Kee HinckleyCan we talk about Black twitter and Mastodon migration?
I’ve pretty seen a pretty strong consensus from black twitter that their experience in Mastodon has been very negative. Many people don’t see this as a viable destination.
Cyber Yuki@nazgul For starters, if you run a masto instance, warn that tone policing and CW policing BIPOC people is a bannable offense.
Harassing a BIPOC person should also be banned (this one's harder to enforce due to ambiguous definitions of harassment, but still).
If you're not:
- Report ppl you see engaging in such behavior.
White folks are in serious need of education. It's a cultural, systemic issue, not a technical one.
ArneBab@ArneBab I don’t understand what you are saying, but it sounds very trollish. Maybe rephrase?
@nazgul The toot said that to help, it should be a bannable offense to CW or tone police a BIPOC person.
If this is not a general rule (because we do CW and tone police other people on the instance, because CWs are actually something we want), then this means before I write anything I have to look at the profile whether the person I’m answering is BIPOC.
The alternative would be to abolish any "please CW" or "please don’t be as aggressive" toots.
Is there another option?
@nazgul I did consider just not answering. Just ignoring it to avoid any possible backlash.
Just thinking "the CWs and friendly tone are something I like here a lot, but let’s just not try to convince people to avoid destroying that because other people might not like reading that I disagree".
@ArneBab Harassmwnt and policing about race, gender, etc is pretty clear. You don’t need to ask people.
The problem is that you’re jumping straight to “but it’s hard not to harass people”. Let’s start with “what can we do to help”.
@nazgul no, I’m not jumping to that. I’m jumping to "policing about tone and CW is something good here".
I do not want people to stop asking me to add a CW or to be more friendly. And I do not want people to first check whether I am BIPOC before they tell me that what I wrote is odd.
Is policing about tone and CW used in a way that’s racist? If yes, then that has to change: it has to be used differently.
It should be obvious when someone is a BIPOC and is getting policy-toned.
Black people say: "A white guy did something..."
White people say: "I saw this guy". Because white people see white people as the norm.
When a Black folk says "white people" and is sufdenly called out abourt not CW, you just know it's racists mobbing them.
And yes, before you start complaining about someone not CW racism, click and look at their friggin' profile. It takes you 2 seconds.
GeekmomK@ArneBab @nazgul Except that some concerns I saw being expressed were tone policing like AAVE use in posts.
As white people, we can’t understand the complexity. Having these conversations is awesome - but making sure that people from historically excluded groups *who want to help* get heard is more important.
Every time we say “if you’re going to complain then do the work” we’re adding emotional and physical labor on top of the current burdens people face. At the same time, we can’t be the ones saying “how modding is right” when we aren’t the ones impacted.