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?
Pro tip: if you're going to debate me on the existence of systemic racism and how to tackle it, maybe don't throw a bunch of book quotes and sources at me.
It heavily implies that despite being well-read, you've gone out of your way *not* to read anything authored by a Black or brown person. And I can only think of one other well-read group who does that. 🙃
This is why it's important to have diversity. It's the retaliation to calling out white supremacy. It's the subtle threats, the even subtler racially charged language.
Racism isn't just a guy in a white robe. It's the person with a gun who doesn't even know it's in their hand.
No one feels safe talking about racism in a room full of white people, even if they are self described progressives.
@fromjason Maybe the people here who know systematic oppression exists are not the ones replying to you (in general, because they agree with you, or know it's not reasonable to centre their relative lack of experience over others' direct experience.)
That's going to leave people feeling like there's no understanding here, when the truth is only the people without the understanding are talking. Some of Mastodon's "anti-viral" design is unhelpful for this, for sure.
FWIW i'm one of the ones who don't reply, in my case because when i encounter threads like this i prefer to just be quiet and let the people with the lived experience of oppression do the talking.
Thank you! i drew it myself many years ago and have used it as a profile picture on and off every since.
@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.
@poisonous Latinsky is currently multiple feeds as well as a moderation service - https://blacksky.community/profile/richferro.com/feed/aaadlhttgmjfe is the list of feeds, https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:gqq67nt6m4tdloyvociw7ikr is the moderation service. You can access it with a Bluesky or Blacksky account
Over time they plan to do more as well. They talk about it as building a "digital barrio".
@poisonous i am also still angry about it, despite having only the most distant connection:
when i joined the fediverse, i had a completely random interaction with ro where he reacted with very helpful kindness. and then i saw him boosted more into my tl, and decided to follow him.
i loved the idea of having an instance run by people of colour, for the interests of people of colour. it seemed like a next step in the evolution of site-based subcultures like black twitter somehow. (similar thing, but more governance was my thinking.) and it was a great thing to tell folks who had to experience racism on corporate social media and have the moderation staff fail them: come to our community-owned and -run place, i can hook you up with a server where the folks that run it get you.
that the fediverse just took the destruction of PV and continued as if nothing happened is still my biggest disappointment with it. it’s going to be hard (maybe impossible?) to heal, because it hits at values in actions not lining up with the values in the words. and i don’t see many white/techy admins & devs do the work to make amends for what happened. :(
@gekitsu I was on here for a year and a half before I joined there and it was the first place I had felt comfortable in all that time. It was a community but like a neighborhood in a way, people talked to each other and there were activities and stuff. I miss that a lot
It does suck to see how little has changed on here since then, and how it feels like no one cares, but it truly is really nice to see the people who remember and bring it up in situations like this. It's very appreciated
@fromjason @paninid I use it constantly, whenever anyone implies that there is some kind of central controlling org to the fediverse. If you’re actually interested *you* can go digging through my history - I don’t do anyone’s homework for them.
You’re conflating tech and social issues here. Both are real but different issues.
@fromjason @paninid Happy to extend you the grace you're willing to extend me. Unwilling to extend you any you're unwilling to extend yourself. My defining trait is you get from me exactly what you give.
And I care very much about the fediverse. I believe it is one of the few ways we can have a working social media that doesn't literally drive us insane. So when I see people hand waving away a deep technical misunderstanding about the fediverse in a way that borders on or crosses into disinformation, I take issue with it, no matter how much I may sympathize with their feelings.
If you think my points are “being pedantic" I invite you to reasses your fundamental premise. It's deeply flawed and leading you to blame straw men.
The word “we” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
I'd say that based on what you are writing, your words ought to have the most impact among mastodonians. Everything you hear affects your subconscious. Your words can be the "last straw" needed to make someone start questioning their behaviour. Something like that happened to me after my teenage years. It took time, but it worked and I'm happy for having repeatedly read various small texts on the subject!
Took over a decade to mostly learn to behave like a human being, but still!
Broadly, I agree - as a POC from the global south, I find the Fediverse a lonely hostile place. There are practically zero people from Africa or Asia or Latin America here.
Subjective experience: I find Americans here less offensive, simply because most of them are completely absorbed in their own bubble. They have no interest in even American foreign policy. They only care about what's happening in their country, their state, their city, their neighborhood. Or they are obsessed with software or cats or whatever. They are mildly annoying, but it is easy to scroll past their posts.
On further reflection: I think the most "missionary-minded" of the American liberals who used to be on Fedi have all decamped to Bluesky after the 2024 US elections. That has made the American cohort here tolerable.
I find posts by many Southern Europeans, especially the Greeks and the Spaniards and the Portuguese, interesting and engaging. They remember how Germany and other dominant EU countries fucked them over during the Eurozone crisis, and this memory shapes their political understanding.
In contrast, the Western and Northern Europeans, especially the British and the Germans and some Scandinavians, who form the bulk of the Europeans posting here in English, are full of "white man's burden" of civilizing the black and brown savages. They are so cultured and civil - they glow. All of them are liberals, and they have more faith in their mission than a saint has in Christ. They show no capacity for reflection. They truly believe they are engaging with everyone as an equal. They are insufferable.
This is how the Fedi will remain, I think. There are far too many structural barriers for global south POC to join in large numbers.
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