EXCLUSIVE: Carl Baxter, a MAGA fan who heads up a county Republican club in Florida, is suing the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity over alleged discrimination
But I want to comment on something regarding modding, and ask an honest question: Shouldn’t reiteration of historical speeches or texts be omitted from rules about slurs? I mean, reiterating a speech, or a section of Huckleberry Finn, is obviously not the same thing as devaluing someone by calling them a slur. We actually have a quite hot debate going on in my country about this now, where some teachers were harassed for “being racist”, because in class they read aloud a famous poem written by an immigrant about racism, where he writes some of the things that were shouted at him. The whole point of the poem, and of reading it in class, is of course to make a point out of how bad racism is, and to educate about racism. Still, these teachers have been stamped as “racists” because they reiterated specific words in the poem.
For the honest question (I’m not American or a native english speaker): Isn’t there a historical difference between the word “Negro”, and a certain similar word I’ll refrain from reiterating? The way I’ve understood it, the former is a historically more neutral form, that was simply used the way we today would use “black person”, while the latter has more or less always had some kind of devaluating undertone. I’ve gotten that interpretation, among other things, from having read speeches where people are promoting equal rights, and use “Negro” to refer to black people, while clearly not believing that they are inferior in any way (hence the promotion of equal rights). Of course, today, both words are considered unacceptable, but I would like to clarify if I’ve misunderstood, as it helps in interpreting things that were said or written in the past.
But I want to comment on something regarding modding, and ask an honest question: Shouldn’t reiteration of historical speeches or texts be omitted from rules about slurs?
I’m not a Lemmy mod, and I’ve never moderated a community on the scale that any of the Lemmy mods operate at, but I’ll share my 2cents anyways.
Moderators will often have “automods” setup that just automatically remove anything with a slur in it and mark it for review. Realistically there should never be any slurs uttered in your community, so you can safely blacklist them and reinstate comments in the rare instance that a comment contains a slur and is worth reinstating
In the case of a quote, if it is in context and has good reason to be there, including the slur, or ideally a partially censored version of the slur can very well be appropriate, but it’s one of those situations that’s calls for best judgment because someone might think they’re smart by quoting famous people who used slurs as a way to use slurs online and not be insta-removed. Really it comes down to one of the finer points of moderating which is curation. By a moderator opening the floodgates in allowing a certain kind of questionable conduct it can change the vibe of a community irreparably, so it’s important to be careful about allowing certain conduct and to do so on a case by case basis
The few times I posted that slur, it was with the full context of the speech. I have had my comment deleted, but responded with that exact link, which stayed up. I too, would be suspicious of its use without any context and mods might not have the time to check each user’s comment history to see if they’re a bad actor.
My reasoning is is that I don’t want to have to risk arguing why I should be allowed to say the N word, any N word each and every time I want to post this speech. Of all places, my comment was deleted on reddit’s /r/badcopnodonut in regards to Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams Tough on Crime stance a while back.
Maybe other forums and communities wont filter out this version of the N word, maybe not. Linking directly to a University’s webpage of the speech cuts out a lot of the possible head bashing.
Personally speaking, I think the slur could be used against all those “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” regardless of their skin color.
First of all, that speech is awesome.
But I want to comment on something regarding modding, and ask an honest question: Shouldn’t reiteration of historical speeches or texts be omitted from rules about slurs? I mean, reiterating a speech, or a section of Huckleberry Finn, is obviously not the same thing as devaluing someone by calling them a slur. We actually have a quite hot debate going on in my country about this now, where some teachers were harassed for “being racist”, because in class they read aloud a famous poem written by an immigrant about racism, where he writes some of the things that were shouted at him. The whole point of the poem, and of reading it in class, is of course to make a point out of how bad racism is, and to educate about racism. Still, these teachers have been stamped as “racists” because they reiterated specific words in the poem.
For the honest question (I’m not American or a native english speaker): Isn’t there a historical difference between the word “Negro”, and a certain similar word I’ll refrain from reiterating? The way I’ve understood it, the former is a historically more neutral form, that was simply used the way we today would use “black person”, while the latter has more or less always had some kind of devaluating undertone. I’ve gotten that interpretation, among other things, from having read speeches where people are promoting equal rights, and use “Negro” to refer to black people, while clearly not believing that they are inferior in any way (hence the promotion of equal rights). Of course, today, both words are considered unacceptable, but I would like to clarify if I’ve misunderstood, as it helps in interpreting things that were said or written in the past.
I’m not a Lemmy mod, and I’ve never moderated a community on the scale that any of the Lemmy mods operate at, but I’ll share my 2cents anyways.
Moderators will often have “automods” setup that just automatically remove anything with a slur in it and mark it for review. Realistically there should never be any slurs uttered in your community, so you can safely blacklist them and reinstate comments in the rare instance that a comment contains a slur and is worth reinstating
In the case of a quote, if it is in context and has good reason to be there, including the slur, or ideally a partially censored version of the slur can very well be appropriate, but it’s one of those situations that’s calls for best judgment because someone might think they’re smart by quoting famous people who used slurs as a way to use slurs online and not be insta-removed. Really it comes down to one of the finer points of moderating which is curation. By a moderator opening the floodgates in allowing a certain kind of questionable conduct it can change the vibe of a community irreparably, so it’s important to be careful about allowing certain conduct and to do so on a case by case basis
The few times I posted that slur, it was with the full context of the speech. I have had my comment deleted, but responded with that exact link, which stayed up. I too, would be suspicious of its use without any context and mods might not have the time to check each user’s comment history to see if they’re a bad actor.
My reasoning is is that I don’t want to have to risk arguing why I should be allowed to say the N word, any N word each and every time I want to post this speech. Of all places, my comment was deleted on reddit’s /r/badcopnodonut in regards to Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams Tough on Crime stance a while back.
Maybe other forums and communities wont filter out this version of the N word, maybe not. Linking directly to a University’s webpage of the speech cuts out a lot of the possible head bashing.
Personally speaking, I think the slur could be used against all those “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” regardless of their skin color.