it seems clear that there are less POC people on hexbear then there was before. what would you propose, and what do you think the issues are if any. i will be refraining from sharing my opinion for now to encourage more ideas.
white comrades are allowed to post emotes to boost this thread so more people can see it.
great feedback everyone! im loving the discussion. im going to say something potentially controversial but i hope you will hear me out.
I do not think comparing carnism to the enslavement of black people or the holocaust is appropriate. we have lost a few poc users because of this particular issue. i must be clear. i am pro veganism 100%, and i fully understand the comparison but this specific rhetoric is more harmful to both the vegan movement and to making this a safe space for poc users. think about it, when you say this to a black carnist you are comparing them to the people that enslaved their ancestors, this will create a knee jerk reaction and STOP a conversation that could have been productive. would you really say this to poc irl? thank you for listening and to reiterate i am 100000% proveganism and enjoy many parts of the vegan culture on here this is just one line i feel should not be crossed. other black and jewish users, feel free to disagree i would appreciate your insight, thank you.
I'm a jew and before I express the rest of my thoughts I want to say that I do not want to derail this conversation into one about the merits/validity of the comparison of industrial animal agriculture to the holocaust, though I and and other jews have supported the comparison.
It's not usually my topic of choice when discussing veganism with carnists precisely because of how likely omnivores are to get defensive and how much more fraught with controversy that conversation becomes in comparison to other approaches to conversations about the immorality of animal exploitation. That said, I think that banning the topic or anybody who compares animal processing facilities to concentration camps when it's relevant, especially if they aren't doing so flippantly or aggressively, is not a good direction. If multiple holocaust survivors did not agree on the merits of this comparison and it weren't so damn useful for revealing cognitive dissonance and showing vegetarians how they compartmentalize their ideas on the morality of consuming flesh products differently than those on slightly more abstract products that were produced by flesh of an animal that lives on to produce more for its owners, I'd think differently
I think my conclusion is that if people are being respectful in asserting comparisons of industrial animal agriculture to the holocaust and not being flippant then it should be allowed (ie keep the flippancy/attempts-at-dunking stuff confined to vegancirclejerk or c/vegan)
Final disclaimer: I am not an expert on rhetoric or persuasion, but due to my grandpa's obsession with the question of how could Hashem allow the holocaust, I've been to way too many holocaust museums multiple times, and I've seen far more documentaries on the subject than anybody should have to
Just wanna add that I've always thought that the terms "carnist" and "bloodmouth" were always pretty lame, despite supporting veganism myself.
I'm fine with carnist. Accurate, a little disparaging, gets the point across. Bloodmouth sounds like a slur used against vampires in a young adult fantasy novel or something though
Carnist has the problem of sounding like Carnotaurus fan and Carnotaurus are cool with their little hands
I avoid discussion of carnism on this site as much as possible.
Just wanted to say I agree with you and support you comrade,
Thank you
Some points:
I’m Indian, and part of me sometimes doesn’t mind the “reddit” feel of this place, since I’ve been using reddit for more than 10 years and was radicalized online, but hexbear does have this white online leftist veneer. And it does make me feel like I should be more of an observer rather than a participator, sometimes. I think another poster hit the nail on the head about trying to recruit from online spaces that aren’t reddit. I disagree with that poster about twitter tho, since I think there’s plenty of PoC communists using twitter.
The site’s culture and choice of memes (especially the wojacks, even tho I enjoy them lmao) is very white. Might be an unpopular idea but I think injecting some seriousness, education, and effortposting, and cutting back on the shitposts and chan lite culture is a good idea. I say this, because, while there’s nothing wrong with having unserious/casual culture (I personally enjoy it), we should contend with the fact that hexbear’s culture appeals to and is created predominantly by white people. So if hexbear’s point is to have like a lighthearted place to hang out, of course PoC comrades aren’t going to want to hang out since it’s not their culture! But don’t get me wrong I def don’t think the solution is to just remove or transplant hexbear’s culture.
Posting stuff from hoodcommunist.org. It’s a big communist Black/African blog and their writing has never been posted here lol (tbh I don’t mind posting them). Reposting blogs/writing/poetry from comrades in the 3rd world. Also repost PoC orgs like Black Alliance for Peace. Get real organizers and revolutionaries, or revolutionary orgs in the streets to do AMA’s here, and/or feature them in posts (while still maintaining hexbear’s independence of course).
I think it’s fine that a lot of site users are Americans and post about America, maybe because I am american as well lol, but there should be more posting and education about 3rd world liberation struggles. More emphasis, nuance, care about and for the Black and Brown world. What’s that, you don’t know anything about that? All the more reason to educate ourselves.
Sometimes it feels like when Black and Brown revolutionaries are discussed here, they are treated by people here as either just A) static tokens, where white leftists will like worship them without being able to appraise them critically or see them for their flaws and nuance or B) completely unknown, and just disregarded. An example of A is like you might have a thread about Thomas Sankara or Fred Hampton, where someone will be able to list all their accomplishments and how cool they were, but no one is really interested in, or able to criticize and see their faults. When you treat groups and people like this, it’s kinda tokenizing. there were very serious faults and flaws with these revolutionaries, and a lot of these other movements that we need to take seriously and criticize openly, not just bask in victories from decades ago. As for B, one of the largest and most advanced revolutions taking place rn is the Naxalite revolution of India. As far as Ik there’s never been any discussion on it. Here’s an hour long video covering it from Marxist Paul: https://youtu.be/exd74uNJaeQ?si=cCkpB9odCHHsGsLc There’s seriously plenty for white people to learn, study, and discuss from 3rd world liberation movements.
these are GREAT points all around, thank you. i do think there are a lot of people who post about Malcom x, Sankara, and the black panthers generally but are not interested in going in depth on their beliefs and tactics. and the point about critiques is very important (i have faced weird amounts of push back for critiquing the misogyny of certain black nationalist groups, and how this misogyny weakened the project of liberation, people wanna act like the 60s were 200 years ago) and i do agree that we should learn more about MODERN poc projects movement and individual activist, history is constantly being made around us. i really enjoy what @Nakoichi@hexbear.net has been posting about the chunka luta have been doing! we should do more stuff like that. thank you for your response!!
but there should be more posting and education about 3rd world liberation struggles. More emphasis, nuance, care about and for the Black and Brown world. What’s that, you don’t know anything about that? All the more reason to educate ourselves.
I've been trying to make the news megathreads more of an environment for this kind of thing. I've seen feedback that it's a great place for non-Americans to hang out and talk about what's going on outside of America and it's really heartwarming. Obviously at a certain point if all we did was history-posting then it wouldn't a "news" megathread but having historical context is simply very necessary to be able to talk about current-day issues, e.g. we have a great user @LargePenis@hexbear.net whose posts we all love to see, who talks about Syria and Lebanon and other places in the region, and the impact of the Syrian War and how that's affected the region today and geopolitical struggles between Iran and the Zionist entity, and so on.
Yup, I hang out (lurk really) in the news mega, and the regulars there, including you and others are great. Please keep it up!
I’m very glad to say I have had zero issues regarding my PoC-ness on Hexbear, everyone on this site is pretty cool and respectful in my experience so far.
I’m just a regular cis heterosexual dork-ass black dude. I don’t quite remember how I stumbled upon this site, but I would imagine part of the reason there aren’t many many PoC comrades on the site is that it’s kinda of a werido internet site.
I mean weirdo in a good way. Sadly Hexbear.net is not even in the same galaxy of rotation sites Katz visit, PoC or otherwise. Personally I don’t see Hexbear as unwelcoming to PoC (though I will say the 12 levels of irony posting can be abrasive at times), however I will say it is niche (but in a cool good way).
My only real suggestion would be to just engage with more PoC posts in general. I learn a lot of stuff from reading the c/latam and c/indigenous for example. I think the most welcoming thing we can do is just treat PoC stuff with the same respect we treat anything else. That’s just my opinion.
My sort of “be the change you want to see” thing is just reading and listening to other PoC posters as much as I can and trying to not to be “that guy” when black stuff comes up.
One other thing (and this is a repeat of what I said in a previous comment):
I work in an org, and we've noticed that a lot of communists that are white tend to be from Reddit or recruited online from Reddit/Twitter.
Non-white communists are people you're more likely to find, say, on a non-Reddit community (or non_Twitter) or out IRL where you may be able to convince others to study Marxism or Marxism-Leninism while you're studying.
In addition, we've also noticed that many MLs don't speak English or, at times, too many speak English. In America especially, it is increasingly a fact that many do not speak English and this goes for many European countries.
Frankly, this last part is a huge problem and the project to deal with this would take a long-ass time to nullify, though I believe that it's of the utmost importance that it is nullified and that non-English-speaking peoples have a fair share.
For example, even though I speak perfect English, a lot of people around me IRL speak Spanish or prefer Spanish... or they speak an African language some sort (or European but with an African dialect).
This was found in my org, but again, I noticed some other orgs or people in orgs talking about this so I thought I'd give some info while also keeping vague on internal details.
I will say this:
More communities on Hexbear dealing with BIPOC communities might also be in order (not just, say, one community dealing with BIPOC issues or topics).
Like, I wouldn't, say, make a comm for just "class issues" all in one; there would be "labour" or "organizing" or even "electoralism" (since, yes, PSL, FRSO, and CPUSA do electoral struggle in various ways, I think). Oh yeah, and "poverty finance" is a class issue, but obviously, it's not just relegated to a comm called "class;" instead, we have multiple comms that encourage this thing.
In some:
We need new members from places that aren't just Reddit/Twitter.
We to diversify and separate certain topics (in order to highlight them) while still talking of them, ultimately, in a holistic way, I feel.
We need to (at least eventually, as this will be difficult given where we are now) find ways to include people that at least grew up in non-English-speaking background or with English as a second language or no English.
(Among other things, of course; this isn't a definitive list.)
We need new members from places that aren't just Reddit/Twitter.
I think online spaces will always inherently be white due to typical socioeconomic issues. People with more free time are gonna be more likely to be online, longer, and more active
I also bet POC communists are way more likely to actually organize because for a lot of us, class struggle is something they need to win for hopes of a good future and something they have way more of a stake in than white communists
Furthermore:
Not everyone uses the Internet
or
They don't have "ready-access to the Internet."
Prisoners, many of which are BIPOC, cannot use the Internet at will.
Poor people in rural areas also do not use the Internet at will or have poor connection or WiFi.
Undocumented immigrants also do not use the Internet at will and not for social media.
Social media is a thing of the "middle classes" (who I still count as proletarians) but not for poor proletarians, imho, many of whom are non-white.
In addition, as you said: time is a factor and if you're under-middle class, for example, then you will be less likely to use social media during your downtime, especially as a means of fun or relaxation or recreation.
The truth is: we say "everyone has the Internet" but that's not true and, even when they do, they don't have it in the same way as, say, I assume many in Hexbear do.
While many white communists who live in poor areas do organize and I call them "comrade," it's true that many BIPOC communists (and non-communists and non-anarchists as well) do it on a scale and percentage that's bigger than their white counterparts.
(I include white communists here in this case as we also have a problem with including rural poor whites in our movement, but of course, I can tell you that rural poor BIPOC people are doubly neglected.)
Yes, I'm Latino and at times I feel that (and this could be my imagination) my opinions or viewpoints aren't as well-regarded or listened to.
I'm also half of one other thing, but I don't want to be doxxed as its highly specific.
I also feel that at times (and this may not have much to do with the OP) this place can be a bit echo-chamber-y but, again, the things I can think of are a bit highly specific and definitely do not apply everywhere.
One problem is that this place basically "hails" from Reddit, it got its original membership from Reddit, and Reddit has a lot of white communists. We need more non-white or BIPOC communists, as Othello implied, I believe.
i definitely agree that certain veiwpoints are not met with open mindedness, this is definitely not your imagination. i do think the main issue is that we hail from reddit, but we have also lost many poc users since leaving reddit. we should try to determine why. thank you for your insight pluto, i always enjoy your input.
Of course, and thank you. We've hit it off since meeting each other and you've always been very polite to me.
One problem is that this place basically "hails" from Reddit, it got its original membership from Reddit
Not only that, but it was a sub for a podcast whose hosts (and audience) are OVERWHELMINGLY white, despite being based in Brooklyn.
This is not intended as an attack on our white users. I will say that Hexbear gives off a distinctly white vibe. Personally, I don't have an issue with that since I spend a lot of time around white individuals and in predominantly white spaces. However, it might make other POC feel initially unwelcome. The solution could be to onboard more POC members and moderators.
The whiteness levels can be kinda high, though I will give other credit in that it never feels like a sinister whiteness, just regular whiteness.
a great point! any poc interested in modding em_poc at least can message me!
yeah i feel i aid in that, not sure what to change tbh and i don't want to openly advertise that i'm not...
i did grow up in an imperial core/periphery country, i think that would explain it a bit, i'd like to be able to code switch when appropriate to make things easier or amenable to poc comrades
I saw the reaction toward that whole "Latin America is a part of the West" struggle sesh. It really feels like a lot of white comrades often speak over POC voices. I've felt this too when speaking about how the sort of 'Fuck God' rhetoric is so damaging when trying to agitate within Hispanic spaces. The standard hex space is fairly...white I guess? It feels it too.
I agree with everything @Pluto said. Especially regarding the start contrast between online/offline, the MLs. None of the MLs where I'm at speak English and none of the DemSocs speak Spanish. It kind of leads to one voice dominating the other. nonEnglish posting is a great idea!
yeah the vibes in that thread were atrocious and really reductive arguments were being made. and yeah the anti religious stuff is a a hard line to walk because we also dont want to invalidate people religious trauma and as someone who feels like their fathers countries culture is being corrupted by evangelicalism i have quite a few frustrations myself.
anti religious stuff is a a hard line to walk because we also dont want to invalidate people religious trauma and as someone who feels like their fathers countries culture is being corrupted by evangelicalism i have quite a few frustrations myself.
Agreed. I'm in a similar position, I just find the way it's handled by white comrades to be not productive. Thank you for this post tho, it's great seeing everyone's responses.
hmm perhaps folks can post with non-english as well instead of only exclusively one or the other? I'm thinking of hand-sign translators. I don't mind putting in the non-english languge and english side-by-side, someone might even help me with my language learning!
你们看一下,现在我给你们中文汉字.啊我不知道真中文.我知道一点点中文.我要看本书.我很累.我要睡觉.
认识你们,我很高兴.translation attempt
You'll see, right now, I will give you Chinese language characters. Ah, I do not know much of the Chinese language. I want to read a book. I'm tired. I'm want to go to sleep.
Im a asian from asia and i feel like some of the white ppl here simply channel their racism towards "acceptable" targets aka ppl from countries\places that are seen as "reactionary"
Now alot of these countries genuinely have a myriad of issues but it fking ticks me off see white americans say shit like "all japanese media is pedo shit" or "all people from hong kong\taiwan are liberals"
it fking ticks me off see white americans say shit like "all japanese media is pedo shit"
Soooo many ppl here actually, unironically hate anime, and they post-hoc justify that by saying it's "reactionary" or whatever, ignoring decades of a medium that has frankly had all sorts of political leanings, based on the author. Only complete DIPSHITS say things like "unironic death to all anime" (and yes I have seen that very statement here in one form or another).
Its dumb to generalise like a whole industry
Its like dismissing all of american cinema
All people from hongkong/taiwan are liberals. If they weren't liberal they would just say they're from China.
Idk what you mean
Like they're not countries but still places
Like is a person from Shanghai only meant to say that they're from China?
People who go, "I'm not Chinese, I'm Taiwanese/Hong Konger" are 100% brainwashed liberals. And honestly, Chinese people who overly stress their city and provincial backgrounds are also pretty sus in my experience. There's a difference between city/provincial rivalry, which Chinese people do all the time against each other, and Chinese people overly stressing their city/provincial origins at the expense of their national identity as Chinese people. Experiencing Cantonese chauvinism irl is a trip.
People from Shanghai don't introduce themselves as Shanghainese unless they're liberals. But the point I'm getting at is that an attempt to draw a line between HK/TW and the rest of China and basing their identity on it is the result of liberal idpol. These people internalize every negative thing westerners say about them and need to create this distinction so that they can be "one of the good ones". It's why they have such a superiority complex towards the mainland and an inferiority complex towards Japan/the West.
People aren't dunking on TW/HK for their ethnicity or nationality, they're just shitting on a place run by liberals who also incredibly racist towards Chinese ethnic minorities. It's not like Hexbear users are busting out 12th century slurs for the Cantonese, this place is like the only anglo website that bans sinophobia, so this place is the only place where I'm pretty sure the dunking isn't secretly motivated by a deepseated prejudice against Hakka.
Ive been going to trans spaces online and suggesting people come to traa. A lot of poc trans people lurk this site now but not much interaction 😞 some are self conscious about their amazing English skills. nervousness and being queer name a better duo
Also bump
Idk but it gets good amounts of interaction, probably one of the bigger r/traa alternatives
No idea how I can help, just going to post one of my favorite Mao quotes to boost. It's about thinking before you speak, and I think about it a lot.
I. NO INVESTIGATION, NO RIGHT TO SPEAK
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
From Oppose Book Worship, May 1930.
As a chinese person I don't really feel any outright discrimination per se, however I feel like it'd be better if poc were given greater weight when discussing characters and issues in the periphery, as white users, while they have good intentions, might drown out poc voices when talking about topics they're not that informed in. Also just my opinion, but the white self flagellation without any actual motion to do anything to change the situation is kind of counterproductive.
Knee-jerkingly responded with “purge the white admins”. In serious tho having a space more overwhelmingly suited for POC, non white, or nonAmerican posting could help. But that feels like the solution for trans-inclusivity applied to a whole different problem.
Piggybacking off of Pluto for a bit, if we can encourage nonEnglish posting, it’ll do more to make it inviting to anyone who doesnt speak english primarily. A few of us could use that kind of exposure to spaces where they’re not the dominate speakers
yeah the solution is gonna have to be approached differently then for trans inclusive I agree. I think the non english comms is a very actionable idea!
Either nonenglish comms, or allowing and encouraging nonenglish speaking in all comms
好的,现在我要能写子了.
translation attempt...
Yeah, right now I'll give you something I wrote.
我不会读写这种语言，所以很抱歉我不能这样跟你说话。
original phrase translated through deepl
I cannot read or write in this language, I'm sorry i cannot talk to you like this :'(
I don't know many characters and I have no clue how the few I know can be arranged in that way :/
we're all learning cde!
Damn thank god if you weren't going to post this I was. Asian from Asia, although I keep that to myself partly so I don't dox myself and partly because it brings up more headaches than it's worth sometimes.
I don't need white performative self-flagellation, as amusing as it is to see, I need y'all white people to take a step back and evaluate when you inevitably get confronted with your white privilege, and to really think about your cultural blindspots and take that into account before you formulate your responses. But 9/10 time y'all reflexively start LARPing as Paul Atreides from Dune, and don't realize that you're riding the White SSupremacy brainworms over the opinions of people who have lived experiences well outside your realms of expertise and who maybe don't have the exact language/aren't terminally online enough to articulate those experiences: like who the fuck expects normal people to be fluent in Maoist Standard English?
If you can't do that, can y'all at least get to work on the Revolution and do both of us a favour?
