I whined about cracker being a slur and those mean ol Hexbears just called me a cracker more instead of debating me
Arguing that cracker is a slur is very "all lives matter" energy.
Also who here thinks that USSR or China are fascist pretending to be communist? Like what the fuck even is that?
USSR or China are fascist pretending to be communist
socialism TERF
just like the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was socialist...
It doesn't have the connotation of a slur, but it's undeniably "a derogatory race-based term." I don't see how an in-person organization in the U.S. could be successful while allowing that, so it's always struck me as extremely online that we do.
This is a case of "page of reactionary screed that includes one decent point made poorly," and us being reflexively contrarian, which is 90% right when dealing with reactionaries but still leaves some considerable blind spots.
Nah. This guy already knows the counter argument and is itching to debatebro. Calling him a cracker and banning him is objectively correct
I'm all for unceremoniously banning obvious reactionaries who are here in bad faith, but that's not what I'm getting at.
There are plenty of people who are interested in socialism, but if they show up to a socialist org and get called a cracker they'll leave. It's an insult.
We're talking about politics and organizing people, right? To succeed at those you have to get people to like you, or at least not insult them, no matter how right you are. "Anyone who takes issue when I insult them is unreachable" is extremely online.
There are plenty of people who are interested in socialism, but if they show up to a socialist org and get called a cracker they'll leave. It's an insult.
This also applies to pigpoopballs and you can pry my ppb from my cold dead hands.
The same; you need to have a hexbear equivalent of pocket sand;
pocket ppb!
pulls out creased photo
I suppose the question might be more: when wouldn't you use PPB? If you're familiar with Huey P. Newton, in an interview he gave the same year he was assassinated (RIP; Rest In Power) he spoke against what he referred to (and what I am suggesting is quite similar) as the dirty word movement. Is it really so difficult to accept one of the consequences of using some language, whatever it is, can be deleterious or on the whole considered by comrades to be less than helpful in specific circumstances?
With language, and what appear to be brainworms with most folk (the reasons why are justified, I'd never argue against or attempt to invalidate that; if I have I apologize, please let me know and I'll offer a proper apology and ideally would like to listen & learn to prevent it) including comrades, stating a reasonable unwanted consequence is tantamount to "silencing expression". Which it is of course, and if dialectics were employed, it is also harmful in ways which are considered by other comrades. What's the major issue with what seems like invalidation of comrades' concerns when it pertains to the material affects of specific kinds of communication?
I have some ideas, they don't seem particularly respectful and are accusatory, which is why I'd rather hear what others have to say. I want to stay in that uncomfortable space of cognitive dissonance before reaching a dialect on the subject of interest.
I suppose the question might be more: when wouldn't you use PPB? If you're familiar with Huey P. Newton, in an interview he gave the same year he was assassinated (RIP; Rest In Power) he spoke against what he referred to (and what I am suggesting is quite similar) as the dirty word movement. Is it really so difficult to accept one of the consequences of using some language, whatever it is, can be deleterious or on the whole considered by comrades to be less than helpful in specific circumstances?
I have a carrot and stick philosophy to brainworms, if I see a person as genuinely potentially possible to talk to and turn then I engage with them in as friendly a way as I can possibly muster - earnestly demonstrating that I'm educated and worth listening to and a potential source of learning.
If however they are clearly not going to allow that to happen I use the stick.
My interaction with this person is not the last ever interaction this person will have with a communist. They will have others in future, and I prefer to give them the stick to deter behaviour they demonstrated in this conversation so that there is a greater chance of them engaging in a better way for a future comrade. I don't view interactions in a vacuum, I view things hollistically. The general intent being that having an incredibly negative experience as a result of the way they engaged me results in them engaging with someone else in a different way.
also; i do think the carrot and stick is a good heuristic, it really makes a clear distinction i think to like, how to frame one's responses & engagements
I prefer to give them the stick to deter behaviour they demonstrated in this conversation so that there is a greater chance of them engaging in a better way for a future comrade.
That's a great strategy, and way to think about interacting with people.
The idea that we have to only use the carrot in all situations because that is the sole interaction that will determine whether the other person becomes a comrade or a fascist, is, besides being silly, a lot of pressure to place on an individual.
It's also entirely unrealistic. Like, do people only meet nice liberals? Nice fascists? Is each interaction people have with them something you only view in a vacuum?
The decision to join a political camp is not determined by how nice your interactions with the people in that camp are, but by how significant their political positions resonate with your lived experiences. The biggest barrier, for communists, is that anticommunism and mccarthyism closes people off to even considering our political points. The biggest and most important thing then is to develop a strategy for the destruction of that barrier. Once you destroy that barrier you gain access to a person's mind. Without the destruction of that barrier you are literally wasting your time.
And this is generally what informs my somewhat rough behaviour with people when I recognise they have that barrier up and are not doing anything to try and break it. I can't break it for them, they have to want to break it themselves. The only way I have to encourage them to break that barrier down is to give them a god awful experience because of its existence, and to make it very clear that it's because they have that barrier up that they're getting this awful experience. This, I then hope, results in them taking a different approach to the next comrade they come across. Or it might even be me next time, and my completely different attitude and behaviour with them because they don't have the barrier up results in reinforcing that they lower it.
ah that's fair and it makes sense. you'd say something like my confusion would be a consequence of not knowing or being familiar with your engagement philosophy and history, right? it feels like it would be difficult for others maybe to know that as well which may also explain some reticence on others' part.
i also don't see things in rather short slices, and don't think my internal presumptions–i.e. inherently containing a tendency towards non-scientific positivist thinking; it lacks peer-review or the broader phenomena of explicit social critique of which all have the reference materials available which in this case are categorically excluded from such folks, for good reason of course and, holistically, it would be amiss i think to ignore its lack of presence.
i think i honestly got super excited and really did not read the room well vis-à-vis the original poster. after rereading your prior comment and other comrades i think i severely misunderstood and misconstrued what the OP was saying... it honestly kinda reminds me of dronerights a bit and my interactions at that time.
There are plenty of people who are interested in socialism, but if they show up to a socialist org and get called a cracker they'll leave. It's an insult.
We aren't a fucking org. No one is joining an org to come in and start swinging minute 1 about how akshually Stalin was Hitler unless they are joining an org that holds that stance to begin with. If someone does join an ML org and do that, they get what they fucking deserve.
But we are not an org, and them coming into some thread to take shots does not represent remotely the same opportunity to us that a new member does to an organizer.
I didn't say we're an org, and I didn't say this asshole shouldn't have been banned.
I said allowing race-based insults, even those directed at white people, is extremely online behavior. You can see this because it's not tolerated in person.
It's not tolerated in person with an org member. If you're at a counterprotest or whatever and a PoC comrade calls a fascist on the other side of the line a cracker, there typically won't be a disciplinary hearing over it. Your comment is useless equivocating because it completely obscures the variety of different group dynamics that appear in person. It's not as though "cracker" was first said to a white person over AOL in the 90s.
Cracker is used on here all the time; it's not exclusively directed at reactionaries. And of course one of the big problems with race-based insults (or insults based on any other group characteristic) is that even if the intent is only to insult someone deserving of insult, comrades who are also in the group hear it, too.
I'm white and getting offended at "cracker" is comical. Furthermore, even if it's not exclusively directed at reactionaries, you are in essence conceding that the hypothetical you posed at the start is simply worthless.
"Why would anyone feel insulted by my insult I'm using to rip on them" is not convincing. Sure, it has maybe the same sting as calling someone an asshole, but when someone is checking a place out, that's not going to help them stick around. If someone kept calling other comrades assholes we'd tell them to knock if off.
the hypothetical you posed at the start
I didn't pose any hypothetical, I said casually insulting white people based on their race is not tolerated in any real life org. It's extremely online.
You are by this point correcting me because you are completely failing to follow the conversational thread.
"Why would anyone feel insulted by my insult I'm using to rip on them" is not convincing.
Remember the context, that being "but if someone calls a white fash a cracker, a white comrade's feelings are hurt" which means that the person who I think is being ridiculous is not the person actually being targeted with the insult.
I didn't pose any hypothetical
Do you not know that conditional statements are usually hypotheticals?
There are plenty of people who are interested in socialism, but if they show up to a socialist org and get called a cracker they'll leave. It's an insult.
That bold part is a hypothetical situation
You can't be this sniveling and then completely fail to follow the conversation at a rudimentary level on top of correcting others on it, it's just insufferable. I doubt it's even a language issue because people speaking a second language usually have the good sense or conscientiousness to check if they are missing something should they have an understanding so at odds with who they are speaking to.
You can't be this sniveling
You are extremely online if you don't see how insulting members of your group, then insulting them again if they take issue, is bad for the group. No amount of
will change that."Members of your group"
There it is again, just sliding the subject around freely because you have no point if you talk about the same thing for two consecutive comments.
There are plenty of people who are interested in socialism, but if they show up to a socialist org and get called a cracker they'll leave
I don't think that's a real scenario that's worth worrying about. Where are these socialist orgs that these people are going to show up at and be called crackers right away? Its silly. That's why I'm making light of it, because this is just an unserious concern
Where are these socialist orgs that these people are going to show up at and be called crackers right away?
There are some pretty weird Maoist groups out there...
i suppose that's true. I still think it's a made up concern, Maoists asideAnd those Maoist groups (not all Maoist groups, those specifically) are welcome to implode
that's absolutely true, but im pretty sure the commenter was talking about the site
Let’s be real, we do no organising here. And that’s fine, this place is mostly a place to unwind and feel sane in a world of darkest reaction.
It doesn't happen in real life because in person everyone understands that you don't insult people you're trying to work with.
"I can't imagine people saying this face-to-face" is a sign that we should ask why we're saying it at all.
It's not that i can't imagine it. Its that it just doesn't doesn't happen. Its a made up concern
because in person everyone understands that you don't insult people you're trying to work with
I don't understand what you're actually concerned about
Allowing casual race-based insults is bad, even if they're directed at white people. We know this is bad because no significant in-person org allows it. Allowing it here is the definition of extremely online behavior.
People aren't getting called cracker in real life, not because its such a terrible insult, but because that has just never been a thing that happens, because white people are not oppressed in any kind of racialized way. I think its an extremely silly thing to be concerned about.
I don't think people are getting called cracker in real life. I don't think it's a terrible insult, but it is an insult. Of course white people aren't oppressed. None of my comments have said anything like any of this.
I don't think I can state what I'm talking about more clearly, and I don't think you've been trying to understand what I'm saying, so I'm going to disengage.
I'm not sure the trolley problem nor Russel's Teapot are legitimate either; I think the value is in the very clear and specificity of the thought experiment.
(unless thought experiments are bourgeois decadence, if so I will show myself out...)
(unless thought experiments are bourgeois decadence, if so I will show myself out...)
No, but they can very rapidly fall into idealist question-begging, though it is worth noting that the prompt you are giving this comparison to is not clear enough to be a useful thought experiment even by liberal standards. It is just a hazy hypothetical.
i think i really hurt myself in confusion in this thread; i can barely piece together what i was saying or what i meant.
i'll leave the utopian/idealist thought experiments à la roko's basilisk & what's really real to the folks on effectivr altrusim forums...
(unless thought experiments are bourgeois decadence, if so I will show myself out...)
I got some bad news for you there lol
That's too much of a determined take. Why not make a more appropriate (i.e. seems more likely) kinda claim:
Anyone who appears to be not joining because of the word Cr*cker was likely not going to join*
* without an amount of effort which could likely be better used elsewhere, towards materially marginalized groups, fomenting solidarity, organizing, etc.
NOTE: I try to give others a chance at least. Thankfully comrades such as yourself and others can operate more pragmatically rather than with naïvety and so can cover my blind spots
Kwame Ture was calling crackers for what they are every other day.
Arguing that cracker is a slur is very "all lives matter" energy.
A good measure of "not all men" energy too. White people need to learn to not identify with the construct of whiteness that makes white supremecy possible, just like men need to learn to not identify with the patriarchy.
yeah good point, don't think i've seen femme presenting people take issue with it. tbh the woman or femme specific slurs are like at least an order of magnitude worse.
I think he was arguing that "everyone" (
Show) thinks that they are that and therefore because "everyone" believes something that makes it true, which means hexbear are just trolls pretending to like the evil baddies just to mess with people.
It's kind of interesting how they always seem to default to that kind of defence when they meet a radically different viewpoint to their own. They are so insular that they can't even imagine a person disagreeing with them honestly, all disagreement must be lies and trickery.
ya'll just want to stick things together that don't stick...
all lives matter is so far away from that
they're pretty adamant about communism but everyone thinks the USSR, CCP, etc are fascist dictatorships pretending to be communist.
How has anyone possibly come away from here with that takeaway? Most people I've interacted with here will have specific concrete criticisms with all of the above, not just "oh it's fascist". That kind of critique is more what you would see in sectarian ultra or trot spaces. I swear people just gossip about us or something.
When your understanding of fascism is preschool-level. It all comes back to the “totalitarian” shit, and these people claim to be the “true leftists.” This isn’t gossip, it's the one “compliment” they tried to give us.
i'd prefer if the word totalitarian was used, i never hear it, i hear fascist, dictator, and the big one is authoritarian
lmao it's that weirdo
why does everybody who gets banned here feel the need to make an account on another instance to whine about it lol
I feel like a lot of them are coddled and had very sheltered upbringings. Getting mocked on hexbear is the first feeling of conflict in their whole lives. Remember that one guy who made a screenshot album of evertime someone on hexbear was rude to him? And it was like a hundred twenty images? They've never encountered backlash or a moment of discomfort in their entire lives so when they encounter us saying something as simple as "shut up cracker" it's like a knife to their gut
wow what, you have that thread/post?? not to mock them, honestly genuinely curious
https://imgur.com/a/d63ohQM
favourite bit is where they downvoted every post which doesn't even federate here lol
Yeah this is the one. It's still one of the most baffling things I've ever seen on the internet. I still think about this often. It's the most mad I've ever seen a person get. Extreme nerd hall monitor energy. Getting so mad you curate a huge screenshot album of yourself getting owned, with citations and links for posterity
A lot of what this person reported as harassment or hate speech is just civil disagreements on if Taiwan is part of China. Like this person is so used to hearing specific things about China that any disagreement registers as hate speech horrifying terrorism, even if it's just a posts on forums where no one is being threatened. My favorite part is how several of the screenshots are just hexbears posting emojis lol
An Imgur link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
I kind of wish for a life that privileged, but then also, it seems to turn you into a very unpleasant sort of person, so it's probably better that people can actually develop conflict resolution skills.
Who the fuck is in here saying USSR and CCP are fascist, show yourself it’s time for self crit
In response to the removal: it's not transphobic, when I end the message with "wait, that last part is actually true" ("so they're actually transphobes"), it makes a very clear implication that everything that came before it was just sarcastic mockery and not actually true. Hope I could clear that up.
Something like a "quote" might be helpful in establishing that you're echoing their sentiment to mock them rather than making it seem like you're just going "No U" with their transphobic arguments.
Yeah, in retrospect, I could have used quote marks for that part, but I didn't think it was necessary.
When did libs crying about Cracker becoming thing ?
Remeber few years ago that chuds whould get dunked by libs for doibg the same.
I believe it began over streamer drama, when twitch banned some big streamers over it.
This idiot doesn't realize I've given all my allies here the cracker-word pass.
Maybe if they'd just do a little research.
don’t understand the impulse to go around posting Ls like this, does admitting to being a fragile white ledditor have some benefit?
I assume getting offended by scary, civilityless hexbears is a rite of passage for them.
Something about this meme's shitty image quality makes it funnier for some reason.
Sorry losers and haters, but our posting power is the greatest -and you all know it!
Losers like these showed me GenZedong even exists. Let them cook, free advertising.
I don't know how many people here have actually been to a Cracker Barrel but I was forced to go by a family member once and to this day I remember how racist it felt in there--it was like walking into a cracker miasma.
I didn't notice it myself, but I only went there once and I was exhausted from landscaping for 12+ hours. I'll take you at your word, considering its general fanbase.
What is it? I thought it was a restaurant based on what people say about it, but the picture above says it's an "old country store" (which I can definitely get big cracker vibes from that for sure)
It's a restaurant that usually has some sort of "old west" themed gift/knick-knack store attached to it. Very tacky.
It sounds very American for sure. Does it sell Tex Mex kind of food? (Feel free not to respond if you can't be bothered, I'm only very mildly curious)
No worries lol. They serve... "American food." By which I mean they have a lot of red meat (especially bacon), bland and gross gravy, and the usual fried fare. Pretty sure they'd get scared if you mentioned a seasoning other than salt and pepper around them.
Ugh, sounds gross. I could never get behind bacon at a restaurant, it's one of the easiest things to cook at home, but they charge double the price.
Being called a cracker is a quantum state, it may or may not be applicable depending on who's saying it, but if you get offended by it the quantum state collapses into a condition of definite crackerdom.
As a cracker, I can't think of any time when calling a cracker a cracker is unjustified.
I subscribe to the "There's white people and then there's crackers" school of thought
I don’t. White as a political category is at the root of racism and settler colonial genocide. To be white is to be a cracker, and a whole lot worse besides.
in support of your comment:
Whiteness is also an imaginary concept and a figment of the racist imagination, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less real, or deadly; whiteness is a thing because people insist that it is, and use force and violence to make it so. Whiteness is a thing because white supremacists needed a name for their violent subjugation of others, and so they gave it one. In this way, whiteness is a uniquely virulent and pathological form of social identity. It cannot survive its loss of supremacy; it cannot abide competition or mixture or “impurity.” Created by racial slavery and given a second wind by European imperialism, whiteness depends on the violent subordination of all others. Celebrate your Irish heritage if you must, or your Pennsylvania Dutch grandparents; that has nothing to do with the whiteness that names me, now, but which (partially) excluded my Irish and German ancestors when they came to this nation. Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch can and will survive incorporation into a multi-ethnic nation, but it is the sine qua non of whiteness that it cannot and will not. Inextricable from racial subordination, whiteness has no other content at all: whiteness is what’s left in the melting pot after everything else has been burned away. Without that xenophobic fire, it has no meaning, no substance, no fundamental.
This is why “white genocide” actually does have a meaning beyond “racial integration.” If you take away a white person’s ability to live as the undisputed master of the universe—to take his own experience as normal and privileged, and to presume all others to be debased copies of his own primary existence—then you take away his whiteness.
from Buffalo Skulls
There is "being white" in the sense that your society defines you as white and there's "being white" in the sense that you define yourself as white, identify with whiteness beyond recognition of the first sense, and seek to preserve whiteness. I won't die on this hill, but I think it's fair to say crackers are category #2 plus anyone from category #1 who gets offended at the word "cracker".
Yeah anyone offended by the word cracker is a cracker. Thats why its a pretty useful word
big fan of your philosophy, is there any nohaybanda-thought i could subscribe to?
We have got the be the worst place to troll. Every time some tries we just put them on blast till they get banned and then sit around laughing at how dumb they were.
That’s the bad trolls.
The good ones are less obvious and better at stoking drama in more subtle ways (ie taking the side of one faction on the site and leading a charge against another)
fuck off cracker
some time ago i think
My dude is obsessed.
