Comment by ☯️ dragfyre
Re: "I never thought of muting the Linux subspace before, but it..."
Thanks for the replies everyone. @stack, I agree that your post seemed neither disingenuous nor malicious. You seem quite sincere in your concerns. I was making a general comment about the importance of moderation in our discourse, which I'm sure you'll agree serves to mitigate the kind of "bullying" you've mentioned.
Sep 02 · 6 weeks ago
7 Later Comments ↓
Yes. I can also see that my issue may be perceived as politically motivated trolling. Likely because the attempt to remove language that can possibly offend is somehow seen as a pushback against the current authoritarian regime. My resistance to it is therefore viewed as support of that regime. But neither is true.
It's more of the same. A bunch of white men banning the word 'whitelist' as if it somehow helps people of color.
When a white man seriously believes that banning words will help people of color, then those white men are frankly. Full of horse apples, pardon my French.
☯️ dragfyre [OP] · Sep 02 at 10:55:
stack, bsj, it sounds like you have many friends who are people of color and that their input has helped to inform your thinking. do they also feel that the usage of terms ex. "blacklist" and "whitelist" are neutral, or that they won't potentially remind dark-skinned people of, say, the de jure separation of races that existed in the USA for so long, thereby creating barriers for their contribution to professional spaces - which i guess is the rationale? and what have they expressed to you about the reality of racial prejudice and animosity in America or in the world, and about possible ways forward to reconciliation? if possible, I'd genuinely love to learn from their insights.
I think you just want to argue, so I will not fight over which of us knows more non-white people.
I am glad you know how to fix the problems of dark-skinned people, and that it turned out to be so easy.
Let's ban the word 'genocide' -- the word traumatizes Palestinians and reminds them they are being murdered.
☯️ dragfyre [OP] · Sep 02 at 13:30:
I am glad you know how to fix the problems of dark-skinned people, and that it turned out to be so easy.
I don't actually, and I was serious. I'm just assuming that you have spoken to people about this because you sound quite sure of yourself, and because I'd rather assume good faith. I've spoken to both black and white people about how to contribute to healing racial hatred and it is really an incredibly difficult conversation to have, but an important one. I can use all the insight I can get because I sure as heck don't feel like I've achieved much.
Regarding genocide, I'm sure most of us know someone by now whose family has been targeted with genocide too. I'm not averse to talking about that either, as long as things stay civil as you said.
I think it's a good idea to identify actions that make one 'feel better' about very real and often tragic subjects, and actually taking action to improve or eliminate injustice.
As someone who pointed out the futility and even selfishness of such activity, I expected I would draw fire.
I don't think discussing the underlying issues is helpful or even possible, as long as you feel that not uttering and outright banning particular words makes past or current transgressions disappear, or less impactful.
Maybe you feel powerless, that any real action and resolution is not possible, and that banning random words is at least doing something.
As a person of color, it still makes me sad that black and white people can't even come to a proper conclusion about this kind of topic, mainly because it's really difficult to solve.
Original Post
I never thought of muting the Linux subspace before, but it seems like it's a good idea today. 😅
💬 14 comments · 4 likes · Aug 31 · 6 weeks ago
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