Comments on: ‘Your Comment Here’: Racism in Online Comments

By: jwbe

jwbe — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:45:12 +0000

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?

By: pitseleh

pitseleh — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:08:14 +0000

@ Jessie: You are made of sterner stuff than I. Thank you.

By: jwbe

jwbe — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:20:17 +0000

@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?

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:56:28 +0000

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.

By: Jessie

Jessie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:46:50 +0000

As a practical matter, I think the best solution really is to just turn “comments OFF”on the blog.

By: jwbe

jwbe — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:38:07 +0000

@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?

By: ellen says

ellen says — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:54:00 +0000

@ 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.

By: jwbe

jwbe — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:54:57 +0000

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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By: Steve the Sailor

Steve the Sailor — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:32:21 +0000

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.

By: jwbe

jwbe — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:03:31 +0000

>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.