In 4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) and its cross-posts, quite a few people said things like “maybe racism is a problem on Mastodon, but I don’t see it on Lemmy.” Of course, plenty of comments in the various threads were in fact examples of racism on Lemmy, so one takeaway is that at lot of people don’t see racism even when they’re looking at it. And helpful commenters pointed out some of the other patterns of racism on Lemmy. … but that wasn’t really the thrust of that discussion.
So I wanted to ask more generally, what are some of the examples you’ve seen of racism on Lemmy? Quotes and links are great, but also feel free just to describe examples or call out more general patterns!
I did not see any racist comments for quite some time. But xenophobic comments were common on threads about Ukraine’s invasion.
The anti-French sentiment is also present here like in the whole English speaking web.
From a post about an olympic triathlete who got sick: https://lemmy.ml/post/18887659
From a post about dipping fries: https://lemmy.ml/post/18963222
Frankly, I’m always going to be anti-French until ALL of their leech-like tentacles are severed and ejected from every Afrikan nation they’ve been hoovering the resources out of. I have no love for neocolonists, not the French, not the Israeli, and sure as shit not the Amerikan.
I do not understand how writing stuff like “French are dirty” helps with decolonization. I suppose by anti French you mean something else.
“If you hate a monk, you’ll even hate his robes.” Now whether or not that hate is warranted, well, global colonialism has made that a matter of subjectivity, but me, I’ll always thoroughly hate a settler. I hate the way that they walk, the way that they talk, I hate the way that they dress.
Then I think that this hate is not warranted. France’s army is leaving Africa. The French government want the end of Franc CFA because it is harming African development and they do not get anything of it anymore. Economic ties are very low. China and Russia are more influential in Africa nowadays. France is not the imperialist superpower it used to be
It sounds as if you’re using the atrocities of the French bourgeoisie as a way to excuse nationalist bigotry against a people. The French state is imperialist and colonist, the French citizens are mostly victims of capitalism, not the settlers.
Obviously it’s a different situation with French people overseas, but we’re not in that context.
If the citizens weren’t tacitly benefiting, in any way from the resource extraction of the bourgeoisie, maybe you’d have a point there; but since they do, you don’t
And yes, before you ask it, I feel the exact same way about Amerikans; and no, I have been far below poverty line all my life, so you’re not gonna find purchase there either. Just fuck off if you’re gonna go to bat for a settler before you waste any more of both of our time.
Someone tacitly benefiting from a state’s imperialism doesn’t stop them simultaneously being victims of the absolute horror that is capitalism. That’s a big part of why even in the most exploitative regimes there are millions of anti-capitalists who engage in international solidarity. The capitalist class like to pretend there’s some national unity at play when they screw over the proletariat, but it’s all clearly bullshit.
I don’t bat for settlers. I’m publicly replying to your public reply, because it was sectarian in a way which is harmful to the international socialist movement. If you think this conversation is wasting your time, then just ignore it.
As in “fuck the Russians”? Because I feel that hating Russia is somewhat less based on prejudice than your other examples, and somewhat more on recent real world examples.
There were xenophobic comments towards Russians, Ukrainians and Americans in these posts.
Also, I don’t think people should insult the people of a country when they criticize its government.
True, but at one point as has gone so far you are complicit if you do nothing.
Has it gone so far yet? I don’t know, but it’s worth discussing imo.