Anti-Blackness – beliefs, attitudes, actions, practices, and behaviors of individuals, institutions, software, and systems that devalue, minimize, and marginalize the full participation of Black people across the world – is a long-term problem in the fediverse. Dr. Johanthan Flowers The Whiteness of Mastodon and Twitter vs. Mastodon podcast, Ra’il I'Nasah Kiam and Marcia X's Blackness in the Fediverse, the links in Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy, and the draft of the draft of Ah, Lemmy: Racism and Denial in the Threadiverse have some of the history].

Every time things flare up, along with the harassment and denial and victim blaming and hate, there's also lot of hand-wringing about how we should be better than this. And then things go back to how they always are. White people in the fediverse collectively should indeed be better than this ... but in practice, we are not.

Now's a good time to start changing that and start making the fediverse less toxic to Black people. (2/N)

Hashtags like #BlackMastodon and #BlackAugust, and groups like https://fedigroups.social/@blackfedi are good places to start if you're using Mastodon, GoToSocial, or other microblogging fediverse software. If you're on a platform like Lemmy which doesn't yet have similar hubs, it's more challenging.

One good option, no matter what platform you're on, is to follow independent news sites like The 19th News and Prism Reports. Other social networks, news aggregators, and search engines are also good sources for articles and videos by Black people. If you haven't seen anybody else has posted them to fediverse yet, share them yourself!

Keep in mind that Black communities aren't monolithic, so don't just listen to and amplify a few high-profile accounts. Instead, make sure you're getting a range of perspectives – including Black Women, trans, queer, and non-binary Black people, disabled Black people, Afro-Indigenous people, and Black anarchists. (3/N)

Think before you post

As Ijeoma Oluo says in Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed:

"Every idea you have for how we can better fight racism has already been discussed.... Free, individualized education is not a thing we do anymore."

Even if you're asking questions because you sincerely want to know, or you're suggesting good ideas, it's very often not particularly helpful. In fact, since many Black people hear the same questions and suggestions again and again so often that it's very irritating. And let's face it, many times they're not actually particularly good questions or ideas – or people express them in an unfortunate way.

So if you're about to post about a topic related to anti-Blackness (or race in general), especially if it's a reply to a post or thread from a Black person, stop and ask yourself whether you're actually adding anything to the conversation.

Very often, after this initial reflection, you'll decide not to post. That's okay! If you do decide to post, take the time to phrase it well. Double-check your wording to see you're not inadvertently using problematic language.

Of course, the combination of deciding not to post in some circumstances, and taking more time to think and work on the wording of the posts you do make, means that you'll post less ... but that's not a bad thing.

EDIT, 8/19: I changed the headline on this to match a change in the underlying article, it previously started with "Post Less"
(4/N)