of what brought them together at the key moments defining America."