this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024
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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." Of course, 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!

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The whole point of the fediverse is that it's distributed. There's gonna be bigots. But they can be blocked, their instances can ban them, and then they can make their own instances which other instances can then defederate. That's working as designed. In a perfect world, the bigoted instances will be a disconnected graph from the network of other instances.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Most people cannot see lemmygrad

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Thats on them

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (22 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It's defederated from .world, the largest Lemmy instance.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Sounds like a .worlder problem

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Thanks. I'm still learning how Lemmy works πŸ˜…

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

As a POC I'd say Lemmy is way better than most similar sites but there's still the prevalent sexism that always seems like the "acceptable casual bigotry" and I'm not a fan of that. The kind of "jokes" that guys mostly laugh at while women mostly roll their eyes at because the punchline is usually heavily reliant on sexism.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

There used to be Wolfballs, a right-wing Lemmy instance. I didn't browse much but there was definitely ample racism there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If I remember correctly, the admin (a US Lolbertarian) finally closed it down, among other reasons, when they realized the resident nazis there were not just joking to troll da libs and actually believed the things they were saying about 'jewish shapeshifters'. They wanted a free speech haven, and so they got the people we collectively told to shut up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Good point, thanks. I seem to recall another one as well -- although both were widely defederated so I suspect most people on those instances didn't wind up seeing them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Try checking out the comment section on pretty much any post mentoning Islam.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I did not see any racist comments for quite some time. But xenophobic comments were common on threads about Ukraine’s invasion.

The anti-French sentiment is also present here like in the whole English speaking web.

The French aren’t known for their hygiene so I am not surprised their river is filthy

From a post about an olympic triathlete who got sick: https://lemmy.ml/post/18887659

In Belgium: Tartare or Mayo. Andalouse for the gal, thanks In the UK: Salt and Vinegar In both cases: I will have to change seat if you plop yourself in front of me with your poor fries inundated by ketchup. Only the French do that, and it is a Casus Belli in my book.

From a post about dipping fries: https://lemmy.ml/post/18963222

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

The anti-French sentiment is also present here like in the whole English speaking web.

Frankly, I'm always going to be anti-French until ALL of their leech-like tentacles are severed and ejected from every Afrikan nation they've been hoovering the resources out of. I have no love for neocolonists, not the French, not the Israeli, and sure as shit not the Amerikan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I do not understand how writing stuff like "French are dirty" helps with decolonization. I suppose by anti French you mean something else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"If you hate a monk, you'll even hate his robes." Now whether or not that hate is warranted, well, global colonialism has made that a matter of subjectivity, but me, I'll always thoroughly hate a settler. I hate the way that they walk, the way that they talk, I hate the way that they dress.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Then I think that this hate is not warranted. France’s army is leaving Africa. The French government want the end of Franc CFA because it is harming African development and they do not get anything of it anymore. Economic ties are very low. China and Russia are more influential in Africa nowadays. France is not the imperialist superpower it used to be

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't have links because they get banned pretty quickly, but over the last week I've seen maybe 4 or 5 examples of lemmy users referencing "the race card" (derogatory) in response to others talking about systemic racist violence.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Thanks, it's a great example, and good to hear they got banned quickly! It's a great point that when moderators are proactive most people don't see the posts so think there's less racism than there actually is.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I am sure there are instances I have forgotten, there is definitely a certain amount of bigotry, it's not hard to find classism, sexism, and ableism as usual for the internet and I am sure I have come across racism too but I don't remember any specifics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Maybe it's just the handful of instances I follow, but I can't recall anything. But I've become quite callused and thick skinned having Benn on the Internet sense the early 90's and the wastelands of forums/chat rooms lol. Send help.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

.world users every time they see a palestinian

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Assuming you are from the USA what are your options really?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

One option is to follow the lead of pro-Palestinian orgs working to end the genocide. You have more power than any other global citizen believe it or not.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

honestly why do they leave reddit

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's a whole lot of smug whites more than happy to talk over subjects-of-empire like this is still Reddit out here, split out between the likes of lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, lemm.ee, jlai.lu, and feddit.de-- the last two are because they're French and Germans respectively, though; no one's expecting anything out of them but resource extraction (in the French case) and for them to go to bat for genocidal states lately (in the German case).

At least the aggrieved ashen lords don't make a habit of coming to specifically demarcated Black-and-Indigenous spaces on the fediverse as much as they used to, ig.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm not black so I am sure I am not sensitive enough to it, but I don't think I've ever seen any racism on here. On a slightly related note have experienced transphobia only two or three times in over a year, and they were quickly banned. I imagine it works the same way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I have an account in beehaw too, and it's usually the one that interacts with the world. It's considerably different from a different instance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"I'm not black but". More than black folks experience racism, but at least it wasn't "As a color blind white man"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

It would be more helpful if you gave an example of the proper way of addressing the issue.

Thanks for the adrenaline spike.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I am priveleged not to experience racism as others do. As a consequence/therefore/ etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah it sucks big time. I dated a foreign student once and people would shout crap out of their car and drive off. And when we ate at a restaurant I could have sworn that they made their food too salty to eat on purpose.

Personally I have sort of experienced a weaker version of it first hand when visiting Poland each time. People wouldn't serve me at all, or charge ridiculous prices.

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