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?
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In the context, the author isn’t saying “you should reduce your whole Fediverse activity”. It’s more like “when talking about this stuff, if you aren’t black, think before you say something. And you probably don’t need to say it, it’s better to shut up”.
It’s sensible advice even if worded poorly.
Readers, beware
I don’t see myself as part of a racially marginalised group, and I’m no expert on racial issues. (I’m just a translator with some bg on Linguistics).
I’m also from LatAm. I expect most readers here to be from CA/USA; be aware that racial marginalisation works through different ways in both sides.
Because of both please take what I say with a grain of salt. I hope that I’m contributing.
I like where this text is going. As such, my criticism here is mostly on better ways to convey some points, plus additional info.
Title + Intro
Subbing “start making” for “make” highlights better that every little change matters, and is easier to read.
In this context “more welcoming” says the same as “less toxic”, but the former should be better to “sell” to the readers the idea that they can and should contribute. (Plus the word “toxic” is bound to make some people roll eyes and ignore the message.)
- Listen more to more Black people
It would be great if your text addressed people who shut up marginalised groups while claiming to speak in their names; it sounds a lot like “I’m an ally so chrust me, you don’t need to listen to [group], lissen to ME! ME! ME! instead.” I’ve seen this too often in social media, including here. Black people probably have a lot more to talk about this than I do.
- Post less – and think before you post
Simply saying “post less” is bound to rub off people the wrong way, specially when removed from context (plenty people won’t read the section past that), as plenty people are aware that the Fediverse needs more content.
Sadly I’m not certain on a good way to rephrase this without erasing the message. (Perhaps merge it with #1? Just an idea.)
Stop asking Black people for evidence [… whole paragraph]
I believe that the conclusion within this bullet point is accurate and moral, but the whole package needs some serious rewording.
IMO a better approach here is to highlight that all those “excuuuuse me, where are the proofs that you’re subjected to racism in the Fediverse?” are a form of sealioning, regardless of the intention of the people asking it. Black person be asked once, they provide the bloody proof; be asked twice, they roll their eyes but still do it; be asked for the 1000th time, they get pissed and leave.
I’m saying this because, the way that this point is currently worded, it sounds fallacious (inversion of the burden of the proof). And even if most people can’t quite identify fallacies, it still ticks a lot of them off, they know that “something” is wrong.
Stop telling Black people that they’ll experience less racism if they change instances […]
It’s actually worse: it’s a form of racial segregation. It’s like telling them “you won’t experience racism if you sit in the back of the bus”.
Black people should feel comfortable to use the same spaces as everyone else.
Stop saying the fediverse […]
I think that this bullet point is perfect as it is. Just commenting on the underlying issue:
A lot of people here confuse personal experiences with general statements. Even if the Fediverse, in general, was friendlier or nicer towards marginalised groups, it doesn’t really matter when someone is pissed and trying to vent their bad experience, you know?
Also ablism
Just highlighting a typo. No issue with the message.
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!
Choosing weaker forms sounds sensible - my criticism is which ones.
Many people react that way but think about it a little more. It’s a fact. Mutliuple Black people have proven it repeatedly.
Yup, I know that it’s a fact. You aren’t being fallacious, but the way that you phrased it sounds like that fallacy, so it’s a matter of clarity.
It’s the same deal as the “post less”, you know? People are misunderstanding you.
[from the other comment] That’s a great point, can I quote you on having seen it on Lemmy quite a few times?
Feel free to do so! However keep in mind that I didn’t really keep track of them, so if someone says “do you have proofs?” I have no way to back it up.
[Replying to myself to avoid editing the above]
Another point that I’d like to highlight is that a lot of the racism in English is proxied through linguistic prejudice, due to the existence of racial varieties like the African-American Vernacular English ones. For example, picking on people who use habitual-be, or specific words/expressions common among AAVE speakers. It is racist and I’ve seen it here [in Lemmy] quite a few times.
That’s a great point, can I quote you on having seen it on Lemmy quite a few times?
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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)
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!
Per item 2, I don’t think that the overall reduction of posting is good, especially on a platform as starved for content like Lemmy. Why should the overall amount of content drop off if there is room for posts created by people of color to be shown here?
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?
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)”
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.
The linked article focuses on Mastodon. I’d be interested to hear more about how this relates to Lemmy in your experience.
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You don’t have to play rap music and apologize for slavery to make them feel welcome.
i’ll preserve this quote for people who disagree that the OP’s post is needed, or who think there isn’t racism on the Fediverse. it’s insane how many of you are demonstrating the point.
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