You want to know if your corner of Cohost is responsible for upholding a white supremacist culture? Here is a guide to help you understand. The bullet point list is derived from a work called "From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups." I haven't read it, but if you'd like to, PDF Here
Non-white people: I carry this around for situations where I'm the one dissenting voice experiencing racism. As we all know, racism usually doesn't look like ppl hurling slurs and more often looks like tone-policing, getting call aggressive for reacting in rational ways, etc. I use this guide to remind me when I'm being gaslit. I also use it to make sure I don't fall into the same pitfalls described in the guide.
White people: This will help you recognize the culture in those around you and yourself. I suggest keeping it around if you are looking to get more active in fighting against this culture.
For all intensive purposes, "organization" = Cohost and "people in power" = the racial majority (white people) on this site (people in power do not equal the 5 devs at cohost. If anything they've said in the past is relevant, they are still considered part of the overall racial majority of the site). Because the document doesn't map 1-to-1 with a social media, some of these points are irrelevant or don't make sense in terms of "people in power." We'll ignore those. Also sorry there's some weird formatting on some of these.
I'm going to highlight some of these points of White Supremacy Culture I've seen transpire on this website for the last few days. If any of you have had trouble connecting how certain actions on this site have been racist, this will hopefully give you a clearer understanding.
mistakes are seen as personal, i.e. they reflect badly on the person making
them as opposed to being seen for what they are: mistakes
Example: someone I have blocked did something bad so if they complain about racism it isn't valid
equating individual acts of unfairness against white people with systemic
racism which daily targets people of color
Another way to spin the last one,: the person u mentioned did X so you should give equal weight to what they did and the racism they are experiencing
a lot of energy in the organization is spent trying to make sure that people's
feelings aren't getting hurt or working around defensive people
emphasis on being polite
invalidating people who show emotion
Ie, if you are capping for racists, I shouldn't be allowed to say fuck you
if it's not in a memo, it doesn't exist
This is what the pushback to the new missing stair community guidelines look like. Not everything can be in writing and in order to have good moderation, discretion is needed. Sorry!
those with strong documentation and writing skills are more highly valued,
even in organizations where ability to relate to others is key to the mission
This is what it looks like every time someone bombards this site with 20 chapters of text instead of saying sorry for being racist. This is what it looks like when white ppl circulate giant meta posts giving the benefit of doubt to other white ppl for their racism.
those with power assume they have the best interests of the organization at
heart and assume those wanting change are ill-informed (stupid), emotional,
inexperienced
Lot's of victim blaming these last few days
when someone raises an issue that causes discomfort, the response is to
blame the person for raising the issue rather than to look at the issue which is
actually causing the problem
the belief that those with power have a right to emotional and psychological
comfort
scapegoating those who cause discomfort
The backbone of all the racist harassment on this site
