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)

Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it

Especially if it's the first time you've seen anti-Blackness from somebody and it seems like it was unintentional, very often a polite call in as a reply or direct message is a good option. Impact > intent, so a mistake can still cause harm even if it's not intentional, but it's more likely to be a good learning opportunity. Let them know they've said something unfortunate, explain why, and possibly follow up with them one-on-one or in a small group. For more on this tactic, see Harvard Diversity Inclusion and Belonging's Calling In and Calling Out Guide and Loretta Ross' Don't Call People Out, Call Them In video and book Calling In.

If it's egregious, or somebody doubles down instead of fixing it, or they have a pattern of unfortunate remarks, then report it to the moderators – and potentially call them out more loudly.

If you're a moderator, it's especially important to take action on anti-Blackness when somebody reports it – or when you notice it yourself. If the comment is particularly egregious, delete it and consider banning the user (or at least give them a formal warning). Otherwise, especially if it's somebody on your own instance, you may want to start by calling them in; if somebody doesn't want to learn, you'll need to take stronger action. (5/N)

Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects

Many Black people in the fediverse promote or sell art, music, books, crafts, and newsletters. Many have "looking for a job" posts, crowdfunding or donation links, or threads like Andrea's Juneteenth post collecting requests from others. If you see a post you like, or somebody who's been treated shabbily by others in the fediverse and you feel bad about it, check their profile and pinned and recent posts to see how you can help. If you're listening to Black people, you'll also see lots of other opportunities. Whether or not you have funds to spare, you can help by boosting and promoting people's work, fundraisers, job search requests, etc.

There are also a lot of other ways to support Black people on the fediverse. For example:

• The #MutualAid hashtag is a good place to find people who need support.
• Black-led instances like blackqueer.life, diaspora.im, and blacktwitter.io play an important role in the fediverse – and need support.
• Black-led software projects like Awujo (proposed in Ro's A Case for Community) that "prioritize safety, accessibility, and ease of use, managed by a consensus of diverse voices" can play an important role in addressing the fediverse's lack of safety for everybody ... but the software won't write itself.

(6/N)

Approach it intersectionally

Anti-Blackness isn't the fediverse's only problem. Misogyny, transphobia and other forms of anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bigotry , anti-Indigeneity, ableism, Islamophobia, antisemitism ... the list goes on. As well as being problems in their own right, all of these other dimensions of oppression compound the fediverse's anti-Blackness. And people at the intersections experience unique forms of oppression.

Misogynoir – a term originally coined by Dr. Moya Bailey in 2008, describes the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women and gender-expansive people (especially in social media) – is one important example of intersectional oppression. Calling all non-Black people: Interrupting Misogynoir, by Dr. Heliana Ramirez and Jaya Mallik, is an excellent very recent resource; there's also a PDF version available here.

Similarly, transmisogynoir describes the intersection between transphobia, misogyny, and anti-Black racism specifically; Ashlee Maree Preston's The Anatomy of Transmisogynoir is a good introduction.

Of course, all of these dimensions of impressions are also complex issues, and the of how things manifest details can be very different, but the basic framework in #1-#4 of listening more, being more thoughtful about posting, intervening when you see something, and supporting people is quite general. For example, sections #2 and #3 point to how to make progress on Mastodon's notorious reputation for "reply-guy-ism" – which, while bad in general, is a lot worse for Black women and other women and femmes of color.

So please pay attention to these dynamics as well, and make sure you're listening to and supporting Black women, trans and queer Black people, and disabled Black people as well as Black guys and cis, straight, abled Black people.

(7/N)

And that's not all ...

Of course, these aren't the only things that need to happen to make the fediverse less toxic for Black people.

It's also vital to do the work to examine and make progress on your own biases, assumptions, habits, and other forms of anti-Blackness – which we all have. Ijeoma Oluo's "Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed" is a very good introduction. Her book "So You Want to Talk About Race" goes into more detail, as do her videos including this one with Dr. Cherisee Jones-Branch. I also found Dr. Crystal Fleming's "How to Be Less Stupid About Race" helpful, and she's got some excellent videos too, including this

(8/N)

"You will get better at this, but at first you will fuck up a lot, and you will always fuck up a little.... You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up.... You will need to get used to the pang of guilt from realizing you have fucked up and it has hurt people. Because it will hit you again and again."

– Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed

Speaking of which, I'm sure I've made mistakes here – it's a very challenging subject to write about, and I too have spent my entire life in environments where anti-Blackness is normalized and (just like everybody else) am still not always aware of when I'm falling into it. Thanks to everybody who gave me helpful feedback on the draft, but I've almost certainly found new ways to screw up in this current version. So, my apologies in advance; please call me in or out, as you see fit!

(9/N)

@thenexusofprivacy

At no point along this have you described how Black people might educate White people to the struggle. Telling us to read a book isn't really an answer. Many of us have read the books.

MLK failed because he did not have a White counterpart. Gandhi failed because he did not have a Muslim counterpart.

But Mandela succeeded because he did have a White counterpart, F.W. de Klerk.

@thenexusofprivacy

Here's the rock bottom truth about American racism: its rules have been in place for three centuries now and it will take about that long to fill in the trenches of the Race Line.

As surely as White people need to come to terms with the Race Line, Black people have their part to play in that repair, too. My children are biracial - which race are they?

Why do supposedly enlightened people still play by the same old rules?

@tuban_muzuru There are plenty of good articles written by Black people with suggestions for how Black people should deal with anti-Blackness in America. Like I say, I'm not qualified to make those suggestions, so I didn't try to in this article.

Supposedly-enlightened white people still play by the same old rules because those rules are stacked in favor of whiteness. The Black people I know, and the Black authors whose work I've read, very much don't think we should keep playing by the same old rules.

Your children are both races (like biracial people in general). That adds its own challenges, both for you and for them!