this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2021
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The only person I constantly see attacking and evidently justifying his racist phrasing is this fellow, not me. I have a track record of being vigilant and putting myself on the frontlines for Lemmy, and the only thing I have to gain is the existence of a non obnoxious reddit alternative for everyone, that respects darknet anonymous proxy access.
I made a mistake of not screenshotting the exact phrase, and he is taking advantage of it openly. I see it as important to be vigilant about racism towards all the major factions of society, not just the LGBT+, the Jews, Blacks, Muslims and so on. Indians are PoCs and they face their fair share of racism, and there are not enough Indians on the internet to point it out. Atleast I have not seen another active Indian on Lemmy yet, as the couple users on c/india are dormant now.
I would also like to make my position clear once again that I do not accuse users of such serious issues randomly. When I do, it will be rare and it will be worth looking into.
I appreciate that you try to fight against racism and discrimination. That isnt the problem, the problem is how you are doing it. You have to understand, most people in Europe dont hate nonwhite people (except for a small, vocal minority). The racism here is much more subtle than that, and people dont even realize that their beliefs and worldviews are racist. I know because I used to hold such beliefs as well (its almost impossible to avoid because the media really misrepresents things).
I think the best way to fight against this racism is with education. If people in the west could understand how people in the global south are being exploited and oppressed by imperialism, they would change their beliefs. Another thing is that many people view racism as something like person A saying a bad word to person B, but thats only a minor part of it. I would say the main aspect of racism is the economic relationship between imperialist and neocolonial countries (again, exploitation and imperialism).
I used to hold some questionable views as well, because I used to be an edgy teenager, and the whole internet culture is pretty messed up, to say the least, as you venture into the darker and secluded corners. However, things change, and identifying and calling out these things is essential.
The issue is, racism is like a baby Pokémon. It evolves with time, with newer crop of users and events that happen around us (like colonialisation et al). So the neocolonial and socio-economic status parts you say are not the elements themselves, but the end product manifestation of what starts as these expresssions that travel through various medium in society, normalising racism in the first place, planting the seeds in society to make way for the governance to assume that if the masses are okay with it, this must be the culture and the governments and giant entities adapt to it.
Bad words or weird hand or object expressions is simply a way to modify the grammar that the society uses daily, and develop behavioural cues with them. This is a crucial part of Theory of Computation, for example in Computer Science, which teaches how new grammar can be created.
Racism also happens to be a way to start wars, as example, by manufacturing consent which we see commonly. That is done if the masses are allowed and encouraged to do this.
Education and awareness can only go so far. If the other party is unwilling to have a dialogue, and doubles down on their doings that they think is done out of "free will" in a "free society", then how will education work? The only theoretical options left are to be civil and oppose, or be uncivil and oppose.