I’m just now actually going through the thread, because I knew some responses would piss me off. And this is definitely one of them.
First off, I already explained what the problem is. We want this board to be welcoming to people who are not white. Allowing blatantly racist posts makes it unwelcome. Posters arguing against it doesn’t change the fact that the people in charge are saying “Dehumanizing people of color is a permitted topic of discussion.” And that is of course not welcoming.
You also do that frustrating thing where a poster brings up a specific topic, and you try to generalize it to its least offensive form. It particularly tends to happen when someone talks about bigotry, which gets generalized to just discussion or offensiveness or disagreement. When someone is discussing a possible exception to something, it makes no sense to bring up the general case.
I also notice the “freedom of speech” argument. But we are on a moderated message board. As such, the freedom of speech is inherently limited. On this board, there is a civility rule, “Don’t be a jerk.” Hence I can argue that something is not civil.
Speaking of which, this also explains why your argument about giving someone grief for saying something horrible is insufficient. We are limited in what we can do. The mods actually stepped in and stopped people from responding to Cartooniverse. The only place you can respond is in the Pit, and it is absolutely trivial to simply not read what’s in the Pit.
But, if you did read his pit thread, you’d have a second reason for why this isn’t a valid tactic. Cartooniverse has as history of posts like this. Clearly people’s responses did not change anything. And now they have direct mod permission to still continue. There is very little chance they will actually stop.
This is what why I wind up angry on this topic. I go out of my way to narrowly tailor the topic. I go out of my way to provide several arguments for that topic. And yet, inevitably I get someone who ignores most of my arguments and widens the topic beyond what is under discussion.
I gave specific reasons why this specific action should fall under the “don’t be a jerk” rule. I did not argue that people should not be able to argue things that are wrong or offensive in general. I’m talking about something the poster clearly knew was so racist as to be something he would likely be modded for.
People should not be able to come to this board (or any other place that is moderated and believes racism is wrong) and claim that someone did something wrong because they are black. Not even if they play games and try to speak in code.