Dear David

Dear David,

Ruby has brought me immense joy during my life and I’ve made many close friends thanks to a shared love of the language. Rails, thanks to the contributions of you and hundreds of others, has allowed me to experience that joy at work too.

However, I can’t describe how disappointed I was to read your recent blog post “As I remember London”.

I remember when you visited the London Ruby User Group. We didn’t speak but you came to the after-talk drinks at a packed Lamb and Flag pub. I’m sure when you looked around that pub you saw, like me, a couple of hundred rubyists of many different nationalities, backgrounds, ethnicities. I’m sure several of those rubyists shook your hand, welcomed you to London and made sure you had a drink. That, to me as a Londoner, is London in microcosm.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) does not campaign for “Britain for the Brits”. He campaigns, as I’m sure you’re aware from the Wikipedia page you cited as evidence, for Britain for White Brits.

As a White Brit he doesn’t make me feel proud, or patriotic. He makes me feel scared - scared for my wife, my non-White British friends, my neighbours, the teachers of all races and religions who teach my kids.

But we won’t give up. We did survive the Blitz (my grandparents fought the Nazis). Britain hasn’t gone anywhere.

Minaswan,

Chris