Loading ...‘Your Comment Here’: Racism in Online Comments
ByI’ve written here (and elsewhere) about various forms of cyber racism, including what I’ve called ‘Facebook racism,’ at the popular social networking site. Now, there’s another form of racism online that’s worth noting: the racism that pours forth in the comments section of many news sources. Read a news story that in some way, either directly or very indirectly, touches on an issue related to ‘race,’ and then read the comments section. Almost without exception, the comments sections will be filled with overtly racist remarks from readers.
There’s a recent example of this at the Boston Globe. In a letter to the editor, a reader Heidi Pihl-Buckley, writes in to object to the racist comments posted on the Boston Globe site after an article about the murder of a college student. She writes:
AFTER READING an article on the fatal stabbing of Jasper Howard, the University of Connecticut football player, I clicked on the online section of readers’ comments. I was so saddened by the hatred and racism that clearly was behind the words people wrote. Talk about blaming the victim.
I am certain that most of the people writing these comments know nothing about this young man. They feel free to write such hateful words as “this is what happens when you take all these undeserving thugs and try to make the world a better place by filling our colleges with them’’ and “colleges are experiencing more diverse problems today.’’ Anyone reading these will see how apparent it is that race is still a huge issue for so many in this country. Another person wrote “get rid of affirmative action,’’ as if that was the cause of this tragic situation.
The story here is the human suffering that this murder has brought to the family and friends as well as every teammate of Jasper Howard. This young man and his team were on top of the world last Saturday evening after celebrating their win. A short time later, lives were forever changed by a senseless crime. If Howard were a white youth from Weston, would there have been the same comments?
Then, adding ironic insult to the original racist comments, the comments following Pihl-Buckley’s letter generate a similar kind of animosity. The anonymity offered by online spaces provides a kind of anonymity that allows whites to share the ‘backstage’ racism that Feagin & Picca point out in their book, Two-Faced Racism.
@Ellen, no, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t miss the topic.
This blog is about racism review and “white racial framing” and not about modern day slavery or genocides. My question is perfectly in accordance with the blog’s intention and it is perfectly in accordance with the topic of this post: Racism in Online Comments.
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But it belongs to “white racial framing” trying to destract from the topic: white supremacy.
So try it again and answer my question or don’t address me at all any more.
The question:
Where in history is there a culture like European culture. A culture which developed on a certain continent – Europe – with the people of this culture conquering other continents, committing genocide as well as ethnocide throughout centuries, bringing their Eurocentric culture to every conquered nation, never integrated into any already existing culture. Tell me anything in history that can be truly compared to this history, which means, that the negative impact is still in existance up to today. Tell me a people on earth which conquered continents and made them theirs, tell me a people on earth that invented a system of discrimination and division so strong like racism and which could ‘expand’ via conquest and propaganda on the entire globe. A system and a culture that could survive so far for probably more than 600 years, where the surface may have changed, but not the root. This culture is as intact as it was centuries ago.
If you know of such a culture developed on a continent, which was as powerful like white supremacy, let me know. And tell me why it did end.
@JWBE:
>Address a self-proclaimed White Supremacist: Captain Chaos. He should know the answer to your question. Or are you too timid to Tackle a Genuine White Racist?
> He is a regular commentator on Occidental Dissent a ‘white nationalist’blog. So go ahead. Do your thing. I don’t think you will. It’s too much fun attacking someone you know is anti-racist {that being me} who doesn’t believe You are Holier Than She.
>I don’t ‘Scare’ you, but from a real White Supremacist you run as fast as you can. Don’t you? I am waiting for you to address Captain Chaos. Show me you have the courage.
@Ellen
adressing Captain Chaos is like rallying against Neo-Nazis. It may stop them sometimes from marching, but they won’t change, because the power to act they get from mainstream, media, institutions.
It is like trying to challenge hate-speech because the government is ineffective to introduce hate-speech laws in the first place.
And therefore, I ignore him here, I am trying to challenge why he and some other “real” white supremacists are even allowed to post here.
And you may try to point to somebody who is the ‘real racist’ and you wan’t to claim that you are in comparison to him the ‘anti-racist’, which only confirms my thoughts about ‘othering’, pointing to somebody or within society to a group which can be easily discovered by mainstream as ‘racist’ and ‘I am not that way’. Racism has many different faces.
When you think C. Chaos has to be challenged, do it. But don’t think that you are in the position telling me what I have to do or not.
I see that you are not able to answer my question.
JWBE Said:
>’But don’t think that you are in the position telling me what I have to do or not.’
> That’s exactly how I feel about you! Amazing. We actually agree on something.
>JWBE Said: ‘which only confirms my thoughts about ‘othering’, pointing to somebody or within society to a group which can be easily discovered by mainstream as ‘racist’ and ‘I am not that way’. Racism has many different faces.’
> I guess if you can Other, I can Other huh? Does that make sense. You stop Othering Me and I’ll stop Othering You. You stop othering all whites except Yourself. Tim Wise {once again} told you to take Ownership for Your Whiteness. You have Never done this JWBE. You are so arrogant. You seem to really believe you Know what it feels like to be Black. But you don’t.
>Plus, you never answer my questions about if you’ve ever had a racist thought or deed, even inadvertantly. You refuse to answer. There’s the Holier Than Thou concept again. Don’t address me anymore. I do not find you in Any Way Reasonable to Debate With. Thanks.
Linear thinking is not exactly jwbe’s forte.
> He is a regular commentator on Occidental Dissent a ‘white nationalist’blog.
Curious how she’d (ellen) know that. I find it interesting that you think only extremists are the “only” “real” racist in this society, and also the “most dangerous”.
Ms. ellen, thought experiments are fun. I’m impressed with your ability to know so much about others. Your Ivy League education most certainly paid off I must say. Suppose somebody like myself procreated, what would the children turn out like? Scary thought, isn’t it?
I’m the owner of Occidental Dissent. For the record, I don’t run a “white supremacist” website.
1.) I believe in a spectrum of racial differences, not a vertical racial hierarchy.
2.) We’re not trying to restore Jim Crow. I support the creation of a White ethnostate in North America that would exclude all non-Whites.
jwbe,
The overwhelming majority of human history is a chronicle of various groups exterminating each other, struggling for advantage, winning and propagating their genes. This is the primary reason other hominid species failed to survive into the modern era.
No1KState,
A “reversal of fortunes” is an apt description of the fate of Whites in postcolonial Africa.
@ Seattle:
So glad you asked about how I knew Captain Chaos was on Occidental. Because I wrote his name on google and there he was! I’m smart like that Seattle. Pays to go to Cornell. And that was a Way Crummy implication there…’curious how ellen would know that’. Try typing other people’s ‘names’ on the web and you’ll see where else they post Under That Name. It’s astrophysics! Or maybe magic huh?
@Ellen
>Tim Wise {once again} told you to take Ownership for Your Whiteness.
Taking Ownership for whiteness doesn’t mean to repeat it.
It does mean to explore all layers and forms in which whiteness or the ‘white racial frame’ exists and to challenge them with the ultimate goal to end white supremacy.
While it is socially accepted as well as welcomed to a certain degree to challenge ‘real’ white supremacists like eg Limbaugh and this is then called courage it is socially not accepted challenging the whiteness within anti-racist organizations (or any other allegedly “good” organizations). But there, within these organizations etc one very problematic attitude/life of way of Eurocentric Culture becomes visible for those who can look through the ‘good image’: Hypocrisy as a way of life. This is what I am interested in, the subtle racism of ordinary whites or those with certain labels they need to define a reality for themselves that often doesn’t exist.
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This is not only true on the individual level but also an institutional level, the one example I mentioned once are parts of the German Greens, labeling themselves as anti-racist, regardless their actions sometimes and their negative impact. Should nobody challenge them because they are predominantly white and call themselves ‘anti-racist’? I don’t think so.
I am interested in the nuances of racism and I am interested in the Eurocentric mind.
I have never claimed to know what it feels to be Black, it is your stereotypes and with them you cannot accept that people have different life experiences and based on these life experiences they may gain a different point of view and a very different knowledge and awareness. The only thing we two have in common is the same skin-color. Nothing else.
Any code, that might exist that white anti-racists should not be critized by other whites is only valid within the ‘white racial frame’, this very thing which needs to be deconstructed and must become visible.
I’ve taken Ownership of My Whiteness.
@JWBE:
Well, you heard it Here folks! JWBE intends to ferret out the tiny little devils in each of us. She will ‘challenge the whiteness within anti-racist organizations’. Wow! What a cause..what a challenge..what a triumph among intellectuals everywhere! Kinda like finding life in other galaxies even. Does MIT know about this study?
JWBE, why don’t you kindly dig up your Nazi souvenir collection from under your bed, turn on your Super Duper Gestapo Magic Light-Up Pen, and write yourself a liebesgedicht? Hor auf mit den Unsinn! You are truly So Funny!
@Ellen
fyi your fragile anti-racist self starts falling apart again.
You should not use stereotyping when you are trying so hard to pretend an anti-racist image. But I guess that calling a German Nazi, directly or indirectly, isn’t considered a problem in America.
and as to your German, I guess this is the wrong site for your desire practicing it;-)
@ellen – You once complained that you were offended by someone referring to you as a Nazi once, and yet here again I find you harrassing jwbe with the implication that she is a Nazi (I saw this line a while ago and found it very offensive myself). It would appear that the only reason you turn to this convenient insult is because she’s German. Despite your disagreements, she has kept her critiques of you above the board, and you resort to this crap.
@Jenni:
>JWBE and I go way back. When I first came on this blog, she was very arrogant and rude to me. I offered a comment on something she said to No1KState and she fired at me, ‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ She was extremely possessive about ‘her’ blog.
>Anyway, she insisted {after every other comment I wrote} that I was not the ‘pure’ anti-racist who would bring the changes needed to totally eliminate racism. This was Not because I addressed Her or baited Her in any way, shape, or form. She simply took it upon herself to ‘let me know how insufficient I was’.
>When I asked her where she was educated she said, ‘I don’t read history written by white racists! ‘ You get the idea. She was even reprimanded by Tim Wise who basically told her she was out of line dividing ‘good anti-racist whites’ and ‘bad anti-racist whites’. She didn’t listen..just kept going. He also said all whites should take responsibility for their own white shortcomings and ‘own their whiteness’.
>Then she stated she was leaving this blog for good cuz the moderators didn’t know what they were doing etc. Then she returns! And starts in on me again.
>Believe me..not taking her seriously is the only way I can handle her. She is Not a serious debater. She is Not compassionate toward anybody. I have never seen her soften her approach One Bit. She comes on like Attila the Hun. Very self-righteous and blinded by her own obsessions.
> I think she may be trying to compensate for the Holocaust. I’m serious. Germany feels a great deal of guilt over this. I know several friends who’ve gotten the same harrassment {tons of criticism about Americans and what pieces of crap we are} from Germans trying to {perhaps subconsciously} assuage their unease about their own horrific racist background.
> Anyway, I’m not going to answer her ridiculous comments to me anymore anyway. I’m demeaning myself even responding to her.
“I think she may be trying to compensate for the Holocaust. I’m serious. Germany feels a great deal of guilt over this.”
Why should Germans experience collective guilt as a result of the traditional Holocaust narrative? It is not alleged in mainstream accounts that the German public en masse, nor the Wehrmacht, were involved in the machinery of extermination; it is only alleged that the SS, who ran the concentration camps, and the einsatzgruppen (death squads tasked with liquidating partisans behind the front) were heavily involved. And, if all Germans are collectively guilty, then all Jews are collectively guilty for their vastly disproportionately, nay decisive, involvement in Bolshevism (the men chiefly responsible for orchestrating the artificial famine in the Ukraine, where it is estimated 7-10 million died, in 1932-33, Kaganovitch and Yagoda, were Jews, as well as very many of the NKVD thugs who were their ‘boots on the ground’ were Jews). Not to mention the continued repression of the Palestinians.
Btw, it should be kept in mind, that the year Hilter came to power, 1933, was the year millions of Ukrainians perished at the hands of Jewish butchers a few hundred miles from Germany’s eastern border. The Russian scholar Viktor Suvorov has come the conclusion, based upon his examination of now declassified Soviet document, that Stalin planned to invade Western Europe, the effect of which would have to turn it into one giant Katyn (the Polish officer core was liquidate in the Katyn forest in 1940 by the Bolsheviks) mass grave.
If we are collectively guilty, then so are the Jews. If they get a homeland of their own, then so do we.
You once complained that you were offended by someone referring to you as a Nazi once,
>Believe me..not taking her seriously is the only way I can handle her.
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You demonstrate that the opposite is true, I seem to struck a nerve, otherwise you wouldn’t try to get support from others against me. What you are trying is to deliberately protect the ‘white racial frame’ in this comment section.
@ Ellen..
I’m a long time lurker and was here when you came on this blog.
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Perhaps you might look into a mirror as you argue, defend and justify your actions with your diatribes against Seattle .. Jwbe or whomever.
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You would do quite well if you would heed the advice, suggestions and “constructive” criticism that has come to you from a myriad of folks. Oftentimes we can learn more, and grow wiser by simply being quiet, non defensive and willing to regard experiences that are outside of our own paradigms than we can by pontification…and being defensive.
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Listen more, talk less. You’ll benefit greatly.. I wish you well. : )
@ellen – I know jwbe strikes a cord (albeit an irritating one) with you… and me for that matter BUT, don’t stoop to her level by calling her names like Nazi. It only adds fuel to her fire and makes your argument less credible. Just remember your cause and and ignore her remarks if you cannot engage in a mature debate/discussion!
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@jwbe – you accuse ellen of “eliberately protect the ‘white racial frame’ in this comment section”. Are you talking about the German-Nazi reference? Because that statement appears to be loaded and I would be interested in some clarification.
@Siss
>Are you talking about the German-Nazi reference?
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no
In Jessie’s own words
>”The U.S. needs to think differently and more complexly than it does about race, unfortunately, we are steeped in a culture that is deeply resistant to thinking at all”.
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in this article she also quotes from a report:
• The concept of framing, or the ways ideas are shaped and presented to the public, is very powerful. Framing affects our response to data and research. Studies show that if the data and research do not fit the frame, people tend to reject the data and research, not the frame.
• Group identity shapes racial attitudes and behavior. Facts and self-interest are not as important as values and identity in influencing behavior.
• Context and environmental factors shape and shift our identity, attitudes and behaviors.
• How we construct the discussion around race can influence our behaviors and attitudes.
http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2008/10/28/thinking-change-in-an-anti-thinking-culture/
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The problem some have with my point of view is that I challenge the way of how you usually look at things, that I challenge your perception of how somebody white should be and how somebody white should position him/herself and that I challenge your limited ability of critical thinking.
In Jessie’s own words:
“McDuffee’s encounter with this white supremacist illustrates several of the points that I make in Cyber Racism, chiefly that the threat from white supremacy online is less a threat of “recruiting” and more a threat to ideas and values of racial equality. McDuffee’s encounter also illustrates that the political struggle for racial equality is one that requires us to be committed, web-savvy and willing to take action and demand a response from institutions and organizations that may be unwitting perpetrators of white supremacy.”
http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/08/05/fighting-cyber-racism/
@jwbe: I figured, thats why I said it was loaded. So? In what way is she protecting the white frame?
@ellen – I do not want you to feel attacked here, and as I’ve said before I do not support people who use “below board” attacks here (like name-calling). I do tend to agree with JustMe’s comments. I applaud your commitment to learning about issues and attempting to incorporate just practices in your daily life. In my encounters with you I do find though, that your defensiveness sometimes creates an obstacle to our dialogue.
While I am no fan of white nationalism and avowed white supremacists, I am, intellectually and in my personal politics, much more concerned with how white supremacy and racism become patterned into our institutions and the routine practices of everyday life. In a society that was founded on and remains structured around white supremacy, mainstream framing of issues and those beliefs that come to be seen as “commonsense” tend to reflect the views and ideology of whites as the dominant group. Because of this it is much more difficult to ferret out these matters, and thus, in many ways, much more difficult to tackle. And, if can be very hard to see how we, as well-meaning folks, may contribute to the reproduction of this “status quo” unless we commit ourselves to reflection and are willing to take in the perspectives of others. That does not mean that your perspectives are invalid, and again, anyway who visits this site can see these are issues that are important to you and that you feel committed to. Because of that I hope you will take this in the very constructive spirit in which I offer them.
jwbe spake,
The problem some have with my point of view is that I challenge the way of how you usually look at things, that I challenge your perception of how somebody white should be and how somebody white should position him/herself and that I challenge your limited ability of critical thinking.
Yeah right.
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Every so often her mask comes off, and what she’s saying boils down to snide superiority about “stupid white Americans,” who really disagree with her because they just aren’t up to comprehending her level of analysis.
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Why put so much energy into insisting there’s one right way of doing anti-racist work in white America, if white Americans are just too stupid to even get where they’re going wrong?
>Why put so much energy into insisting there’s one right way of doing anti-racist work in white America
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it’s not about one right way. It’s about the willingness to actually deconstruct white supremacy or to “counter-frame” the “white racial frame”.
And how could that be done, given that, according to you, white Americans have such “limited ability of critical thinking”?
>And how could that be done, given that, according to you, white Americans have such “limited ability of critical thinking”?
it’s not just according me, I quoted JESSIE’S words: “we are steeped in a culture that is deeply resistant to thinking at all”.
I also didn’t say that all Americans have a limited ability of critical thinking.
I also didn’t say that all Americans have a limited ability of critical thinking.
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True, that’s not exactly what you said. Not here, anyway.
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There’s a difference between being steeped in a culture that is deeply resistant to thinking at all, and having a “limited ability” to think critically. I’ve often gathered that your presumptions and focus are on the latter instead of the former.
re-read
The problem some have with my point of view is that I challenge the way of how you usually look at things, that I challenge your perception of how somebody white should be and how somebody white should position him/herself and that I challenge your limited ability of critical thinking.
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Means: I didn’t start a new paragraph there, I address those some [people here] who have a problem with my point of view. The paragraph is talking to them and nobody else.
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@ Jenni M:
>I hear you. You’re correct regarding the different perspectives we can all learn from.
> However, we should Definitely address these issues in a spirit of Good Will, not in a condescending, dismissive tone. We are, after all, Only Humans. We all have feelings and sensitivities..much as we try to behave purely academically and objectively.
>Many people on here understand how to express their helpful suggestions to another blogger in an amiable fashion. If done so, we ‘humans’ have a tendency to attend to the message rather than feel attacked by the messenger. I’m not justifying my own sarcasm toward JWBE because there’s no excuse. You’re correct. I should have remained above this level. Thank you for your constructive comments Jenni.
@Steve
>And how could that be done, given that, according to you, white Americans have such “limited ability of critical thinking”?
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ok, I am trying to explain what I mean with the hope that people at least try to understand where I come from. Sorry for the length of the post.
I have been posting on American messageboards for about 10 years now. On average I realized some tendencies among white Americans: the lack of nuances and I think there is also something quite unique to America – connecting opinion with skin-color/race. It happend quite often that white Americans assumed I am Black. I can be wrong with my conclusion but this indicates to me that whites in America are not so supposed to form their independend opinion ‘against main-stream opinion’ and that this opinion is also based on personal experience and not just based on knowledge one can read in books or study at universities as a white.
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Let us be honest: No white who feels comfortable within this system or benefits from this system will actually change it. Nobody who doesn’t consider the [Eurocentric] culture itself as problematic would like to change this culture. Therefore I also don’t think that we are able to change ‘peoples hearts and minds’ by educating them. As long as whites are not able to connect with People of Color whites won’t change.
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Also what I would like to express and the difficulties to do this in America, I think: Poor whites. Poor whites, their number (not percentage of population) is higher than the number of poor Blacks. Nonetheless they are somehow ‘invisible’.
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With that I don’t say that in anti-racism also classim (or sexism for that matter) should be mentioned but considered in the writings of white anti-racists. I can be wrong, I can only consider it from the writings of white American anti-racists but there seems to be the tendency, at least it translates that way, that all what happens to People of Color doesn’t happen to whites. Which is wrong. Whites who are not in a powerful or wealthier/middle class position could relate more often to the experiences of People of Color, if they were able to connect the systemic dots of discrimination of this system. With that I don’t say that whites are in the same way affected like People of Color or that whites know what it feels to be a Person of Color, but they are affected by this system and could form their own independend opinion against white supremacy and the systems it created based on this own experiences.
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White America’s reaction towards Jeremiah Wright for example was I think not just ‘white privilege’ or within the ‘white racial frame’ but the ‘white American racial frame’ because of the fact that America is a superpower and never has to listen to out-side voices. I think the words of Jeremiah Wright are the words quite a lot of people out-side America might think about America.
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I mention this because yes, sometimes I was called on the American web as the ‘arrogant European’ and I actually also once thought whether I have a right to criticize white America or not, with racism/white supremacy at home. But I made the conclusion that I have a right to do this, most of all as long as America feels free to station their military here in Germany, to also station their nuclear weapons here, wants to Americanize the world and expects the rest of the world to accept English as the dominant world language, the language of science and business etc.
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This being said, back to this blog: You can consider this blog from different points of view, this depends what somebody expects. There are the writings/posts of the authors, where they try to make the ‘white racial frame’ visible.
You can disconnect the comment-section from this, means, this is just a comment-section where ‘free speech’ applies and everybody can give his two cents. This means, that the comment-section is the same like real world, where white mind-set/the white racial frame continues.
I always try to put the internet in the context of real life. Would I expect in real life that, when I join an anti-racist group that also wants to talk about anti-racist activism, that all meetings are open to the general public and are just about ‘fights’ with right-wingers or racist thoughts? And then, if you oppose this you are subtly or not so subtly told that you should ignore them etc. What kind of dynamics happen here? Clearly, racism wins, because racism can dominate over the anti-racist course.
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It was also said that such comments are approved for “educational reasons”. But when you look, who is doing the “educating” at the moment? Predominantly No1Kstate and Nquest, both Black, while the ‘experts’ are silent.
Why do I consider this as problematic? Because it perfectly reflects white supremacy/white privilege – exact the thing which is said, whites should challenge. When even not here – where then?
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And why not just asking the members of this ‘community’ what they think about the comment-section? Perhaps I am really the only one having a problem with this and then it is me who has to do the self-reflection about my expections.
I think that this blog, because of the larger audience here, actually could be a possibility of serious exchange about anti-racist action. Just citing facts and then struggling in the comment-section with racist posts or hypocrites is for me not anti-racist action – because, what can be done about this?
Banning convinced racists is not censorship but the right to be among themselves without their interference. I would not invite Neo-Nazis to an Antifa-meeting and I apply the same expectation here. Because those white supremacists/nationalists posting here don’t come to learn, they come to interrupt, to dominate the discourse and they are pretty able to do so.
The demand to ignore them and to consider them as trolls is the demand to ignore racism, to ignore their possible insults towards others, which means: Those who feel affected by their presence are asked to be silent…
Not problematic to anyone?
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Hypocrisy among white anti-racists seems to be the dirty laundry most don’t want to deal with. It is this subtle racism which is perhaps difficult to adress or to highlight, but nonetheless it exists, perfectly within the ‘white racial frame’.
When it is even here, on a blog dedicated to anti-racism, somehow not possible to ‘make a difference’, where those trying to ‘make a difference’ or speak their mind against this ‘white racial frame’ are still those not getting support/can enjoy honest solidarity – how do we then believe we would be able to make a difference in the real world which is even more unwelcoming?
As a practical matter, I think the best solution really is to just turn “comments OFF”on the blog.
jwbe,
I’ve been watching with curiosity your attacks on this blog and its administrators (didn’t this same debate go down before, in summer?) I share your concern that the comments sections sometimes (but not always – more on that in a bit) become battlefields against racist ideologies. So I understand what’s behind your critiques.
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You got me thinking a lot about the design of this website and how it might better serve as a safe space for antiracists. But the blog format is very difficult. Should we have instead a members-only site? Then there would have to be some way of determining who received a membership. Would people submit an essay or a resume or list of antiracist books read or score real low on the “how racist are YOU” survey? Would members have to pay membership fees (this would discourage the fly-by crazy comments at least)? Then, when the blazing racists who squeaked through the door need to be kicked out, who does that? Is there a members vote? And what about the people who come to the site with very little knowledge, but they are curious, and wow they sometimes write really problematic things, but nevertheless they stick around and appear to be learning something… Question is, do you stick with them, or might you decide that they support racism more than challenge it and give them the boot? And how does your white antiracist conscience handle that one?
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I agree that we need to think intentionally about what kind of space is being created here and the implications. But you act like nothing productive ever happens here. Numerous times I have participated in very constructive conversations in the comments section of the blogs. Have you not? And the blogs themselves help me keep my finger on the pulse of news, politics, pop culture, etc.
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Like I say, I think I truly understand where your criticisms come from, and I appreciate you raising the issue. But I find the snarkiness of some of your recent comments strange. I can’t understand why a committed antiracist such as yourself would fight so hard against this particular site. If you start your own superior website, or know of one with a better format, please post a link here.
@Kristen
one can create a racist atmosphere and an anti-racist atmosphere.
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>If you start your own superior website, or know of one with a better format, please post a link here.
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Why can you only think in terms of superiority? There are anti-racist blogs including anti-racist comment-sections, but all I know and where I feel comfortable are owned by People of Color, in Germany as well as America.
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There is for example a German blog owned by Black people, where there are also ‘calls for action’, means for example that readers are encouraged to address racism, like it was with the German Greens in Kaarst for example. Such letters to the Greens were also published on this anti-racist website, which means that one can also learn how other people address racism.
And the denial of the Greens was not considered as ‘just learning’ but it was considered as what it is: Racism. They didn’t get a pass.
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In addition, on that site you won’t read racist comments. You won’t read for example, like it was posted here in another thread that ‘mules and horses contributed more than Blacks to build America’ etc.
Which means, this German site actually is a place of honest anti-racism where the dignity of People of Color is not violated but respected. Whites don’t get a free pass there and also not this excuse ‘they are just learning, so let them speak their mind, regardless how problematic their thoughts might be.’
There are of course also American blogs doing this, all I know so far are owned by People of Color.
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But let me ask a question to you: Shouldn’t also be ‘white allies’ comitted to this goal when they start their white owned blog about racism?
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>But I find the snarkiness of some of your recent comments strange.
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What do you expect? When you read this comment-section, I did not address Ellen, I also did not address her side-remarks against me on other threads. It was she who started ‘attacking’ me again and it was she, who started insulting me based on my nationality and her non-understanding again.
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post 28
You are Such an Extremist jwbe.
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I ignored her post.
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in post 36 she talked about me
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post 40 was an answer to Ellen without any attack, just my point of view about education
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in post 44 Ellen asks me
“Please also address the genocide today of Africans by Africans.”
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post 63
JWBE, why don’t you kindly dig up your Nazi souvenir collection from under your bed, turn on your Super Duper Gestapo Magic Light-Up Pen, and write yourself a liebesgedicht? Hor auf mit den Unsinn! You are truly So Funny!
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etc
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What do you expect me to do?
why do I have the impression that she is the one supported here and that she is the one who can post all her insults and interfere everywhere and is still supported while she is the one who is not so willing to truly understand white supremacy?
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Should I try it, this: ‘Hey folks, I am white and I am anti-racist and just learning. I am on your side, it’s all so great what you are doing.’
Can I then say all I want?
@ Jessie: You are made of sterner stuff than I. Thank you.
You can make the choice to ignore me but this what happens on this blog is such a mirror of real life and because this blog is dedicated to highlight racism and to make racism visible I won’t be silent. You may not like my point of view and you may not agree with me – but then you should have the backbone to tell me your honest reasons.
Watching the dynamics of this blog your blog is about being hijacked by white nationalists, this includes posting their links. All this without any “education” from your side.
There is a German organization founded by a former Neo-Nazi, dedicated to educate young people and also trying to help Neo-Nazis leaving NN-groups.
They educate young people to be able to realize hate-speech and they also know, that young people can be influenced by internet both ways: Those who are “undecided” can make decisions based on what they read on internet.
They are those who are least likely to actually post. They just read and you will never know about their existence. And sometimes they learn from ‘collective silence’ more than from any well articulated article presented to them.
Those white nationalists who actually post, many of them have learned how to “beat” with words. Those white nationalist posting here won’t be convinced. They don’t come to learn, but they are perhaps able to shy away those who would like to learn or to contribute in a productive manner.
You may not realize it but your comment section takes a quite racist, hostile and intimidating course. Nothing in real life can be a ‘bit racist” and a ‘bit anti-racist’, there is no in between, there is only racist or anti-racist.
What is the real problem in making the comment-section into this what the blog is trying to promise?