3 ms·

A good principle in theory, but did you miss that I mentioned that I am black as well? And on one hand I understand that for very many issues, black folks get

by jrm4 11mo ago

A good principle in theory, but did you miss that I mentioned that I am black as well? And on one hand I understand that for very many issues, black folks get unfairly percieved as making too big of a deal of things etc. But no, I'll stand firm here. The Bad Space people are genuinely a bunch of weirdos. So much so that I feel compelled to call them out as such because I understand that for a lot of Mastodon, they're a point of contact for "Blackness" for a lot of people who are not black. And frankly, I find them embarrassing in a way that I literally never have ANY other black folks in real life. I do not want non-black people to believe that their behavior is normal or appropriate. As in, I never found "oh, they're just playing the race card" to EVER be valid. Until I went to Mastodon.

mmooss 11mo ago
> A good principle in theory And especially in practice. > I am black as well I don't know that it gives too much legitimacy to the argument. There are ~~ 40 million black people in the US; lots of different ideas and perspectives. If I went by all the black people who try to shock me by saying they like Trump, he would have gotten 70% of the black vote. Frankly, lots of people online claim to be black after they say something critical - and especially something racist (you didn't say anything racist, afaik) - as if that somehow justifies it. It's a well-worn troll tactic to turn the tables on racism, etc. > And frankly, I find them embarrassing in a way that I literally never have ANY other black folks in real life. I do not want non-black people to believe that their behavior is normal or appropriate. Doesn't that take on the too common perspective toward black people (and lots of other groups), that each black person is like a spokesperson of a universal Black Persons Association and speaks for / represents every other black person? Freedom is the freedom to be outrageous, wrong, disagreeable, etc. (Not that disagreeing with you or me is 'wrong'.) Look at what white people do.
- jrm4 11mo ago
  It's not an "argument?" And if anything it's just more of a confirmation of your exact idea of being against a universal Black Person's Association. Which is to say, to some extent, innocently, people on all sides often DO have in their heads some-kind-of uBPA, and I just wanted to make sure that people knew that in the pure opinion (again, opinion) jrm4 very much thinks the Bad Space is very far from any putative uBPA.
  - mmooss 11mo ago
    I can imagine your point about it countering the uBPA perspective, but the comments feel more like what I said above. Are people that dumb about uBPA beliefs that they really need to know about one exception? I hope not. I worry that HN is too much an echo chamber itself: People criticizing perspectives like Bad Space supporters are commonplace here; the Bad Space people might never have space to make a serious argument.
    - jrm4 11mo ago
      [flagged]
- blackqueeriroh 11mo ago
  Yeah, basically I agree with mmooss. As a Black person, I don’t really care how weird, wrong, creepy, or exhausting other Black people are, I still feel more kinship and alignment with them than a random white person I don’t know. I can’t really stand white people writ large, but there are a ton of individual white people I love and adore. Because I know the difference between whiteness* and a white person. And yes, I can say that, because white people aren’t impacted in a significant, systematic way by my statement about white people as a whole being used to shape policy and practice across Western society. And no, the very brief moment in which white men had to think twice before saying racist things doesn’t count, nor does affirmative action, of which white women were the primary benefactors. And I don’t worry how non-Black people perceive those annoying and exhausting Black people, because if I can treat white folks individually after the shit I’ve been through, white folks can learn how to treat Black folks like individuals, and if they can’t they weren’t my kind of people anyway.
  - bakugo 11mo ago
    [flagged]
  - jrm4 11mo ago
    I tend to agree -- but what kept me around that particular flavor of Black mastodon bullshit was of course, not the people -- but my personal belief that Mastodon is the smartest model for social media, and as such I choose to try to see what I can do in there. I think the world would be better off if everyone saw/believed that the thing we do with twitter would work VERY WELL if done on Mastodon. Would not tolerate otherwise.

by jrm4 11mo ago

mmooss 11mo ago

> A good principle in theory And especially in practice. > I am black as well I don't know that it gives too much legitimacy to the argument. There are ~~ 40 million black people in the US; lots of different ideas and perspectives. If I went by all the black people who try to shock me by saying they like Trump, he would have gotten 70% of the black vote. Frankly, lots of people online claim to be black after they say something critical - and especially something racist (you didn't say anything racist, afaik) - as if that somehow justifies it. It's a well-worn troll tactic to turn the tables on racism, etc. > And frankly, I find them embarrassing in a way that I literally never have ANY other black folks in real life. I do not want non-black people to believe that their behavior is normal or appropriate. Doesn't that take on the too common perspective toward black people (and lots of other groups), that each black person is like a spokesperson of a universal Black Persons Association and speaks for / represents every other black person? Freedom is the freedom to be outrageous, wrong, disagreeable, etc. (Not that disagreeing with you or me is 'wrong'.) Look at what white people do.

jrm4 11mo ago
It's not an "argument?" And if anything it's just more of a confirmation of your exact idea of being against a universal Black Person's Association. Which is to say, to some extent, innocently, people on all sides often DO have in their heads some-kind-of uBPA, and I just wanted to make sure that people knew that in the pure opinion (again, opinion) jrm4 very much thinks the Bad Space is very far from any putative uBPA.
- mmooss 11mo ago
  I can imagine your point about it countering the uBPA perspective, but the comments feel more like what I said above. Are people that dumb about uBPA beliefs that they really need to know about one exception? I hope not. I worry that HN is too much an echo chamber itself: People criticizing perspectives like Bad Space supporters are commonplace here; the Bad Space people might never have space to make a serious argument.
  - jrm4 11mo ago
    [flagged]
blackqueeriroh 11mo ago
Yeah, basically I agree with mmooss. As a Black person, I don’t really care how weird, wrong, creepy, or exhausting other Black people are, I still feel more kinship and alignment with them than a random white person I don’t know. I can’t really stand white people writ large, but there are a ton of individual white people I love and adore. Because I know the difference between whiteness* and a white person. And yes, I can say that, because white people aren’t impacted in a significant, systematic way by my statement about white people as a whole being used to shape policy and practice across Western society. And no, the very brief moment in which white men had to think twice before saying racist things doesn’t count, nor does affirmative action, of which white women were the primary benefactors. And I don’t worry how non-Black people perceive those annoying and exhausting Black people, because if I can treat white folks individually after the shit I’ve been through, white folks can learn how to treat Black folks like individuals, and if they can’t they weren’t my kind of people anyway.
- bakugo 11mo ago
  [flagged]
- jrm4 11mo ago
  I tend to agree -- but what kept me around that particular flavor of Black mastodon bullshit was of course, not the people -- but my personal belief that Mastodon is the smartest model for social media, and as such I choose to try to see what I can do in there. I think the world would be better off if everyone saw/believed that the thing we do with twitter would work VERY WELL if done on Mastodon. Would not tolerate otherwise.