Ah, Reddit. You and Sash go back a long, long way. Often referenced in many situations where I like to highlight the issues with online echo-chambers and soviet-style censorship. It has caused me significant internal frustration (and of course, being online, I am completely powerless to influence it), and is, honestly, better left alone and out of my Posts & Articles section.
However, for the sake of relieving a bit of that frustration, and simply because a response I got from the moderators of "r/pics" was so completely expected and predictable that it was almost like their actions were read entirely from a script I had written and forwarded to the team about how to act with regards to how I perceive them. So, this story needs a little bit of backstory to it, do I care that I said story twice? Kind of, but that's besides the point.
The point is, I made several throw-away accounts to prowl reddit for reasons that aren't against the rules, or illegal, or in any way nefarious (no, this isn't sarcasm), they're more to do with my sexuality and some rather weird 'kinks' I have. No, I'm not a pedo, that's just my mentally ill aunt being mentally ill. The kink is "vore", I'll have you know, but that's besides the point, again. These digressions, Sash. And no, I'm not ashamed of it.
I have a couple of accounts I used to partake in role play in various cases, etc, never wanting to actually partake in 'discussion' on Reddit, if you can even call it that. But I found myself on r/pics after a news story was reported that I had to make a meme on. The story was about a man who pulled an AK-47 rifle on the employees at a Pizza restaurant because they told him to wait for 10 minutes (from my understanding, the restaurant was supposed to offer them more quickly). It was almost like the perfect example of America; fast food and guns, intertwined into an almost comical situation.
Of course, it wasn't comical. That's why I didn't go far with the meme. Instead, I started reading the comments which was a big mistake. There were plenty of comments about how white people are terrible, how they are trash, plenty of remarks like "whitey" and other racial-specific comments towards/against people of white (European) ethnic descent. (if you are upset that I recognised white people as an ethnicity, this link might help you). Sash being Sash, has very strong views on racism; I don't think I ever made my thoughts here truly public, but it would probably be prudent for me to do so.
Sash's views on Racial Discrimination in western, white-majority countries.
Keep in mind this is my own opinion/conclusion based on what I have observed for many years watching social media and discussing various topics with people from many sides of the "spectrum".
I have a strong view on racial inequality, but if you are a member of the mindset that I think would be upset by this statement out of context, you are likely the cause of the issue. My view is that White Privilege and White Fragility as concepts are very real phenomenon in western society (white majority countries). I could spend a while explaining the theories I have, but let's summarise it by saying that over thousands of years, humans have evolved a tribality view on society, and this results in ethnic groups tending to 'band together' or 'prefer their own'. This manifests itself in white majority countries as discrimination (often unknown to the white person) against people of other races, such as African descent. The opposite would be true in a black-majority country. I call this "Racial Majority Bias". It results in a society that is set up to on average, slightly favour white people. However slight it is in each situation, it is far reaching and as a result, has significant effects on "equality".
An example of this is when selecting candidates for a job, a white employer is actually more likely to choose a white candidate over a black candidate with identical credentials, and it's not always to do with the usual cliché of "white supremacy". It's caused by fear of the unknown quantity of a black person and subconscious bias towards the comfort of employing someone in their "tribe", I.e, white people. Not saying White Supremacy doesn't exist, because it does, but for most moderate people, White Privilege is fuelled by much less sinister causes.
This creates discrimination in society whereby black people must "fight uphill" against that, and the issues that face everyone - such as low wages, lack of employment, mental health, etc. Issues that white people face too, but without the Majority Bias piled on top.
White Fragility is a term used to refer to the rather curious phenomena whereby white people tend to become rather defensive when the topic of the aforementioned privilege is brought up in discussion. While many could attribute this to white people being merely 'supremacist racists', the actual cause of this behaviour is quite logically explainable, and in my understanding, quite innately human.
White people in white majority countries occupy a societal status built on Racial Majority Bias that is, important to note, often completely hidden to the person in question, i,e, it's an emotional response, not a logical one. This mentality is caused by insecurity of their status in society. It often drives a "rushing to conclusion" thought process that results in logical fallacies such as "Pro-Black means Anti-White". Of course, this naturally occurring defensiveness is completely enflamed by the actions of the hypocrites that exploit the trending social status of "morality grandstanding" to improve their own standing among their peers, these are often known as Social Justice Warriors.
The process started naturally, Racial Majority Bias is baked into every one of us, white or black. Our point of reference is white-majority countries, so we call this White Majority Bias. When approached with the notion of being "privileged", most people who have been through a lot (white or black) would often find it insulting, and in the process, use an extreme example of the term as a means to justify a defensive reaction.
I.e, let's say someone fought long and hard to secure a job, against all odds, and really worked hard for what they have. Out of context, of course they would find it insulting to be called "privileged" as it essentially attacks all their hard work in life. Say this person is white, and the subject of White Privilege is brought up; this person is very likely to defensively react and state that they are not privileged, and that white privilege is a load of nonsense created by "liberals", or "leftists" or something to that degree when dealing with people completely ignorant of the right/left political ideological spectrum with regards to issues like Racism.
Of course this reaction is a fallacy because an extreme, out of context example was used. I read about this a lot, from bloggers, or authors on the internet. I know how this reaction goes because I was once subject to it. It's emotional - you don't get time to think it through, you just grab your pitchfork and the rest is history. That's the issue. Take the same situation mentioned prior; but replace the white person with a black person. Same life, same circumstances, same everything but they're also part of a racial minority.
So they have all that plus the negative effect of Racial Majority Bias. The issue is that, often, the terminology used to describe these phenomena is provocative (often deliberately) and that is why I actually coined the term "Racial Majority Bias", because it highlights that the root cause isn't being white, it's being a racial majority.
This fragility is also the cause of a lot of (out of context) opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. Without going into too much detail, white people often interpret the basic name as "White Lives Don't Matter", or "Black Lives Matter More Than White Lives". which is a logical fallacy driven by emotional fragility; they see BLM as an attack on their "kin", their "tribe", etc. I was like that once. I suggested a simple name change to the BLM movement; "Black Lives Matter, Too". Being the ever pragmatist that I am, I argue, do you want to stay rigid to an arbitrary notion of 'principal', or do you want to make real change? First change, learn that human nature isn't changing any time soon and you have to work around it.
Provocation brings me to the subject of SJWs and hypocrites that I mentioned earlier, before my rather large digression. This post is getting far longer than I had anticipated, I even had to change the title from a one-issue rant about Reddit moderators, to more of an in-depth "Sash thought" style post. Regardless, I will type a bit about this phenomena, too.
'Social Justice' is a term, while seemingly good in its nature, used often to apply to a hypocritical stance on the issues. It is often used to refer to people that go out of their way to find issues where there are none, in order to provoke situations where they can be perceived as morally superior to the opponent - most often encountered on Social Medial platforms such as Reddit and Twitter. This is also, often, a subconscious response and is likely driven by a desire to elevate one's social status based on current trends of progression (as mentioned earlier) in order to appear to have superior moral status to their peers, despite not actually giving a damn about the issues that they preach about.
A characteristic of this behaviour is a tendency to seek out situations and often, create them, in order to practise this "warfare" against a problem they often fabricated from random noise. The positive feedback of being the "morally superior" person drives a craving to wage this 'war' against anyone they consider against them. Often, this is literally anyone that has a different view on the subject. These people cannot be argued with, they often cannot be reasoned with, it is the ultimate manifestation of anonymous "us vs them" mentality with the unhindered ability to censor anyone they perceive as opposing them, regardless of logic.
When moderators of Reddit reach this mentality, the result is, well, Reddit. I mentioned earlier about this subject, so let's take a look at the exact wording and situation.
In this screenshot, I reply to the moderators of the "r/pics" community forum to clarify a few things about the ban I was issued without warning for posting the (out of context) "I Ignore Black Trash, too" comment. Yes, it does seem like something a racist would post, or someone just simply ignorant, but context is everything. The "Too" part here is a good indicator of that context, but unfortunately was far too subtle for this individual; that said, even with the clear explanation above, they had concluded the case and prevented any kind of rebuttal by censorship immediately after. Another 'racist' dealt with, another load of feel-good hormones flowing in their brain from casting their superior morality over the depraved.
Although I dispute the "White Trash isn't racist" point, it's not the point of this post or my frustration. Though I did make a point of saying that if you allow slurs in any direction, it's unhelpful. Honestly, the people that believe the definition of discrimination only applies to a minority group haven't studied the dictionary; or if the have, it's a modified version to suite their hypocrisy.
The second component is the immediate censorship of rebuttal by the opposing party, which is very much a trait of the "if you're not with me, you're against me" mentality that so many hypocrites (or just ignorant) exhibit. It's also, along with the wording of the reply, a clear indication that the moderator didn't read the primary component of my message, or if they did, they had determined their mindset without even giving me the benefit of the doubt considering my account has no history of bans or abuse at all.
Whether or not this individual truly believes that leaving comments like "Just Ignore white trash" intact while purging ones such as "I also ignore black trash, too", is helpful, or they simply just feel good for being the one with supposed 'superior morals', is besides the point. The point is, the behaviour (and of a moderator no less) is detrimental to the tensions in society and simply serves to feed more hatred into the other end of the spectrum, which results in more moderate people truly believing that the "left" is out to attack white people.
I'm going to send this article to the moderation team of "r/pics" on my other account, not because I feel they will read it and gain insight, but because I am in a bad mood and want to have a chance at rustling their jimmies. :3
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