A few years back, I made a shitty, tasteless joke at the expense of jews and nearly got banned fror it.
Here’s a joke in a thread about concentration camps at the southern border.
Bolding mine.
Here’s the context for that joke.
Anyone reading that thread can tell that I have been tone policing it hard. I will not apologize for that - that’s what it takes for a thread to stay on topic, and this is an issue I feel very strongly about. (Plus, my last two attempts to talk about this were moved or closed, so I feel I kind of have to, lest this thread go that way as well. I made the topic of the thread very clear on page one, and put out a well-meaning plea for people to stay on topic. It almost kind of worked for a while, too!)
Now, leaving aside that in the time since HurricaneDitka joined the thread, the tone has kind of gone to shit (y’know, that thing I’m trying really hard to prevent, and that thing that seems to happen a lot around that guy for some odd reason)… There’s a limit to good taste. If a friend of mine made that joke around me, I would demand an apology and probably stop calling them. If a family member made that joke, I would probably stop interacting with them, and make a case to exclude them from shared family gatherings on the basis of that joke. It’s not even funny - it’s just cruel and shitty, and I cannot believe that that comes close to the line, let alone ends up on the “Ok” side of it. In my eyes, I can hardly imagine a more clear violation of the most important rule here: don’t be a jerk.
Actually, while we’re here, let’s talk about that other bit. Here’s another post from Ditka, very early in the thread.
Look, I’m sorry, but if we’re trying to have a serious discussion, the conspiracy theorist who insists that it’s all “FAKE NEWS” (and then makes shitty jokes at the expense of children in concentration camps, as in, the joke works by mocking and making light of the horrendous situation they’re in) is not helping. Instead, it’s making any serious conversation of the subject nigh-impossible, unless everyone makes a point of ignoring them. Hmm, there’s a word for this behavior, it’s on the tip of my tongue…
And no, “It’s all fake news” is not a serious take, it is not worth taking seriously, and it is not worthy of discussion. Ideally, that should have been the point where HD was unceremoniously told by a moderator, “Stop posting in this thread”. Now we’re three pages later and the conversation has been utterly dominated by this completely nonsensical point of view (and assorted other bullshit right-wing talking points like “it’s Obama’s fault”), and I’m a little bit frustrated that yet another thread has been blown off course. Why yes, this happens all the time around HD, and I’ll stop complaining about it when it stops happening - or, more to the point, when the moderators stop enabling it. This is a persistent frustration for me and I know I am not the only one.
But of course, the moderators aren’t going to deal with that. Someone with a long history of trolling posting absolute fucking inane nonsense in a thread? Ha, fuck that. Someone saying, “Hey, maybe stop taking the bait”? THAT CANNOT STAND!
Well what the fuck am I supposed to do? What the fuck is anyone supposed to do, other than hope that people stop taking the bait, despite evidence to the contrary?
I put a solid amount of work into the OP of that thread. I spent a lot of time adding to it, discussing the issues, trying to keep the thread on track (because it does, in fact, need constant pressure to stay on topic, even without people trying intentionally to drag it off-topic). I care quite a lot about this issue.
And, suddenly, the thread goes completely to shit. His first four posts are a direct repetition of what I had just posted with all the nuance and accuracy stripped out, invoking Godwin’s Law with no sense of irony and making a disgusting joke at the expense of the children in the camps, a one-line content-free response, and the claim that all accounts of the inhumane conditions are “fake news”. There is nothing of value there. The next 3 pages are mostly him posting similarly nonsensical or awful shit, and people consistently taking the bait.
There is no basis for discussion - I might as well post this thread on 4chan for all the good its currently doing. And a decent moderator might have noticed that. If the moderators here were decent at dealing with trolling, I wouldn’t need to be begging people to stop feeding the troll.
I know I’m not the only person who is sick to death of this complete and total unwillingness to deal with trolls. It makes serious discussion of issues hard to impossible. And that’s basically all I’m here for. So what am I supposed to do other than just give up and leave?
I like it here. I like most of the people here. I just struggle to see the point.