Please don’t merge this into the other thread. I would like this message to be short and sweet and not lost in the interminable garbage of that thread.
If you agree with the message of this thread, do not respond to it. If some racist asshole responds here, do not respond to him or her here. Because…
I’d like us to try an experiment in shunning. It appears that the racist assholes won’t get banned for being jerks, for reasons I pretty vociferously disagree with. But, as Miller says:
So instead of responding to the racist assholes, I’d like to ask folks, when they post, to respond once with “relevant pit thread,” and link to this OP. (as that last link does).
Here’s why.
These guys are jerks; there’s no question in my mind that New Deal Democrat and his ilk are jerks. But they’re not going to get banned for their jerkitude, as mentioned above. The next best thing would be for them not to get any traction with their idiotic racist bullshit. If we stop responding to them, then maybe they’ll stop posting racist bullshit.
I think a major objection to this plan is the old saw about “silence=consent.” People–myself included–are worried that if nobody refutes their racist bullshit, onlookers will think there must be something to it. And that’s a legitimate worry.
My counter is that there’s plenty of response already to their racist bullshit (and if you’ve been redirected to this thread and are unsure whether the racists have been adequately refuted, take a gander at that thread). At this point, all we’re doing is feeding their trollery–or, worse, feeding their genuinely racist martyrdom complexes. And that means we’re encouraging them to say even more hateful things, hateful things they’re allowed to get away with. And those hateful things are hurting folks on this board that I respect and like.
So let’s stop feeding them. Don’t respond to this thread, and only respond to their racist bullshit with a link to this thread that encourages others not to respond.
Who’s with me? No, don’t say. If you really want to discuss it, perhaps here would be the place to do so.
I think all the Martin/Zimmerman threads attracted them. And you’re right, engaging them gives their positions validation, but for some reason DNFTT never seems to work.
So we just had something like 6 threads combined into one abomination of a thread in order to clean up the Pit (I know the Pit is a festering cesspool but there are standards) and you feel the need to open yet another thread just to point out the thread that is still there for everyone to see?
Yes, let’s aim for achieving the only instance in the history of the Internet when “don’t feed the troll” has ever worked. Rather than getting rid of the problem, the logical idea is to place the onus on every single other poster to avoid engaging with them, even when they do things like accuse others of being rapists because of what country they’re from.
If the folks in charge refuse to deal with the problem enough times, surely it’ll solve itself. After all, if doing something (like letting these idiots continue to use your community to spew their garbage) doesn’t have the desired results the first time, the best idea is to double down on that failed strategy. If you do the same thing over and over for long enough, surely you’ll get different results eventually!
And that’s why it’s imperative to continue with this strategy! If you stop using a strategy because it fails time after time after time, it’ll never get a chance to work!
While we’re at it, if you too believe that Rhythmdvl is the coolest motherfucker to ever hit the message boards, post a reply to this thread. For added irony, make an ironical comment.
How about in the form of verse?
*Rhythmdvl has an edge that is beveled
On an angle that’s rarely seen
Gives a perspective that’s rarely defective
Even in this chat about genes
But to choke off the spigots that are drowning us in bigots
Will take a big load of luck, or
A whole lot of threading, more than for gay wedding
Or one cool motherfucker.*
No. Not until the mods do something about it. If the mods want the racists to be left here, then we have to fight them. The only thing worse than letting them spew their filth is letting them spew their filth unchallenged. If we shut up, then we are actually encouraging ignorance. No one else is going to know about our previous debunkings.
Plus I’m not in the habit of caring about whether I’ve hurt the feelings of racists. They have martyr complexes? Fine. Martyrs have this habit of shutting up when it’s all over.
I’d comment on Miller’s comment, but there’s really no place I can say what I actually think of it, since he was speaking as a mod. All I can really do is point out that ignoring racism has never made it go away once in our history. I, unfortunately, cannot speculate on why he would believe something so obviously false, nor why he decided to impugn the motives of the people actually fighting.
I think most of the “racists” on this Board are trolls who are sitting back having a laugh at the responses, then they keep spewing forth to get more of the same. Each one I put on Ignore and don’t understand why most other posters don’t do the same. The one or two who may actually not be doing it for a laugh and really are rcists you can never reason with at all, as I learned growing up in West Texas.
I remember once in college one well-meaning but rather foolish girl wondering why black people couldn’t just ignore it when someone called them “nigger”.
A friend just stared at her and said, “that’s very easy for you to say.”
