Feels very much like a "you become what you hate situation," in my case, interacting with Black folks with whom I share probably like 97% similar views on just about everything -- and yet, (it's mild, no worries, but) I have been on the receiving end of the literal worst behavior I've ever experienced via strangers on social media. E.g. some mild doxxing, you aren't really Black etc.
(And for those curious/interested/familiar, yes it was "Bad Space" aligned people)
That's exactly the problem, though. Political echo chambers with no diversity of thought ultimately cultivate the expectation that everyone must agree on every topic, at all times.
As soon as you dare disagree with what the majority has decided is the "correct" opinion, you will be seen as the enemy.
So we make our own choices about where we spend our time, and some of us simply disconnect.
And you can have whatever opinion you want, but also be prepared for me to tell you that your opinion is stupid, and when you assert that a falsehood is in fact opinion instead of a lie, I will point out that facts are not opinions and opinions are not facts.
Too many of y’all get this confused.
Maybe because you say things like that? In what world is people's skin color related to their views?
There are Black people on Mastodon, myself included. In my interactions with them, to me, it appears as of the (very tiny) subset of Black folks who are also on Mastodon, I have observed and interacted with them on views and issues about the world.
Presuming, for example, they vote - we would vote similarly. We would support the same causes, we would likely react similarly to things in real life -- and yet...etc see above.
Point being, it's not like I was in with like Black MAGA or some other group who I'd be unlikely to associate.
I though they were applying an overly-restrictive definition of “agree with 97%,” and was trying to point out that what you actually wrote “97% similar,” left plenty of room for reasonable interpretations (like the one you posted).
I think in the US there is 'black culture' and having a black skin, and I understand your point that skin color should not be assumed to be related to a view. But I don't think that's implied here.
that's WHY I said "with whom I shared views" and not BLACK PEOPLE GENERALLY.
so many feelings people get into.
What do you mean?
Was it well meaning? Yes. Did it end up being childish, overblown and power-trippy? Also yes.
I find that most everyone on Mastodon focuses properly, but too much on "Black people aren't much into Mastodon because of the racism," and not "Black people aren't much into Mastodon because it's boring as hell."
>I find that most everyone on Mastodon focuses properly, but too much on "Black people aren't much into Mastodon because of the racism," and not "Black people aren't much into Mastodon because it's boring as hell."
It's sad to say but I think black people aren't big in the tech space or similar spaces in general and not just in the US. Fosdem is one of the most pasty conventions out there in a rather international city.
As an outsider looking in I think just like with the lack of women in tech it's not primarily a barrier problem. And this is a different subject but I in factthink some of the weird campaigning towards women to join has had the opposite effect (Think 'barbie and her pink laptop entering the male dominated field' type stuff just reinforcing pointlessly gendered preconceptions.)
like, the 4chan tech board is a great source of information and also a disgusting cesspool of casual racism. C'est la vie.
Very often what any group outside the mainstream does do to address their concerns is called 'overblown', etc. by people in the mainstream. 'They make too big a deal of it', you'll hear. The 'overblown' perception is a strong signal of the problem at work (and also condescending).
It goes to what is often the heart of the cause of the problems: The mainstream doesn't experience it directly, they only see it peripherally, and they can easily ignore it, which they mostly do. Doing anything effective about the problem therefore challenges the mainstream's norms.
If you are studying Ada programming, you talk to Ada programmers, not to people who read about Ada somewhere - the latter would be absurd; what do they know? If you want to know about the experiences of Black people, conservative Christians, etc., you need to talk to those people and listen to them. It's not overblown to them.
And on one hand I understand that for very many issues, black folks get unfairly percieved as making too big of a deal of things etc.
But no, I'll stand firm here. The Bad Space people are genuinely a bunch of weirdos. So much so that I feel compelled to call them out as such because I understand that for a lot of Mastodon, they're a point of contact for "Blackness" for a lot of people who are not black. And frankly, I find them embarrassing in a way that I literally never have ANY other black folks in real life. I do not want non-black people to believe that their behavior is normal or appropriate.
As in, I never found "oh, they're just playing the race card" to EVER be valid.
Until I went to Mastodon.
And especially in practice.
> I am black as well
I don't know that it gives too much legitimacy to the argument. There are ~~ 40 million black people in the US; lots of different ideas and perspectives. If I went by all the black people who try to shock me by saying they like Trump, he would have gotten 70% of the black vote. Frankly, lots of people online claim to be black after they say something critical - and especially something racist (you didn't say anything racist, afaik) - as if that somehow justifies it. It's a well-worn troll tactic to turn the tables on racism, etc.
> And frankly, I find them embarrassing in a way that I literally never have ANY other black folks in real life. I do not want non-black people to believe that their behavior is normal or appropriate.
Doesn't that take on the too common perspective toward black people (and lots of other groups), that each black person is like a spokesperson of a universal Black Persons Association and speaks for / represents every other black person?
Freedom is the freedom to be outrageous, wrong, disagreeable, etc. (Not that disagreeing with you or me is 'wrong'.) Look at what white people do.
Which is to say, to some extent, innocently, people on all sides often DO have in their heads some-kind-of uBPA, and I just wanted to make sure that people knew that in the pure opinion (again, opinion) jrm4 very much thinks the Bad Space is very far from any putative uBPA.
I worry that HN is too much an echo chamber itself: People criticizing perspectives like Bad Space supporters are commonplace here; the Bad Space people might never have space to make a serious argument.
And yes, I can say that, because white people aren’t impacted in a significant, systematic way by my statement about white people as a whole being used to shape policy and practice across Western society. And no, the very brief moment in which white men had to think twice before saying racist things doesn’t count, nor does affirmative action, of which white women were the primary benefactors.
And I don’t worry how non-Black people perceive those annoying and exhausting Black people, because if I can treat white folks individually after the shit I’ve been through, white folks can learn how to treat Black folks like individuals, and if they can’t they weren’t my kind of people anyway.
Would not tolerate otherwise.
I'm not trying to be mean when I say this: don't kid yourself into thinking you're in a club with the cream of the crop, anywhere - you're just setting yourself up for disappointment in the best case and horror in the worst case.
Needless to say, even "intellectuals" can be racist.
Not "even" intellectuals. Eugenics and racial superiority were progressive intellectual concepts less than 100 years ago, with people writing self-important letters to each other about it.