We don’t wish to get into endless hypotheticals. We’ll mod these things as they arise. Our policy is reasonably clear:
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We have always modded hate speech - remarks that in our opinion are indisputably racist.
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We don’t wish to preemptively rule out any discussion of topics touching on race, ethnicity, or the like. We’ve had many instances over the years of posters raising what they considered to be legitimate questions that others deemed to be racist. The SDMB community has shown itself to be well equipped to identify defective logic, inadequate evidence, unfounded assumptions, and so on - in questions of race as in many other matters. That’s the purpose of open debate. These discussions are often illuminating; we have no wish to foreclose them.
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We’ve also had posters who, while not overtly racist, demonstrated over time that they had an animus against that or that minority.and were immune to counterargument. If we feel someone has no interest in arriving at the truth and is simply gaming the rules to conceal racist intent, we ban them.
If you see what you consider to be racist speech on this board and you believe our response is inadequate, by all means point it out. It’s much easier to deal with these questions when you have an actual example in front of you.