Feedback welcome! Here’s the TL;DR list
- Listen more to more Black people
- Post less – and think before you post
- Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
- Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects
Other suggestions?
This is all hard to do because it is hard to determine people’s race on lemmy. Some usernames give it away but most don’t. And I don’t go snooping trough their post history to find that out.
Yeah, the section on “Listen more to Black people” didn’t really cover the challenges on Lemmy. I added this:
If you’re on a platform like Lemmy which doesn’t yet have similar hubs, it’s more challenging. One option is to use other social networks, news aggregators, and search engines to find articles, papers, and videos by Black people – and post them yourself to help others listen.
How’s that?
We’ve removed some of the comments in this thread for expressing the exact racist sentiments which would warrant this type of post and for arguing in bad faith. This is a perfectly salient conversation to be having in this community so we will be leaving this thread up, but as a reminder, please engage in good faith and be nice. If you don’t want to have conversations about anti-racism in Technology then I suggest you unsubscribe from this community and others on Beehaw.
On a personal note: I would be absolutely thrilled to see more, better discussions of the intersections of areas like race, gender, and sexuality with technology, and fewer arguments about which Linux distro is better.
Thanks very much for wading in!
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No, “color blindness” perpetuates structural racism. Here’s one study looking at that. Seeing Race Again Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines has a lot more, although it’s focused on law and academia.
Color blindness perpetuates structural racism. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a goldfish.
There’s the cultural issues, but those aren’t limited to African Americans vs White Americans on the Internet.
Your rules should apply to everyone, including those two groups. The trickier part is dealing with privilege.
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Some of the replies here are a bit disheartening, reflexively dismissing this list, the need for it, and the validity of the experiences behind it.
It’s unsurprising, sadly. Folks are stuck in their bubbles often and don’t see the harm they cause.
They wrap it up in fancy words or reasoning sadly, but the reasons are always the same basically: They don’t want to do the work.
OP, from this reception you may feel at least a little misunderstood. This is because you are being deliberately misunderstood because whiteness protects itself. Notice that no one commenting thus far has responded to you in good faith, but have only been dismissive or even reject the premise that this even could be a problem outright.
Whiteness is interested in terminating any curiosity that challenges white supremacy. Exclusive white habitus is the expectation of those who identify with whiteness, and deviation is actively resisted. If white people didn’t do this there literally wouldn’t be white people and racism would be over. It persists because the people who maintain it are cultured to protect it by any means, especially by rejecting all challenges to it outside of an historical context.
The reason I say all this is because I’ve attempted the same conversation you are attempting now and this has been what’s happened every single time. You can’t have a good faith conversation with anyone answering in bad faith. I think this effort is worthwhile and support it, but I advise not to waste too much time with anyone here who is more interesting in refuting you than the problem of racism.
Thanks much, I very much appreciate the supportive words! And, great analysis, thanks for that as well. Although, if you think things are bad here you should see the lemmy.world thread, where it’s down to -47. And just imagine how much worse it would be if I were Black!
Yikes. Well, at least we have something easy to point to when we’re asked why we’re defederated from lemmy.world.
Oh look, it’s another old white guy trying to solve a problem he’s not affected by and probably hasn’t personally experienced.
Edit: Sorry that was so negative, but these are all pretty basic things you’re stating. Anyone likely to read this list and action items like this, is likely already staunchly pro black.
Would be good to see some more items that would make people do a double take and say “oh, I do that, I didn’t realize that could be construed as anti black”. Use your experience as a non black person to try and identify ways that a white person might be impacting black people unintentionally.
These things are basic, but most white people aren’t doing them – even people who think of themselves as staunchly pro Black. And there are multiple examples in the article of how white people might be impacting Black people unintentionally, for example thisiswomanswerk talks about how hand-wringing messages of symptay many times are themselves microaggresive, and suggestions like “Stop asking Black people for evidence of the anti-Blackness” and “Stop telling Black people that they’ll experience less racism if they change instances (aka servers)”
Just a side note - I would caution about directing non-Black folks to spaces like # BlackMastodon and @ blackfedi, just because those spaces might not be intentioned for non-Black people to look at, directing us there might be encouraging our participation in spaces where it’s not necessarily invited or wanted, etc. Great spaces to direct Black folks to if they’re looking to build a community for themselves on fedi, but I would just say it’s best for non-Black people to not look/participate unless the space is specifically inviting that.
The other thing about the “just listen more to more Black people” discourse is that while it may fix representational issues of whom you’re choosing to listen to, it won’t help if there’s no intention to work on racial biases or challenge one’s own racist behaviors - so I would even implore that type of introspective work. Connected to that would be, even if a white person starts doing these things and working on this practice, that work of interrogating your own biases/behaviors never stops. I feel that white people (especially on fedi) often need reminding that just because you’re doing X, Y, Z, etc. doesn’t mean that you’re done working on your own racism or that your reasons for doing X, Y, Z, etc. are all genuine.
You might also want to mention how having some marginalized identity even as a white person doesn’t excuse you from doing this work - there’s a lot of harm done on fedi by people who use their own oppressed identities as a way to avert accountability for being racist. In your piece, you already mentioned that supporting Black people and fighting anti-Blackness means supporting all Black people - you could make that understanding of how anti-Blackness is interconnected/intertwined with other oppressions more apparent by appealing to white people who might consider themselves staunch advocates for other communities but refuse to confront racism.
This is kind of a mess of different comments but those are just my raw thoughts after reading what you wrote.
Good feedback, thanks much. I did check with Black people about directing folks to #BlackMastodon and the @ blackfedi group – but I should probably be more explicit about not posting their, and your general point about not barging into spaces where you’re not invited is importat and something I should highlight. I’ll add something to the “and tht’s not all” section about working on your biases and behaviors more generally. And also good point about stressing the intersectional aspects more. Greatly appreciated!
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That’s a great point, can I quote you on having seen it on Lemmy quite a few times?
Thanks very much for the feedback, I really appreciate the time you put into it and. you bring up a lot of very good points. For “start making” vs “making” and “less toxic” vs “more welcoming”, I’m intentionally choosing the weaker forms to emphasize that these are only the very first steps. I know it’s a harder sell this way but it’s important to set expectations. It’s a good point about how some allies saying :“listen to me!” take space from marginalized groups, I kind of feel like I’ve got that covered by betweent the combination of #1 and #2 but maybe it’s worth making more explicit.
Agreed that the discussion of repeated questions could be more explicit. (It’s not necessarily sealioning, although sometimes it is; often it’s the same one or two reasonable questions from a huge number of people.). But that’s not actually the key point I’m trying to make. Instead, to relates to this:
the way that this point is currently worded, it sounds fallacious (inversion of the burden of the proof)
Many people react that way but think about it a little more. It’s a fact. Mutliuple Black people have proven it repeatedly. There is no further burden of proof, it’s only whiteness’ denial that makes it seem like an open question and entitlement that makes it seem like Black people should produce more evidence. The annoyance factor is a big deal too, but it’s secondary.
And, good catch on the typo, thanks!
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Other suggestions:
Social problems cannot be solved by technical solutions e.g. “turning the racism off” by filtering or blocking others as a user (run from any instance that takes this approach instead of defederating or blocking at an instance level).
If your instance is shit and gets blocked, don’t complain that it got blocked, either complain to the admins of the shit instance or move instances.
Boost the things they say about their experiences or the experiences of others and boost things they care about because likely it’ll benefit people at the very least by raising awareness.
Thanks, all good points, I’ll try to work them in! The boosting is somewhat tricky, the general guideline is “boost posts tht people want boosted, don’t boost posts that they don’t want boosted”, but it’s not always clear which is which (unless they. have “Please boost” in there somewhere)
Sure! Happy to help. Yeah, it can be difficult to discern.
Another good point is as white people we have a responsibility to figure out if racists can see a boost. In that case we need to figure out a way to stop that harm immediately either by removing certain followers or blocking/reporting etc.
I’m not sure posting less is good for the fediverse in the long run, but thinking more is certainly needed! Good list
I read that point as posting less when it comes to issues of race and racism specifically, but it’s possible I’m reading that into it. If so, it could be a little clearer.
Yeah that makes total sense, I agree
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I just want to say that @TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org did a great job explaining some of the issues with your reply, but there’s a few things that I want to focus on in your reply.
- It’s easy to make the claim that you don’t care about skin color, but it simply doesn’t pan out. Here’s a fairly long but comprehensive review on implicit bias training, which talks a bit about the prevalence and need for the training in the first place. In short, the literature proves that everyone has implicit biases - it’s simply how our brains work. While some issues suffer from stronger biases than others, and the bias varies from person to person, it’s always there.
- The idea of “not seeing” race may be an appealing one to state, but it’s an over-correction. Try telling someone in a wheelchair that you “don’t see disability” and see how they react. They’re not going to be happy. You absolutely see their identity. What you mean to say is that their identity doesn’t factor into your decision, which as I just stated in the last point is objectively incorrect. At best we can work to minimize how one’s identity shapes our decisions.
- Racism can only have certain victims. Racism is the interaction between prejudice and power. The reason it’s defined like this is the same reason we talk about the paradox of tolerance. Punching a Nazi is technically violence, but there’s a difference between hateful violence and defensive violence. While you can classify people being prejudiced against white folks as racism, there’s a similar distinction between prejudice and racism that applies here. To be clear, I do want you to be reporting any kind of prejudice that occurs on Beehaw, but we need to define and describe the differences because the inclusion of power and minority status are important here.
- Just because you don’t think something is a problem doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Someone who has a different identity than you, or who spends time in spaces you don’t is sharing something. Telling them they are wrong or that they are imagining things is not a nice thing to do - if you don’t think it’s an issue, then don’t reply. If you do think it’s an issue, frame it differently - rather than accusing them of trying to shame white people, how about simply framing things through your own eyes. Don’t say that they are trying to shame people, instead say this is making you feel ashamed or angry.
Thanks much for the detailed response! And thanks @TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org for the detailed response as well.
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Also, tomato, “people are trying to make you ashamed of being white” is a pretty common white supremacist dogwhistle. I’m sure that’s not how you intended it, but I think you’d be better served avoiding it in the future.
Hi Tomato - a lot of what you’re saying here has already been addressed elsewhere in the thread. The OP isn’t just addressing Lemmy, but other Fediverse services like Mastodon as well. He also notes in the article several people who been addressing ways in which Fediverse culture has been toxic to black users. These aren’t imagined problems, they exist in a lot of places off of and on Lemmy, and providing suggestions to make these sites better for black users is a good thing, not something to get defensive about. This post isn’t accusing you personally of anything, but if you feel challenged by it then it might be a good opportunity for you to interrogate those feelings.
Also, others have addressed your comments about not seeing other’s race online, etc, but I think it’s worth taking a step back and pausing. If people of color say they experience racism online, even though you don’t notice what race other people are, do you think it’s possible that there may be systemic problems or unconscious biases that might cause those folks to experience racism even when it is unintended? Those are the kinds of problems that aren’t solved by saying “I don’t say racist things to people and I don’t see color”. They’re problems that are built into our society just by the fact that we were all born and raised in an imperfect culture.
Nobody is accusing anyone of anything here, and nobody is trying to make anyone feel ashamed of who they are. But we can all benefit from stopping, thinking about the ways that we interact with others, and taking the time to try and be sure that we aren’t acting in ways that harm others even if that isn’t our intent or we weren’t aware of the harm in the first place.
