hyperlink Oct 7, 2020

People criticizing snouts for being a majority-white space whose users need to take an active personal role in dismantling whiteness and racism to create a more safe space for users of color are right. This is true of furry in general as well.

Snouts staff is, imo, genuinely trying to step up to the plate and be accountable but it’s clear that a fleet of well-trained mods proportionate to the userbase & a community of users more actively intolerant of racism isn’t happening overnight.

Show threadhyperlink Oct 7, 2020

I’m looking into migrating, but I really think the issues being discussed about racism are not exclusive to just one instance’s userbase or mod team.

In saying that I don’t mean to excuse snouts, but to challenge fedi, specifically white fedi users, to learn from this: if snouts were to close tomorrow I’m not convinced the fedi as a whole would be any less racist, the racism would just move around.

Show threadhyperlink Oct 7, 2020
What’s happening here today is YOUR white-led majority-white instance tomorrow unless y’all do something to address those things. (I am far from the first person to make these observations, Black and POC users have been saying this for a long time.)
Show threadhyperlink Oct 7, 2020
Additionally I want to say I don’t think Shel did anything wrong — I am white and not Jewish so I will not attempt to weigh in on whether the original reported post is worthy of any mod action, but I think reporting it is reasonable. As I understand it, reports don’t necessarily mean a post requires disciplinary action, it just brings the post to a mod’s attention for review.
Show threadhyperlink Oct 7, 2020
I also agree with Shel that screenshotting and posting a report like this isn’t what I would do if I were an admin. I think that is going to encourage users who see posts that *might* violate rules or make users uncomfortable, but that they’re not sure about, to not take any action. Some users were extremely rude to Shel (and even Ace as well) at the outset of this and I think the initial inciting conflict about post reporting could have probably been handled by just talking to them.
Show thread✨Soff✨ Mawr Oct 7, 2020
@hyperlink
I wish folks would try calling in before calling out more often
Show threadhyperlink Oct 7, 2020
@mawr I understand why they sometimes don't -- I've read Black and POC users express frustration at being expected to always give others the benefit of the doubt while also being the target of harrassment. but I genuinely think Shel was just trying to have an honest discussion in this case
Show thread✨Soff✨ Mawr 

@hyperlink there are so many layers to this one I haven't even heard about or seen the Shel conversation to which you're referencing, just the endless ripples of callout fallout.

All I know is at an instance level, calling in is essential to cross-instance community cohesion, and its absence used in haste deeply hurts people and their communities both without really making folks that much safer.

Oct 8, 2020 at 12:15amWeb
Show thread✨Soff✨ Mawr Oct 8, 2020

@hyperlink I also wish folks would stop treating racism like a monolith- like some massive impossible thing that infects only the evil; or like it's some thing we can purify ourselves of

Racist ideas are buried inside the heads of every person alive today, and for a staggering number of us, they came from people we trusted at a time we couldn't have known better. We are all of us living through the process of removing our racist programming, and that process is never clean or easy.