In 4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) and its cross-posts, quite a few people said things like “maybe racism is a problem on Mastodon, but I don’t see it on Lemmy.” Then again, plenty of comments in the various threads were in fact examples of racism on Lemmy, so one takeaway is that at lot of people don’t see racism even when they’re looking at it. And helpful commenters pointed out some of the other patterns of racism on Lemmy. … but that wasn’t really the thrust of that discussion.
So I wanted to ask more generally, what are some of the examples you’ve seen of racism on Lemmy? Quotes and links are great, but also feel free just to describe examples or call out more general patterns!
As you say, all racism isn’t obvious. A quick look at their post history shows 7 or 8 race related posts recently.
Repeatedly stating white people should do or not do specific things.
This seems to me like the definition of racism at it’s roots.
You’re saying OP is a racist?
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No, but the things they are saying, maybe inadvertently, are starting to seem that way.
Swap ‘black’ and ‘white’ in their do not do list. Does it sound racist now?
They are addressing racism against black people from white people. Based on what I’ve seen black people say on Mastodon about how they’re treated on that part of fedi, the points in that list seem reasonable (except “don’t post as much”, which seems weird). What they’re trying to do, as far as I understand, is to open the eyes of many white people who don’t realize what’s going on. I guess you could say they’re pointing out and trying to fight a kind of systemic racism, or a bias that can take the form of inadvertent racism.
In order to do that, the people affected by that (white) bias would benefit from countering said bias by taking part in other and more diverse sources, groups etc. In this specific case, black people. Basically: “hey guys, your group is treating us badly, would you mind listening to us instead of just saying that you’re not treating us badly?”
Well, say that then. Saying “don’t post here so much if you’re white” is just more racism.
I appreciate it probably comes from good intentions, but generalizing how entire groups of people should change to suit another group of people is a slippery slope.
It’s not a slippery slope. It’s a cliff.
I hear you, and in general I absolutely agree. However I definitely believe that it’s valid in cases like these. I’m one of the affected, I’m white, and I’ve never seen racism on Fedi, and I take this as nothing but a group of people trying to help me see if I have any unintentional racist blind spots (which I’m pretty much guaranteed to have, as we all have them). It’s a good thing for everyone.
Absolutely we all have blind spots, I just think OP’s blind spot is addressing ‘white people’ like none of us live with, and around many cultures, not just races.
If someone were to address my local Polish or Bangladeshi or Muslim or whatever community the same way OP is addressing ‘white people’ in this post I would call it borderline racist and in fact it would fit in OP’s original ‘don’t do’ list.
Yes, but context matters. Not that I have any statistics, but I would assume the Fediverse as a whole is predominantly white to an almost absurd degree. Had someone who represents a very small minority in Bangladesh turned to the Bangladeshi people to adress concerns of racism they experience all over Bangladesh from Bangladeshi people I would hardly call that controversial.
It’s not racism if it’s against white people. That has been the established rule for a while now. The claim is that black people don’t have the power to enact systemic oppression, so anything they do isn’t racism, it’s a response to racism.