This was originally posted to lemmy.pineapplemachine.com: https://lemmy.pineapplemachine.com/post/5781
It has also been posted to lemmy.ca: https://lemmy.ca/post/591991
Lemmy is federated and decentralized and that means that we can all coexist regardless of our differing political opinions. I think it’s important to preface this by saying that I am not offended by or concerned with anyone’s politics, and I’m certainly not here to argue with anyone about them.
My concern is that users are being banned and content is being removed on lemmy.ml citing a rule that is not publicly stated anywhere that I have seen.
Moderators of lemmy.ml are removing posts and comments which are critical of the Chinese government and are banning their authors.
This came to my attention because of how lemmy user bans are federated just like everything else, and I was confused about why my instance had logged a lemmy.ml user ban citing “orientalism” as the reason for the ban.
Screenshot of my own instance’s modlog, as viewed by an admin
I noticed that the banned user had recently commented on a post in !worldnews@lemmy.ml that had been removed with the reason “Orientalist article”.
Screenshot of banned user’s history on lemmy.ml
Here’s the article that was removed, titled “China may face succession crisis”. It was published by axios.com, which mediabiasfactcheck describes as having “a slight to moderate liberal bias” and gives its second-highest ranking for factual reporting. The article writes unfavorably of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/06/china-may-face-succession-crisis
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/axios/
I had not remembered seeing anything in lemmy.ml’s rules that would suggest that “orientalism”—meaning, as I understand it, the depiction or discussion of Asian cultures by people in Western ones—was against the rules. So I checked, and I found that there was not. Not on the instance’s front page, and not in !worldnews@lemmy.ml.
Screenshot of instance rules for lemmy.ml
Screenshot of community rules for !worldnews@lemmy.ml
There is a stated rule against xenophobia, but I think that xenophobia is not widely understood to include Westerners writing critically of the actions of an Asian government.
This is where I went from confused to concerned.
Lemmy instances have public moderation logs, which I think is a very positive thing about the platform. So I looked more closely at lemmy.ml’s moderation log.
Please note that moderation logs are also federated. It’s hard to be 100% sure which instance a mod action is actually associated with, looking at these logs. The previously mentioned user ban and post removal were, I think, definitely actions taken by lemmy.ml moderators. My own instance’s mod log identifies the banning moderator as a lemmy.ml admin, and the removed post was submitted to a lemmy.ml community. I’ve done my best to verify that all of the following removals were really done by lemmy.ml moderators, but I can’t be absolutely certain. Please forgive me if any of them were actually made on other instances that do have an explicitly stated rule against orientalism.
Removed Comment Ah yes. Being against China’s racist genocide is racist. China, the imperialist ethno-state, is clearly innocent. by @CrimsonOnoscopy@beehaw.org reason: Orientalism
Removed Comment Lol. Thinking some countries have better governments than others is supremacist? Whatever, dude. By the way. If there are any countries with decent governments, I don’t know of them. But like. If there were decent countries, they wouldn’t behave like China. by @balerion@beehaw.org reason: Orientalism
These following moderator actions did not specifically cite orientalism, but did not seem to be breaking any of the instance’s or community’s explicitly stated rules.
Banned @0x815@feddit.de reason: Only makes anti russia and anti china, crosspostst from reddit. 2nd temp ban expires: 9d ago
Removed Comment Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet are all Colonies of China, which it treats as Colonial Territories, by - Forcibly destroying the local culture. Forcefully extracting to harm of the locals. Genocide, abuse, kidnapping, rape. But there is no point in engaging to you. You are a liar. You know you are. When you deny genocides, you put yourself on the same side as the fascists and reactionaries of the past. by @CrimsonOnoscopy@beehaw.org reason: Rule 1 and 2
I have no affection for the Chinese government and I do not call myself a communist. I would not enforce a rule against orientalism on my own instance. But I think that lemmy.ml’s moderators are entitled to enforce whatever rules they please. It’s only that, as the largest single lemmy instance so far, I believe that they have an obligation to disclose these rules, and an obligation to not ban users or remove content for failing to follow unobvious and unstated rules.
I’d like to raise some awareness about this, and I’d like to openly ask the moderators of lemmy.ml to state the rules that they intend to enforce clearly and explicitly.
I will be very clear and state it again: I am not asking for anyone to change their opinions or to not enforce a rule that they believe in. That is the great thing about lemmy, that we can coexist in this federated community even when we don’t share the same opinions. What I am asking is for lemmy.ml’s rules to be clearly stated, because I think it does not reflect well on the broader community if the predominant instance moderates its users and content according to rules that are not being explicitly disclosed.
Locking this thread as the discussion isnt going anywhere productive. If you dont like the moderation in !worldnews@lemmy.ml, you can subscribe to a different one or create your own.
Locking this thread as the discussion isnt going anywhere productive. If you dont like the moderation in !worldnews@lemmy.ml, you can subscribe to a different one or create your own.
I have not complained about the moderation in !worldnews@lemmy.ml. I am not asking that there be any change in moderation. I feel that I was very careful in making this clear, in the post.
What I have asked is that the moderation policy be stated more clearly and openly. I believe that it is in everyone’s interest that people coming to lemmy.ml understand the rules that they are expected to follow.
This is a teachable moment for Lemmy users, and Lemmy itself as a whole.
I’m not here to judge anyone’s opinions but to clearly state the facts. And the fact is: at least one of the admins of the largest lemmy server considers anti-CCP/Russia sentiment/argument to be harmful and worthy of a ban. That is their decision.
Thus, anyone who disagrees with that, would best move to another server if they wish to discuss those opinions. A worldnews sublemmy on another server such as lemmy.one can be the place where anti-CCP and anti-Russia attitudes are not considered harmful, possibly encouraged at lemmy.one admins and mods’ discretion.
This probably will not affect apolitical areas like lemmy.ml/c/pokemon for the most part. However as annoying as this situation is for some, this is why federation is a great thing. Otherwise all of Lemmy would be under rule of admins with these opinions.
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The thing I find wild here is that this presumably Marxist mod is banning criticism of 2023 Russia and China. Russia in 2023 is straight up fascist and China while with more communist dressing is also a capitalist hellscape - like most of the world.
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Yeah, support to Russia makes no sense to me. And comparing NATO expansion with Russian try to expand with the war in Ukraine is a really bad take imo
China while with more communist dressing is also a capitalist hellscape
Well, they did a pretty good job at developing their country and capitalists have way less power than in the US or Europe for example.
If you compare it to India, the difference is flagrant. In 1990, they had a similar GDP per capita ppp (source). Now it is 3 times higher. They also take serious actions against poverty according to world bank (source)
However, the ban are clearly excessive. People should be allowed to denounce what happen in Xinjiang and Tibet
China while with more communist dressing is also a capitalist hellscape - like most of the world.
The Chinese economy is still populated in large proportion by private markets, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same as the rest of the world. I think it’s a pat little excuse to not investigate things further just like how to dumb reactionaries China is just “authoritarian communist”. It’s like how radlibs will tell you the USSR was antisemitic while the far right both of the time and today will tell you it was controlled by Jews, the real goal isn’t to advance a specific thesis but to serve a range of theses to a range of people that pit them against an enemy of western imperialism.
Now, when I joined, I was somewhat taken aback by the sheer amount of propaganda on Lemmy in general, and the somewhat belligerent attitude of some users.
With the new users it should change to be more centrist and we should see less and less this kind of post as they will get downvoted
God forbid it becomes “centrist.” This is not your space; go make your own centrist instance if that’s what you want; you have no right to dictate the nature of this one just because you’re here. This space was set up by communists to be communist.
Can’t wait until Hexbear federates here and libs stop trying to take over.
This space was set up by communists to be communist.
Was it? Seriously question. That wasn’t made clear to me when I signed up. I never would have signed up had I read that. I suspect the intensity of your views and those of the owner of this instance differ somewhat.
You would be wrong. Research who owns it, look at their profile picture and you’ll know in an instant lmao. Just head to the github repo and you’ll see.
c/pokemon shouldn’t be here then
This is not your space;
Wtf ? Keep it cool man. I joined like one year ago, when it was still labeled as a leftist instance. So I’m okay with it being leftist
A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers
However, it is not labeled as such in the sidebar anymore. So, I thought it was going to become a more generalist instance. If not, we should recommend beehaw.org
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
Also, it is against rule 2 to be that exclusive.
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tolerates xenophobia
I didn’t know this :(
That’s because it doesn’t, the dude is talking out his ass.
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The one thing I’m hopeful about is as you say, these issues will sort themselves out in the long term. Lemmy.ml gets to be the popular one out of virtue of being first, but other instances have the ability to grow a lot over time as well.
Lemmy isn’t perfect, it has many issues but I think it’s got the right structure and ingredients to allow for thoughtful, active communities.
A worldnews sublemmy on another server such as lemmy.one can be the place where anti-CCP and anti-Russia attitudes are not considered harmful, possibly encouraged at lemmy.one admins and mods’ discretion.
I think that beehaw’s news community is the place to do so
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Well, reddit liberals will be better over there, wouldn’t they ?
I prefer lemmy.ml to stay a leftist instance
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You’re right. I will stop recommending other instances
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is anti-any nation harmful and worthy of a ban? Or is it just anti-CCP/Russian sentiment that’s worthy of a ban?
I’d just noticed something similar to this myself, a user banned for saying something about “Russian Trolls” and another banned for saying “I hope so. All the russian and chinese apologists on here make me mad.”
This feels quite extreme and I am wondering “will commenting on this get me banned”
I think calling someone a “Russian Troll” should absolutely be a bannable offense unless you actually have evidence that they are a Russian troll and not just someone saying things about Russia you don’t agree with. “Apologist” has negative connotations but I personally don’t agree with banning someone for that.
In any case, if you can resist namecalling, it sounds like you’ll do fine?
Guess we all know what the .ml is referring to now
the ml stands for Mali. People use .ml domains because they are free to register.
Please tell?
Marxism-Leninism, a lot of people on the lemmygrad sub use ML for short
Ok thanks
I can support Marxism without supporting Stalin or Mao though
Apparently you can’t according to the people over at lemmygrad
Imma be looking into raddle.me along side lemmy(I have a beehaw login though) because I don’t trust the lemmy devs despite the way the fediverse and lemmy are designed.
I was interested in Raddle until I saw their pinned post about “abolishing psychiatry” on their mental wellbeing community. As someone who needs psychiatric meds in order to not kill myself–and no, fellow libertarian leftists, that would not change under fully automated luxury gay space communism–I was pretty appalled. Psychiatry can be oppressive under capitalism, but anything can be oppressive under capitalism.
I do also have some ideological disagreements with them, not technically being an anarchist, but those concern me less.
Did you read the article posted, because the point of the article isn’t to take away whatever diagnosis you have or the care that you need. It’s about the relationship of the power structures in our society and their use of psychiatric diagnosis to pathologize and marginalize people. The ideological agreements with them is a fair concern I suppose as an anarchist I more strongly align with them than I do the Marxist Leninists developing Lemmy
Edit: to be clear I’m just trying to make sure we’re on the same page about the article, I’m not trying to invalidate your opinion outright.
Marxisms has its own flaws as an ideology, but absolutely, there is nothing in Marxist beliefs that requires authoritarian or totalitarian beliefs.
How do you expect marxist nations to defend themselves? Allende tried to preserve liberal democratic norms. The west couped him and installed a fascist dictator. Countless socialist nations and movements have been crushed by the west. Millions of people have been slaughtered. A million socialists were butchered in Indonesia alone. Millions more died in Korea and 80% of the buildings were leveled. Millions more in Vietnam. Progressive governments were toppled in the middle east and replaced with religious extremism that continues to dominate the region to this day. Everyone wants democracy, communists want democracy, but when you abolish capitalism in your country the west won’t let you have democracy.
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Yeah once I discovered the general lean of that instance, I made a decision to make my account over at Beehaw given the more inclusive policies and structure. I’d direct more users to either sign up there or consider creating a new instance.
To your point, they are entitled to their leanings and I welcome that (also follow some of their communities), but overall I don’t think it’s a great first representation of whats possible on Lemmy.
Yep, will do the same, ain’t no fucking way I’m staying at this instance. Hopefully tankies get crushed with number from reddit soon because this community of chinese/russian propaganda is depressing as fuck
The ML stands for Marxist-Leninist. You are for the first time encountering a forum that isn’t explicitly catered to your NPC-esque liberal beliefs. I suggest you simply move on and go back to forums with moderation you agree with, such as steve huffman’s libertarian csam apologist r*ddit.
Hey, look, my comment was removed.
Want to bet that the prior comment calling me a fascist and (weirdly) monarchist (which, ??) for being critical of the Chinese State is still there?
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If such content should be banned, then the admins or mods should put it in the rules. Simple.
Otherwise, it is a violation of the site’s stated policy and what we call “power-tripping”, individuals promoting personal beliefs through site moderation abuse. There are communities like Lemmygrad which are (more) clear on what users and staff expect from each other.
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This does not even acknowledge the critique of this post or my reply. You’re apparently not listening or discussing our side.
We’re not saying those new users’ attitudes aren’t an issue!
We’re also not saying that such people shouldn’t be banned!
We’re saying it’s being handled inappropriately by people who don’t apply the rules they are obliged to enforce.
In a situation, like you said, their offense isn’t “orientalism”. Their offense may be vitriolic bad-faith discussion, and if it isn’t, then the rules should be updated to align with moderation standards.
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it should be a normal thing to assume this is unacceptable behaviour, even if racism and bigotry was normalised on Reddit.
It should be, I agree!
It isn’t a normalized thing, and the current policy of staff isn’t helping to make it normal. They have a good opportunity to teach people normalized orientalism is xenophobic, but this opportunity is squandered through their poorly-explained ban reasons and rules. Very simple steps can make it clearer to offenders that they are being chauvinistic when they (mistakenly!) think they’re being anti-racist. The way things are, they think they’re being banned “for no reason” and will just do the same thing again.
The issue is that they don’t realize their attitude is demeaning, it’s not that they think racism or xenophobia is ok, they just actually don’t understand why what they’re doing is racist or xenophobic, and so small adjustments to the rules page (such as “racism and xenophobia, including orientalism” with a link to an explaining page) would provide an up-front opportunity to explain that they are being chauvinistic and give a chance to learn.
Dang. I wish we could have moderators that just removed trolls instead of people with opposing views.
But they are allowed to do what they want. I’m just talking about having a Lemmy instance with moderators like I described.
Describing tankies as ‘leftists’ seems a bit disingenuous
Marxist-Lenninists are the most common form of communist, with the most successful Socialist states in history, I do not understabd yout hostilities.
Communists don’t constitue all leftists and there are plenty of communists that aren’t authoritarian apologists and genocide deniers.
Remember that the largest political party on the planet is the Communist Party of China. I regret to inform you that factoring in Georgists for the sake of argument does not change the math very much.
“Genocide denier” sure seems like a harsh thing to call someone without substantiation. Do you believe that Tibetans were genocided in the '90s like western media told us at the time?
Ah yes, China’s only political party. I wonder why they have so many members? I’m sure everyone is a staunch believer of the party and it’s values too.
Banning people under the guise of ‘orientalism’ for mentioning the genocide as the OP raised above doesn’t seem unsubstantiated. I’m taking about the genocide that’s currently happening. You ever met a Uyhgur whose family has been disappeared and are unable to return home?
China has multiple political parties, your statement needs more qualifiers. If someone wants to hold a municipal office, they can join other parties for that and many people do.
Also, you don’t need to be a member of it to participate in Chinese civil society, and in fact become a member is somewhat difficult in spite of the volume of membership.
I’m sure everyone is a staunch believer of the party and it’s values too.
This is a lame excuse because the same can be said of any organization, and yet even western sources acknowledge the high degree of support the CPC has.
Banning people under the guise of ‘orientalism’ for mentioning the genocide as the OP raised above doesn’t seem unsubstantiated. I’m taking about the genocide that’s currently happening. You ever met a Uyhgur whose family has been disappeared and are unable to return home?
I don’t think you have either, since people don’t get “disappeared”. The matter of their detention is public record and they typically can return home on weekends, and have generally already gone home because the detention is not indefinite and the program is winding down.
But I’ve seen this song and dance before: https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/3182072
China has multiple political parties, your statement needs more qualifiers. If someone wants to hold a municipal office, they can join other parties for that and many people do.
Oh you’re talking about the eight subservient parties that must acknowledge the CCP’s primacy in order to be allowed to exist? Sub-parties maybe, but even that is generous.
This is a lame excuse because the same can be said of any organization, and yet even western sources acknowledge the high degree of support the CPC has.
It’s not an excuse, it was calling out the unfounded assumption you were asserting in your comment. I’m sure the survey data of people who’s communications are closely monitored are entirely accurate and not at all influenced by fear of retribution. Let me guess, China’s internet is open, uncensored, and unmonitored too?
I don’t think you have either, since people don’t get “disappeared”. The matter of their detention is public record and they typically can return home on weekends, and have generally already gone home because the detention is not indefinite and the program is winding down.
Making more unfounded assumptions. I have been fortunate enough to befriend Uyghur’s who have had family members abducted by the Chinese government. It being a matter of public record is laughable. Do you honestly believe ANY government would create a paper trail let alone make it publicly available for people being held in indefinite detention? Since you’re so knowledgeable I’m sure you can produce some documents. I’m looking forward to looking them over.
Linking a cherry picked articles from two decades ago isn’t the slam dunk you seem to think it is. I’m sure I can jump on google scholar and find a contradicting source.
My two cents of opinion:
I feel like the part (the flagship instance, lemmy.ml) and the whole (this “chunk” of the Fediverse - including lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, beehaw.org, lemmy.one, and so many more) should have different names. Because what’s happening is that people invite each other “to Lemmy” (the whole), people hit “lemmy” (the part) and that creates some conflict. It’s simply a matter of clarity.
Regarding lemmy.ml itself, and its rules: the logical consequences of a rule might be obvious for someone who’s better informed, but not for someone less informed. As such, perhaps “orientalism” should be explicitly listed as an example of rule #1. It would further discourage those people to come to lemmy.ml, and instead join or build other instances; thus reducing overall moderation work for the admins, and I feel like this would be rather quick to implement.
“orientalism”—meaning, as I understand it, the depiction or discussion of Asian cultures by people in Western ones
That’s not what is meant here.
Since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the term “Orientalism” to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies.
So this would fall under the “no bigotry” rule.
This is the case, yes. Orientalism is the condescending and patronizing attitude (think rudyard kipling) many westerners (especially those from the US, who have been pumped full of sinophobia non-stop since the trade war began) towards other peoples they view as inferior. Anything from a Middle-eastern, Chinese, Indian, or Russian source is seen as illegitimate, evil, sinister, “authoritarian”, whereas anything from a western source is seen as cultured, measured, dignified, etc. Its 100% an instance of breaking rule 1: no bigotry, and alienates most of the people on the planet.
Side point, but I was watching a documentary from 2011 (I think inside job? about the 2008 financial crisis), before the trade war began, and its night and day. Not a single negative thing said about the PRC, and this was just a few years ago.
whereas anything from a western source is seen as cultured, measured, dignified, etc.
No leftist has ever believed that, and it is a bad faith argument.
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It’s not that they “believe” it, but it’s a glaring blind spot that takes time to be acknowledged and contended with.
You can go out and be the biggest leftist of all and support LGBT rights, universal healthcare, whatever, but it’s not like people understand every page of socialist theory and worldview on Day 1. There are many Western leftists at this early stage who have not studied topics like the Chinese Revolution (for instance) from a socialist perspective. Naturally, they are going to tend to repeat liberal talking points until they’ve done that.
Sure they one can be a “leftist” who is fighting for “the right thing”, but for me, I know that I have grown massively in my understanding of the world (modern and historical), and continue to do so. I assuredly have blind spots of my own that I have yet to deal with.
but for me, I know that I have grown massively in my understanding of the world (modern and historical), and continue to do so. I assuredly have blind spots of my own that I have yet to deal with.
This is basically where I am. I’ve learned a lot in my years to see that the world is very complex and nuanced and many assumptions I had were completely baseless. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am far too ignorant of the history and geopolitics of the USSR/China to really feel like I have an informed opinion that isn’t influenced by cold war propaganda. And I just have not had the time to rectify that yet.
It’s fine to acknowledge tat you don’t have the background information.
Just trust the consensus and intersecting beliefs and analysis of professional academics and historians over internet tankies. Because one group lies more than the other, and it isn’t the academics.
Some of the very first articles I read that pushed me toward leftism were The Responsibility of Intellectuals and Manufacturing Consent. So no I’m not apt to blindly accept the consensus of academics and Western elites without looking at it as closely as I can.
Totally, and once you get there you can and should have criticisms of both countries and how they have operated and the decisions their leaders have made. It’s not that they are above criticism, but its exhausting to hear criticisms from people who obviously haven’t done their homework and they let the propaganda (seated in racism/orientalism/whatever Red Scare shit) do the talking.
but its exhausting to hear criticisms from people who obviously haven’t done their homework and they let the propaganda (seated in racism/orientalism/whatever Red Scare shit) do the talking.
Yep. This is why I’m really leaning more on the side of the mods and general culture on this instance (and others) than the users flinging loaded language and spreading FUD about the platform.
the users flinging loaded language and spreading FUD about the platform.
Extremely dorky to do that on a federated site. Set up an instance and federate.
Nobody seems to give a shit that all major social media is owned by sketchy billionaires who actually have the power to fuck shit up, but one FOSS developer is an ardent communist (but not known to be a member of any org or party where he could actually do anything (no offense)), and all of a sudden that somehow is an issue for just using the software (as intended by the dev!)
I’m not saying blind spots don’t exist. What I was doing is calling out a genocide denier for using bad-faith arguments.
Being critical of a totalitarian and Imperialist ethnostate - by which I mean the Chinese state - is not bigotry.
China is none of the above outside of a definition of imperialism I think most of the newcomers here, and certainly anyone making those claims, would be unfamiliar with.
The combination of those claims suggests a highly xenophobic sourcing that has little to do with understanding China and a lot to do with a new cold war mentality that exploits Western, and particularly American, ignorance of other countries, e.g. being successfully targeted by the Western-facing Radio Free Asia government-affiliated media and/or the related complex of think tanks and hacks that get mileage not because they’re well-grounded in knowledge or academic work, but because they vilify the new “enemy”. This is in no way new and Westerners never seem to acquire generational skepticism, instead always getting duped into the intended hatefest, even while acknowledging they got the last ones wrong (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan).
Those claims are also highly projecting, as many do describe many Western/ally countries and cynically draw from a misuse of the language of the left.
Imperialism, particularly as an accusation like this, is about the forcible export of capital such that capitalist exploitation becomes transnational, witg structurally underpaid labor being extracted from one country to the one exporting capital. This is closely tied to the colonialism of Europe and America, but also applies to “inter-imperialist” conflicts. China lacks the apparatus to coerce, an apparatus that absolutely is used by the US and its clients to vilify and destroy countries not falling in line, as well as accept IMF terms that neoliberalize their economies. Rather, the left critique of China on this is more often that its survival strategy (which is working) requires the exploitation of its own labor and the import of capital. Luckily, this is changing.
China is simply not an ethnostate, this is pure projection and orientalism. Chins is an explicitly multi-ethnic country snd has widespread state support for ethnic diversify and what would be described by Westerners as affirmative action programs that are more generous and effective than Western ones. Attempts to pretend that being Han is akin to whiteness are absurd and, in addition to mischaracteeizing China, bely a problematic ignorance of how white suoremacy was invented, and why it had to be invented, as those histories don’t apply to the Han in China. The simplified version is: it’s a condition of racialized labor divisions to feed capitalism and particularly European colonialism, and in the US, settler-colonialism. You can find a modern ethnostate in Israel, a Western forward base and settler-colonial project engaging in apartheid.
Re: totalitarian, this term means very little as an accusation and is so overused and selectively justified that in this context all one can really infer it to mean is “bad”. Often, it relies on a false consciousness of coercion or societal violence that arbitrarily vilifies state violence while tolerating the private violence ubiquitous in countries dominated by the capitalist class. Example: it is “totalitarian” for there to be government censors on certain topics in [bad country], but not totalitarian for stories supportive of ruling class interests to be favored by privately-owned media (i.e. the dominant media in the West) and for those perceived as a threat to those interests to be systematically downplayed, unfunded in the first place, selectively misrepresented, and coopted and misdirected. Anyone active in, say, the George Floyd protests got to watch the lying happen in real time, with the cop-and-pricate-property-friendly “uncensored” media playing the lead role. Lazy accusations of totalitarianism are really just dog whistles for unexamined hypocrisy and a lack of awareness of the ubiquity of social violence.
Calling China an ethnostate is ridiculous when we have hard examples like Israel and soft examples like Japan to compare it to.
China is not totalitarian nor an ethnostate, and the imperialism allegation is debatable.
Xi’s policies are reintroducing Totalitarian politics into the Chinese mainstream. The State is run as an ethno-state of the Han, as exemplified by Chinesification policies applied to Colonial regions like Tibet and Xinjiang.
And China used force, violence to acquire the ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct territories of Xinjiang and Tibet. It then carries out, to this day, genocidal efforts to destroy these indigenous cultures and subjugate them to Chinese, Han and State-Approved ideals.
From where I’m sitting, there is no good-faith argument to be made that the Chinese state is not Imperialist. If Russia’s borders are founded on Imperialism, and if America’s are, then so is China’s.
You’re just asserting stuff. What is stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Edit: China has protections for minorities, including local autonomy for minority regions, language protection, and affirmative action type policies. I have seen no evidence that China is an ethnostate.
It’s absurd to pretend as if the evidence for violent imposition of Chinese state policies in Xinjiang and Tibet isn’t overwhelming.
And before you ask, yes, Western states are also violent and this is also a bad thing.
I love it when people disavow states like the US while exactly mirroring what those states say about their enemies. Would you like to share with me some of that “overwhelming evidence” about their “violent imposition” on Tibet, especially in the current day? I’m sure you have lots of links about the poor wholesome slaver theocrats they drove out, but I’ve seen that stuff before.
I don’t think you know what ethnostate means.
quite aptly put! In these cases I believe it is often better to disengage with individuals who make this type of argument.
Just say the following statement and it will prove you correct.
I Denounce the terrible treatment Xi Jing Ping has inflicted upon the Uyghurs Muslims. Slavery and concentration camps in China are wrong and not ok.
If you cannot say this, you have proven China is both totalitarian and a ethno state.
Do you know what the most common profession for members of the NPC, the national people’s congress, the main governing body of the PRC, is? Industrial engineer
Guess what the most common profession is for liberal democracies? Lawyers.
I don’t say this because I don’t like lawyers 🤣 , I have one in the family. I say it only to point out that most of what you’ve learned about China, is coming through a heavy media filter, from a media who only seeks to demonize a country they’re in a trade war with.
In fairness, before I walked onto Tiananmen Square when visiting China, my local guide strongly implied that we should not mention anything but weddings or vacation spots (no massacre) if we didn’t want to be arrested.
Being there was surreal and terrifying. Police with shotguns everywhere. The level of authoritative oppression is worse than visiting a small town in the South.
The “heavy media filter” represents exactly what I experienced as a young&dumb tourist who didn’t know about any media filter in the first place.
EDIT: More info. Every time I walked past banks, or any possibly-questionable spot… police/soldiers with shotguns. Sure it’s a culture difference, but I live in the most gun-friendly country in the world and their authorities walk around packing heavy weapons. And the complete lack of public protest was noticable and staggering. All I have to do in the US to see protest is drive down any highway. In China? Nothing.
EDIT2: And hey. I’ve worked with dozens of Chinese expats. You know what they all have in common? They would never live in China again. Mostly because of how oppressive they feel the government is. A lot of coworkers were “rural Chinese” and were second-class citizens behind the “urban Chinese” (confirmed by expats from the latter who were friends/coworkers with the former). The former had a passport that excluded them from entering cities because they weren’t “good enough”. The latter had passports to go anywhere.
I read about protests in China all the time.
So I just skimmed English Wikipedia (hardly a neutral source), and they say:
The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8,700 “mass group incidents” in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005.[2] In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and Chinese sociology professor Sun Liping estimated 180,000 incidents in 2010.[3][4] Mass incidents are defined broadly as “planned or impromptu gathering that forms because of internal contradictions”, and can include public speeches or demonstrations, physical clashes, public airings of grievances, and other group behaviors that are seen as disrupting social stability.[5]
This does not at all sound like there are no protests.
There absolutely are protests in China, they happen, and this is a true fact. Until recently, it was broadly observed that such anger was directed generally at local officials and not at the CCP regime itself.
Recently, though, protests asking the CCP regime to resign have been seen. Which previously was unprecedented.
The fact that protests do happen and occasionally are tolerated in China does absolutely nothing to take away from the point that China is an authoritarian Police State. The Chinese Constitution is not respected within China.
The fact that protests do happen and occasionally are tolerated in China
Literally just inventing statistics about protests being suppressed.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
. . .What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
– Some guy, emphasis mine
Your response is fair, but I want to clarify my point. It was not to say that China is a terrible country or that my personal experience covers every inch of the largest country in the world.
It was to reject the idea that there is some “media heavy filter”. The media represents what its viewers would experience with zero media intervention by visiting Beijing, or Shamien. Or (from expats’ experience) hundreds of other parts of China.
And as to that, I feel I was able to hit a bullseye with that point, that is not really influenced by your response regarding protests against or in China.
Whatever filter the media is portraying is an accurate shapshot of the country, if not a complete one. I knew a single re-pat to China, and she was happy there. She could not, however, tell me that any of my concerns or experiences were invalid.
EDIT: And with all due respect, I would like to point out to readers that your post history involves accusing the West of trying to use propaganda to make everyone hate China so we can go to war with them. We can all have the opinions we have, but I feel that is a bit tinfoil extreme and not merely a “voice of reason” response like you present here.
If anything “this is what I saw when I was there” is a voice of “foreign reason” that can be taken or left.
EDIT2: (Can’t stop editing). I’d like to reference you to a very wise person who said:
“Do you expect people to waste their time debunking your shit when you’re not willing to form an argument other than “I read this somewhere trust me”?” His name? @gnuhaut
Just wanted to point out, China is the fourth largest country in the world, behind Russia(1) Canada(2) and the USA(3)
Largest country by population :) But importantly, I think one could argue that China is culturally the largest country as well.
That said, where do you find USA(3)? China comes in third for landmass here.
So you cite me when I respond to a guy who just said he knows shit because he reads a lot and that’s it, when I responded to your comment with an actual source? Do you think that’s some great own?
I cited that you implied reading shit was not knowledge. Maybe it was a bit flippant of me, but you did quite literally try to invdalite my entire experience by quoting a random block of wikipedia about protests.
But I’m not here to argue. I gave my own experience. I am ready to move on.
China has 1.4 billion people. Do you really think they have the ability and/or need to “squash” protests and prevent any protest from ever happening? No. They have a healthy democracy where people are involved in voicing their opinions, and protesting if it ever comes to that. Please stop ingesting so much xenophobic propaganda and learn more about the countries of which you speak
Actually, a lot of what I’ve learned about China comes from books written by Chinese people and scholars.
Since you’re engaging with me, I’ll ask you.
Is there a genocide in Xinjiang? I’m ready to hear your evasion and denials.
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Most of the world disagrees with you, especially the middle east:
Are what those countries saying untrustworthy?
A map like that isn’t really reflective of any substance. Do you know what most maps of the US look like when defining political opinions by states? It’s a sea of red. But it clearly doesn’t tell a valid picture of popular support. And I’m not even arguing that makes any particular opinion more valid or not, all I’m saying is that its very easily misleading depending on what narrative you want to sell.
https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/E7LSY66ODVCFHEVJ7TTGJKPHSU.jpg
Clearly the vast majority of the country supported Trump based on that map…Except that’s not true.
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Are you being inflammatory and intentionally framing my post to make it seem like I made statements that I didn’t make? What I refuted is that posting a simple map that appears to tell a definitive story isn’t actually very substantial because there are many ways in which it can be misleading.
Let’s first address the most obvious error in your comment. You said that I claimed “majority of the world support trump with that map”, and my comment clearly says “country”, not world.
My point is that placing colors on a map can mean anything depending on how you frame the context or what you understand about what geographically is being depicted in the map. I used a map of the US as an example of how colors on a map can be misleading. The vast majority of that map is red, which would lead you to believe that in a lens where red/blue represent two different political parties, would have you believe the red party has drastically more support than the blue party.
Now that is one way that a map with simplistic information shown can be misleading, but there are other ways to use them to be misleading. For example, the very map that Dessalines posts, why is it that nearly all the Western countries are unified in a certain perspective of China? Are you going to say because of US influence? It would be fair to refute that a bunch of independent developed Western nations have each come to a similar conclusion about China if you claimed that there was a lack of independence to them coming to that conclusion. At the same time, couldn’t that argument also be made about China and other nations within the sphere of influence of China?
Also you’re using a fallacious defense that Muslim countries are somehow more authoritative in source because the alleged victims of abuse are Muslim, as though no collective of people have ever hurt people that have identified similarly of that collective before. Wasn’t there violence between different denominations of Christians? Isn’t there violence between different beliefs among Muslims? There’s a laundry list of abuses humans have committed against each other and against people that identify similar to each other, and it’s often because there ends up being a deep difference of opinion on specific issues. So generalizing that all Muslim countries will support all Muslims in all cases is bigotry on your part.
I say it only to point out that most of what you’ve learned about China, is coming through a heavy media filter, from a media who only seeks to demonize a country they’re in a trade war with.
Most of the world disagrees with you, especially the middle east
China is an important and powerful trading partner to many countries, so there is an incentive not to speak up. If you are skeptical about the western media, I think you should also be skeptical about the stance of these governments.
To me the situation in Xinjiang is very concerning because humanitarian organizations like Amnesty International speak out against the treatment of Uygurs. I think they don’t have a reason to turn a blind eye like many of these governments do. And quite a few of them don’t seem to be bothered by human rights violations, violating them themselves in horrific ways. Looking at you, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Syria etc.
Again, I agree that the west has a political motive to slander China. And the west also does and has done horrible things. But I don’t think the same goes for humanitarian organizations.
A lot of these western “humanitarian / rights” orgs, came out of the cold war, as part of an active effort to carry out regime change against socialist states and stop the spread of communism. Amnesty international for example was co-founded by someone who worked for british intelligence, and its other founder had close links to the FBI, and even had a hand in the FBI killing of Fred Hampton.
I trust what Muslim and global south countries, as well as the Uyghur people themselves have to say about their treatment, and not these western “human-rights-complex” orgs hailing from countries who have done nothing but bomb the middle east for 60+ years.
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Do you expect people to waste their time debunking your shit when you’re not willing to form an argument other than “I read this somewhere trust me”?
Modderation Log might be a good feature so that moderators can moderate their fellow moderators
Rule 1 says no racism or xenophobia. May the new Reddit users learn to recognize their own chauvinist positions are both and bannable, whereas on Reddit they are structurally promoted at the highest levels.
Rule 1 says no racism or xenophobia. May the new Reddit users learn to recognize their own chauvinist positions are both and bannable, whereas on Reddit they are structurally promoted at the highest levels.
Okay. My position is that they should be informed of this up-front, and that it should not come as a surprise after they have already unwittingly broken the instance’s rules.
It’s literally the first rule in the sidebar. If you want to create a “how to not be racist and xenophobic” post to help racist and xenophobic Redditors here, you can always do that.
I don’t think that’s how social policing really works, though. You don’t learn because someone gives you a guidebook, but because you get called out for spitting in public or feel unsafe if you show off Nazi tattoos. And all the schools theoretically say Nazis are bad, but I see tolerance for Nazis rising, and tightly bound to this is a lack of social policing. Look at the people who took so little convincing that the Sonnenrad isn’t so bad so long as the Good Guys ™ are wearing it.
You can help out with this by calling out the orientalism on display in this thread as well.
I do support the need to make Nazis feel unsafe in public, but ostracizing them is never going to teach them anything except how to disguise their acts. This tactic has a purpose to prevent the spread of a minority opinion in public, but that tactic doesn’t apply in this scenario, where a bunch of people are coming in who think they’re doing nothing wrong because they’ve normalized ignorant criticisms of PRC and think it might as well be Nazi Germany.
Don’t compare them to Nazis, these people sincerely believe that the CPC are “committing genocide” and an “authoritarian dictatorship”. The problem isn’t that they think racism or xenophobia, as a concept, is acceptable, it’s because they don’t realize what they’re saying is racist or xenophobic, they think it’s an objective fact.
Banning them for “orientalism”, without clearly linking it to “Rule #”, evidently doesn’t teach them that their comments were xenophobic or ignorant or racist. It makes them think this place is run by propagandists who won’t accept a critique of PRC, and doesn’t solve anything.
If the sidebar explains that orientalism is all these things, at least there is an opportunity for them to understand our perspective and learn and change their behaviour, instead of just assuming we’re the problem and doing the same thing everywhere else.
No, social policing absolutely does work and it’s how every healthy community functions, up to and including ostracization of those who refuse to learn and adapt. Those that fail to intentionally do so will end up doing so anyways, it will just be in the form of reinforcing the existing power imbalances in society, as they are unconsciously normalized.
Nationalistic, xenophobic, raxist, anticommunist frenzy is actually a very Nazi thing to do, though I was using the example of displaying Nazi tattoos, as I think most people would be able to, at least in theory, sympathize with socially policing the display of Nazi symbols.
Strong disagree on banning with an easily looked-up word isn’t effective pedagogy, and I’d also like to point out that you’re assuming the only teachable person in that situation is the person getting banned, which is not true. Communities adopt a shared expectation. They see the other person get banned and so long as this isn’t a dealbreaker for them, will be sticking around to tacitly support it. But either way, it should not be surprising if someone who’s used to getting away with xenophobia and racism and maybe, like you say, doesn’t yet recognize it as such, doesn’t “get it” immediately. Maybe they even demand to speak to the CEO of anti-racism and anti-xenophobia to lodge a concerned complaint. This is a coping process that is fairly common and is on many people’s paths to shedding wrong and inherently alienating and toxic views. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen anyone here specifically signing up to deprogram these people, but I do see some people just doing it anyways while others critique that it’s happening in a wrong way. What is conspicuously missing is an alternative, particularly one the critics are themselves actually doing. In my experience, this means the critics are just a bit more sympathetic to the orientalist claims, but aren’t comfortable being direct. Another win for the “we will ban you” strategy.
Finally, I have to reiterate that looking up the word isn’t hard. That’s not a real barrier here. You can see plenty of people defining and patiently explaining it in this thread and still observe the lazy, unlistening pushback (the laziness is bad faith even if the chauvinism is sincere). Sure, maybe more sidebar explainers would be a handy way to decrease the time mods spend explaining how to not be racist to racist people, but it isn’t going to change the learning process or community expectations one iota because that isn’t really how people change their minds in the first place. Someone changing their mind usually (not always) looks like them disagreeing with you repeatedly, then not talking about it for a while, then finally showing agreement. It’s rarely something that happens by reading some rules or having one discussion, so the user is getting banned in the meantime anyways lol.
Nationalistic, xenophobic, raxist, anticommunist frenzy is actually a very Nazi thing to do, though I was using the example of displaying Nazi tattoos, as I think most people would be able to, at least in theory, sympathize with socially policing the display of Nazi symbols.
Like you said, most people recognize that glorifying Nazism is wrong.
Most of the people coming to lemmy.ml don’t recognize that calling PRC an genocidal authoritarian dictatorship is wrong. This is an extremely normalized POV in places like USA and lots of Europe. Even among people who consider nationalism, xenophobia and racism to be wrong. People who have Nazi tattoos know what they are doing, and know why they are being ostracized. So this is why I emphasise that finding ways to systematically hint out that orientalism IS xenophobic and not just “stating the objective facts”, is important.
It’s rarely something that happens by reading some rules or having one discussion
Yes, and that documentation or discussion is one of those times they disagree repeatedly. And if it’s in the sidebar, that’s an efficient one that can be referenced (like you suggested). If anything, it more easily filters out those unlistening bad faith ones by just saying “Read the link in rule 1” and seeing if they even read it. When these people are arriving in large numbers, that efficiency goes a decent way to prevent burnout.
It’s rarely something that happens by reading some rules or having one discussion, so the user is getting banned in the meantime anyways lol.
Oh of course, they’re getting banned regardless lmao
Like you said, most people recognize that glorifying Nazism is wrong.
Most people will say this at a surface level, which is where I expected folks to have engagement with the sentence in question. But the next one or two clarify this: obviously this is not a deeply-held or coherent position because I’ve seen an incredible number of sonnenrad tats and symbols on people actively getting glorified in Western media with zero popular pushback. This is particularly relevant to this discussion, as the apologetics involved there also center around orientalist tropes, a nationalistic, xenophobic, racist fervor, and the amplification of these tendencies through coordinated propaganda networks (the same ones, in fact).
Most of the people coming to lemmy.ml don’t recognize that calling PRC an genocidal authoritarian dictatorship is wrong.
Yeah of course. Most xenophobes and racists think their xenophobia and racism is actually very good. And like you’ve mentioned, they often rationalize it in such a shallow way that they don’t actively label it as xenophobia or racism.
Even among people who consider nationalism, xenophobia and racism to be wrong.
Or at least, in theory, at some surface level. It often takes very little for those same people to be outwardly bloodthirsty, nationalist, xenophobic, and racist. Most are just averse to the negative connotations of being labeled as such and don’t self-criticize. This means they can be shamed and policed, not that they are just authentic smol beans that don’t need hard line treatment.
People who have Nazi tattoos know what they are doing, and know why they are being ostracized. So this is why I emphasise that finding ways to systematically hint out that orientalism IS xenophobic and not just “stating the objective facts”, is important.
I’d agree that the communication is important but I think it needs to be a blunt and forceful hard line response. And I think, “you were banned for orientalism” is sufficiently explanatory. If they don’t care enough to read for 10 minutes and figure it out, they’re very unlikely to respond well to an explanation accompanying the message. In fact they’re more likely to try to debate it. Such folks need cognitive dissonance and time to ever have a positive response.
Also, these folks are not quite so innocent. There are very real and authentically believed aspects of white supremacy in what they’re doing, they just aren’t used to having it policed or using that label. It’s the “acceptable” forms they get to have fun with on Reddit. The change in norms is going to be a surprise for them regardless of whether you add two more sentences to a sidebar or ban message.
I guess I can imagine one other benefit, though: when they inevitably screenshot their ban message and whine in a more white supremacist safe space, it will be easier to make fun of them.
If anything, it more easily filters out those unlistening bad faith ones by just saying “Read the link in rule 1” and seeing if they even read it.
IMO the filter is exactly as easy either way. They either comply or they don’t. They’ll either seek knowledge/shut up about it or they’ll throw a pity party. Either way the correct first step has been taken by the mods.
100% on the value for mods avoiding burnout, though! That is super important for handling this flood of new users. The mods are incredibly patient and deserve some help.
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Racists don’t deserve to be informed.
That’s alarming behavior, and it’s coming from the core Lemmy developers. I had hoped they would keep it confined to LemmyGrad, but I’m not feeling so confident in that any more.
The only thing alarming thing here is the sheer amount of racism and orientalism spewing out of beehaw in this thread.
I fail to see racism and orientalism present in this thread. What I do see are people linking to lists of human rights violations committed by the CCP, people complaining that unequivocally pro-CCP messaging is disingenuous, and people upset that a ban reason was not adequately explained.
I’m a card-carrying communist who sees a lot wrong with China’s handling of political dissidents and ethnic minorities. From what I’m seeing about lenny.ml, it seems like milquetoast criticisms are being met with bans and censorship, and I see prominent users defending this practice citing “imperialistic anti-China propaganda” as being the reason why the uninitiated doesn’t blindly praise the CCP. This belief is rooted in some fact - American media tends to portray eastern countries in a harshly negative light - but I hardly think that means that all criticism is made in bad faith.
I’m reminded of unequivocally capitalist sites banning mentions of communism and critiques of capitalism, and I believe that this trend does nothing besides foster the echo chambers that I, at least, have been trying to escape from.
The fact that you fail to see the racism and orientalism in this thread is precisely the problem. The narrative about human rights violations by the CPC comes directly from US propaganda outlets, and has been debunked in detail repeatedly. Yet, racist westerners continue to regurgitate it because it fits perfectly with their chauvinistic world view. American media doesn’t just portray eastern countries harshly, it lies shamelessly about them.
Fighting what you perceive as racism but pushing your own racist views seems like a strange stance to take. But I would be lying if I said I was surprised.
pushing your own racist views
What racist views are they pushing?
Yet, racist westerners continue to regurgitate it because it fits perfectly with their chauvinistic world view. American media doesn’t just portray eastern countries harshly, it lies shamelessly about them.
Right there. If we are going by the rule of “Being critical of a country or group of people makes you racist” then statements such as that would surely qualify.
Aside from the fact that you’re basically doing the “when a black person calls me cracker, they are being racist” thing, the quote you give stipulates the group “racist westerners” and there are many westerners on this board, perhaps even including themself, who they are surely not calling all racist, so I don’t see the problem. There is a subset of the population of westerners that behaves in just that way. Supremacist thought isn’t as popular in China as in America, due to historical reasons, but Han people with racial chauvinist beliefs do certainly exist, and if you wanted to talk about Han people who are chauvinistic, you can. That is not the same as just saying offhand that China’s a fucking ethnostate, like multiple people in this thread have.
The main thing is that generalization is inconsistent in its implication when it refers to in-groups versus out-groups, so a speaker generally should be more specific when referring to out-groups with generalizations. If we had a Chinese communist here that you were talking to and it was clear the two of you both valued racial equality, and then you said something about “Han chauvinists” in Chinese society, I think it would be pretty clear that you don’t mean all Han people in Chinese society or even the bulk of them. If it’s just people with little personal experience of or connection to China talking and someone remarks about “Han chauvinists” with little context, it becomes less clear.
Again, for ease of understanding, imagine a white and a black stranger talking about black crime vs a bunch of white strangers from white communities talking about it. The latter group can still talk about it, but if they don’t want to be misunderstood, they should probably make sure they are all on the same page first.
Being critical of a . . . group of people makes you racist
No one is asserting this?
There is nothing racist about calling out white chauvinists doing chauvinism. You must be one of those blue lives matter people.
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