5 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people
privacy.thenexus.today
Anti-Blackness is a long-term problem in the fediverse. Now's a good time to start changing that.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/15011909

Feedback welcome! Here’s the TL;DR list

  1. Listen more to more Black people
  2. Post less – and think before you post
  3. Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
  4. Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects

Other suggestions?

  • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
    1014·
    4 months ago

    The very first sentence in in quote at the beginning of the article describes what prompted this

    “In recent days, folks such as @ErickaSimone@mastodon.social, @KimCrayton1@dair-community.social, @timnitGebru@dair-community.social … and many, MANY more have been speaking out about how toxic fedi culture is for Black folks and how the tools we have access to just aren’t enough.”

    If you want examples, there are links in the first paragraph of the article (after the quote), and section #1 describes how to find more. The first paragraph also defines anti-Blackness:

    beliefs, attitudes, actions, practices, and behaviors of individuals, institutions, software, and systems that devalue, minimize, and marginalize the full participation of Black people

    • myplacedk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      4 months ago

      I spent a few minutes researching this, and I still have no idea what the problem is. Or any motivation to keep researching.

      Honestly, I might be part of the problem. I’m a white guy, and there are basically no black people in my life. I don’t see any in the streets, at work, at home or here. Especially here, I have no idea who anyone is.

      Basically, I have no reason to get involved. However, I don’t want to be part of the problem. So if you spoonfeed me information I can use to make life better for “the blackness” (I’m very confused about the terminology), I will happily read it and try to remember it.

      So don’t just tell me the solution, none of the TLDR makes any sense to me. Spend a few words on the problem.

      As far as I can tell, there’s basically two kinds of people:

      1 - People who just don’t care about other people in the Fediverse. They will not read any of this, there’s nothing you can write here that will change anything for them.

      2 - People who are trying to be nice, but don’t always succeed. They will listen to advice, but nothing will change by telling them to be nice, be less racist, or to listen to people even if they are black. That’s what they are already trying to do.

      • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
        42·
        4 months ago

        Thanks for making the effort to research it … there are some great examples in this thread and some of the cross-posts (although some were so egregious that the mods took them down). Also, did you follow the links at the beginning of the article? They’re talking about Mastodon (I’ll include some examples from Lemmy in the revised version) but give an idea o the overall dyamics. In any case, I’ll put in a big more about the problem in the revised draft.