In 4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) and its cross-posts, quite a few people said things like "maybe racism is a problem on Mastodon, but I don't see it on Lemmy." Then again, plenty of comments in the various threads were in fact examples of racism on Lemmy, so one takeaway is that at lot of people don't see racism even when they're looking at it. And helpful commenters pointed out some of the other patterns of racism on Lemmy. ... but that wasn't really the thrust of that discussion.

So I wanted to ask more generally, what are some of the examples you've seen of racism on Lemmy? Quotes and links are great, but also feel free just to describe examples or call out more general patterns!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ilovecheese@feddit.uk 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

No, but the things they are saying, maybe inadvertently, are starting to seem that way.

Swap 'black' and 'white' in their do not do list. Does it sound racist now?

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world -5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They are addressing racism against black people from white people. Based on what I've seen black people say on Mastodon about how they're treated on that part of fedi, the points in that list seem reasonable (except "don't post as much", which seems weird). What they're trying to do, as far as I understand, is to open the eyes of many white people who don't realize what's going on. I guess you could say they're pointing out and trying to fight a kind of systemic racism, or a bias that can take the form of inadvertent racism.

In order to do that, the people affected by that (white) bias would benefit from countering said bias by taking part in other and more diverse sources, groups etc. In this specific case, black people. Basically: "hey guys, your group is treating us badly, would you mind listening to us instead of just saying that you're not treating us badly?"

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Basically: "hey guys, your group is treating us badly, would you mind listening to us instead of just saying that you're not treating us badly?"

Well, say that then. Saying "don't post here so much if you're white" is just more racism.

[–] ilovecheese@feddit.uk 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I appreciate it probably comes from good intentions, but generalizing how entire groups of people should change to suit another group of people is a slippery slope.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

It's not a slippery slope. It's a cliff.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I hear you, and in general I absolutely agree. However I definitely believe that it's valid in cases like these. I'm one of the affected, I'm white, and I've never seen racism on Fedi, and I take this as nothing but a group of people trying to help me see if I have any unintentional racist blind spots (which I'm pretty much guaranteed to have, as we all have them). It's a good thing for everyone.

[–] ilovecheese@feddit.uk 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely we all have blind spots, I just think OP's blind spot is addressing 'white people' like none of us live with, and around many cultures, not just races.

If someone were to address my local Polish or Bangladeshi or Muslim or whatever community the same way OP is addressing 'white people' in this post I would call it borderline racist and in fact it would fit in OP's original 'don't do' list.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world -3 points 3 months ago

Yes, but context matters. Not that I have any statistics, but I would assume the Fediverse as a whole is predominantly white to an almost absurd degree. Had someone who represents a very small minority in Bangladesh turned to the Bangladeshi people to adress concerns of racism they experience all over Bangladesh from Bangladeshi people I would hardly call that controversial.