this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Hey, I'm a Hexbear user and I really think you have the wrong impression of what our site is. Idk if you're open to reconsidering or if you're just trying to get a few antagonistic words in but I'll tell you my experience as a long time user:
Our site isn't pro-russia. We just want the war to come to a swift end without any further bloodshed. Some people take offense to that because we don't think the best way to do that is to send more guns, tanks, planes, dollars, etc into the warzone. That benefits no one except the arms manufacturers and the money lenders. Not regular people on either side.
The only thing I can think of that you would be referring to is the "holodomor" or something similar that happened in the USSR. It's not that we deny that many people did die in these horrible tragedies or that there wasn't Soviet government involvement in some of them but that these very real events are being distorted for political reasons by people who want to paint the USSR in a certain, wholly bad, light. As communists (or anarchists), we try to be very open to criticism and new ways of thinking about or doing things but not when the intent is to do historical revisionism to make the people who liberated the concentration camps and ended the crimes of Nazism seem like Nazis under a different name.
Well, I guess this is true in a way. As revolutionists, we do seek to change the system by establishing a new authority with the capability to make this change. But have you ever noticed how the current system maintains and perpetuates itself? Sure, you can vote (and we don't seek to abolish that!), but when that fails and working-class people take to the streets seeking change, why is it that people with guns and tear gas and riot shields try to stop them and maybe even imprison them? It's not that leftists are uniquely "authoritarian" but that we want to use that authority for representing regular, working-class people and to bring about a better world where that authority isn't necessary anymore. Our anarchist users probably have a somewhat different take on this but one of them will have to talk about it lol
Sure, there are a lot of ideas that we hate. But isn't that everyone? I hope we could all agree on hating things like fascism, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc etc. Our users probably feel more strongly about that than most people lol but that's just cuz a lot of us have been targets of those kinds of ideas. Other than stuff like that though... this site has been one of the most accepting places on the Internet in my experience. Sure, we argue a lot (sometimes too zealously lol), but just cuz we care a lot about getting things right. On our site, we don't have downvotes to encourage users to actually challenge bad ideas and voice their opinion instead of just feeling satisfied having slightly influenced an algorithm.
This just hasn't been my experience and I know most of our users would agree. Racism gets swiftly removed on Hexbear and lots of people replying challenging it. Do you have any examples? This has just been so contrary to my time on the site. Unless you mean jokes about white people but I hope I don't have to explain why that's not a problem lol
Anyway, I just want our instances and our users to exist together in peace. I know we have very "different" ideas from what is considered the mainstream in the west and on most of the English-speaking internet but I know our presence on the "fediverse" can be a positive thing and that we can get along. I hope this helps you to understand our site a bit better.
The whole "we want to end the war" argument just reeks. It stinks of russian propaganda. Russia started the war. They invaded Ukraine. Would you have the same viewpoint if the US was the invader? I've seen that comment several times and it kinda starts sounding like a red fascist dogwhistle
The war did not start in 2022, your analysis of what has been happening before the invasion needs to go back before that.
Ok
I guess instead of "war" I should have said "conflict" btw
It was a low-key civil war, make no mistake about it.
Your government doesn't just allow armed, organised (largely ultranationalist) paramilitary groups to conduct ethnically-motivated attacks on its own soil without their tacit approval, especially not when those same paramilitary groups tended to get absorbed into the state military forces later on.
This isn't the wild west were talking here.
Fuck, if a protest action in your own country can deploy the pointy end of the state against you immediately then the civil war against the easternmost part of Ukraine could have had a police/military response within days rather than leaving it to play out over literal years.
No sure, I get where you're coming from, but for the purposes of the other poster I think it was best to adjust my language.
At the time time, it's also best for the purposes of the other poster to reply with your perspective as well haha
dude history has a context
🤡🤡🤡
Do you think "anti-white racism" is even remotely as bad as other forms of racism? Or even a problem at all? White people already have all the privileges bestowed upon them by a fundamentally white-supremacist society. Making fun of this concept on our tiny social media website isn't hurting anyone.
In the vast majority of cases, no, not even close.
It's 100% a problem, for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it's racist, so it's already inherently a problem for that reason alone. But it's also a problem because your [hexbear's] moralistic self-righteousness combined with your [hexbear's] obvious hypocrisy gives people opposed to your ideals that much more ammunition (and of course you don't care about that, but that itself is also part of the hexbear problem).
And the worst part is that, as with so many of hexbear's problems, there's no reason for it. It's such an easy problem to fix, and would give an instance like hexbear that supposedly prides itself on its inclusivity such a huge boost in credibility. If you want to set yourselves up as morally unimpeachable, then be morally unimpeachable! Set an actual example, and be leaders that bring people together, not because of compromising your beliefs, but by actually being consistent, steadfast, and intellectually honest about the beliefs you already have.
And sure, I get the importance of having a place where you can feel comfortable and meme hyperbolically about problems you feel are important, and about the people who don't agree with you. That seems to be the direction that most hexbears seem to want to go.
But, in the end, it is racist, and it is disingenuous to promote yourselves as this bastion of anti-racism while encouraging literal racism on your instance and then act all surprised pikachu face when you get called out on it.
Nothing is "inherently" anything. What makes, for example, anti-black (as contrary to anti-white) racism bad in spaces like this? It furthers the psychological harm caused by the racist material conditions of white-supremacist society and normalizes these conditions. Racist rhetoric is part of the superstructural justification for these conditions that makes the oppressor feel superior and the oppressed feel inferior and like they deserve it. This contradiction does not exist for white people and that is why anti-white racism effectively does not exist, except maybe beyond a limited level in inter-personal relationships. It might make individual white people feel a little bad but it has no material backing.
I'm not the one pearl-clutching over anti-white racism.
This issue doesn't really give anyone "more ammunition" against us. Part of the reason we do keep these kinds of jokes around (besides being funny) is because it tends to out reactionaries (like how you are being right now).
I'm pretty sure most of the people making "cracker" jokes on here are white themselves. I don't think Hexbear is known as the "anti-white" instance lol
Yeah, I mean that's pretty much what Hexbear is. I don't think anyone here would want to be "morally-unimpeachable leaders" or even to what end that would be.
i don't care about being racist toward white 'people'
"Up yours, woke moralists! 😠 We'll see who cancels who."
Can't be racist against white people
Really? Go tell that to Jews... Or the Irish... Or Acadians (heck, french Canadians in general)... The list goes on and on...
You mean all the people that weren't classified as "white" as they suffered persecution by white people? Okay
Man, that goalpost must be fucking light for you guys to move it around that often!
can't be racist against white people
"goes on to name people crackers excluded from the 'white' definition in order to colonize them"
Oh so the definition of being white varies now? People are dermofluid or something? "I'm white skinned but I'm not white."
Also it's still happening today but you would never admit that a white French Canadian or an Irish can be the victim of racism because their skin color somehow makes them immune to it or some shit.
I can't tell how serious you're being but I read a really good book on this subject- The History of White People
The TL;DR on that is that whiteness is a social category, not an objective observation of human beings and their differences. For most of American history, as an example, Anglo-Saxons, Dutch/Low Germans and Scandinavians were considered a superior race to the 'alpine' and 'mediterranean' races of High Germans, Spaniards, and Italians. Irish weren't Anglo-Saxon, they were Celtic and were thus considered inferior. The racism people observe when they see 'Irish need not apply' signs or slurs directed at Italians in the 1800s were because those people were not considered 'white' at the time. It's an over-simplification, but these groups needed to be incorporated into the dominant group before they would be given the treatment we generally think is normal for white people.
Which is very jarring to us, since obviously Irish and Italians and Bavarian Germans are 'white'. But it literally does vary, and the entire purpose of the category is to render people inside of it superior by virtue of belonging to it, it's a category that exists to express supremacy.
"white" is a concept made up to justify slavery and white supremacy. you are actually hitting on something really important, the definition of being white HAS varied widely in history. when the concept of whiteness was first being developed, it was in order to justify categorizing people as white or non-white, and then the eugenics movement ran away with that concept to promote racial supremacy- not racial identity, but racial supremacy. so "white" as a category did indeed refer to specifically condoned peoples with supposed genetic, moral, intellectual superiority. and the definition of "white" did indeed vary then as well as now. irish, italian, slav, spanish, jews were all once distinctly non-white by the definition of "whites" at one point. the definition has changed since then because it has always been a non-scientific concept designed to identify "us" from "them" and justify the subjugation of whoever was considered non-white at the time.
The definition of being white, like all definitions, can indeed vary based on time and place, yes. Whether someone is white "enough" to be included in the category of "white people" is not an objective fact and will change from culture to culture, from time to time, and even from one individual perspective to the next.
Racial categories in Europe were more complex than they generally are today, especially in America. It's difficult to maintain distinctions in race between different European nationalities when everyone's immigrating to the same place and having kids together, so over time these subtle distinctions have dropped off somewhat in favor of the simpler categories of "white" and "non-white." But some of these distinctions still remain, for instance, many people who identify as "white nationalists" or even "white supremacists" also hate Jews, including Jewish people with white skin. Hitler's infamous 14 words declare that a future must be secured "for our white children," yet clearly he did not consider white-skinned Jewish people to be included in that definition.
As absurd as it may be to say that someone can have white skin but not be considered white, it can happen. The reason it doesn't make sense is because race is, to a large degree, something that is socially constructed and nonsensical.
Imagine considering Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh memes to be racist, while simultaneously arguing that you can't be racist against white people.
And for good measure, considering the use of the word "crazy" to be an offensive term against the mentally ill.
Those things are crossing the line. But overt racism is fine as long as it's self-deprecating.
Would you also say that black people can't be racist towards other black people? 'cuz some people in Rwanda would love to have a discussion with you I'm sure! Heck, Haitians would love to talk about Dominicans with you!
I would say it would depend on the structural conditions and who holds power over whom