Lemmy.world's strange tolerance for racism
I've had constant issues with people on Lemmy being casually racist. Down voting attempts to ask others to rethink using slurs that harm people, being called thin skinned for having issues with racist content.
There's a lot of that in this thread.
However after posting a thread to "A Boring Dystopia" and attempting to do more than simply calling for the deaths of anyone who joins ICE and explain the reasoning for that, I saw a blatantly racist post and called it out.
The result was /u/givesomefucks banning me permanently for the community, while doing and saying nothing about the racist post. For the crime of calling out racism, I was banned for... racism. And "slap fights" for logically trying to understand an issue and trying to avoid insulting others.
Lemmy has somehow evolved into an echo chamber so unwelcoming of any words that don't match the scripted seminar so many people here seem to be quoting from that it pushes away liberal leftist educated black people.
So many people here seem to be simply looking for others they can call out as bigots or nazis or evil that they do it without thought to people who actually support all the same things that they do. It's unhealthy and exhausting.
I don't have the time or energy to spend on a place that actively seems to support casual racism while simultaneously trying to call people bigots for understanding the importance of tolerance in society.
Feel free to down vote. Make sure to switch to your alts. That's what sane, rational people do when they encounter words and thoughts they don't like.
Oh... no. Wait. That's what an actual bigot does. Someone who's completely intolerant of ideas and opinions other than the ones they like.
I guess that's the actual crux of it. I'm exhausted by the insane level of bigotry from people who see themselves as righteously hunting down bigots. It's ironic in the stupidest possible way.
14 replies
Lemmy is an Internet forum which means even the community spaces made for women are full of input from men. It’s also filled with people employed in tech which is a bastion of highly paid non-union white people. White people who also, as you point out, view themselves as enlightened allies and thus lash out when that image is marred. The closest you’ll find to allies are in queer spaces and the communist ones, but some members of those groups also frequently whip out the “no war but the class war” card right in your face, as if they would be the ones to know. I saw one of your original posts and knew exactly how it would shake out. I’m also really not surprised it’s a similar energy in here. I’m sorry.
I don't really see what you're seeing here. Seems like you're familiar with the posters though.
Just block them and move on?
I also haven't noticed a trend towards racisim and homophobia on Lemmy. Perhaps I'm not paying as close attention as I should.
I blocked most of the lemmy.world meme communities for misogyny already. Not really sure what it is about memes that attracts bigotry, but it's pretty consistent. Really niche communities like Linux memes or meme communities on balhaj zone have been a way better experience so far.
@EmilieEasie @Abyssian "Not sure what it is about memes..." Reductionism, I think. Superficiality. Sloganeering in place of critical thinking. Appeal to emotion rather than reason. No?
The bigots are illiterate and congregate around the most basic forms of communication.
I think that's a sound theory!
For whatever it's worth, I don't think you're particularly wrong in calling out that post's subtle racism.
Be sure to group the opinions of an entire instance's users into the few racist users that exist on there, ig. Its such a huge community, but the idea of lemmy is you could just block and report whoever you dont agree with. Not sure how I've become racist because of it.
Just curious, am I supposed to leave an instance if a single racist user is found on it? How should I approach being a user on lemmy?
Yikes
Yikes indeed.
“This is too racist for me”
Post that and watch people agree or disagree with you.
.world are the conservative admins and moderators. Funny that most of them would call themselves progressive.
You do know you're on the internet? Right?
I've made 1 comment under someone calling Saudi Arabia "radical whabbism" which is untrue, because... well, it's not true.
And also because it's like 50% immigrants?
Anyway people here are definitely high strung.