Same. To be honest, I'm trying to do more than hope. I'm willing to be here while many parts of it are not yet great for Black users, and work with all the awesome folks that are making it better.♥️👍🏿
I'm following in the footsteps of the Black Mastodon users that have been here for years, who started when it was much less welcoming than what I experienced, so that hopefully the Black folk that join after me, will have an even easier time than me.
@Bam @thetitanborn It's fascinating to see that about half of the replies to @thetitanborn 's post, are cringe-worthy forms of "I haven't seen any problems for Black users / your post is unnecessary / we don't see race here."
So yeah... there's work to do.
1) Don't ask Black users to CW discussions of their own racism.
2) Don't be on a server where mods mistreat Black folk.
3) Support the mods on your own server, financially and otherwise.
4) Don't engage with sea lions that say "Mistreatment? Here? prove it!" There have been enough threads shared on Black folk receiving racism. Individually convincing each one is exhausting, and expecting that is a tactic of bad faith actors.
@lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn
The best way today, is to follow a bunch of Black users and see their experience. As I've pointed out this is very insufficient, as it means that many Black users experience N*zis first, then move to a better server.
I've been online for many years, so I'm used to N*zis and their death threats. But for many Black users, this experience is jarring.
Worse than the N*zis, is the "regular users."
@[email protected] No, lets! 🙂 I am "bashing" an instance. (If providing useful feedback to protect other users is considered bashing?) The instance I'm bashing is "Mastodon dot cloud." The reason I'm bashing it is because the moderation is insufficient to protect users from a vile instance clearly run by self proclaimed racists for the purpose of harassing Black people, Jewish people, and members of the LGBTQA community. There are better moderate instances users should go to.
@lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn
An instance like mastodon.cloud can say that they don't tolerate N*zis in their "server rules."
But the reality is, a Black user on that server can receive racist death threats complete with snuff images and video of Black folks and women being killed. Flagging for moderation did nothing. The Black person leaving that instance and warning other Black users to choose a better 1st server, gets the Black user blocked.🤡
@lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn
My issue is not with N*zis. Trash people and sociopaths will always exist.
My issue is with the violence inherent in insufficient moderation coupled with a "use CW!" culture that denies the self reflection that would allow Mastodon users to realize that outside of 4ch*n, many Black users' *worst online experience ever*, was on Mastodon.
If you don't follow Black users and listen to them, you would never know this.
@lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn Right now, a bunch of white Mastodon users are thinking "Racist snuff images? OMG!!! I didn't know it was that bad! This is awful!"
But a bunch of other white Mastodon users are thinking, "He really should have put mentions of (his own) death threats behind a Content Warning. And... he seems to have moved servers? So what's the problem? Why is he still saying bad things about his old server?"
🙂🙃
@lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn
The paradox is: you only know about my experience and that of other Black users, because we refuse to play the little "Stepford Wives content warning game" when talking about what happened to us on this idyllic little platform. And you don't know how widespread the problem is, because of Mastodon design choices: crappy search, CWs, weaponized politeness, rejection of the very idea of screening servers for moderation.
@dave @lewriley @Bam @thetitanborn If there's a police shooting and there is a video? I put a CW around that. I also put CWs around topics like disordered eating, etc.
But I experience racism almost every day, as do most Black US citizens. I'm not going to start every other sentence with "CW" just to make y'all feel better.
Hiding racism to protect white feelings is just more racism. I won't do it. I do respect folks' right to Block me for that. 👍🏿
@mekkaokereke @dave @lewriley @Bam @thetitanborn
There is most definitely no need for you to CW your lived experience. Anyone who suggests it is anyway hasn't bothered to think. It might be someone else's idea of politics (meaning racism) but it is your life. (I wish I could underline life).
I very much hope that you don't get many thoughtless and clueless people. Sending you very best wishes.
@mrcompletely @mekkaokereke @dave @lewriley @Bam @thetitanborn
Yes!!!
I've thought this, but never felt brave enough to say it. I think CW has gone crazy and is actually preventing discussion.
(I often just scroll over CW posts and don't even open them at all)
@Godfrey642 @mekkaokereke @dave @lewriley @Bam @thetitanborn to be clear, I also think CWs are underused by some of the masto population. I like the CW feature and believe in it, and I'm not weighing in on the argument about where the principal locus of responsibility for filtering content is.
But I want non-white ppl to want to be here, and making room for free expression of their experience is clearly a requirement for that; and silencing that conversation has the familiar stench I mentioned.
Both of those scenarios suck. What hurts for me as a white person is that far too many other white folks still don't understand or believe that Black folks face a constant barrage of "little" things (little as in perceived less than overt racism and death threats) on a daily basis. The casual and systemic varieties of racism.
I struggle to find ways to get other white folks to understand that someone else's lived experience can be just as real and genuine even though they've never experienced it. Heck, it's been challenging for my past self too.
I've lived in the Midwest my whole life, so no experience with earthquakes or hurricanes, but even though I've never been directly affected by either doesn't mean that hurricanes and earthquakes are not real or are not deadly. Few would argue that hurricanes aren't real, yet many will try to argue that systemic or casual racism isn't real, isn't common, or isn't just as (if not more) impactful.
To help myself understand things I sometimes think of buckets. I think of an analogy with filling up a 5 gallon bucket. If you try to dump 6 gallons into a 5 gallon bucket all at once, it'll certainly splash everywhere, run over, and be a get everywhere. It happens really rapidly and everyone around can witness the violence as the water spills everywhere. To me this is overt racism like N*zis?
But if someone slowly pours liquid into that same 5 gallon bucket over time, it's still gonna fill up and eventually reach a point of overflow. It may not be as immediately jarring or rapid, but that bucket will still be full, weighing a person down, no relief in sight. And if the person or system fills that bucket really carefully, nobody will even notice the bucket getting full, except for the person holding the bucket.
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