I’ve had a few events so far where the discussion/feedback part had 1-2 white guys doing longgggg monologues about something unrelated to the main topic. Last time had some stoner guy ranting about the confusing service at airports here (the event was about Gaza). Before that it was some boomer guy trying to explain Madonna to the non-white teens in our group (the event was about trans rights). Sometimes it’s just two white guys monologuing back and forth. It’s super counter productive and cringe.
I’m just thinking of a hard rule. Like “if you’re a white guy, you’re welcome, but please try to listen more and keep unrelated monologues to a minimum.”
For the record, I am a white dude.
“Keep your comments on topic”
Ya I need to do this, I’m just too fucking polite.
Do they deserve your politeness?
I honestly don’t know. Usually they’re lib to left, but their politics always at least slightly problematic. Maybe they don’t deserve my politeness.
No shit they don’t deserve your politeness, they keep derailing discussions, that’s problematic enough on its own.
there’s nothing impolite about forcing these people to respect the time of others
A phrase I heard constantly growing up in Norway was “tidstyv”. In English, according to Wiktionary, one can say “time thief” or “time burglar” or “time bandit”, and yet I have never in my life heard someone say that, that I can remember. The phrase apparently originates in the 1973 Michael Ende novel Momo, in the original German it was Zeit-Dieb.
“time theft” is exactly it. when you take into account how many people are potentially being held captive these men are wasting collective hours of time that could be better spent doing literally anything else. from that perspective it’s genuinely rude to everyone else not to shut them up.