Just a side note - I would caution about directing non-Black folks to spaces like # BlackMastodon and @ blackfedi, just because those spaces might not be intentioned for non-Black people to look at, directing us there might be encouraging our participation in spaces where it's not necessarily invited or wanted, etc. Great spaces to direct Black folks to if they're looking to build a community for themselves on fedi, but I would just say it's best for non-Black people to not look/participate unless the space is specifically inviting that.

The other thing about the "just listen more to more Black people" discourse is that while it may fix representational issues of whom you're choosing to listen to, it won't help if there's no intention to work on racial biases or challenge one's own racist behaviors - so I would even implore that type of introspective work. Connected to that would be, even if a white person starts doing these things and working on this practice, that work of interrogating your own biases/behaviors never stops. I feel that white people (especially on fedi) often need reminding that just because you're doing X, Y, Z, etc. doesn't mean that you're done working on your own racism or that your reasons for doing X, Y, Z, etc. are all genuine.

You might also want to mention how having some marginalized identity even as a white person doesn't excuse you from doing this work - there's a lot of harm done on fedi by people who use their own oppressed identities as a way to avert accountability for being racist. In your piece, you already mentioned that supporting Black people and fighting anti-Blackness means supporting all Black people - you could make that understanding of how anti-Blackness is interconnected/intertwined with other oppressions more apparent by appealing to white people who might consider themselves staunch advocates for other communities but refuse to confront racism.

This is kind of a mess of different comments but those are just my raw thoughts after reading what you wrote.

Thank you for your service, coyotino

Look, I understand where you're coming from and what you're saying, but please bring down the temperature in your comments, even if others seem pedantic or nitpicking to you.

You're welcome to express your opinion and agree or disagree with others as you see fit, but when you do so please remember the human on the other end of the discussion. There's no need for picking unnecessary fights with others or being overly antagonistic, and we're seeing a pattern of these threads you're involved in getting really heated.

A country born by old white men which will die by old white men. Begins with a revolution to sever ties with a monarchy, ends with a coup to bring it back. We are truly coming full circle. 🤡

Asked if anything could convince him that he was on track to lose to Trump and should step down, Biden responded with a smile: "It depends on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that."

Sir, the Lord Almighty better come down and take you back with him. Take Trump too, while he's at it.

After that debate and all the things he's said since, Biden's image is at an all-time low. As ableist and ageist as it is, people think he's a senile old man in the late stages of cognitive decline, with no business running a government. I doubt he or his campaign are going to do what they need to do to overcome that perception, and I doubt the Democratic Party will make the right calls either. "Decades of civil service" and "somewhat better than Trump" etc. are not going to be enough.

damn, who could've possibly seen that coming? 🫥

saddam hussein is in there twisting my bones. i should be gripping rat

Well, to be more frank, I am wary of cryptocurrency and especially the marketing of it as relief for the ills of capitalism. It doesn't help that mining for cryptocurrency is highly energy-intensive (much of that power being sourced from fossil fuels) and e-waste-producing, or that it's simply become a vehicle for high-risk financial speculation as well as run-of-the-mill fraud and scams. In short, to me, cryptocurrency is bad, or at least the negatives outweigh any potential positives.

If you have trouble with that implication, that's fine, that's your opinion, but I don't like having my view reduced down to "bad bcz crypto lol" just because I didn't sufficiently explain it initially. I don't post or comment in this community just to be nitpicked or belittled.

Permanently Deleted

I don't think people there love love her, but something something owning the libs something.

Many USian voters are entranced with the idea of having a firebrand provocateur on their side, someone who is able to get a rise out of their political opponents (not even totally excluding myself as it can be entertaining sometimes). And others just don't care as long as the other side doesn't win -- to them, keeping the other side out of power is more important than putting a competent person in the seat.

When I saw this this morning, I laughed so hard I almost fell out of bed 😭

Yikes to the fact that Jasmine Crockett received PAC donations from crypto and voted with other Dems to provide military aid to Israel, but at least there's some entertainment in watching her eat up Republicans like MTG whenever they pull some bullshit like that.

finally getting more time off from work versus the 60-70 hour weeks i was pulling before, so i started participating in a game jam and trying to have a presence on fedi again.

There is no should or shouldn't, they've always had and been entitled to that choice. People who develop and host those platforms can make whatever choice they want.

ActivityPub/the Fediverse is only a protocol. If you philosophically disagree with how a platform makes use of that protocol, then you can (theoretically) just use another platform.

not so hot because things are tense around my house, but i'm moving out towards the end of the week so hopefully it'll be over soon.

Genuine question: what happened last time?

Yup! If the software supports it, instance admins can usually add relays from their control panel.

It does work that way, but Mastodon and some other microblogging software like Firefish (fka Calckey), Pleroma, etc. can also use relays to populate their federated timelines.

What’re they mad about? 🤔

What an audacious request. I hope it’ll be rejected --- this just has “bad idea” written all over it.

Respectfully, how on earth did this design get cleared? 😭

What; if anything; are you doing to prevent the instance from becoming an echo chamber?

Like the linked post discusses, Black queer people are the recipients of a lot of harm. They're perfectly entitled to a space where they won't be harassed, doesn't matter if that space is an echo chamber or not. The moderation and community of that instance can decide for themselves how they want to be structured --- it's not really anyone else's decision but theirs. If we, as remote users, don't like how they do things, no one's forcing us to use their site, federate with them, etc.

I’ve noticed a lot of black first instances tend to fall victim to the same traps of racism and hatred that instances that center on other races do.

What exactly do you mean by the phrase "same traps of racism and hatred"? I've seen few if any instances centering on other races, so I can't really establish that there's any pattern there.