And that's what the author is exactly outlining in her post: everytime someone brings those things up, a lot of the answers are like yours.
"What if it was just a misunderstanding or a coincidence?"
That's bullshit. You weren't there, OP was.
I love the innate nerd skepticism, but at times like this it really is our worst enemy.
Who would you rather listen to- a sane, reasonable and relatively smart person (based on her credentials and accomplishments) giving you their take on things for which they were physically present; or the little voice in your head that says "but it was probably just a coincidence!", even though you have zero knowledge of the situation except for what you just read of it?
If there were two blogs, written by sane nice sounding engineers, and they gave two different sides to an unpleasant story?
I ammcoming at this from the point of view of a ex-manager who has had to deal with situations where, yes, something and someone has gone too far, but it is far from obvious that there is a guilty party and an innocent party. Just a seeping morass of grey and you get to play referee.
I think I am saying that it's the tiny daily cuts that really deeply wear people down, but it's the big obvious infractions that we can actually spot, call out and deal with.
So as far as I a middle aged white guy understand it, the -isms are mostly background radiation, in some teams and organisations there are great people who act as boron rods, soaking up the crap and turning things into a pleasant place to work. At other places not so much. Work at the former.
"What if it was just a misunderstanding or a coincidence?"
That's bullshit. You weren't there, OP was.
I love the innate nerd skepticism, but at times like this it really is our worst enemy.
Who would you rather listen to- a sane, reasonable and relatively smart person (based on her credentials and accomplishments) giving you their take on things for which they were physically present; or the little voice in your head that says "but it was probably just a coincidence!", even though you have zero knowledge of the situation except for what you just read of it?