Just the other day I was thinking how much the presence of POC are missed on this platform. And then I scroll the comments of a post talking about systemic oppression and I'm reminded why #Mastodon is 99% white.
How is it that so many of you are expert coders but haven't read a single book by an activist? How is it that you haven't accidentally come across even a quote to spark curiosity?
This is especially concerning for Americans. We're facing fascism and still at "I don't see color"
If someone says it's your job as a person with privilege to dismantle systems of oppression, instead of panicking and getting defensive, you can do one or both things
1. You can just say "I don't know how to do that." Seriously. I think so much of these lame ass comments are because people panic and get defensive. And instead of just being honest, they try to intellectualize their way out of the anxiety.
2. Literally go google "Black activist authors" or "queer activist authors" and learn.
I've been really weighing the pros and cons of just being on the #Fediverse and not corporate social media.
I like to write about tech and social justice. But I'm discovering it's probably easier to write about the dangers of big tech to a non-techie audience on BlueSky or Substack than it is to convince a Mastodonian that systemic oppression exists. The former also just far more delightful
The absence of POCs here is just so heavy sometimes. It makes me question what am I actually supporting?
@fromjason there are a few pockets of non-white folks on the smaller instances, but yeah - every time a black person with a substantial presence joins mastodon.social or one of the big open federation instances, they get harassed by all the channers and trolls, and very rightfully leave. the mastodon teams response to this has been...lackluster. but there's really little that can be done without sacrificing open federation
(that's not mentioning the cultural problems of white fragility and respectability policing that's rampant as well)
It's not just the channers and the trolls that are the problems. In fact on an instance with a good blocklist, they aren't even the primary problem.
It's really much more the "HOA racism" (including casual microaggressions systemic power imbalance like in homeowners associations) that's endemic on most large instances (and many smaller ones too) along with the cultural problems you talk about, the lack of real understanding of systemic oppression Jason mentioned in his first post.
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