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.
@lawyerjsd @mekkaokereke @lewriley @dave @Bam @thetitanborn Harassment is very difficult to track on large instances because most of the time it's done in private messages and the rest are a flood of micro aggressions just subtle enough not to appear racist to moderators.
And local timelines on large instances go so fast that people can never notice that stuff. The only people who notice are the folks experiencing it, and the attackers.
So by the time you document one attack enough to get a single person banned, other 30 are still harassing you. It's an uphill battle and eventually you give up and move to another server or quit mastodon altogether.
So BIPOC folks would need to organize to barely counter this shit, but how to organize when the very tool you need to organize is becoming the tool that harassers use against you?
So, you got what, 10, 20 mods on a server that has over 200,000 users?
A tiny moderation team on a server that large is not gonna do shit.
mekka okereke 
Taco Dave
Lew Riley
Jimbo
Cyber Yuki