I honestly didn’t know that until I joined Substack and saw for myself.

I get that there’s no such thing as a perfect online community, but FFS…people reach out and post things hoping for some kind of engaging reply – a human connection – and it’s deflating when all you get is unkind responses.

Now I remember why I wasn’t so keen on returning to Lemmy. I thought I really missed this place and the people here, you know? I do remember it feeling almost like home for a while, filling that void I felt when I left Reddit during the API exodus. But I see there’s nothing for me here, and it’s time to move on. Thanks for at least replying, [email protected].

I haven’t been here since October, didn’t remember Substack having such a bad rep. Then again, last fall feels like decades ago now. Ugh, I got banned from one of my favorite Blahaj communities, too.

Bloody hell. Welcome back to Lemmy, I guess

Thanks, the sarcastic title was a mistake I think.

Omg, stay and suffer and potentially die under a fascist government? What a terrible thing to read. I’m so sorry. You keep being a good dad, your kid’s going to grow up all right.

I think it’s an awful panel – and it’s not just the slur that is gross, but the slant-eyed “Jap face” that was meant to dehumanize just as much as the old comic caricatures of black people with big lips eating watermelon. It’s incredibly fucked up, and I find it disturbing that so many people don’t care to understand why these old slurs hurt so much. They look like ordinary harmless words today, but they once carried the weight of a punch to the face.

It wasn’t that long ago when discrimination (of all types) was not only normalized in social situations but often went unchallenged, which only served to justify and reinforce discriminatory behavior as acceptable. American society isn’t perfect today by any stretch of the imagination, but it was really different back then. I lived through the tail end of that shit when I moved to the Midwest in the 90s; I am of Japanese descent and clearly looked “oriental,” so I got called and heard all kinds of ugly shit constantly, even by people who were supposed to be my friends. I tried to push back at first, but all I got in return was endless angry gaslighting about how these feelings were my problem because they didn’t mean to offend and it was just a joke. Every time.

E.g. - I have a small dick but that’s okay, I make up for it with math skills! I’m Asian so I can’t hold my liquor. I talked too fast so now I’m Short Round from The Temple of Doom. I’m cooking dinner, ewww what is that stench? I can’t possibly feel disrespected if someone takes a small bite of rice wrapped in seaweed and immediately spits it out with a loud “Bleah” because they’re not used to “foreign” food. I’ll try opening my eyes wider. Yes, I grew up in Hawaii but I’m in America now and things are done differently here. I’m so goddamn quiet, why don’t I SPEAK UP? I jumped down from the truck bed, look out, brrrrr there’s a Nip in the air! I’m so polite, so naturally you thought I was a fag when you met me. I shouldn’t have corrected you about your “banzai” tree because it doesn’t matter. The women in my family must be so hot! It’s fine if you mispronounce my name for five years, you’re not used to these different syllables. I should try showing more emotion.

It really fucked me up in the head for a while. Everyone thought Asian caricatures like Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles were absolutely hilarious, so of course I wondered if that was how they thought of me. And tbh, I think a lot of my friends at the time did. I never felt like I was a true equal. It was a lonely and depressing existence, and WWII was already 50 years in the past, FFS. But that’s what it was like living in a white world as a minority. You can’t know what it’s like unless you have lived it.

Anyway. I digress. I think I really needed to vent. Flying Squid, in spite of my rant, I think you should leave the comic up. Don’t feel bad. Don’t delete it. It’s not going to do any good if it can’t be discussed.

For those on the fence about Borg Backup because it’s a command line app, FYI there’s a great frontend GUI for it called Vorta (yeah, in line with the Trek theme lol) that works really well. I don’t see it mentioned often, thought I’d pass that along. Might want to avoid the Flatpak version if you need to back up stuff outside your /home dir.

Everyone’s overlooking the fact that she legitimized gender-affirming healthcare as medically necessary on live tv. And refused to walk it back. She’s not really what I’d consider a true ally, but she did us a real solid there.

Bless this man, he does appear to be the real deal. Someone please buy him a drink