Sam SrauyOh crap everyone, horrible thought just occurred to me. š³
Are we engaging in digital gentrification? If so, how can we be good citizens/community members?
Matt Frost@ssrauy Remember that this is white flight into a space created by white flight. Worry about justice, not HOA codes.
@ssrauy I used the language of colonizing this space a few days ago, in the same kind of concern, and yeah, there are some good things here that Twitter expats should adapt to, but the language of gentrification is also equivalently inapt because Mastodon has always been toxic and defined its culture by a measured distance from the rightward edge of the chart.
@ssrauy Gentrification suggests that this was a healthy marginalized space, and in reality, this is a medium that *has* self-protecting marginalized spaces *in it* because the general context has never been safe. Think of it as a heavily redlined metropolitan area.
@ssrauy It wants to think of itself as Portland or Austin or Madison, and those are more apt than the "keep X weird" folks might like to acknowledge because all of those "weird" cities are weird *white* cities with deeply embedded historical racism problems.
@eleutheros really good things to think about. Iām afraid Iām still learning how the culture & infrastructure here affects these larger concerns. And yes, I see how colonialism frames this betterā we come here and try to ādo goodā without the voices & knowledge of marginalized communities (instances). I suppose this reminds me that bringing resources to build with is better than building for.
@ssrauy ... no, no, we do not in fact want to use the language of colonialism any more than of gentrification, because that language has been taken up by the dominant white culture of this space as a way to assert itself over people who need justice from them instead of policing.
@eleutheros I see that. Then what? How do we frame community while recognizing preexisting power dynamics like whiteness? I think there needs to be a way to onboard us bird site expats to do justice for the marginalized and from ourselves while working to fight injustice here. As I think you mean, assimilation reifies preexisting Mastodon white culture. āBuilding community withā risks our power inadvertently harming. But āleaving aloneā further redlines and enables siloing and whiteness.
@eleutheros then again there is one, the norm of consent here in M. But what about power and economic costs to instance maintainers?
@ssrauy I tend to want to bracket the words "building" and "framing" community, because community happens by communing. The instinct to walk in and use whatever power we have is one that has to be resisted and subordinated to listening and learning what is needed. It is one that very often has to be subordinated to the action of getting out of the way, and getting one another out of the way.
@ssrauy So much of doing justice is not a ready "doing." There are needs, and I'm not the one to tell you what they are; they are not first my needs. Or, at any rate, as a white cis male queer person, I in this space am not the most in need.
@eleutheros VERY, Very good point. Your comment about communing is insightful.
I have read a lot about donating to the maintainer of the instance youāre on. That makes sense. But we should probably donate as well to maintaners whose instance we engage with, too.
And commune.
@ssrauy @ssrauy Yes, it is a good deed, I am inclined to borrow my neighbor's word for its implications and call it a mitzvah, both to support those who maintain and uphold your community, and to support the survival and thriving of marginalized communities around you. Helping fund instances that do good, is good.