[Acrobatic_Road]

They did not ban racist subreddits like /r/blackpeopletwitter and /r/fragilewhiteredditor.

If you don't know, to post on /r/blackpeopletwitter you have to send a photo of your skin color to the moderators. They are literally racially segregating users.

[syntonym2]

According to this post [0] only allowing black people to post was a time limited action. As an Aprils fool joke only black people were allowed to post, which resulted in positive feedback from the community, according to the mods. Now everyone can post again, where as black people can get verified and a special flair (a small visual indication next to their username). Some threads [1] are reserved for verified people, but non-black person can also get verified (but might not get a flair).

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/b93w1j/...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/gumxuy/...

[mcculley]

That special flair thing is amazing. I had no idea. I wonder how long before we see forums using it for other skin colors and genetic types. It's exactly the opposite of the trend of text-oriented interfaces democratizing access.

[john-shaffer]

While this is informative, it leaves out one big thing. Rule number 1 in the sidebar is "Posts from black people only".

> This sub is intended for exceptionally hilarious and insightful social media posts made by black people. To that end, only post social media content from black people.

[Acrobatic_Road]

Your [1] has three standards for three groups of people.

1. black people who can verify and get a flair

2. non-white and non-black people who can verify but don't get a flair

3. white people can ask the moderators for entrance, but it only says they will will "receive further instructions." It's not clear what these further instructions are supposed to be.

This is racist and if a right wing subreddit did it, they would have been banned years ago.

[perl4ever]

I find it odd people aren't bringing up the obvious motivation for this. Simply calling it racism seems obtuse.

Anywhere race is a topic and anyone can join, but there is no verification of identity, trolls can claim anything. How do you think it feels to be a Black member of a forum and see a White person who is taken in by a White troll pretending to be Black? Conversely, how do you think it feels to be Black and be arguing with someone White who is sure you are a White troll pretending to be Black?

It's not a trivial problem, and it's inherent anywhere your online identity isn't linked to your real one.

[Acrobatic_Road]

>but there is no verification of identity, trolls can claim anything.

They aren't verifying identity, they are verifying skin color and using the information to then discriminate against their users. A person with verified skin tone and not verified identity can dress themselves in all sorts of lies just as trolls do everywhere on the internet.

>How do you think it feels to be a Black member of a forum and see a White person who is taken in by a White troll pretending to be Black? Conversely, how do you think it feels to be Black and be arguing with someone White who is sure you are a White troll pretending to be Black?

Maybe we should focus on ideas over identity.

[perl4ever]

>Maybe we should focus on ideas over identity.

I'm not saying it's a good solution in an absolute sense, nor do I have any idea how well it's working.

I'm just saying I think it's obviously motivated by a real and inescapable issue, and I don't think there is a simple and obviously better solution given the constraint that you want to have an online forum where people can acknowledge and discuss things related to racial identity.

[YarickR2]

I seem to remember some period in history when people of one race were forced to wear a special flair on them . Yellow six pointed star, on a sleeve, or a chest .

[grenoire]

Damn, I never actually heard this being spoken about on reddit.

It's interesting, I'm not from the US and I find it curious that these situations arise. I can understand and empathise with (as a 'person of colour' as it's called over there) the arguments of both sides, but deep down I find this kind of 'positive segregation' morally wrong.

[Tiltowait--]

>Damn, I never actually heard this being spoken about on reddit.

That's pretty much the whole idea of censorship.

[dogma1138]

“While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.”

https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/acc...

[naasking]

> “While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.”

So according to this rule, a racial minority can call members of a "majority race" sub-human, but not vice-versa. And yet, majority/minority are regional properties. How do you know a redditor's region in order to moderate their comment appropriately? Or are reddit employee regions the only ones that matter?

It's clearly a farce. Majority/minority status is a red herring. It's used only to enable reddit and mods to selectively apply the rules for their own ends. The fact is, it's unethical to call any race sub-human, regardless of whether the majority shares your views.

[nordsieck]

> So according to this rule, a racial minority can call members of a "majority race" sub-human, but not vice-versa.

According to academia, this is correct: racism only exists in the context of class based oppression.

Of course, many people disagree with this definition.

[naasking]

> According to academia, this is correct: racism only exists in the context of class based oppression.

Which is silly on its face. If two opposing races that hated each other held equal power, they might not be able to get the upper hand on the other, but they still hate each other solely on the basis of race. Is this the "non-racist" utopia they're after?

[logarhythmic]

I don't know how widespread this belief is but I personally know people who believe this and it seems to be only spreading in the current heavily polarized environment. It is truly astonishing to witness

[zozbot234]

But that policy is not even talking about racism, however defined; it's talking about hate. Hate is hate, no matter who it's directed to. Prejudice is prejudice.

[naasking]

Except it's apparently fine to hate the haters. Dehumanization is alive and well, even among progressives.

[stOneskull]

i hate the hater-haters

[jacquesm]

Yep, hating the new Nazis is just fine. They're still people, no need to dehumanize them.

[chipotle_coyote]

So we can never denounce hatred and bigotry without being hypocritical? We don't want to be hypocritical, right? So we should never denounce hatred and bigotry! Brilliant!

I am super, super tired of "if you denounce bigots that makes you just as bad as them."

[rayiner]

What does “academia” have to do with anything?

[naasking]

These redefinitions probably grew out of "critical theory" which is taught in social studies. The initial protests citing this line of argument seem to have started on college campuses, so there might be some merit to saying it grew out of academia.

[nordsieck]

> What does “academia” have to do with anything?

Well, when people are arguing over the meaning of words - in this case "racism" - it is sometimes useful to reference what the "experts" think. There are entire fields of study within academia dedicated to this topic (often but not always including the word "critical").

Of course, whether or not said people have anything meaningful to say on the topic is not broadly agreed upon.

[vageli]

> “While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.”

The majority where? I can't find any specifics on what the majority qualifier is applied to (ex: the community in which the speech occurs, the geographic community of the user, etc).

[zozbot234]

It's even worse than that. People can honestly disagree about whether the term "racism" accurately describes something or whatever, but that's a far cry from actively condoning ("..this rule does not protect...") the whipping up of hate towards a majority of the population. The internet is full of nihilists and misanthropes who genuinely hate everyone and everything - I'm sure they can't wait to abuse this weakness in every way they can possibly think of. All for teh lulz, of course.

[amanaplanacanal]

I’m guessing the whole thing is very USA centric, and they haven’t really thought through the implications of having users from across the world.

[Darmody]

I've commented about this on HN earlier. Censorship will end up swallowing us all.

Now I guess it's ok to hate me as I'm part of several majorities and people seems to like it.

What am I supposed to do now? Hate myself? Allow others to discriminate me? Make a blind eye to those who think it's ok to hate me?

[castlecrasher2]

Got it, so racism against Asians is the go-to now /s

[ars]

> For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority

Are they serious? So basically racism is OK as long as it's toward people who are the majority?

[Avamander]

Yes. The rule basically says that you can't be racist towards white people.

[techntoke]

Asians are the majority, not white people.

[rjohnk]

If you look at academic definitions, yes, often they will state racism is from the majority to the minority. It is rather odd.

[TravHatesMe]

I don't understand this. For all of my life I thought racism = discrimination against someone due to their race. In the same way that sexist = discrimination against someone due to their sex. Ageist = discrimination against someone due to their age. Is this not the clear cut definition anymore? At what point did it diverge?

[Acrobatic_Road]

>Is this not the clear cut definition anymore?

People who want to discriminate on the basis of race and sex have contrived a definition of racism/sexism that exempts themselves.

>At what point did it diverge?

The 1980s apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

[rovolo]

An '-ism' is an ideology which is used for organizing the world. The big difference is whether it's an individual ideology or a systemic ideology.

1 person renting out property = a rentier. Private ownership of land = capitalism.

1 person not hiring women = a misogynist. Companies not offering parental leave and assuming the primary caregiver is the mother = sexism.

Zuckerberg saying "young people are just smarter" = a bigot. Focusing on algorithms in software interviews which new-grads will have an easier time solving = ageism.

It's very common to call a prejudiced or discriminatory individual a "-ist" because the individual is subscribing to an ideology. But, that's emphasizing the individual rather than the society. If you only look at individual people as racist, they feel like isolated cases which don't have good solutions. Furthermore, you're absolving people who aren't explicitly discriminatory but who are still supporting systemic discrimination.

- This company will hire anyone who's qualified, but they're full of ivy-league graduates because they rely heavily on campus recruiters. Even though they aren't prejudiced when hiring, they are classist because they cater to high-class people.

- This bank will offer a mortgage to anyone with a steady paycheck and a safe-investment property. However, due to red-lining and racial covenants, Black people weren't able to purchase safe-investment homes so they didn't get good mortgages.

Granted, it's an uphill etymological battle because the individual usage is so common. When people argue for the systemic definition, they're arguing that we should focus on processes rather than individuals.

[TheGrim-888]

If you haven't noticed, we've spiraled down to the point where group think determines what is real, not facts or logic. If you can convince thousands people to scream that something is racist, then it "becomes" racist, no matter whether it meets any factual concrete definition of what racism is. Once this behavior started, it was then used as justification to change the definition of racism to something it never used to be.

[syshum]

Reddit adopts the "Prejudice + Power" definition of racism, not the actual definition of racism

[jimclegg]

Reddit's definition seems more contextual, it weighs the dynamics of current economic, cultural, institutional, etc... racism

Here is the Oxford dictionary definition:

"The inability or refusal to recognize the rights, needs, dignity, or value of people of particular races or geographical origins. More widely, the devaluation of various traits of character or intelligence as ‘typical’ of particular peoples. The category of race may itself be challenged, as implying an inference from trivial superficial differences of appearance to allegedly significant underlying differences of nature; increasingly evolutionary evidence suggests that the dispersal of one original people into different geographical locations is a relatively recent and genetically insignificant matter."

[champagneben]

In the majority... in the United States?

[archagon]

> If you don't know, to post on /r/blackpeopletwitter you have to send a photo of your skin color to the moderators.

I think there's a good reason for doing that, given that such a sub can almost trivially become a hate sub for mocking people on Twitter, much like fatpeoplehate. "We want our community to be largely black" seems like a reasonable founding principle.

[Acrobatic_Road]

Let's do a CTRL-H test:

"We want our community to be largely white" seems like a reasonable founding principle.

How do you feel about the statement now?

[archagon]

"White" is a catch-all term for light-skinned ethnic groups with "defaultness" in American society. There is no such thing as "white history," "white heritage," or "white culture," except in opposition to "non-default" ethnic groups.

If you change the founding principle to "we want our community to be largely Russian," that would be totally fine by me.

Additionally, opposition to the "largely black" founding principle implies opposition to women-only spaces and other community groupings that are largely accepted in society.

[techntoke]

You're literally grouping all dark skin individuals into a group saying they share the same heritage and culture when they don't.

[Ghjklov]

I think this is a copout answer. "White" usually refers to people of European heritage who have lighter skin in America.

[archagon]

What do generic "Europeans" have in common with each other? As a Russian, I feel like my culture overlaps relatively little with French, German, or English. Moreover, which parts of "Europe" are actually included in this taxonomy? Are Romani considered white? What about Southern Italians? Black people in France? It all boils down to "people of European heritage with white skin (whose ancestors wrote books and stuff that I like)," which is wishy-washy and tautological.

[pnako]

We have a culture in common which encompasses languages, religion, music, architecture, food, etc.

I've only ever heard that question asked about us Europeans, for some reason.

[tomp]

Not sure about whites and blacks in the US, but as far as genetics are concerned, (black) Africans have far more genetic diversity than (white) Europeans.

[Ghjklov]

I agree it's a bit wishy-washy. But that's what it means. Everyone (in the U.S.) when they say whites, they pretty much always mean anyone with white skin who have European heritage.

Yup, so even if some poor Croatian guy just got off the boat, as long as he looked white enough for Americans, some of them would say he benefited from American slavery of blacks and must renounce his white privilege.

[mrguyorama]

Are black people not allowed to have their own communities?

[jdkee]

""We want our community to be largely black" seems like a reasonable founding principle."

Freedom of association is a thing. Now, would you agree with the statement, ""We want our community to be largely white" seems like a reasonable founding principle." ?

[archagon]

See comment above.

[anticonformist]

Exactly.

Just because someone claims something is anti-racist doesn't make it so. Almost all organized evil is done in the name of something good. Look at how laws like the The Patriot Act are named.

The people behind these bans are leftist extremists going after their rightist extremist enemies. Their "good intentions" are paving our path towards hell.

[Darmody]

If they do they will be called racists and white supremacists.

And I'm the crazy one when I say social media is only banning right wingers.

[danudey]

Complaining about the /r/fragilewhiteredditor subreddit is kind of just proving their point though.

[Acrobatic_Road]

Why should white people tolerate racism against themselves?

[mrguyorama]

/r/fragilewhiteredditor is not racism. Being a "White redditor" is not a race. The sub is not about hating redditors for being white, but for talking about and possibly getting angry at people who are very blind to their prejudice or priviledges